“... professional psychologists or to rely on one’s own unchallenged assumptions. These assumptions may in fact prove generally adequate, yet in the case of the French Revolution the extraordinary passions released by the event do not seem wholly intelligible without more rigorous psychological analysis. What is one to make of the 22-year-old Saint-Just holding ...”

“... into shooting’, makes one very curious as to whether some of the film’s final portentousness may be the responsibility of Wenders rather than Shepard. Like William Carlos Williams, Shepard came and took a hard look at Europe, then turned his back on it. He remains resolutely a Redskin. His achievement has been to avoid the naivety and macho ...”

“... also rather astonishing to read that ‘the Hagana had no policy of driving out Arabs’ before 15 May, since the northern commander of the Hagana, General Allon, has described how, before that date, he ‘cleaned’ the Galilee of ‘tens of thousands of sulky Arabs’. The book has been carefully crafted to avoid charges of bias, and its supporters will ...”

“... there with unparalleled richness and range of illustration. You see every human type, and may eavesdrop on some of the most deeply emotional moments in people’s lives: separations and reunions of spouses and sweethearts, soldiers off to fight in distant wars, families off to start a new life in the Dominions, honeymoon couples off to ... whatever ...”

“... I would not have believed you.’ Since X. is younger, and stronger, than the chambermaid, one may hope that he, rather than she, represents Poland’s ...”

“... Birkenhead’s rise seems less attractive, and his decline more pathetic, than ever before. He may have been the architect of his own advance, but he was also smith of his own misfortune. Like Lord Campbell’s earlier Lord Chancellors, there was ‘a sort of romance’ about him. But it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Lord Birkenhead’s ...”

“... of leading readers into a sentimental mood, the opening trap-doors beneath them. Literary critics may challenge some of Craig’s readings, indeed the way he reads, making relatively straightforward links backwards and forwards between life and art Historians, while recognising his erudition and individual insights, will question some of his broad ...”

“... state is treating stupidity not as an evil but as a valuable commodity, the production of which may be encouraged in order to increase revenue, as though stupidity were a good in its own right. There is no attempt here, as there is in the case of cigarettes, to balance the amount of money raised against the merits of the behaviour which allows the money to ...”

“... Europe needs that form of interconnectedness which rests on genuine connections. Hobbes may have been wrong about a lot of things, including the incompatibility of sovereignty and federal government, but he was right when he said that the union of a multitude requires nothing more than that they should be represented as though one. What Swedes and ...”

“... tomorrow.’ The underlying profundity of this remark is a reminder that, while Shaw’s ideas may have begun as jokes, they didn’t end there. In his Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism, Shaw advocated wages for housework, a slogan which (along with Black Power) was to express a political truth in utopian form more than forty years later. The ...”

“... free lee-gal ad-vice-ah’. Who is the joke on here? Who cares? Sit back and enjoy the ride. It may be that the reason all this works is that Dylan is Dylan, and simply hearing him do something as mundane as spinning a few records and reading out a couple of emails exerts its own magnetic pull. But radio can make the most interesting people sound boring if ...”

“... described Albania as an ‘oriental’ country where ‘a certain amount of financial wisdom may have to be instilled by means of a revolver.’ By this time, the gun had mostly yielded to the pen – preferably wielded by a former colonial administrator. Nixon was impressed by one candidate for a job at the League who had ‘experience governing rather ...”

“... those of Dutch 17th-century genre painting and of French 18th-century painting in general – may come as something of a shock to those members of the public who do not keep their ears uncomfortably close to the ground. There have been hints, of course – but Philip Conisbee’s book is in fact the first to bring to a wide public the new interpretation ...”

“... research grants and capital funding and can affect share prices. An adequately supported project may fail, but an overlooked one will not succeed. According to the Thomas Theorem popularised by Robert Merton: ‘If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.’ David Edgerton’s The Shock of the ...”

“... net zero carbon emissions by 2050 was added to the Climate Change Act. This move, made by Theresa May shortly before she resigned as prime minister, was strongly supported by the Conservative Environment Network, whose members now include half the MPs on the Tory back benches. But since COP26, loud complaints have been coming from a small group of Tory MPs ...”