“... to destabilise Syria and that these efforts continued into the Obama years. In December 2006, William Roebuck, then in charge of the US embassy in Damascus, filed an analysis of the ‘vulnerabilities’ of the Assad government and listed methods ‘that will improve the likelihood’ of opportunities for destabilisation. He recommended that Washington ...”

“... briefly on 18 June, but not seconded; several of his powerful friends, including Marvell and Sir William Davenant, whom Milton had saved from execution as a Royalist conspirator under the Commonwealth, helped to rescue him. The recollection of images from Macbeth might also contain a trace of subconscious regicide guilt. Milton may have had the regicide ...”

“... who rose to become an alderman of Stratford-upon-Avon. Both fathers were socially ambitious: William Middleton bought himself a coat of arms from the College of Heralds in 1568, thereby securing the all-important right for himself and his successors to style themselves ‘gentleman’ – a feat that John Shakespeare, with the help of his successful ...”

“... the essay it is not difficult to discern that Browning’s own heart really lies with the opposite camp. So it does not come as a surprise to hear him announce at the essay’s crescendo: ‘If the subjective might seem to be the ultimate requirement of every age, the objective, in the strictest state, must still retain its original value.’ This is ...”

“... from Bernie Sanders that question wouldn’t be surprising. But it was more remarkable to hear William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, describe American business as ‘part of the problem’ because its corporate leaders are too focused on their stock options and have lost sight of the ‘national view’ and the need to ensure that ‘that the next ...”

“... been local. They ‘would have known … this is King Park, this is a known area for homeless to camp out, folks with mental disabilities in here – tread carefully, de-escalate.’ The visiting police wouldn’t know King Park from Central Park.‘Make America Safe Once Again’ was in full swing at the convention. Nobody mentioned guns or police ...”

“... to liberation, involving risk, experiment and the courage to fail. In the early 1970s she set up camp in Saint-Denis at the margins of the capital and the banlieues, at ease in a département that had been run by the Communist Party since Liberation in 1944. She had plans to document the neighbourhood, with its mainly working-class residents – many of ...”

“... jealous of her. When she was fifteen months old her father, Emanuel, died of a seizure at a summer camp in the Catskills, and Streisand, her mother and nine-year-old brother moved first to her maternal grandparents’ house in Bed-Stuy and later to a housing project in Flatbush with Diana’s second husband, Lou Kind.The loss of her father and the experience ...”

“... Also cited in the FHA investigation was Fred Trump’s partner, contractor and financier William ‘Willie’ Tomasello, who according to the federal Organised Crime Task Force was associated with elements of both the Gambino and Genovese families.Fred Trump appeared to be grooming Fred Jr to take over his business. But he was a harsh and exigent ...”

“... eluding any certifiable definition by journalists, historians, scholars, aid and lending experts, camp followers, demographers, catastrophists and optimists, or by individuals of very different persuasions who happen to inhabit it. In a long moment of desperation, Davidson’s remains the least peremptory evaluation on offer – and by far the most ...”

“... influential in these areas, has acquired a quasi-public status. True, the ‘contemporary art’ camp can be extremely touchy too. There was outrage in 1991, when a student at the relatively conservative RCA was refused his degree for not doing anything his teachers considered proper work. His degree show was an empty studio with a simulacrum of a GLC Blue ...”

“... justifies Thomas Bernhard’s choice of Brendel as a leading representative of the establishment camp which Glenn Gould stands against. For in Der Untergeher Bernhard did not just want to oppose Gould to any old virtuoso pianist, but to pianists thought by the establishment to be the best, to pianists, above all, highly regarded by the thoughtful for their ...”

“... probably should have done nothing, but sending the cable made my life sweeter,’ he told William Alfred. A week or so earlier Alfred had written to him saying ‘Frank has given me The Dolphin to read. It is beautifully made, every line won hard, and it is sad and comforting at one and the same time. But 1 and 2 on page 47’ – ‘Fox-Fur’ and ...”

“... in Radiance, marries a Lemian satire of Cold War militaristic capitalism to the architecture of a William Gaddis novel, or how Ted Chiang’s brainy novellas crystallise Lemian themes of metacognition and first contact.Such encounters might have challenged Lem’s biases. They might also have pushed him to confront the limits of his experience, evident in his ...”

“... and cannot even advance a weaker claim to connoisseurship because my favourite English Iliad is William Wyatt’s 1999 updating of his great-uncle A.T. Murray’s 1924 version, because of the Greek text on its facing pages, because of the handy Loeb format well suited to air travel (and to cheap replacement when left aboard), and for its literal yet stylish ...”