“... Soviet naval base, before abruptly reversing gears, taking a series of sabbaticals in the Harvard Kennedy School (which would become the finishing school of Singapore’s elite bureaucrats), before embarking on a headlong courtship of US corporations. For the first thirty years of independence, American firms concentrated their domicile-holding companies in ...”

“... perspective: a slideshow-like process, as mechanical as inserting Forrest Gump beside Kennedy at the White House. As Wood points out, the maximalist fetishisation of history is actually anti-historic: the maximalist novel ‘carries within itself, in its calm profusion of characters and plots, its flawless carpet of fine prose on page after ...”

“... a dizzying subplot, he also involved himself intimately in the quarrel between Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion over the project of a Jewish National Home, and in the attempts by both to play off the British against the Americans. And, though he showed himself able to take risks in leaking classified material that favoured the Zionist cause, he also found ...”

“... that had created the European Economic Community (EEC) was plain and, strongly encouraged by the Kennedy administration in Washington, which saw Britain as a useful bridgehead into the Community, Macmillan applied for membership in 1962. Explaining that Britain would be little better than a Trojan horse for American domination of Europe, de Gaulle vetoed the ...”

“... pet and one-time physicist Akaev – the ‘Jefferson’ of his people for Strobe Talbott, the ‘Kennedy of Central Asia’ for the Clinton regime at large – on whose bald pate a drunken Yeltsin once tapped out a melody with wooden spoons; the second his brutish replacement, the former economic functionary Bakiev. As in Ukraine, but more turbulently, the ...”

“... it was vital to have a reliable locum in Cyprus. Visiting Washington in 1962, Makarios was told by Kennedy that he should form his own party, on the right, to check the alarming popularity of AKEL, and should desist from unnecessarily correct relations with the USSR. After the archbishop politely declined, saying he did not want to divide his flock, he became ...”

“... waving cushions and towels, and some were leaning out. It happened that one of the firefighters, David Badillo, knew two of the uncles, Carlos and Manfred Ruiz, from the sports centre – they had all worked there as lifeguards – and Melanie gave Badillo her keys to their flat, 176 on the 20th floor. (They still hadn’t heard from Jessica.) Badillo went ...”