“... a dividing line in Britain’s recent history. Before the strike, the country was characterised by comparative egalitarianism, the (relative) power and legitimacy of organised labour, and an industrial economy in which state industries played a prominent role. After it, economic inequality skyrocketed and the trade unions were delegitimised, politically and ...”

“... of, though Freud is a curious absence. He is formidably erudite, yet writes modest, lucid prose. By trade he is an art historian, though only two of his full-length studies reveal the fact. One is The Mirror of the Gods (2005), a superb account of classical mythology in Renaissance art; the other is Inventing Falsehood, Making Truth (2013), a study of Vico ...”

“... else is known about Cuthler, who was born six and a half centuries ago. His case happened to be written down by a scribe – and meanwhile he went on with his days, or so we must suppose. As is usually the case with medieval legal records, lives flash before our eyes and then vanish. The flashes are what make the ...”

“... extent to which the empire had featured in them. Catherine Hall opened Civilising Subjects (2002) by describing her Baptist upbringing in Leeds. Missionaries and African students often passed through the home: ‘The sense of a Baptist family stretching across the globe was always part of domestic life.’ In an appendix to Ornamentalism (2001), ...”

“... this 0.069 per cent of a day is making to the meaning of her life? C.M. Lucca, the writer created by Catherine Lacey to narrate her fourth novel, Biography of X, at least has the guts to admit the problem. Lucca is also the author of a book called Biography of X, as well as being the widow of the polymathic artist called X (1945-96) who is its subject, a ...”

“... on land and in water, and that it comes from the Greek for ‘double life’. Though you would be hard-pressed to draw a clean analogy, Murray surely qualifies as an amphibious writer: funny and cerebral, brilliant at an improbable range of things and driven by a desire to upset perceived dichotomies. He has compared ...”

“... Life magazine in 1969, Prince Karim Aga Khan was an ‘outrageously wealthy young man, written off by many as a mere playboy’, who had proved his critics wrong with a display of business acumen – a vast real-estate venture in Sardinia. Sailing across the Mediterranean on one of his yachts, the Aga Khan had fallen in love with its wind-eroded granite ...”

“... fritter stimulates desire to eat it,’ and Harold joking that maybe when he was ninety he would be able to free himself from ‘these fleshly desires’.In the late Cold War, letter-writing provided one of the chinks in the iron curtain. Harold began writing to the Aidovs after seeing the name and address of their daughter in a publication ...”

“... Lake Wannsee was stunning from the dining room of the villa where the fellows stay, and would only be more beautiful in the spring. ‘As a Jew,’ another fellow replied, ‘I simply can’t look at the view without remembering that this house was occupied by a Nazi who was tried at Nuremburg, or that we’re only a short ...”

“... translates as ‘labour’ what King James’s scholars called ‘sorrow’ – ‘Accursed shall be the ground on your account. With labour you shall win your food from it.’ A few pages later comes the very odd passage in which Noah’s son Ham sees him naked when drunk. Awakening from his stupor, Noah curses Ham’s son Canaan – ‘a servant of servants ...”

“... lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryStalemate beneath the dense sky of moratorium agreements: the best we can hope for Europe ... But there is no escape route in ...”

“... cost you, he said, but if she can get AZT and 3TC in the first 12 hours you can cut the Aids risk by 80 per cent. Brian has twice had to apply such emergency treatment to nurses working in his unit after they pricked themselves with needles used to draw blood from the HIV positive prostitutes who are the central figures in his unit’s attempt to control the ...”

“... For a time, early last year, there was no trace of Robespierre to be found on the street where he lived in the days of his fame. The restaurant called Le Robespierre had closed its doors, and after a while its portrait sign was removed from above the entrance of the house on the rue Saint-Honoré. Once again, the plaque on the wall had been smashed ...”

“... lines of your unyielding story another narrative may awaken and begin to stand up. And that will be the story you take home: the unending story of the story itself. You’d do well to snap your pencil and walk away at that point. Exhaustion can be a wise counsellor. But sometimes the second story not only stands up but ...”

“... A sacrifice wholly consumed by fire; a whole burnt offering ... A complete sacrifice or offering ... A sacrifice on a large scale ... Complete consumption by fire, or that which is so consumed; complete destruction, esp. of a large number of persons; a great slaughter or massacre’: such is the OED’s definition of the word ‘holocaust ...”