“... above all, association football. So it is not surprising that what are generally accepted as the major North American contributions to the high culture of our century are rooted in popular and – the US being what it is – commercial entertainment: films and the music shaped by jazz. There is a notable difference between Hollywood and Forty-Second ...”

“... responsibility of science. Watson returned from Cambridge to the US and became director of a major research institute. His gift for the outrageously dismissive mauvais mot has never left him: its most recent manifestation a feud with the then director of the National Institutes of Health, Bernadine Healy, which resulted in his abrupt departure from his ...”

“... of the Soviet system completed six months before Brezhnev’s death. There is one complete dud: John Hazard’s contribution on Soviet legal trends. A man who accepts as ‘fact’ the Soviet Supreme Court’s claim that criminality in the Soviet Union has diminished since 1940, and who gives his readers to understand that the Soviet authorities resort to ...”

“... voters don’t care for outright independence and, understandably enough in an era which has seen major financial, security and environmental threats, prefer to be part of a large and resilient unit, though one which respects Scottish sensitivities. Salmond is crafty enough to shift easily between the high-flown rhetoric of nationalism and the reassuring ...”

“... broadcast of Ted Koppel’s television show Nightline will be blocked by TV stations in several major cities because his plan to read out the names and show pictures of the American dead in Iraq is deemed by the Sinclair Broadcast Group to be unpatriotic and subversive. As if this were not enough, Terry Nichols, the convicted Oklahoma City bombing ...”

“... theory run through his Latin dramas on Biblical themes. In the first half of the 17th century most major English poets – Herbert, Milton, Marvell, Crashaw, Cowley – were bilingual in English and Latin, and the few who weren’t bilingual could jog out a few elegiacs for their friends. Something went horribly wrong with this tradition of writing. By the ...”

“... too early. A full-of-himself student in Nashville in the 1930s, he was taken up by Allen Tate and John Crowe Ransom, and most of his later academic appointments could be traced back to this connection. Not that Jarrell ever felt inclined to gratitude: another of his famous, and most joyous, thrusts as a reviewer was aimed at the vitals of his early Agrarian ...”

“... interminable number of serialised TV Westerns, such as The Lone Ranger and The Virginian, with the major advantage that aliens, unlike Native Americans, do not form any part of the television audience and are, therefore, universally inoffensive. Supporters could claim that this is a classic case of an art-form – science fiction on TV – which has made and ...”

“... fill in the background to Priestley’s career: an edition of his scientific correspondence, a major study of the natural philosophy of his period, even (in 1976) a stylish 18th-century chemistry lecture delivered in imitation of his hero. We are now offered the first half of a thorough biography, based on the sources which survived the destruction of ...”

“... the right – appear to regard Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and John Adams as the American equivalents of Plato, Aristotle, Cato and Brutus, while the wider culture acknowledges the near-superhuman qualities of the men of 1776. The founders in their periwigs, breeches and frockcoats hold a secure place in the popular ...”

“... to be looking for them, is that Stuart was looked after by a man who used to be part of my family: John Brock, who ran a drop-in centre in Cambridge as part of the Wintercomfort homeless charity. Stuart was one of the people who campaigned for John’s release after he was imprisoned, along with Wintercomfort’s ...”

“... aesthetic excellence in the way it depicts something, we must first perceive what it depicts. And John Hyman is interested in how depiction is even possible. This question has fascinated philosophers for a long time, but it can very quickly get a grip on any reflective person. However familiar we are with the business of linguistic communication, for ...”

“... Little War covers the whole intervention, including the Far East (where the Japanese were the major forces involved, followed by the Americans) and the Caucasus (where the British, worried about access to India, were keen to restrict Turkish as well as German activity). In practice, however, Reid’s subject is largely the British intervention in the ...”

“... him say: ‘The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never contemplated.’ I heard Major-General Charles Swannack promise that his troops were going to ‘use a sledgehammer to smash a walnut’. I heard the Pentagon spokesman say: ‘This is not going to be your father’s Persian Gulf War.’ I heard that Saddam’s strategy against the ...”

“... Eco gives his story a solid foundation in the politics and theology of the early 14th century. John XXII is Pope in Avignon. A decision of his predecessor had opened a division among the Franciscans by relaxing the original Rule in respect of poverty. The Spiritual Franciscans, who adhered to the letter of the Rule, were condemned by ...”