“... at a time of dire economic crisis: that a blending of talents and policies from two parties may – just – offer possibilities that one-party rule would not. The more immediately alarming matter is what this coalition suggests about the homogeneity of the British political elite. Not just Clegg and Cameron, but even the likeliest Labour contender, Ed ...”

“... inevitable.’ Indeed, those (if any) for whom history is still about great (or not so great) men may want to argue that it was just a series of personal failures of character and judgment at the critical moments: Asquith’s in 1915-16, MacDonald’s in 1930-31 and Chamberlain’s in 1938-39. But the influences at work were of course a great deal more ...”

“... to do in certain circumstances, since if they are bound to do it they are not free. Capitalism may be teetering on the verge of ruin, but it may not be socialism that replaces it. It may be fascism, or barbarism. Hobsbawm reminds us of a small but significant phrase in The Communist ...”

“... its integrity or its stability.’ Yet Xerxes’ military reputation had certainly suffered, which may in part explain his assassination in 465 in a palace coup led by his younger son. Despite these domestic upheavals, Achaemenid power remained undiminished. In 340, after a brutal campaign to subdue revolt in Egypt (largely carried out by Greek ...”

“... essential for a more radical understanding of Dasein’. The special place granted to German may also have been connected to the capacity of German to generate unusual nouns, very often compound ones: most of Heidegger’s contributions, as either neologisms or adaptations of existing terms to new ends, make an appearance in the dictionary (for ...”

“... strangely transformed – he recognised them with a confused, astonished smile.’ The orientation may change but the erotic emotion is a constant, which is why, in the Joseph and His Brothers books, Mann, like Proust, can produce persuasive narratives of heterosexual feeling. One of the strengths of Death in Venice is the delicate pacing of Aschenbach’s ...”

“... has made sure that bakeries have kept on working and the price of bread stays low. These efforts may seem paltry: there are severe shortages of mains electricity, fresh tap water and petrol of usable quality. But for many Sunnis in Mosul the Islamic State’s actions compare favourably with the sectarianism and criminality displayed by the Iraqi army and ...”

“... coal mines. But we’ll brandish our sensitivities proudly (if not our safety pins, which may be too smug and lame a gesture), since they’re what we’ve got, and are anyway better than robotic numbness, better than ‘normalisation’. Yet figuring exactly which pretzel-shape to twist our sensitivities into – I’ll pity those who revile me, for ...”

“... by King Frederick William IV of Prussia, which Andrea Wulf quotes in her fine new biography, may be a slight exaggeration, but it reflects Humboldt’s extraordinary reputation among his contemporaries. On the centennial of his birth, 14 September 1869, elaborate celebrations were held all over the world; the front page of the New York Times was devoted ...”

“... broken a long silence and become a poet of his time – the 1960s and 1970s – however much he may have insisted, as he did in the same poem, that he was ‘of the Thirties’. He had come home to the US, after a decade in flight from McCarthyism, and settled in Brooklyn. His days as an active member of the Communist Party had long since passed. He was ...”

“... recognises, is that they often can’t be securely dated, so mentions of ‘King Antigonus’ may refer not to Gonatas but to his homonymous grandfather or grandson. The evidence is ambiguous, but Antigonus was probably given cult worship in Greece, an honour that was becoming common for dynastic kings. Whether he fostered such cults himself is harder to ...”

“... owns (he’s a racketeer, it turns out), she remembers meeting him as a child and senses that he may know the answer to a question she has long suppressed: what happened to her father? (Was he offed by the mob, or did he simply run away, fed up with his bad luck and stifling home life?) The rest of the book mostly follows Anna in her quest, sometimes ...”

“... using components that are easy to source, even for a country under Western sanctions. Ukraine may have shot down more than two hundred, but according to Ukrainian intelligence Moscow has procured ten times as many and is expected to set up a local production line. Certainly Ukraine has an incentive to talk up the numbers, and to talk up the spectre of ...”

“... cannon in Central Europe. At the moment, however, he seems less than enchanted by the idea and he may be tempted to see what more he could get from Lafontaine should the GDR give the latter the margin of victory that might elude him in the Federal Republic alone. Nato still matters because the Soviet Union is still in possession of the formidable apparatus of ...”

“... just given me Something no one else on earth had ever given me I may even have thanked him habit being so strong. The ominous miniature ‘Quiet Nights’ might epitomise Carver’s imaginative transactions between two points, the first fixed, the second problematic: I go to sleep on one beach, wake up on another. Boat all ...”