“... the idea that autism should be treated by psychoanalysis. Kanner was not wholly wrong, by the way. Simon Baron-Cohen, the best-known British autism researcher today, has a research programme to investigate the extent to which the family trees of autists are made up of engineers, scientists and other abstract thinkers whose lives revolve around cold structures ...”

“... the acceptance of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) as a mainstream group. He cites the role of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Union of Jewish Students of France in creating the French organisation Urgence Darfour. The role of arbiter may have been conferred on Jews without their seeking it, but it gives rise to a paradox. If genocide (or, more ...”

“... as history has become more popular both on the page and on the screen. The doyen of TV historians, Simon Schama, is in a league of his own and his political viewpoint not in the forefront, but the new breed of historian – Niall Ferguson, Andrew Roberts and Norman Stone – all came to prominence under Mrs Thatcher and share some of her ...”

“... was a tough-minded drive to find mechanical explanations. When England’s greatest living poet, John Milton, wanted to explain why we are as we are, he retold the ancient story of Adam’s sin and consequent expulsion from the Garden of Eden. When Alexander Pope wrote his Essay on Man in the following century he took care to parallel his work with ...”

“... engineers were dispatched to construct a vital military highway across Alaska, Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr warned that they would ‘interbreed’ with the Indigenous population and produce an ‘objectionable race of mongrels’.Delmont shows that from the moment the US entered the war, the treatment of Blacks in the military was a major ...”

“... like Peter, Juba is an Eldorado: he earns three times more here than he could at home.Outside the John Garang mausoleum, a vast empty lot surrounded by a tall iron fence with gilded spikes, I suddenly find myself swallowed up in a swarming crowd. All along the fence, thousands of people are patiently waiting in line. In the street, among policemen and ...”

“... rather Buñuelesque) by Duff C. and Lady W. being so middle-aged and ultra respectable. John Julius Norwich puts his father’s sexual success down to his ability to write bad sonnets to his lady-friends but one wonders if it was a more basic attraction. The moustache is hardly a plus, the photograph on the book jacket making him look like a 1940s ...”

“... turning on a pound of flesh.The pound of flesh brings us in sight of that ‘Tunne of Man’, Sir John Falstaff. I’ve been arguing that, throughout Shakespeare’s developing power of characterisation, the physical has a special place: from Crab the dog to Richard Crookback, then to Bottom, then to the magnificently delineated yet isolated Shylock, and ...”

“... had been the chairman of Eurotunnel, was appointed to run the Strategic Rail Authority, created by John Prescott in 1999 to give direction to the privatised industry. Morton commissioned a report from Atkins and Ernst & Young to assess whether there was a need for such a line. By the time they reported in 2003, Morton – who was too outspoken to occupy such a ...”

“... Brian Wilson over those of Norman Whitfield, and the social significance and songwriting talent of John Lennon rather than James Brown – persists. Clearly, too, most rock writing foregrounds lyrics, whereas most dance music works through texture, beats and effects. Back in 1976, punk set itself against disco wholeheartedly. Alan Jones and Jussi Kantonen ...”

“... she produced some entirely abstract paintings. One interpretation of these changing modes (this is Simon Watney, quoted by Spalding on the abstract pictures) is that ‘her entire career bears down relentlessly on this point of technical and conceptual sophistication.’ Once liberation was achieved, however, it was possible to settle for a style which was ...”

“... among potential contributors’, Novick reports, ‘shrei gevalt’ agencies like the ADL and Simon Wiesenthal Center ‘bombarded Jews with mailings announcing new anti-semitic threats’. The main ulterior motive, however, lay elsewhere. As American Jews enjoyed increasing success, they moved steadily to the Right politically: ‘Jews had everything to ...”

“... and got to No. 8. Wham! were suddenly a headline act of ‘new pop’, which, according to Simon Reynolds, evolved the DIY codes of punk to ‘take on the mainstream and beat it at its own game’ and ‘involved a renaissance of glam’s interest in artifice and androgyny’. Other acts included in the category – the Human League, Eurythmics and ...”

“... one more film in Spain (Tristana, 1970), two more films in Mexico (The Exterminating Angel, 1962, Simon of the Desert, 1965), and six films in France (Diary of a Chambermaid, 1964, Belle de jour, 1966, The Milky Way, 1969, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, 1972, The Phantom of Liberty, 1974, That Obscure Object of Desire, 1977).Viridiana has a number of ...”

“... the private sector sets aside for corporate sheen, although it does have a museum dedicated to John Charnley, who, almost half a century ago, pioneered the popular benchmark of the NHS’s success or failure, the hip replacement operation. They still do hips at Wrightington, and knees, and elbows, and shoulders. They deal with joint problems that are too ...”