“... to have their dreams interpreted. Messiahs turned up roughly once a century. In 1523, it was David Reubeni, a traveller who claimed to be David, son of Solomon, and had some success touring his act around Italy: he left Rome in a flutter of glittering streamers, embroidered with the words of the Ten Commandments in ...”

“... liked Germany and negotiated the concordat did not mean, however, that he was a crypto-Nazi. As David Kertzer concludes in his new book, ‘Pope Pius XII was certainly not “Hitler’s Pope” … In many ways, the Nazi regime was anathema to the pope and to virtually all those around him in the Vatican. They were alarmed by the Reich’s efforts to weaken ...”

“... movement were largely exercised within a state’s territory – through serfdom, slavery or poor laws – rather than between states. In the 20th century, as a response to global migration of the poor, international borders were strengthened through a system of passports and visas. Today, while the right to move within a state is enshrined in the 1948 ...”

“... of the world behind whose attractive show Joan hid and cultivated her obliqueness. But in the in-laws’ house he was referred to – in his presence – as ‘Joan’s husband’. As if to say his tenure was not yet confirmed. But Eduene was odder still, granted that her twisted shape is all in Joan’s telling – in what is said and what omitted. When ...”

“... Scowcroft, James Baker) rather than from the Democrats or the Left? Samantha Power and David Halberstam did not set out to solve this riddle, but they have unintentionally provided an important part of the answer. Power was motivated to study the history of disappointing US responses to genocide by her indignation at the Clinton Administration’s ...”

“... of it), refuelled by access to new material and a reduced fear of libel. Of the seven children of David and Sydney, Lord and Lady Redesdale, six were girls; the Mitford industry revolves, lighthouse-like, between them. Nancy, the novelist, wit and Bright Young Thing, comes to prominence whenever her books are dramatised; Unity and Diana, the Nazis, are ...”

“... who was lord chancellor at the time, sought to reduce the length of sentences for serious crimes; David Cameron publicly overruled him. So, despite representing less than half the legal aid budget, civil claims – which are usually claims individuals make to remedy breaches of their rights – bore the brunt of the cuts. The strategy was to remove various ...”

“... in Europe. In Italy, as might be expected, corruption is rampant. A series of ad personam laws has been passed by the right-wing majority in order to protect Berlusconi from having to appear in court to answer charges of criminal misconduct in his business affairs. On 23 November last year, La Repubblica listed 18 ...”

“... of Darkness). Or, ‘what if a capitalist planet had a moon on which there was a society with no laws and no private ownership?’ (as in her Dispossessed). Alongside these large questions her fiction also poses less visible challenges to its readers. Are you so unconsciously racist that you didn’t notice this woman or this wizard was ...”

“... with ministers who were either secret Communists or Communist sympathisers. Given the fierce libel laws in this country there was no way such allegations could be published in the normal manner. Instead MI5 leaked the smear to journalists who obligingly wrote stories hinting at the substance, while sometimes hypocritically expressing their distaste: ‘some ...”

“... before he became one of the Assembly’s three presidents, is that what Colombia needs is not new laws but the will to apply them. There are signs that the will may be developing. Extensive frauds have been uncovered in the social security system, and in the public services of Colombia’s main port, Barranquilla. The newspapers are exposing corruption with ...”

“... the underclass who encroached on the privilege of the royal forests and became victims of the game laws. When Harrison writes about outlaws – Gamelyn, Robin Hood and their successors in Elizabethan comedy – it is easy for the politically-sound critic to suppose that he can become a Green Man and still be a Red. So too in the section on John ...”

“... public burthens lightened, economy seated as it were upon a rock, the gordian knot of the poor laws not cut but untied – all by a simple idea in architecture’ Not just prisons but schools, madhouses, hospitals, reformatories and workhouses – all were erected in the sanguine faith that for every problem there was an institutional panacea. Indeed, to ...”

“... which emasculated Labour local authorities; no change in the draconian Tory anti-union laws, no change in anything. The great irresponsible monopolies derided by Brown in his youth have become the great allies of New Labour. Brown’s chief man in the Treasury is his friend and generous host Geoffrey Robinson, whose enormous wealth is stashed away ...”

“... Kuper zooms in for a closer look, he selects areas already well investigated. If you’ve read David Newsome, Annan himself, Michael Holroyd and Hermione Lee on the Wilberforces, Leslie Stephen, Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf, you’re likely to know what’s coming before you’ve turned the page – and there’s a limit to the appeal even of Clapham ...”