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“... about its deliberate obscurity. It is the equivalent of shutting a door in its reader’s face. As Richard Sewall, her biographer, noted, ‘She enjoyed riddles, apparently enjoyed being one.’ But was she a riddle that wanted to be solved? Did she want readerly guests? Helen Vendler’s Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries and Lyndall Gordon’s Lives ...”

“... is said that some animals have a better claim to be cared for than a severely retarded child? It may be argued that it is not of practical importance that these ‘practical’ philosophers say these things, so long as other people keep a modicum of good sense. But it is rash to count on that through all political and social upheavals, and the many ...”

“... a society which, on a racial basis, promotes certain groups over others. People who feel this way may have the intuition that barring race as a factor in assessment is a simple, effective way of avoiding an illicit racial hierarchy. A third tendency – the one that issues in affirmative action – is to believe that race must be taken into account to assist ...”

“... and the Attlee Government, lost their places on the National Executive to Harold Wilson and Richard Crossman, the candidates of the Left. Dalton sulked, but Morrison made a shrewd and emollient speech against self-gratifying Conference resolutions which failed to impress working-class voters. Crossman himself was booed for confessing his intention to ...”

“... have been perfectly at home in the introduction to a student edition thirty years ago. It may be that the task he sets himself – that of taking proper cognisance of reception aesthetics, current bibliography and the more convincing variants of post-structuralism, while nonetheless producing cheerfully definitive thematic readings – is simply ...”

“... and as a theologian to evade it. Interrogated in the Tower in Cromwell’s presence in early May 1535, he was asked – according to the indictment – whether he accepted that Henry was now the earthly head of the English church, and replied: ‘I will not meddle with any such matters.’ A letter More wrote to his favourite daughter, Margaret ...”

“... to adultery. Since we are not told much about Othello and Desdemona’s sex-life, the connection may seem gratuitous. Greenblatt linked the two by interpreting a phrase of Iago’s, when he is describing his plot to entrap Othello, to mean that he will appeal to a guilt in Othello about the excess of his erotic feelings for his wife: ‘that he is too ...”

“... with the Pakistan government. The government denies this. Army officers admit that the strikes may have killed scores of al-Qaida fighters, and that the ISI may have supplied intelligence for the operations, but the missiles have also killed civilians, including pro-government tribal elders. The Pakistan army believes ...”

“... and a reader who wants detailed accounts of Ptolemy’s Syntaxis or Epictetus’s Manual may find them elsewhere. Not, however, in the Cambridge History. And here a critic may find room to carp. In at least two respects the book is conservative. Literary scholars prefer poetry to prose, and they prefer the ...”

“... on the Austrian resistance; but he has done little else. Another account of the controversy – Richard Evans’s In Hitler’s Shadow – is better informed, and more perceptive. Professor Evans shows in abundantly documented detail how the arguments the embattled historians are advancing ‘are derived, consciously or unconsciously, from the propaganda of ...”

“... as a model for development. It is as if she believes that, whereas our own pursuit of growth may have had unfortunate environmental consequences, it has broadly achieved what was expected of it, and whatever social problems Western societies may have come from other causes. It is difficult to see what supports this ...”

“... schooldays, of how his ‘Gaelic goofiness’ was redeemed by the insights of the Jewish outsider, Richard Alpert, later known as Ram Dass, guru. Leary spent a lot of time getting himself expelled from institutions, and forcing himself into exile, or, as an alternative, turning into a Hollywood prophet for psychedelic drugs. (The other exponent of the virtues ...”

“... GPA and Jewish antecedents. Some sperm firms offer discounts for the holiday season (‘Though it may not be the most traditional gift …’), and put up money-shots of their ‘donor of the month’ online. At the other end of the life cycle, as Sandel tells us, ‘viatical’ firms in the US take on unwanted life insurance policies en bloc from seniors in ...”

“... church. A mile or so beyond looms a larger sight that Rodinsky was spared: the 52 floors of Richard Seifert’s Natwest Tower, double-decker lifts, automatic window-washing facilities and all. Here again was the characteristic frisson of the zone of transition, where different worlds rub up against one another, languages intersect on every corner and ...”

“... minds in their writers, as do troubled families or systems of belief: but while being so troubled may be a powerful incitement to literary production, it may equally get in the way of real achievement. Writers can find themselves facing a dilemma, a choice between fidelity to their own passionate confusions and the possibly ...”