“... been one of my favourite subjects.’ In general, of course, there is nothing wrong in that. It may even be admirable. But when writing a book in which political events are inevitably one of the most important features it has its disadvantages. For instance, he writes of ‘Little Clem’ Attlee. Attlee was small in stature but in nothing else. He was ...”

“... Gold (the first of a three-volume study to be entitled Bolshevism and the British Left), which may also be read with profit by those interested in current debates about the funding of the Labour Party. In some respects the British CP, whose claim to historic significance is modest, was similar to other CPs. Its members were overwhelmingly drawn from the ...”

“... take any part, precisely because I did not wish to give myself the opportunity of displaying what may look like and perhaps is ungenerosity and bad temper.’ The nub of Schumpeter’s criticism, as he wrote in his review of the book, was that in the General Theory Keynes ‘pleads for a definite policy, and on every page the ghost of that policy looks over ...”

“... murdered, but that is not my view.The trial of these prisoners on murder charges had begun on 21 May 1975, in a fortified courtroom built for the occasion and further protected by a barbed-wire fence, a detachment of mounted police on constant patrol and canted steel-netting installed above the roof, as a defence against a possible rocket attack. Everyone ...”

“... now prefers to think of an ethnographic documentary as a site at which different views of reality may be revealed and explored, allowing viewers to formulate their own interpretations. This idea of documentary entails the acceptance of a degree of ambiguity that is at odds with an anthropology aimed at demonstrating the coherence of other cultures through ...”

“... residents, in common with Palestinians in the rest of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, may neither leave their town nor return to it without written permission from the Israeli authorities. Permits are difficult to obtain and stipulate fixed times of return, after which the holder can be arrested. Like the Israeli settlements of Har Homa and Gilo ...”

“... and the Resistance movements in the Conseil National de la Résistance, which met in Paris on 27 May 1943. The following month he was arrested near Lyon, where he had organised another Resistance meeting. No one knows exactly how or when Moulin died – he was last seen semi-comatose after a horrific beating at Montluc prison; indeed, it isn’t certain that ...”

“... David Richardson is more outspoken in an essay on the economics of the slave trade. Differences may exist among historians about the amount of money the slave trade made for Britain, but he has little doubt that merchants of the British Empire, the leading shippers of slaves to America, made life hell for the Africans. When slavery was abolished throughout ...”

“... wolf too often’ about it. A more genuine reason for Britain’s persistence with the Federation may have been the colour of the government at the time. Central African union was not initially a party issue in Britain – ‘multiracialism’ appealed to a broad swathe of opinion – but the Federation’s whole sad life was completed under Conservative ...”

“... into our house, people say: ‘Do you come from Tinsel?’ And indeed, at the very crossroads, you may see the first front door standing open, in the Tinsel manner: not open wide, just fifteen inches or so, just enough to take the effort out of being nosy. At this age I have to decode the streets before they are safe to walk. It’s a snag that I can’t ...”

“... Miss Daisy and The War of the Roses (starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner). Roger and Me may not have done quite the same at the box office as these big hitters – $6.7 million dollars in the US, as against more than $100 million for Driving Miss Daisy – but given that it only cost $140,000 to make, this was a huge return. It proved that ...”

“... legislate a moral code rejected by the people. This, however, is a big city myth. Fighting liquor may have been the greatest reform in US history: it engaged more people and more passion over more time than any other American movement. Across the rural heartland, Americans welcomed Prohibition. The cynical reporters would have had a difficult time finding ...”

“... Serious Outbreak of Poets’ (‘it is at least a possibility that Germany and England may have to “stop the war” in order to stop the poets’). One modern bibliography lists 2225 men and women who published verse during the Great War; much of it found its way into newspapers and anthologies with titles such as Songs and Sonnets for England in ...”

“... houses, there are edgelands and marginal territories. At the same time, however generic this world may seem, there are the names of local streets: ‘Picturesque villas, the ornate houses of the rich, stood either beside the street or deep within gardens. In the spaces between them parks and the walls of orchards could be seen. From a distance the image called ...”

“... her spelling improved, she seems always to have struggled with it (Horner suggests that she may have been dyslexic). Her publisher’s decision not to correct the text of Sisters by a River reinforces the quality of ‘savage innocence’ that Horner ascribes to her subject.The Bayleys’ marriage was turbulent and Margaret had a difficult labour with ...”