“... these officials on a strategy which is wholly unfamiliar to them and of which, to begin with, they may understand little. For that reason, above all others, it is essential that the strategies adopted by these institutions are debated more widely and more knowledgeably. Both Jonathan Steele’s book and John Gray’s essay sharpen a critique which has so far ...”

“... endorsed by the General Assembly that November, but fighting broke out immediately and worsened in May 1948, when the mandate ended. It was at this point that Lie sent Bernadotte and Bunche to force an agreement. When Bernadotte was murdered Bunche was ‘trapped’, as he told Ruth. No one wanted responsibility but everyone had a view. That November, speaking ...”

“... the future tank became a naval project. Swinton did not learn of this development until late in May, but Churchill had made considerable progress in the meantime. A new Landships Committee was to be chaired by Tennyson d’Eyncourt, a submarine expert. Its secretary was Albert Stern, a banker in civilian life. By the end of summer there was general ...”

“... But there were no beds available and he was seen as an out-patient every day until his trial on 3 May, at which point a bed was found for him in Dulwich North Hospital. He was remanded on bail on condition that he went to hospital – if a bed had not become available he would have gone to prison. There have been several cases recently in which High Court ...”

“... It is not merely the size of India; it is not merely the population of India – and I may say that one out of every four of the people represented at this conference is an Indian – it is that on purely objective economic criteria, India feels that she is an extremely important part of the world and will probably be an even more important part in ...”

“... could approach by manipulating or kneading the reality and the living men who comprised it. Djilas may have recognised bits of himself in Stalin: in particular, the ‘final ideals’ behind the restless realism. ‘Because the true fanatical fervour was so clearly recognisable behind his cynicism,’ a Swiss journalist wrote years later, at the height of ...”

“... suddenly, six volumes followed in quick succession, including a Selected Poems in 1968, which Richard Howard proclaimed ‘a masterpiece of our period’. Collected Poems appeared in 1972, and Harold Bloom called it the most distinguished book of American poetry since Wallace Stevens’s Collected Poems came out in the mid-1950s. It was ‘a major ...”

“... diplomats, writers and other extraordinary figures who lived in the city. (Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright were also supported by the programme, though McKay was never close to either.) FWP resources allowed McKay to produce Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940), a sociological study of cults, occultists and street-corner orators that includes discussions of ...”

“... Its elliptic syntax and abrupt, verbless sentences often completely check the momentum. Yet this may well be its point. The decisive moment in the poem comes in stanza 30 when Bradstreet has now sooner invited consummation – ‘Kiss me’ – than dispatched it into the past – ‘That once.’ In the instant between these sentences Berryman is for the ...”

“... it is not just another facet of reality, however clamorous and incorrigible that reality may sometimes feel. Miss Didion, however, has come out. She stands revealed, in The White Album, as a human being who has managed to gouge another book out of herself, rather than as a writer who gets her living done on the side, or between the lines. The result ...”

“... Adolf Hitler or to die for him. The personality of the Führer had me totally in its spell.’ It may seem obvious that a barrage of propaganda played an important part in helping the Nazis to reach parts of the electorate the other parties failed to reach (such as first-time voters). But there are also good grounds for scepticism about the broader potency of ...”

“... has to be shot, and she asks that Erick should despatch her. This is the coup de grâce. The plot may sound like an opera summary, but there are no arias. Erick tersely explains his rejection of the girl: ‘I was not prepared to regard Conrad as a brother-in-law. One does not drop a friend of 20 years’ standing, though radiantly young, for a shabby ...”

“... the journey of many apprentice rulers in Shakespeare – Henry IV, Prince Hal becoming Henry V, Richard II in his fruitful desolation. But here the personal is inseparable from the public, and from the cosmic: in The Mahabharata, the Great Chain of Being has the limitless reverberations which Shakespeare fully attained only in his later tragedies and ...”

“... us flew out together, Air India, first class: Michael Foot, Jean Floud, William Radice, with Sir Richard Attenborough in pursuit. It was my pleasure to travel with my old friend and newly-minted Dame, Iris Murdoch. I’ve never travelled first before, and well! Cocktails, champagne, caviar, lobster ... Young Dame Iris, by the way, took all as her customary ...”

“... than the character, causes and implications of contemporary disputes, is the main subject. It may well be that the historical understanding thus arrived at will illuminate contemporary disputes, but there can be no assurance of this.Another approach is to assume that we know what the ‘crisis’ is and proceed to ask about its causes and prospects. This ...”