“... assassinates your marja in the middle of the bazaar, or crushes him underfoot, the Iranian police may not arrest him,’ he thundered. But ‘if someone runs over a dog belonging to an American, he will be prosecuted.’ A week later, Khomeini was expelled to Turkey. A year after that, he moved to a seminary in Najaf, in Iraq. There he set up a network of ...”

“... long-term bet, but traders don’t do it because of the fear that in the short run its price may increase even further, causing a mark-to-market loss. Although it would be a paper loss, it would have real consequences, damaging your bank’s balance sheet and profits, threatening your bonus, and typically forcing you to transfer valuable collateral to ...”

“... inside the criminal justice system: in prison, on parole or on probation. Half the population may be in the market but half is out and, if Fraser is correct, worse off than ever. I recently heard Mudcat Saunders, a hot Democratic consultant who dresses like a cowboy, put the familiar issue of right-wing populism this way: ‘It is just not acceptable for ...”

“... for independent realities. But Hegel realised that Kant’s analogy was not perfect. Cosmologists may be able to discount their earthly existence and envisage the solar system from the point of view of a sun with themselves circling round it on the surface of a spinning planet; but a philosopher could never lay aside the fundamental forms of human experience ...”

“... New York Beauty will be delirious or will not be. Luckily, we have the example of Koolhaas, who may be the most gifted architect-polemicist since Le Corbusier; like Corb he possesses panache in both design and writing, and media charisma, too. Born in Holland in 1944, Koolhaas first worked as a journalist and screenwriter in Amsterdam, and his approach to ...”

“... is in part a matter of status, status that is often marked by more than just the new title. A room may be decorated with images of the Holy Cities, the Grand Mosque and other mementos. Large coloured designs of the Grand Mosque with the pilgrims’ names below may adorn a wall. Houses are hung with lights on the pilgrim’s ...”

“... it was just and necessary; and if they were wrong, who’s to blame? A conscientious reader may want to go to a number of other books to check out Littell’s account of events, personalities and organisations. The best is the old classic Anatomy of the SS State (1968), written by four members of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich after they had ...”

“... out of monetary policy. The thinking was that while politicians, policy fads and whole governments may come and go, investors and currency traders can rest assured that over the long term interest rates will be set according to unbending institutional rules. Bernanke argued the case for inflation-targeting by the Federal Reserve for many years, and eventually ...”

“... shale production and with rapid advances in fuel-cell technology in the offing, oil revenues may never again cover state expenditure. The kingdom has no choice but to diversify its economy. Young Saudis, who constitute the majority, have been particularly enthusiastic about Mohammad’s transformation of an ultra-conservative sheikhdom into a ...”

“... Responsible access is a modest demand, but the forces of landed resistance are formidable. In May, the shadow environment minister, Alex Sobel, pledged to introduce a right to roam in England, only to U-turn in October after pressure from rural landowners. It isn’t easy to redefine the terms of private property in the country that pioneered ...”

“... as ‘think’, ‘deem’, ‘reck’, ‘imagine’, ‘remember’ and ‘forget’. Actions may be straightforward, but the mental torture that produces them – and which they produce – isn’t. ‘The rest thou dost already know,’ the hero of The Giaour tells the friar who shrives him at the end of the story, ‘all my sins, and half my ...”

“... which also features an eloquent Black pastor, on account of its condemnation of lynching. Sturges may have got lucky. When White left the country to take up a post as a foreign correspondent, the role of chief Hollywood inquisitor was assumed by the more combative Julia Elizabeth Baxter. Ellen Scott’s researches in the NAACP archive have revealed that ...”

“... more than gain in the habit of generously watching others; and the capacity to enjoy Shakespeare may balance a lost aptitude for playing at soldiers. Terror is gone out of our lives, moreover; we no longer see the devil in the bed-curtains nor lie awake to listen to the wind.’While he was at Edinburgh Academy, Stevenson is said to have fought a duel with ...”

“... itself is never so transparent that its analysis becomes superfluous. The ultimate mark of power may be its invisibility; the ultimate challenge, the exposition of its roots.’ University administrations boast of diversity, equity and inclusion, while behind the scenes they hold tightly to power, continuing to privilege the Eurocentric, settler colonial ...”

“... clatter, see its lights glimmering on the rails. As the carriages rumble loudly towards you, you may find yourself visited with an urge – common to the Tube and high places – which inverts the desire to step back and be safe into an imagined jump forward into the void. You see how the Tube came to supply modern images of hell. Eliot begins the third part ...”