“... the most devastating attack on Haig’s reputation since the publication of Lloyd George’s self-serving memoirs in the Thirties. Much of it, admittedly, is old hat. Haig’s failure to pass his exams, his use of intrigue to gain promotion, his conveniently influential marriage all are dragged out again. To these Mr Winter adds the suggestion that, in ...”

“... of tea and immersing myself in hot water? I assess my resources, and in the spirit of pioneering self-sufficiency (pre-desert island practice) put three large saucepans of water to boil on the gas stove. I shall have my bath and cup of tea – and go to the ball, too, if I want! But ten minutes later the electricity clicks and hums all the machines back into ...”

“... an economy in need of structural reform, Egypt is saddled with leaders committed to nothing but self-preservation. Hussein Ahmed Amin, who was Egypt’s Ambassador in Algiers until 1990 feels that there are clear parallels with the Algerian experience. ‘The present Mubarak regime is tottering,’ he says. ‘They talk of crushing the militants, but as ...”

“... the proposition ‘that no one has a monopoly on truth,’ there is perhaps something innately self-defeating about this structure, which effectively mounts its defence of stereotype-free pluralism by categorising and burning large numbers of heretics. But some such contradiction is probably inevitable given Vickers’s extraordinary level of confidence in ...”

“... drew on Greek myth for his interpretations. After brooding about the beleaguered tragic self, it is a relief to turn to a book that considers one of the ancient Greeks’ most attractive concepts, charis, the grace or pleasure that results from mutual exchange. Bonnie MacLachlan shows, with a light touch appropriate to her subject, that the term can ...”

“... in one letter. ‘Hope not.’ It is only when his friend inadvertently strikes on this fugitive self-doubt, that Tynan rises to convincing nastiness: ‘You have never been to Oxford and as far as I know, you have no close acquaintance amongst Oxford men,’ he tells Holland, after Holland has dared to comment adversely on Tynan’s criticism of Romeo and ...”

“... asks the shopkeepers for credit. Gert observes his elders with a child’s ice-clear, entirely self-centred accuracy. His grandfather, only just over sixty, can’t imagine dying; Gert can imagine his dying quite easily. He wears an artist’s hat – a black trilby, we’re in the mid-Twenties – and a broad gold wedding-ring which from time to time ...”

“... hostel in a murderous conflagration. Old arrangements are cancelled, but at great cost. Karina, self-sufficient, scornful and patronised throughout her life, turns out to be fertile and merciless in unsuspected ways, with energies previously hidden from observation. She remains, to the end, an inscrutable figure – a monstrously cruel victim of her ...”

“... resistance, he was ideally placed to observe, both in the field and at headquarters, the growing self-confidence of the Partisans, the increasing tension between them and their Western allies, and their growing reluctance to take part in any operations that were not specifically intended both to increase their grip on liberated territory and to extend the ...”

“... dump sites operated on behalf of the municipality by a contractor. The scavengers on the dumps are self-employed sub-contractors who sell recyclable materials to the contractor. Nice technical language. The dump, when we reach it, fills the horizon, acres of it, fifty metres or so high, a mountainous smoking badlands with a sheer cliff-edge looming above the ...”

“... In novelist’s terms, did she do right or wrong? Daisy is described as summoning up her ‘stone self’ so that even her brain becomes transparent – ‘you can hold it up to the window and the light shines through. Empty, though, there’s the catch.’ She is shown as breathing her own death and contriving it, taking charge of it, in fact, as though in ...”

“... in fish factories, depriving many Inuit of their livelihoods, and more of their independence and self-respect. By the end of the Seventies, the suicide rate in Greenland had become the highest in the world, and the homicide rate was comparable to that in a war zone. Miss Smilla is a remorseless, unforgettable indictment of this colonial history. In this way ...”

“... their napkins. Usvatov is not a hypocrite, indeed he hardly has the strength for it, but he is self-deceiving almost beyond redemption. He is supposed to be a playwright, although his plays are written for him by an obsequious young colleague, always on tap, and when a distinguished old horror of a guest toasts his ‘creativity’ he even manages a few ...”

“... mosque, and they only half-believed it. If you are in Britain, Islam appears an inward-looking and self-protective faith, but when you are in the East it appears vital, active and proselytising. Not long ago, the same could be said of Christianity. Unless we are prepared to think about our own history, enter into it a little, we cannot know what the Muslim ...”

“... saying that aid is patronising and useless. He insists that it is harmful, both to Third World self-sufficiency and to the environment. I have little doubt that many of those who have worked in Africa, inside and outside the aid business, will find themselves nodding sadly but vigorously in agreement. It is not just the old story of a benevolent concept ...”