“... could be staged repeatedly, perhaps for ever.This terrifying vision originated among a small group of intellectuals whose belief system would have been deemed reckless even at the nadir of the Cold War – indeed, it was the worldview that consigned Barry Goldwater to crushing defeat by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. But eventually it moved inside the charmed ...”

“... cover as a journalist, where he landed his first and only scoop. In Seville, he walked into a group of German pilots flying for Franco – a story which rang round the world as the first solid proof of Nazi involvement. But in early 1937, Koestler’s luck ran out. Reporting from Malaga, he was captured when the city fell to the rebels and imprisoned as a ...”

“... was rarely pronounced even among scientists before 2008 (a year also notable for a world economic crisis that caused global carbon emissions to fall for the first time since the dissolution of the USSR), when the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London met to consider whether a new chapter in the history of the earth had opened, deserving ...”

“... people to pay a lot of money, and if someone didn’t pay they would be tortured.’ In 1993, a group of Pashtuns from the south and south-east, appalled by the actions of some of the former mujahideen, decided to restore some kind of order. The group coalesced around a reclusive mullah called Omar, a veteran fighter who ...”

“... It’s been​ four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance ...”

“... is unlikely to resolve itself any time soon. This has the makings of a full-blown constitutional crisis that the Conservative Party, no matter who becomes its next leader, may struggle to contain. No Conservative leader, least of all one as essentially pragmatic as Cameron, would open the door to such a possibility lightly.Prime among Cameron’s reasons for ...”

“... in Tehran the Iranians have had ample time to consider the virtues of Islamic government and international isolation. Looking beyond their borders, they contemplate ‘emirates of rubble’ in Iraq and Afghanistan and count themselves lucky. Since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, the ‘Terrorists’ (in the French-Revolutionary rather than the ...”

“... discover the most monumental and exhaustive analysis of his life and ideas in relation to Third International Leninism. It is probably the most important book yet to appear in the dissident-Communist perspective. Fortunately David Fernbach’s translation makes it accessible (apart from a few Volapük lapses like ‘genial’ for génial) and copes ruggedly ...”

“... Corelli not only boasted the longest entry in Who’s Who, but had enjoyed commercial success and international celebrity on a scale unprecedented in literary history. Corelli occupied her Stratford home in a style commensurate with her sense of her artistic achievements. Her domestic regime was supported by a major-domo, two maids, a cook, a gardener, a ...”

“... after 1990, he was one of the most famous activists in the world, who almost single-handedly drew international attention to one of the 20th century’s great environmental crimes: the destruction of the ancient primary rainforests of Sarawak in Borneo by logging companies owned by cronies of the Malaysian government. At the time, it was the most fashionable ...”

“... in London, where he announced that ‘agitation and Bolshevism’ were at the root of the crisis. All this, and much besides in the way of callousness and dishonesty, was forgiven him. At the first, a special process of ‘investiture’ – a classic case of what Hobsbawm and Ranger have called ‘invented tradition’ – was contrived in order to ...”

“... But now, thanks to a steady accumulation of volumes from New York Review Books, and a gifted group of translators willing to wrestle with the often fiendish difficulties of his strange brew of slang, Swiss dialect, neologisms and whimsy, he is beginning to receive the attention he deserves. The latest contribution is Tom Whalen’s discerning ...”

“... emissions, perhaps acts of such destructive magnitude should be recognised as a special kind of international crime.) As the unprecedented disasters, terrifying statistics and nightmare scenarios continue to mount, the links between them multiply in tangled profusion. Climate scientists refer to ‘systems crises’, Wallace-Wells to ...”

“... Mooney notes that both the Centers for Disease Control and the State Department’s Agency for International Development ‘have altered informational materials on condoms to downplay their effectiveness’. A fact sheet from the CDC, he reports, was edited to remove ‘a discussion of research showing that education about condoms does not increase sexual ...”

“... flexible than its detractors care to admit. As Kapcia shows, there have been distinct cycles of crisis, debate and resolution, with relatively open discussion allowed in ruling circles. ‘Within the revolution, anything,’ was Fidel’s famous slogan, first articulated in the 1960s in regard to the role of intellectuals. This attitude fostered the ...”