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“... and again Kissinger cites ‘over-extension’ as the main cause of the Soviet collapse, echoing Paul Kennedy’s thesis, and his own analysis in A World Restored, of the propensity of revolutionary states to overreach themselves. But it is open to question how far the commitment to the arms race and its Third World allies was the central factor in the ...”

“... of the grotto built in the grounds of her château, to the humblest nuns, clerical assistants and lay disciples, whose relationships with the priests often had a sexual tinge. ‘Our Lord wants you more for himself every day,’ the head of the Assumptionists wrote to one of his female charges. ‘There are delicate things in your soul that he wishes to ...”

“... which threatened his sense of identity. In his celebrated book The Great War and Modern Memory Paul Fussell claims that the trilogy of Memoirs ‘is in every way fictional ... it would be impossible to specify how it differs from any other novel written in the first person and based on the author’s own experience.’ That is astute but it oversteps the ...”

“... but bursting with life. Sometimes, listening to her play the piano, her children would one by one lay aside what they were doing and join in a spontaneous dance. This was for her a moment of collective inspiration. She created a medium in which the individual wills and talents of the children could meet and join and find expression, while each remained ...”

“... educational system in France were laid in the Napoleonic period, with the establishment of a lay teaching profession to fill the gap left by the priests of the Ancien Régime. The profession reached maturity during the Third Republic, the ‘république des professeurs’, the product of a union between the bourgeois republic and liberal rationalism. In ...”

“... Academy was a grudging discretion. Ten years was deemed a decent enough interval in the case of Paul Morand, for example, whose ‘role during the last war’ led to the defeat of his candidacy in 1958: in 1968 he was duly elected to the Academy. The Academy’s refusal of all attempts at reform and renewal has not done it much good: today it is seen by ...”

“... the ‘blink of an eye’ – that instant of conversion and spiritual rebirth when (as St Paul had promised) ‘we shall all be changed.’ But then, in 1933, Heidegger, along with a majority of Arendt’s compatriots, was transfixed by an Augenblick of diabolical consequence. Hitler’s rise to power convinced Heidegger that a rare opportunity was at ...”

“... made – the promise that when he died his sons would embalm him, dress him, pick out a casket, lay him out, prepare the obits, contact the priests, manage the flowers, the casseroles, the wake and procession, the Mass and burial. Maybe it was just understood. His was a funeral he would not have to direct. It was ours to do; and though he’d directed ...”

“... as exciting as we were led to believe. I’m thinking here particularly of a recent interview with Paul McCartney where he explained that when he and Mick smoked what he described charmingly as ‘pot’ together (after dinner, with a nice glass of wine apparently) all that happened was that they ‘discussed art’. I remember ’68, and let me assure ...”

“... and axles, it required, with its crank-handle, the brawn of Hercules to make it start. The future lay with gasoline. In 1908, Henry Ford’s mass-produced Model T, priced at a level which Ford’s own $5-a-day workers could afford, gave oil-based fuel (of which America was then the world’s main producer) a commercial edge. In 1912, the electric starter and ...”

“... son, Nick Willing, she describes bringing each painting-in-progress to the room where Willing lay, and asking him what she should do with it. His edicts were, in her account, unwavering. ‘Paint it all out,’ he’d say of something she’d just painted in. ‘You’ve got some beautifully painted figures there, and you’ve got rubbish furniture behind ...”

“... to bury her here in this house of warrior-celibates, whose ranks William had formally joined as he lay dying at Caversham, saying goodbye to her and to his marriage with a tearful kiss. That separation in death was the story of her life, as for so many military wives: she has stayed at home in the Wye Valley, entombed at Marshal’s pious foundation of Tintern ...”

“... and Thomas Mann; Josef follows a similar track. Adler was pressed into slave labour to help lay a railway line between Prague and Brno, then he was sent to Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and two subcamps of Buchenwald, Niederorschel and Langenstein. He puts Josef through all of that except Theresienstadt, which is reserved for the second novel in the ...”

“... by the government at the instigation of the communist minister of industrial production, Marcel Paul: they provided for pension and holiday entitlements, equal treatment of female employees, protection against arbitrary dismissal, and advancement on the basis of merit. These measures marked a major departure from traditional corporate culture. The CGT ...”

“... approach is to clear space around her subject, to return to the source where she can, and to lay out the versions and parts. It’s as if someone has turned down the music and switched on the lights and now you can hear what everyone’s saying. The two books complement each other.The scenes Nico moved through were managed by men and it is largely men ...”