“... always keen, and is often passed on to the second generation.’ But he is also conscious that he may himself embody a sweeping moment in history. He draws on Eric Hobsbawm, who recognised that this change – ‘the death of the peasantry’ – is ‘perhaps the most fundamental one the contemporary modern world has seen’. Joyce thinks of himself as a ...”

“... a pledge in the Tory Party manifesto to hold an in-out referendum on membership of the EU. But he may have done so in the belief that it wouldn’t be needed because he was unlikely to win an overall majority and the commitment could be bargained away in another coalition deal with the Lib Dems. When he did win a majority he was caught. General elections are ...”

“... corps of like-minded Vietnamese, one a history teacher fascinated by Napoleon, Vo Nguyen Giap. In May 1941 at Chingshi in South China they founded the League for the Independence of Vietnam, Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh, or for short, Vietminh. (Vietcong, ‘Vietnamese Communist’, was a dismissive label invented in Saigon that the VC themselves never ...”

“... for his cunning polemic Forms of Attention (1985) was already all about canons: nevertheless we may regard this as the fourth, which is to say the current, stage in his development. His project in History and Value was at first sight a very promising one. He would have another look at the writers, those of the Thirties, who were producing during his own ...”

“... At the start, Thompson states explicitly that he will not deal with motivation. But motivation may be the key to understanding what distinguishes this emigrant cohort from the great majority of their compatriots who resisted the uprooting forces and stayed home, and it may suggest dynamic elements that cannot be found in ...”

“... routines derive partly from traditions of learned wit that are as old as learning, and may also be seen as self-conscious adaptations, in a narrowed context, of the ancient ideal of the learned poet: an ideal shrunk to classroom dimensions but not yet appropriated by the classroom itself, attracting residual celebration in lowered terms, insistent ...”

“... the international community took action: the refugee crisis was to cost it billions in aid. On 9 May 1994, a month into the genocide, the House of Commons was told by Mark Lennox-Boyd, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, that in Rwanda 200,000 people ‘may have perished in a horrific and tragic ...”

“... while assaulting the wandering eye and disrupting the balance of the room. Harmony and balance may suggest tranquillity, yet the spatial character of the rococo interior is often vertiginously exciting, the ornament enticing as well as diverting. In one of the smaller rooms at Stupinigi is the soffitto a ghiacci e finte porcellane, a ceiling covered with ...”

“... the registration of voters to the swearing in of the elected President (due to take place on 29 May) – suggests that the generals know Nigerians are weary of them, and that their best chance of clinging to power is by changing their attire before anyone notices. In the words of Chief Olu Falae, the Opposition Presidential candidate, who was destined to ...”

“... independence of a nation. Evidence scattered through these pages raises the possibility that Mboya may have been the victim of rivalries within his fraternity – though one probably should not read too much into the fact that Odinga was the instigator of arrangements under which Kenyan soldiers were trained in Bulgaria. Kyle reported from Nairobi for BBC ...”

“... through them,’ her father replies. ‘A history of wrong. Think of it that way, if it helps. It may have seemed personal, but it wasn’t.’ Lucy decides not to press charges, believing that this rape, in the South African context, is not ‘a public matter’. In the face of irresistible historical change – the collapse of a corrupt order – the claims ...”

“... reissued,* in which the author warns that colonial policing operations ‘assume an aspect which may shock the humanitarian’.) Yet there is a reality behind Ignatieff’s cri de coeur. Today, expectations are higher. Previous generations of ICRC delegates were content if they could make a modest contribution to mitigating the inhumanity of war. Modern ...”

“... 19s 6d, but he reckoned it a good day’s work for East Hoathly. The clear profit to the parish may have been less than it looks. Parkes and Vinal had already begun proceedings to marry, and in fact on 23 October had the banns called a second time, when a woman in the congregation forbade them. The poor girl, whose name was Anne Stevenson, declared that ...”

“... example – which would break once and for all with the hegemonic discourse of ‘English’. One may doubt whether theorising can have an end in the way that Eagleton hopefully envisages. As philosophy continues to be vexed by old problems – despite all Wittgenstein’s efforts to let the fly out of the bottle – so criticism seems unable to effect that ...”

“... he knew well. There is acute literary criticism scattered about in his own books, some of which may be quoted. For instance, on James Joyce in The Dog at Clambercrown, which opens with Brooke reading Ulysses in the plane on the way to a holiday in Sicily: Ulysses, I suppose, is the most fascinating and the most devastatingly boring novel ever written ... I ...”