“... already inspired. The consensus of Robin Hood studies as it has emerged in the past twenty years may be summarised as follows. First, as regards the legend: the earliest reference to ‘rymes of Robyn Hood’ is in the 1377 text of Langland’s Piers Plowman. By the early 15th century, references have become relatively abundant. The earliest extant Robin ...”

“... be a misrepresentation. Depending on which deconstructionist text one reads, deconstruction may be seen as a philosophical system, a critique of systems, an analysis of the conditions of system-making, a method, a critique of method, a mode of reading, a mode of literature in its own right, or as all or none of these things. Nor are the consequences of ...”

“... on which Mr Martin Gilbert is working for his great biography of Churchill. Mr Carlton’s work may therefore be ‘interim’ for other reasons than the Thirty Year Rule. Nevertheless this is undoubtedly an important book, the first major and serious biography of someone who will certainly go down to history as a major and serious statesman. It was too ...”

“... establish a very different relation between speaker and subject. At one level the use of his name may be taken as a straight-forward apostrophe or tribute, a ‘greeting addressed to him’. Such naming serves to summon up a presence which is sustained simply by the communal knowledge that Ponge is there. And there is a second kind of reference, also ...”

“... of work and the duties of the domestic life, or the impulses of the inner life. The competition may be a matter of man-hours or of values, or both: at any rate the division, once established, exposes the individual to stress. Wemmick in Great Expectations has expressed his siege mentality in his moated home, a refuge from the Jaggers law-work: ‘the office ...”

“... Yet, as has often been pointed out, the tone of this is equivocal: ‘incalculably diffusive’ may suggest an impressively far-reaching stretch for Dorothea’s influence, but it is a phrase instinct with doubt and the probability of that influence going largely unnoticed. ‘Unvisited tombs’ has a melancholy, even accusing ring when applied to the life ...”

“... recently begun to take at all seriously; and it possesses an immediacy which appears, though this may be a delusion, to allow, as he claims, ‘the voices of these peasants to reach us directly, without barriers’. Carlo Ginzburg is also a highly sensitive and imaginative historian whose prose style reproduces much of his mother Natalia’s clarity and ...”

“... Fascists. These were the clandestine product midnight hours, and according to SOE archives, which may or may not be accurate, we printed 1,200,000 leaflets between September 1940 and February 1941, when things went out of control; we undoubtedly printed a great many. Such was more or less how we began, a handful of us ...”

“... signify self-possession, and then use that knowledge, together with any other assumptions we may make about the man and about the circumstances of this particular gesture, as a basis for inferring what he means by it. Bremmer and Roodenburg’s contributors assume that communication is complete once signal has been decoded into message. In fact, it has ...”

“... October 1962 was not August 1914 because John Kennedy had learned the lessons of Munich, which may be summarised as follows: get angry in private, think before you speak, say what you want, make clear what you’re prepared to do, ignore bluster, repeat yourself as often as necessary and keep the pressure on. Where Kennedy learned the mixture of forbearance and resolution which lies at the heart of international peace and good marriages is a mystery; his mother and father were no better at solving problems than Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler ...”

“... now is a public health service that is simultaneously starved, fragmented and centralised. That may seem a contradiction. Surely the point of centralising is to integrate. But this is not infrequently a perverse consequence of centrally imposed reforms: you can see the same effect in education and in the regulation of the City. To implement such reforms, a ...”

“... each slot goes on behind the scenes to determine which ad you will be shown. Your phone or laptop may itself be gathering bids for the auction. Sometimes, an enigmatic pattern or grey rectangle will appear instead of an ad.What goes on during those few seconds is vital to the economics of journalism and is the subject of sharp, subterranean conflict among ...”

“... even when they get things right, giving attentive accounts with the salient facts in order, they may leave out friendships and discoveries that contributed greatly to a writer’s inner life. How to supplement – or correct, or displace – a future biography without taking years to concentrate on a memoir? Seamus Heaney and Dennis O’Driscoll have found a ...”

“... And, metaphor apart, a domino-effect is at work in the narrative. ‘If I have robbed you, may I be turned into a leper!’ says an old servant, dismissed for theft. Years later he returns for forgiveness, stricken with leprosy (all curses and prophecies come true in this book): mistaken for the ghost of another character, he provokes frightened ...”

“... face was presumably missing, they must be rather proud of their technology. The Navy Seals may have been using gear similar to the Robocop-style glasses the Brazilian police have developed in preparation for the 2014 World Cup. Fitted with a small camera that sees as far as 12 miles, the glasses can capture 400 images a second and compare them with a ...”