“... states such as Ukraine have no choice but to submit to the nearest great power, has run its course.John Mearsheimer’s argument of recent weeks that what we are seeing played out is ‘not imperialism [but] great-power politics’ will strike many as a distinction without a difference. Imperial history has far more to teach us than our decaying Atlantic ...”

“... in the county were killed for want of fodder. By the end of winter in this period, according to John Higgs’s The Land (1964), every blade of grass had been eaten and the animals were forced to follow the plough looking for upturned roots.The social structure of the country had changed, the population had grown, the plough had been improved, the threshing ...”

“... except in such recherché musical circles as the coterie around Nadia Boulanger in Paris or by John Cage’s epigoni everywhere. Roldan, also a remarkable conductor, died of a skin cancer in the face in his early thirties. Cruelly deformed, in his last performances he had to climb the podium wearing a silk mask. Caturla, a country judge who used to compose ...”

“... the first systematic comparison of the American and French Revolutions, translated into English by John Quincy Adams; and set out in his Political Condition of Europe before and after the French Revolution the first strategic theorisation of the need for the anciens régimes of Europe to transcend traditional balance of power politics and reach an accord to ...”