“... fear death?’ he was heard to say. ‘It is the most beautiful adventure in life.’ He may have been echoing J.M. Barrie, whose ‘awfully big adventure’ had only recently chimed with children of all ages. But the immediate circumstances – shipwreck, showmanship, early death – also bring to mind the life and career of Robert Louis ...”

“... Hersh’s questioning to phone the man who had been his immediate superior in Vietnam, Captain Ernest Medina, who, Calley believed, would confirm that everything took place under the captain’s direct order. When Medina said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ and hung up, Calley was stricken. ‘He knew … he was going to be the fall guy ...”

“... as significant as evidence gets. But, like a string of previous convictions, it can mislead. It may have been made in fear or distress in order to put an end to an ordeal; it may have come from a compulsive confessor; it may have been made in the hope of securing bail or facing a ...”

“... was a word Pevsner relished.Reilly’s galère left out a number of artists of whose existence he may have been unaware, just as they may have been unaware of each other. Patrick Abercrombie mentioned some of them in the introduction to his Book of the Modern House (1939): ‘Mackintosh with his unrestrained fantasy in ...”

“... DNB, hoped that it would turn out to be one of the ‘most amusing’ of books. This remark may have to be interpreted in the light of the fact that Stephen’s own preferred form of ‘amusement’ involved hanging by his fingertips from a ledge on the Matterhorn in the middle of a blizzard, but it is true that an abundance of pleasure, of a certain ...”

“... Congress and the executive branch. Whatever an individual lawmaker or policymaker’s own views may be, the Lobby tries to make supporting Israel the ‘smart’ choice. Second, it strives to ensure that public discourse portrays Israel in a positive light, by repeating myths about its founding and by promoting its point of view in policy debates. The goal ...”

“... a difficult one. The war hadn’t been going well since the landings in the Pas de Calais in May 1946 were thrown back with terrible losses – a failure that had much to do with the amount of treasure and materiel that had been diverted to Britain’s nuclear weapons programme. The Americans remained preoccupied in the Pacific, still wary of the ...”

“... study of linguistics, and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Milton Friedman in economics, though Keynes may last longer. This doesn’t mean that contemporary US universities aren’t obsessed with ‘theory’, only that the ‘theory’ either comes from outside America, is modelled on economics (which has a strong theory-orientation important for understanding ...”

“... in Marxist economics. Over recent decades, the landmarks of Marxian economic thinking include Ernest Mandel’s Late Capitalism (1972), David Harvey’s Limits to Capital (1982), Giovanni Arrighi’s Long 20th Century (1994) and Robert Brenner’s Economics of Global Turbulence (2006), all expressly concerned with the grinding tectonics and punctual ...”

“... enabled troops to combine the means of defence with the means of attack, armour with artillery. Ernest Swinton gave his indispensable book of memoirs, Eyewitness, the subtitle ‘Being Personal Reminiscences of Certain Phases of the Great War, Including the Genesis of the Tank’. The book begins with eight photographs of British tanks from the First World ...”

“... dead lie round’, surely he is suggesting that the wisdom here isn’t just a worldly wisdom, but may contain something more. What is the difference, then, between this ‘someone’ of Larkin’s with ‘a hunger in himself to be more serious’ and the voice at the end of ‘Little Gidding’ who states: ‘We shall not cease from exploration’? Poets have ...”

“... anguish was the approach here, and it paid off. Yet his former classmate and devoted friend Ernest Delahaye tells us that much of the poetry was frogmarched into existence, ‘murmured’ forth as the poet exercised his lower limbs in the name of his high calling – ‘a senseless and infinite impulse towards invisible splendours and imperceptible ...”

“... bananas. ‘C’est l’homme qui a conquis l’air!’ they cried. ‘Il n’est pas bluffeur!’ Ernest Archdeacon of L’Aero-Club de France, one of the most prominent sceptics, had been denouncing Wilbur as an impostor even from the stands at Le Mans. That was before take-off. He now announced: ‘I feel an intense pleasure in counting myself among the ...”

“... realism; though with both countries still producing permafrosted academic painting. It may now be clear that it was the French who were to make the future of art; but at the time there was lively curiosity and interchange between Paris and London. Charles Deschamps, who sold Henry Hill his pictures, was a patron and friend of Rossetti, Ford Madox ...”

“... an ambush ten days later. W.T. Cosgrave then succeeded to the leadership. The Civil War ended in May 1923 with the defeat of the Republicans. Three years later de Valera split from the Republicans and formed his own party, Fianna Fail, which entered the Dáil in 1927 and was elected to government in 1932. That the Dáil Government, operating underground ...”