“... radical tradition, and often represents it effectively. Yet, however little many of its members may be affected by them, it cannot, by the very existence of its socialist label, entirely extricate itself from that colossal wrong turning in the intellectual history of Europe which is represented by the body of ideas associated with Karl Marx. Over the past ...”

“... story. The professor finally dies, agonisingly, of muscular dystrophy, Lou Gehrig’s disease. It may, or may not, bring the sisters together. The story is told, with studious off-handness, by the least-regarded member of the Schwarz family: Suzy, the younger, duller and constantly out-rivalled sibling. Even before birth ...”

“... are seriously short of military and political funding. Eritrea’s status as an Arab issue may well remain assured by its place on the map. The liberation movement itself may continue to elicit considerable interest from the Muslim states. But with Somalia impoverished, Sudan uneasy, Egypt making common cause with ...”

“... with an infant daughter. As Clarke plausibly surmises, on the night of her apparition she may well have been flying from some more predatory – or at least more brutally predatory – man. Wilkie evidently consoled her, seduced her and set her up with her little Harriet in lodgings. Meanwhile he continued living with his mother for a year or two ...”

“... abandoned, Science Fiction, what one might call psycho-supernatural tales in which what happens may or may not be the product of an overheated imagination. These tendencies in serious fiction seem to mirror the escapist tendencies in popular entertainment, so one of the tasks Parrinder sets himself is to find criteria ...”

“... was the best poem he wrote, and modern criticism is just beginning uneasily to wonder if he may not have been right. Scott had made his fortune out of poetry even before he began writing novels, and a Keats cast in Leigh Hunt’s mould might eventually have followed him, making a trinity with Mrs Radcliffe. For it was ‘Mother Radcliffe’ whom Keats ...”

“... argument and not to accept any particular substantive position. But this is vague and weak, and may well fail to distinguish the real philosophers from the ‘mere intellectuals’ who, according to Bloom, have been usurping their role. To avoid this difficulty, Bloom betrays his own philosophic principles. In the battle between reason and community, he ...”

“... This collection of essays is undeniably a book for academic inmates (if the race of lexicographers may be so described), with a content that only occasionally extends a broad appeal to the friendly layman. Its editor, the distinguished Dr Burchfield, describes it as being ‘Mainly concerned with large historical, period, or regional dictionaries, including ...”

“... so much as through contact with other people working in different fields. A breakthrough may depend on a scientist’s ‘accidental hearing from colleagues about facts in some quite different field outside his province and comparing the latter with the former’. On the level of individual perception, Davie reminds us, this principle is at the core ...”

“... safely. Asquith had no reason by then to abandon his usual generosity and forbearance. He may not have been the only prime minister to view the heir presumptive’s diminished eligibility without undue alarm. The greatest piece of luck lay deeper. The third Reform Act, like the first, betokened a change to a more urban and less deferential ...”

“... four senses, that of scent had not inspired any art, or aesthetic cultivation. (I think Stokes may have overlooked the use of the nose in wine-bibbing.) There is no educational encouragement to improve one’s keenness of smell, no professional applications; and its loss, as insurance policies confirm, is regarded as simply the removal of an unvalued ...”

“... of material, and much of it is worded in religious terms. Some part of this conscious emphasis may come from the fact that it is particularly in Dissent that their families are located, and Dissent was very much aware of being ‘different from them’ and even more intent on religious observance. God’s concern in every detail of human life was used to ...”

“... Those of us who have been victims of overbooking and who, like Maxwell, suspected sharp practice may be tempted to cheer. A few pages on, the temptation subsides as we find him in New York releasing a box of giant fleas (mysteriously obtained from a health institute) in the lift-shaft of a hotel which did not meet his standards and which then had to be ...”

“... the US Marine headquarters overnight on 22-23 October after attending a pop concert. These points may seem trivial, but inattention to detail has been one of the most salient and devastating features of US policy in the Middle East – as Mr Bradlee’s book makes clear. It was not really surprising that North and his colleagues in Washington sometimes seemed ...”

“... case. That the reader will unquestioningly believe what he is told, and, if told it enough times, may even carry on on Fuegi’s behalf, telling his friends, ‘That Brecht was a nasty piece of work, and he didn’t even write his own plays,’ assumes a rather naive view of reading. It also doesn’t allow for fairness, the English equivalent of ...”