“... to class interest, or, more important, racial supremacy. If the thing is a genuine mystery, if, as Richard Lewontin has written, ‘we know nothing more about genetic causes of difference in social status and power today than was known to Galton,’ then the history of biological engineering, and genetics, is merely an aspect of the history of class or race or ...”

“... John Bolton, the role of empire-minder has been taken over by Democrats and the anti-Trump media. (Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, accordingly averred that any withdrawal from Syria is as unthinkable as withdrawal from Germany or Japan would be. Having those permanent garrisons abroad ‘keeps countries from doing things you ...”

“... of sensibility, and she has a ruthless way with live plaice and lobsters. More oddly, she can read with entire approval a report (in January 1941) that Hitler has painlessly gassed some thousands of lunatics: an act of clemency which, to her surprise, her husband enthusiastically endorses. Little in the way of hard incident occurs. One day Nella Last ...”

“... hot-mouthing, hair-lifting, sexy, sexy fear that he only ever met at times like this’. Must I read this? ‘You must know everything,’ said the master storyteller Isaac Babel a few years before he disappeared into a Stalinist labour camp. A taboo on such material, whether self or socially imposed, would inflict its own kind of moral injury. For a start ...”

“... continent of Australia? Yet in the lists of Britain’s manufacturing exports you never read of Wednesfield’s specialised output, any more than you read of exports of leg-irons and thumbscrews (‘Hiatts of Birmingham are of course famous for their manufacture of handcuffs,’ we’re told). For every creature ...”

“... and Symbolist paintings, and even influenced Parisian fashions. In the illustrated 1927 edition I read in the 1960s, Mahlon Blaine’s Aubrey Beardsley-on-ecstasy drawings made Flaubert’s tale even more eidetic. Written in 1862, during the French colonisation of North Africa, Salammbô has been criticised by modern scholars as ‘a rollercoaster ride of ...”

“... wit, cerebral depth and a marvellous turn of phrase. But reductionism of this sort won’t do, as Richard Bourke shows in his erudite and compelling study of Burke’s political life. Burke’s earliest works, before his engagement to the Rockingham Whigs, were concerned with fundamental questions in political philosophy and aesthetics. The Tory ...”

“... hinted at in the text, has recently been trumpeted by the journalists Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh in The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, which is largely a popularisation of Robert Eisenman’s theories. Unsurprisingly, Baigent and Leigh contribute an effusive blurb to this book. Eisenman for his part has been putting himself forward as the ...”

“... Moral and Otherwise, was a brilliant discovery on Alison Lurie’s part, and makes one want to read the others – couldn’t they be reprinted? – as well as books in other genres by Lucy Lane Clifford, though one suspects they might not be so good. Hers are not the only rare and outstanding stories that Lurie has dug up: there are indeed many ...”

“... comes to find it difficult to write about Charles without moderation. Instead of thinking, like Dr Richard Cust, that revision has tended to throw out the baby with the bathwater, he thinks that there are large quantities of Whig bathwater still to be drained. Many of Dr Sharpe’s arguments will be engaged by historians for some time to come. He does not ...”

“... Baudelaire and Epictetus, seem thoroughly, unostentatiously appropriate. The man is widely read and witty on an impressive variety of topics. He is wise, charming, at ease with himself and with the world. Why shouldn’t he be? Shoe-horned into Grobel’s slightly breathless introduction and postscript, comments by friends and employees give glimpses ...”

“... medium employed he received the message: ‘This gentleman is a healer. Tell him from me not to read Leigh Hunt’s book.’ As the letter to Light is signed ‘A. Conan Doyle, MD’ it is conceivable that the medium knew in what sense Doyle was a ‘healer’. But the message itself Doyle declares ‘absolutely inexplicable on any hypothesis except that ...”

“... at the end of his Wars of the Roses tetralogy: while Henry VII may have been as murderous as Richard III, he was nothing like as charming. Francis Bacon was ready to praise Henry’s politic wisdom in the 1622 biography that was to frame perceptions of the king until late in the 20th century, but he could not disguise the price of Henry’s determination ...”

“... self-cultivation). But he wouldn’t count as philosophical at all for the likes of Ryle. Richard Bourke is a formidably talented political historian whose Empire and Revolution (2015) was a monumental study of his namesake and compatriot Edmund Burke. He has read widely and deeply in Hegel – not for some of us ...”

“... say, or Rachmaninov – inside a week, and remain a human being at the end of it, with time to read the paper, and sign a manifesto or two. Affronted conscience and intellect, as well as surfeited palate, affect the notes with which professional chefs trumpet a return to first principles. ‘Faites simple,’ said Escoffier as Edwardian richesse – the ...”