“... the learned communications on specialised subjects. The presidential address even, which in a French institution of the kind would all too often become bogged down in somewhat empty generalities, remains, thanks to men like Carl Becker, a serious intellectual occasion. For which bravo, Messieurs les Américains. Of the second essay in the book, there is ...”

“... Library: it depicts the Battle of Gisors in 1198 between the armies of Richard I of England and Philip II.The chroniclers’ shaping of the public perception of these kings, and their construction of a particular kind of history of the dynasty, is an underlying, if undeveloped, theme of Firnhaber-Baker’s book. The vivid character sketches, scurrilous ...”

“... Gods is a philosophical and historical exploration of the phenomenon from Jesus Christ to Prince Philip and Narendra Modi, written with a poise and lucidity that allow full play to the comic aspects of her subject, while considering the frequently disastrous consequences.Haile Selassie is the first and one of the best known of her case studies. The story of ...”

“... with their ever expanding lists of secondary contributions as well as primary sources in Latin, French, Middle English, Dutch, Catalan and Portuguese. And all this done in Sumption’s spare time from his work as a barrister and then a justice of the UK Supreme Court. But what is the result? Was the Hundred Years War special in anything except its ...”

“... almost to a pawn in the Habsburg-Valois struggle in the 1550s recovered sufficiently to threaten Philip II, the most powerful ruler in Western Europe. Culturally, a land once considered backward and even barbarous by Italians became famous for its music, drama and literature. By the end of the century English actors were touring Germany, Denmark and the ...”

“... hold a copy. He didn’t appear to have published any other works. My few contacts in university French departments hadn’t heard of him. However I did manage to track down his birth certificate via the mairie in Montignac. He was born in the village of Le Moustier, on the road from Les Eyzies to Montignac, on 11 September 1910, to Alice Rose Champerret and ...”

“... still widely read 1972 Pulitzer Prize-winning Fire in the Lake. FitzGerald borrowed from French Orientalists who lamented the ‘vulgarisation of Chinese civilisation’ in Vietnam. Centuries of what they saw as a Confucian-inspired Vietnamese monarchy, and a popular belief in the mandate of heaven that legitimated kingship, had determined Vietnamese ...”

“... that he had reversed the downward momentum of the country, just as de Gaulle changed the course of French history in the Sixties. The Contragate scandal and the massive budget and trade deficits have led to bitter disillusionment. All this helps to explain the popularity in the USA of writers who put their predicament into perspective. Of course, many of Gore ...”

“... a participant in the often menacing jollifications which accompanied the finalisation of an Anglo-French treaty and a marriage alliance with the house of Navarre. In early August the French King made him a gentleman of his bedchamber, which carried the title of baron. But by the end of the month he was caught up in the ...”

“... saint. His reign, from 1226 to 1270, forms the middle episode in an unbroken success story for the French monarchy, a story which had begun in 1180 with his grandfather Philip Augustus, and would reach a climax under his grandson Philip IV, who died in 1314. Louis’s fusion of kingly and ...”

“... Cook, Christopher Columbus, to name a few – acquired a new star in the mid-1970s, when Prince Philip vacationed off the coast of Tanna, in what was then the New Hebrides, aboard HMY Britannia. Ever since, a string of Englishmen have made the pilgrimage to the volcanic island to don grass penis sheaths, get drunk on kava, and bask in the cool glow of ...”

“... it was very dirty – was done by them. They unleashed volleys of arrows, slaughtered hundreds of French men-at-arms, and finished off both prisoners and the wounded who lay helpless. The legend of Agincourt has become so popular – in Britain at least – partly because it teaches that the common man can change the course of history. As W.B. Bartlett puts ...”

“... began to distance themselves from Moscow. The Spanish and Italian Parties, followed by the French, used the term ‘Eurocommunism’ – but it was not enough to revive the faith that Khrushchev’s speech had destroyed. Medvedev’s discussion of Khrushchev’s motives in denouncing Stalinism – partly a move in the internal power struggle and partly ...”

“... the American actors Harry Dean Stanton and Dean Stockwell as the central Henderson brothers, the French Aurore Clément and the German Nastassia Kinski as their wives. For Wenders, a long-time lover of the Western and of American rock music, it was, as he has since told the French magazine Positif, the closing of a ...”

“... rhetorical currency required for any respectable courtship or commercial transaction. As a boy, Philip Sidney – whose works Richardson was later to publish, and to study with attention – was carefully trained in the art of letter writing. His bedroom, according to his early biographer Thomas Moffet, ‘overflowed with elegant epistles’ which he had ...”