“... the West, finally joining the EU in 2004. Now, almost a decade on, it is led by the charismatic, self-declared ‘right-wing plebeian’ Viktor Orbán, a man whom critics charge with the ‘Putinisation’ of Hungary. Thanks to his government’s undermining of the rule of law, Hungary risks being the first EU member state to be sanctioned for violating ...”

“... declared shortly after his death, ‘that rectitude of intention was alone a sufficient reason for self-confidence; and therefore feared nothing because he meant well.’ ‘I retain all the ignorance and [remain] under all the prejudice which influenced me,’ was his own proud response to the recommendations of a committee that urged him to end the ...”

“... unadorned Word, while Catholics such as Thomas More (as Seth Lerer shows in Error and the Academic Self) regarded Protestant texts as assemblages of error. For Grafton, correctors stand for ‘something like a new culture’, which pursued regularisation and ‘textual precision’: they were ‘a new social type’, informed by the medieval scriptorium but ...”

“... settlements lining the Pacific coast north of Tokyo, traditions of village or neighbourhood self-government, stretching back to a time when the feudal authorities extracted taxes collectively, are still reflected in local solidarity, particularly among older residents. Neighbourhoods in Japanese cities were once organised similarly. One can find the ...”

“... up their Chinese off-road vehicles, their Mercedovs or mobilovs, their drugs or delicacies. This self-serving attitude is wedded to an utter contempt for their own people, who appear in Komiaga’s narrative as simple, dumb peasants – subservient but also stubborn, inconveniently prone to resent their rulers. We get only indirect indications of this from ...”

“... unwashed ashtray. The phone was still high up on the wall by the front door. I saw my 23-year-old self talking to Italo Calvino. I was wearing navy blue wool trousers and a white shirt. ‘Yes. I think an interview will be all right,’ Calvino was saying. ‘What is the best time for you?’ ‘Around five o’clock?’ ‘Good. We can meet at the Caffè ...”

“... with an independent kingdom of Scotland threatened to undermine England’s sovereign sense of self. Constitutionally, the Anglo-Scottish connection was of a markedly different character from either the Anglo-Welsh or even the Anglo-Irish relationship. Seventeenth-century Englishmen, indebted to a unitary conception of the state, could not find a way to ...”

“... the moment, see how it goes, maybe I’ll feel different one day …’ This sort of self-persuasion also released a horde of disgusted Scottish Lib Dems into the SNP park. Talking to some of them in Edinburgh and Glasgow, I saw that this was often their second migration. Once they had been refugees from Blairism and New Labour. Now they were in ...”

“... described him as ‘a man of strong will, a very hard worker, an exceptional organiser and a self-proclaimed friend of the Soviet Union’, even if he was also ‘cunning, deceitful and ruthlessly repressive’. But the KGB was equally clear that Amin had to go. In their view he wasn’t capable of creating a popular coalition that could resist the ...”

“... Africa, seemed to have returned. This is striking, since la Françafrique has been the object of self-critical pillorying for at least a decade in France and the French were the great detractors of the ‘war on terror’. So, after all the recriminations, are the French still neocolonial? Or have they finally rallied to the idea that waging war on ...”

“... was a buried current running through that telegraphic style, a style that never stopped for self-examination, didn’t bother to search for le mot juste, nor to make sure that the language was neat and tidy.’ The style was born in the al-Wahat prison camp in Egypt’s western desert, where thousands of political prisoners, Marxist and Islamist, were ...”

“... from other oil companies, Coll writes, ‘tended to regard their Exxon cousins as ruthless, self-isolating and inscrutable, but also as priggish Presbyterian deacons who proselytised the Sunday school creed Rockefeller had lived by: “We don’t smoke; we don’t chew; we don’t hang with those who do.”’ One executive, Coll writes, was startled to ...”

“... bit-part who doesn’t know when he should leave the stage. While he is subject to fantasies of self-betterment, he’s also a disquieting parody of those fantasies – and a reminder of what they might cost. In Sketches by Boz, ‘progress’ is used in a Hogarthian, not a Victorian sense: ‘one of our principal amusements is to watch the gradual progress ...”

“... have surrendered. Those who are under thirty, and less persistent than Snowden in their efforts of self-education, can hardly remember a time when things were different. The year 2008 brought a remission for Snowden, because the Obama campaign promised a turn away from the national security state and the surveillance regime. He cherished the warmest hopes for ...”

“... which Shapiro shares a few kisses and a grope with a woman he met on the plane, then cringes with self-loathing as a Hasid walks past him: ‘I realised … that without earlocks and a ritual garment one cannot be a real Jew … Had I worn such an outfit that night I wouldn’t have been exposed to those temptations.’ Lasdun didn’t return to the faith of ...”