“... by the great white or blue-collar divide, by political or religious affiliation, but not by social class, colour or geographic setting. The State of the Nation is concerned with the gulf between rich and poor, but its main concern is where power and influence lie. It is weakened by giving no international comparisons. ‘Britain is an armed camp, crammed with ...”

“... and remarked of Ford’s circle generally: ‘Aren’t the folks kind to me?’ Was it merely class that set these two aspiring artists on courses that were to have such different consequences? In 1909 Ford would certainly have said as much, for at that point, as Brenda Maddox notes in her biography, he considered Lawrence a representative of ‘the ...”

“... who understood the secret text, the story beneath the story. And they would be whisked away, club class, to an air-conditioned suite to collaborate on some long-incubated millennial masterpiece. They would pass through the curved window of the cinema screen, critic (tolerated fan) to artist in one snort. American Express voyeurs ripped out from the ...”

“... are erased in later editions.) There is surely something of the author’s own scorn for upper-class mores in Pamela as she comes to understand that a whole class accepts quite naturally that she is fair game for her master (‘master’ rather than employer: she has not reached waged status). Mr B’s sister knows what ...”

“... classes and racial backgrounds – though after the ‘triumph of the revolution’, race and class were not supposed to be relevant. She interviewed a former art student who remembered the relative social equality of the Soviet-funded years with great nostalgia. There was enough cash for a group of friends to go out to the famous ice-cream parlour ...”

“... the middle of winter and still keep the good folk of Bavaria and Milan warm while they watch the war on TV. But perhaps Europeans aren’t quite as happy to burn their ideals for heat as this scenario assumes. If a new invasion sped up Germany’s transition from gas, strengthened European resolve to step away from its dependence on Russian energy, and made ...”

“... economy.2In October 1899, the Boers of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State declared war on the British. By June 1900, the main Boer towns had been taken, and the war seemed to be over. It seemed to have been a conventional war: strongholds besieged, troops ...”

“... Mr Collins’s ‘Collins’, the comedy of the infinitely small. It cannot have been simply a class limitation, or a limitation of experience, that intimidated his pen. It was a resolve, very American, to scrape his sacred texts clean of the material factor. And it was no small task he laid on himself, since his novels, even more than most maybe, dealt ...”

“... and European liberals of being ‘false friends’. As O’Brien admitted, during the Cold War many Western liberals – such as those who were against imposing sanctions on South Africa – upheld the most illiberal forms of anti-communism. Theorists who promoted free enterprise and equal rights as a formula for prosperity that all new nations could ...”

“... At the end of the Second World War, an anonymous pamphlet surfaced in the seminaries of Qom, the bastion of Shia learning. The Unveiling of Secrets accused Iran’s monarchy of treason: ‘In your European hats, you strolled the boulevards, ogling the naked girls, and thought yourselves fine fellows, unaware that foreigners were carting off the country’s patrimony and resources ...”

“... early work – see ‘Only the Wanderer’ from Severn and Somme (1917), or ‘To His Love’ from War’s Embers (1919) – ceased to be anything that he aimed for at all often. Labour, hard study and relentless practice, making, building – the emphasis is constant. Moreover, from P.J. Kavanagh’s warm and judicious Introduction, but also from the poems ...”

“... year of his disgrace, the sleek, balding, faintly exotic Jack Profumo was secretary of state for war. It sounds like an important job – what could matter more than war for the functioning of the state? Undoubtedly this helped to give impetus to the Profumo affair. Help! The ...”

“... rendered life itself all but impossible for those who have survived Israel’s bombardment. The war was provoked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack, but the desire to inflict suffering on Gaza, not just on Hamas, didn’t arise on 7 October. Here is Ariel Sharon’s son Gilad in 2012: ‘We need to flatten entire neighbourhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of ...”

“... A Place in the Sun (1951), he is someone the older men doubt. In the latter two films, it’s a class suspicion, a closing of ranks against the interloper, but it’s also a generational matter, an effect of style. Among other things Clift represented the men who had passed through the war. Although he was unfit for ...”

“... When​ Putin’s holy war began Alexey checked himself into a psychiatric ward. He had come back to Russia in 2012 after working as a journalist in London, where we met (I had just moved to London after a decade in Moscow). The protests against Putin were cresting, and change seemed imminent. ‘London is boring, everything has already happened here,’ Alexey said ...”