“... there was no reason why a modern commercial economy should not be stabilised and rendered more dynamic through control by a landed aristocracy who knew their business.’ The Yeatsian mythology of a haughty-headed Burke unsoiled by burgherly instincts is an innocent fantasy which reveals more about Yeats than about ...”

“... When​ did the ‘modern’ era begin? For the European imagination across more than a millennium, the most significant divide was between antiquity and what followed, such that for some centuries ‘modern history’ was held to have begun with the fall of Rome. Applying a different filter, the category of the ‘Middle Ages’ indicated the post-Renaissance sense of an epoch between the ancient world and the ‘revival’ of learning, with the period from the late 15th century then becoming the first modern era ...”

“... which appeared in 1776 and had no successor until 1781. Because the reading public has been more interested in classical Rome than in late antique or medieval history, Gibbon is remembered as the author of this volume’s first 14 chapters, which recount the break-up of the Augustan and Antonine principate. The 15th and 16th chapters, which conclude the ...”

“... other moments, Jay, the narrator, understands that what seems ‘Mother’s dark policy’ is no more than the improvising of a deviously inventive nature. Tyrants rule by instinct. The vision of this Cape Cod widow, her smallness constantly emphasised, ruling her world by means of the divine manipulation of threads, comes right up to the edge of comedy but ...”

“... about three litres per day; women need less; athletes and people living in tropical environments more. Thirst is generally a reliable indicator that your body needs more water. It has become fashionable to pay close attention to maintaining due ‘hydration’, but for the most part a normal response to thirst takes care ...”

“... The Nudist on the Late Shift, who reprogram their BMW’s chips to make the car 40 per cent more powerful, the kind of people who, in computer terms, can routinely achieve the impossible. Bear in mind that even in this group there are sharp differences in ability. As Robert X. Cringely, a (pseudonymous) commentator on the computer business who in 1991 ...”

“... importance to the human race than the great steel and iron industries’. The remark was all the more prescient given that this chemist had never rubbed shower gel over his body or shaved his beard with squirty shaving foam (many skincare products get their foaminess from palm oil). He had never poured non-dairy creamer into his morning tea or eaten ...”

“... this kingdom come, and now it has been supplied by Mesopotamia. But as the experiment nosedives, more earthly diagnoses of the whole episode are starting to appear. These two essays come from widely differing positions, but intersect quite extensively on fundamental issues. They agree that US quasi-imperial supremacy is a ‘bubble’, a semblance that may ...”

“... images that are significant in their own right, there are many that are simply illustrative, and more or less equal numbers of fashion shots and celebrity portraits (do we really need Boris Johnson?). But the catalogue, the real star of the show, gives a thorough account of the magazine’s history. Condé Nast, who had bought the US version in ...”

“... rhetoric – with his guile – and not out searching the city for gap-sites where he might build more blocks, Gibson would put in some hours at his wife’s sub post office in Springfield Road. He smoked furiously, and drank sugary tea like there was no tomorrow. He’d search the city in his car late at night, after office-hours, looking for possible ...”

“... transparent bubble that holds him, hoping this gesture will bring him a little closer for a few more seconds. But I have returned from my musing and the spell is broken.’ Rodney, Olalquiaga insists, is kitsch, and her book, as it develops, is a historical enquiry into the intertwining stories of the glass-encased bibelot, the cabinet of curiosities, the ...”

“... convenient death. The familiar phrase has many uses and meanings, of course, and we might say the more the better. The lives we imagine for crime may help us to see in it and around it, and thinking about crime may help us to think about other matters. Still, we need a way of managing the profusion, and I am going to suggest three major meanings or reference ...”

“... haunted or displaced, and its major theme – the precariousness of identity – could hardly be more distinct if it had been played by a marching band. One of the twins (it’s Eric) clearly sees the fissures in the people around him: Whether it was the teachers, or other pupils, or even his parents, they were all divided within themselves, all torn, all ...”

“... Was​ Eric Hobsbawm interested in himself? Not, I think, so very much. He had a more than healthy ego and enough self-knowledge to admit it, but all his curiosity was turned outward – towards problems, politics, literatures, languages, landscapes. Never without a book, whether bound for a tutorial or the local A&E, for decades he disappeared off for tramping holidays or conferences anywhere from Catalonia to Cuba the moment term ended ...”

“... or incompatible ways, say so. Concept histories in which the inner philologist predominates are more comfortable with imprecision and less inclined to tidy things up. Most authors of intellectual histories have both an inner philologist and an inner philosopher, but the balance of power varies.Burrow’s inner philologist has the upper hand. He is ...”