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“... on a war they could not finish, or the recklessness of those who opposed a war they lacked the means to prevent. Blair’s political career has been marked by a determination to avoid all such risks. One of the ironies of Suez, and one of the contrasts it offers with Iraq, is that the risks taken were out of character for many of the leading players. The ...”

“... History of Australia, the indispensable one-volume condensation of his magnum opus, is a by no means atypical sentence: ‘The choir sang a Te Deum, which because of the terrible heat wafted fitfully around the arena; the flag of the new commonwealth was hoisted, and the artillery thundered and cheer after cheer ran around the great arena.’ You don’t ...”

“... lets drop the phrase ‘cryptogamic malady’, explaining to her friend that ‘cryptogamia’ means ‘concealed wedlock’. (The reader, of course, quietly makes the application to Florence and Emily themselves.) As for ‘Hermitage’, the name of a Rhône wine, this is a little joke of Florence and Emily’s own: they tell themselves that the chateau ...”

“... wife is suffering a nervous breakdown, nor why he receives messages from well-wishers like ‘the David and Jonathan Society, a newly-formed group of young, caring, Jewish faggots’. Joshua’s mother runs a massage parlour called Oral is Beautiful in Winnipeg which offers bilingual services. This is hardly enlightening. As baffling is the police interest in ...”

“... settle for being remembered for what was said to them as opposed to what they said themselves. David Livingstone went through hell before arriving at Lake Tanganyika in October 1871, but his stories about that journey would never enter the language the way Stanley’s would, when he caught up with him at Ujiji. Fourteen years earlier Livingstone had given ...”

“... poets, or on general topics related to allusion: there are pieces on A.E. Housman, Yvor Winters, David Ferry, plagiarism, metaphor and ‘Loneliness and Poetry’. Ricks has a fine ear, as he knows, and is happiest when demonstrating the unique resources and powers of poetry. His method is essentially evaluative, and it depends on precise ...”

“... of the church, the rise of intolerance, the spirit of the Crusades – blame it on Constantine. David Potter punctures this inflated image. This doesn’t mean he cuts Constantine down to size: far from it. Potter has done something far more difficult. He has examined, with gusto and an unrivalled mastery of detail, the aspects of Constantine neglected by ...”

“... at MoMA again (until 14 May). At the time the show opened, Rivera was acknowledged, along with David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco, as a leader of Mexican muralism, which was supported by the new government of Alvaro Obregón as a way to promote a transformed sense of Mexican identity through public art. This new identity would yoke an ...”

“... Park Honan has done one of the two already, and now has done the other. Coming shortly after David Riggs’s solid, even too-solid The World of Christopher Marlowe, his Christopher Marlowe: Poet and Spy feels a little lightweight. He is probably right to say that he has a better story about Marlowe’s origins in Canterbury and his doings at Corpus in ...”

“... of the Movements for European Unity. Its star was Winston Churchill, out of office but by no means out of ideas or charisma, and now renewing his old attachment to the idea of a federal Europe. In particular Duranti credits Churchill with having ‘removed the tarnish of Axis propaganda from European integration’. The European Movement’s director of ...”

“... and political platform for Labour, has been elaborated with the help of Tony Blair’s adviser, David Miliband, and sees Blair’s election as leader as an epochal event, finally settling Labour’s commitment to social democracy. All of which sounds very much as if Hutton hopes to become a key adviser in a future Blair administration, though the Tories may ...”

“... in the best manner of spy novels; and is very well served by his translator, the veteran David Floyd. This is the fourth volume he has distilled from his experience and he is about to produce a fifth, on the Spetsnaz – against whom Britain’s expensive ‘Brave Defender’ exercise was directed earlier this year. Having completed his five-year GRU ...”

“... of a bedside table defaced by cigarette burns. This fantasy has some bearing on the task facing David Sylvester in writing this marvellous book. He has discovered a room behind the wardrobe. In 1912, Magritte, 13 at the time, lost his mother who, after several unsuccessful attempts at suicide, managed to drown herself. According to Magritte’s ...”

“... world, a shift that began around 1990.* But the expansion of higher education over the same period means that these are also – for the time being – parties of the young. In any case, it is a bold move on the part of reactionary commentators to interpret data showing a correlation between education and left liberalism as an indictment of universities and ...”

“... a gripping indictment of British culture in the first half of the 20th century’. If Britain here means England, I fall in reluctantly with the Telegraph’s verdict. Picasso’s was a uniquely difficult achievement to respond to, and many artists, in all parts of the globe, wished he hadn’t been there. There is a famous story of Lee Krasner hearing a book ...”