“... oneself ... that one is at any rate a decent imitation of a soldier.’ Edward Brittain’s friend Geoffrey Thurlow, who described himself as ‘disgustingly windy’ and ‘no earthly use as an officer’, continued to rely on Rupert Brooke and ended his last letter to Vera in April 1917 by quoting him and saying that he would ‘like to do well for the ...”

“... after his exposure, but despite rancorous arguments and the dramatic resignation of A.J.P. Taylor, their proceedings did not lead to publications, conferences, lectures, or any of the other manifestations of a scholarly cause célèbre. One has only to compare the recent furore over Martin Heidegger and Paul de Man to see how slight the impact of the ...”

“... war they’ve just fought. It must have been a scholarly version of this syndrome that led A.J.P. Taylor to pronounce, as late as 1965, that ‘the Second World War, unlike the First, produced no distinctive literature. There were no war poets during the war, and no war novels or memoirs after it.’ You still sometimes hear this argument. One reason is that ...”

“... another essay, on policy-making (this in collaboration with John Barnes). Kevin Theakston and Geoffrey Fry, in another collaborative survey, bring their expertise on the Civil Service to bear, notably on the way in which Whitehall was ‘de-privileged’ under Thatcher. Keith Middlemas, an authority on the corporate institutions with which the ...”

“... and Leon Litwack, were scathing, but, for the most part, the book’s tone was measured; Burns and Geoffrey Ward, who had written the film’s script, contributed replies. But a funny thing happened as Burns made more documentaries: instead of making more of the views of historians, he shunted them to the sidelines. For all its faults, The Civil War featured ...”

“... is the position Norris attributes to ‘soft’ or ‘non-rigorous’ deconstructive critics like Geoffrey Hartman and J. Hillis Miller, who rest content with pointing out ‘that all texts are figural’ – rhetorical or fictional – ‘through and through, whatever their self-professed logical status.’ Richard Rorty, who identifies philosophy merely as ...”

“... poetry – the ‘innumerable exercise books of poems’ that Thomas referred to in a letter to Geoffrey Grigson in 1933 – came from is no clearer. He began writing seriously around the age of 16, and there were, it seems, ten books of which four survived. The biography tells us nothing substantive about what made for the poems, or what we might make of ...”

“... On 15 June 1794, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, prodigious, garrulous and chubby, his brilliant undergraduate career in tatters, set out from Cambridge in the company of a steady companion called Hucks, picturesquely intent on a walking tour of North Wales. Their route took them through Oxford, where they looked up one of Coleridge’s old schoolmates, who took the visitors to see a notorious democrat at Balliol called Robert Southey ...”

“... career, and he often succeeded. His closest colleagues from his time at the Treasury, including Geoffrey Robinson, Ed Balls and Ed Miliband, remained remarkably loyal. But there was​ , inevitably, a downside. The higher he rose, the more political these friendships became. Being part of Gordon’s band was not a costless enterprise – it deeply alienated ...”

“... in running newly privatised services, such as the prison escort service for the East Midlands. Sir Geoffrey Howe’s departure from government in November 1990 was followed on 8 January 1991 by appointment to a nonexecutive directorship at BICC, the international cable and construction group, for which it was reported that he was to receive an annual salary of ...”

“... her predated Major’s rise. Its origins lay in her troubled relationship with Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe, the two most important members of her government. It turned, as did so much about her fall, on the question of Europe. Both Howe, who was foreign secretary (until Major replaced him), and Lawson, who was chancellor (until Major replaced him a few ...”