“... and Raleigh, North Carolina. But Greenwood did have a solid middle class. The neighbourhood may have been separate and unequal, but it was proudly Black-controlled.The tragic events of 1921 began with a minor encounter between two teenagers that, in a normal country, would hardly have become a catalyst for violence. Dick Rowland, a Black 19-year-old who ...”

“... onyx, the name of which derives directly from the Greek for ‘claw’ or ‘fingernail’). These may have been conventional similes, but Barry takes them seriously and he himself proposes, not quite plausibly, that Purbeck marble was ‘very likely regarded as a substitute for imperial porphyry’.He is unimpressed by the popular idea that the citizens of ...”

“... by irrigation farms visible in satellite images as green crop circles dotting the hamada. This may seem impressive, but Saudi reserves are tiny compared to the 650 million tonnes of grain which China has stored up. One site at Dalian, on the Liaodong Peninsula in the north-east, has 95 grain elevators, each a monument to hard memories of the mid-century ...”

“... in 2002, the left swallowed its pride and voted for Chirac. The vote for Macron, left and right, may be more grudging. The two biggest trade unions have instructed their members to vote for him. The third, Force Ouvrière, has not. The main police union told members to vote against Le Pen: they responded with a stream of abuse on Facebook. Mélenchon held ...”

“... it is generated. The Divine Comedy is a great example of this kind of total adequacy, but a haiku may also constitute a satisfactory comeback by the mind to the facts of the matter. As long as the co-ordinates of the imagined thing correspond to those of the world that we live in and endure, poetry is fulfilling its counterweighing function. It becomes ...”

“... But file-selves matter elsewhere too. The Anglosphere – the UK, Canada, the US, Australia – may have eschewed the Russian/Soviet path of a compulsory internal passport, distinct from the passport required for foreign travel, but drivers’ licences and credit records often serve the same functions, and electronic identity cards ...”

“... in its profusion of only partly co-ordinated actions and individuals. Delacroix’s canvas may be more inspiring and magnificent, but Philippoteaux’s more revealingly shows the untidiness and uncertainties of a popular upheaval.At the heart of Jonathan Beecher’s Writers and Revolution is a simple but powerful idea: to follow nine contemporary ...”

“... end of the Cold War. The colours are not as vibrant as you remembered them. Amid the letdown, you may feel called on to provide some compensatory emotion of your own, like the young TV producer in Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children, as she contemplates the Rothko reproductions on her walls: ‘She still felt – or could, if she kept the overhead ...”

“... On​ 18 May 1961, towards the end of Session 45 of the Eichmann trial, Judge Halevi asked State Prosecutor Bar-Or if he’d finished submitting into evidence all the documents relevant to the Theresienstadt camp. Bar-Or said he had, though of course there was also ‘the well-known book by Dr John Adler’: ‘This is the outstanding book about Theresienstadt, and it is called Theresienstadt ...”

“... guide. Once slim, pocketable and beige, the volumes are now black, thick, and less handy. This may be the last print edition of the series. A digital version would expand the guides’ uses: and if you don’t have the right sort of imagination to visualise interiors or exteriors from written detail alone – I struggle – then virtual tours would ...”

“... ineradicable – ‘Daesh is in our hearts and minds’ – and they worry that the present moment may only be a pause in the violence. The anxiety is understandable, but the threat may be long-term rather than immediate: SDF commanders say that IS is not carrying out guerrilla attacks, and though there are frequent rumours ...”

“... recognise ‘three classes of crime’ and ‘three kinds of societies’. The rhetoric of love may also be said to be of three kinds. Less schematic but not a bit less serious are disquisitions on such subjects as the Comic, which includes the observation that masters have essence but servants only existence – it’s a pity servants are going out of ...”

“... Early in May, on his visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, Colin Powell met with Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian Prime Minister, and separately with a small group of civil society activists, including Hanan Ashrawi and Mostapha Barghuti. According to Barghuti, Powell expressed surprise and mild consternation at the computerised maps of the settlements, the eight-metre-high wall, and the dozens of Israeli Army checkpoints that have made life so difficult and the future so bleak for Palestinians ...”

“... Pau, in the South-West of France; her father was Spanish. She knew the Basque Country well, and it may have been her influence that prompted Steer’s next move. He arrived at the Franco-Spanish border in August 1936, in time to report the first action of the Basque campaign in the Civil War. Margarita died in childbirth the following year; Steer buried her in ...”

“... from his loft on Lower Broadway.’ ‘It doesn’t take courage. It takes cash.’ Sophie may be unsentimental about money, but for days she has been feeding a stray cat; not taking it into the house (Otto wouldn’t allow that: ‘They’re not pussycats, you know. They’re thugs’), just setting out a bowl of milk. When Otto accuses her of ...”