“... Recent discussion of the Soviet collapse, even when not echoing the shallow triumphalism of Western conservatives and neo-liberals, has interpreted that collapse as an episode in the global spread of civil society – defined by Ernest Gellner as ‘that set of diverse non-governmental institutions which is strong enough to counterbalance the state and, while not preventing the state from fulfilling its role of keeper of the peace and arbitrator among major interests, can nevertheless prevent it from dominating and atomising the rest of society ...”

“... Government dealings with the country’s agencies for culture and higher learning used to be determined by the arm’s-length principle. That is to say, much like an 18th-century patron, the ministry would give the Arts Council or the University Grants Committee a large sum of money, trusting that they would apply it to Britain’s best advantage. Better poetry and better education would happen ...”

“... Of the various words which Gorbachev has used to describe his reforms, there can be no doubt which has had the most impact. Though perestroika (‘reconstruction’) conveys the intended transformation of the system, it is a vague concept to which all subscribe in theory but whose practical implications few understand. Economic akseleratsiya and political demokratizatsiya remain worthy but as yet unrealised goals ...”

“... Few creative artists have moved forward on as broad a front as Verdi has in the past half-century. Just before the Second World War he remained, for the public at large, the composer of three or four indestructibly popular operas; for highbrows, the late-maturing author of Otello and Falstaff. There had been, since the late Twenties, a Verdi ‘renaissance’, limited in scope and audience ...”

“... There is a hint of Thatcherism about this New History, with its queer fondness for dates. For Number Ten it was, wearing her metahistorian’s hat, who recently ordered dates back into the curriculum, as the sine qua non of history. But surely not of literary history, which is parsimonious over dates, save where it measures out for us the life-spans of authors ...”

“... Observers of Soviet politics in recent months might be forgiven for having a sense of déjà vu. The summer began with the first sessions of the Congress of People’s Deputies and the Supreme Soviet, whose open controversy and criticism of all aspects of Soviet life continued where the 19th Party Conference of June 1988 had left off. Then followed an uneasy month while Mikhail Gorbachev took his annual vacation ...”

“... Scientists would sometimes like us to believe that science is just too difficult for the comprehension of ordinary mortals. Given the increasing diversity of specialities, moreover, there is no chance for anyone, scientist or otherwise, to understand more than fragments of it. Only committees of complementary experts, it would appear, will be able to make intelligent decisions when scientific advances raise questions of science’s answerability to society ...”

“... This is the story of the Soviet Union’s most famous informer, one of the great hero-monsters of the century, and of the pressures which made it possible for a young boy in the North Urals to denounce his father to the secret services and to become an icon for doing so. Crucially, too, it is the story of the dramatic transition in the early Thirties from the relatively relaxed period of the New Economic Policy to the strenuous years of the Five-Year Plan ...”

“... There is no good news about Aids. With a total of 85,000 cases reported at the beginning of this year the World Health Organisation estimate of the true figure is nearer 150,000. Their global estimate for HIV infection is between five and ten million. Most HIV-positive individuals have no symptons and don’t know they are infected: but the majority of them – possibly all of them – will eventually develop Aids and die; in the meantime, of course, they may infect anyone they have sex with and any children they bear ...”

“... Cynthia Ozick’s critical writing everywhere expresses a ferocious distaste for the purely aesthetic. The central idea in Art and Ardour, her collection of critical essays, concerns the conflict between the aesthetic and the moral views of literature and of life. She tells the story of a friend’s child coming across a statue of an Egyptian cat deity in a museum ...”

“... The albatross which features in ‘The Ancient Mariner’ isn’t really an albatross – that’s to say it isn’t the albatross you first think of, the Great Wandering Albatross. It’s either the Sooty Albatross or the Black-Browed Albatross (both of which are much smaller and easier to hang round your neck if you feel guilty about having killed one ...”

“... For anybody interested in the history of the modern Russian theatre, particularly its visual aspects, the publication of Dr Rudnitsky’s handsomely illustrated book is an event. Based at the Moscow Research Institute for Art History, the writer is an established authority who has already published two books on Meyerhold in the USSR, and was enterprisingly commissioned by Thames and Hudson to write the present work for English-language readers ...”

“... Renato Serra, who died heroicaly in action on the Isonzo front in August 1915, wrote in his diary a week before that ‘war becomes like life itself. It’s all there is: not a passion any more nor a hope. Like life, rather sad and resigned, it wears a tired face, seamed and worn, similar to our own.’ All over Europe young men were finding out much the same thing, but this scholar and essayist, the friend and colleague of Benedetto Croce, put the matter unusually well ...”

“... In the 1840s, according to Theodore Hoppen’s densely-packed and illuminating study of Irish political realities, ‘bored’ British ministers ‘grappled with the tedious but mildly pressing problems of the Irish electorate’. Douglas Hurd may not yet be bored, but he would have difficulty in bettering the description of the problems he is facing ...”

“... Sartre had a passive, self-centred war, well-suited to his deeply civilian temper, with no heroics and a great deal of free time. He was mobilised in September 1939, served in the East of France until he was captured in the collapse of June 1940, spent nine months as a prisoner of war, then sat out the Occupation in Paris. No matter where he was, he wrote, abundantly – in the field, in the prison-camp and in occupied Paris ...”