“... with the tedious but mildly pressing problems of the Irish electorate’. Douglas Hurd may not yet be bored, but he would have difficulty in bettering the description of the problems he is facing. So few of them have changed, or have been solved. Part of the difficulty, indeed, is that the nature of the original solution was that it could be ...”

“... Hoy indeed goes further than this, and suggests that Derrida’s obstinate dedication to ambiguity may cause him to fall, irretrievably, between two stools. ‘We could decide his texts were neither literature nor philosophy, nor anything else.’ For someone who is more keenly aware of being adrift in the ‘sea of texts’, this categorical judgment is hard ...”

“... reveal that he has used English, French, Polish, Latin, German, Russian and Ukrainian sources. He may rightly say that his work is more up-to-date than The Cambridge History of Poland, edited by W. J. Reddaway and produced in 1941-50. The title of his work, God’s Playground, is perhaps not a very happy translation of the Polish expression Boze Igrzysko, but ...”

“... sobriety, unfailing contentment … Gargantua, Prologue, translated by J.R. Cohen Rabelais, too, may be compared to a Silenus. His big book is not unlike that little box painted with grotesques. Whether the comic exterior conceals a serious message – the marrow of the bone – has been a matter of controversy from his day to ours. Unfortunately, the ...”

“... Heavy Dancers is in certain ways an important and revealing document, even if in ways the author may not have intended. Although he has made no self-conscious effort to do so, Thompson has managed to suggest a great deal here about how the peace movement has gained its strength and how it may, in the course of things, lose ...”

“... Khazanov’s global comparative study of pastoral nomadism is unique. The level of erudition may be indicated by the bare statistic that the bibliography runs to 48 closely printed pages of which 23 refer exclusively to works in Russian. For those who are not specialists in the field at this level of intensity, and perhaps even for those who are, the 16 pages of Ernest Gellner’s ‘Foreword’ provide essential reading ...”

“... middle class, an impression sometimes reinforced by the hint of beaky arrogance in his face. It may well be the arrogance that is traditionally the soul-food of champions, but there has been dark talk of links with the Young Conservatives. Coe’s sister Miranda is an elegant model – the family is strong on legs – though she doubles (possibly a ...”

“... of intermarriage, despite hundreds of thousands of years of separate evolution. Although this may be possible in principle, it is unlikely in practice, because of the zoological observation that species with extensive ranges tend to fray at the edges. There are several examples of animals which belong to the same species, but to opposite ends of its ...”

“... to presuppose moral ‘cognitivism’: the agent recognises goodness as an objective property that may be instantiated by his actions. By ascribing it to an action, he comes to know an objective truth – that his action is (or will be) good. This makes some philosophers nervous, because it suggests a metaphysics they don’t like the look of, whereby goodness ...”

“... and, manifestly lacking the endorsement of millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens – there may be twelve million users in the USA – compromises respect for the law and the police. Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar’s argument, however, is that marijuana should be legalised because of its medicinal properties. Its benefits as a general ...”

“... they mattered especially during the 72-hour period that followed the UK-wide elections held on 6 May, during which results continued to trickle in. Labour was expected to lose the Hartlepool by-election, but the margin of its defeat, announced in the early hours, set the story of a ‘heartlands catastrophe’ rolling. Ben Houchen’s crushing Conservative ...”

“... by a sort of amicable Collision.’ Johnson considered Shaftesbury a reckless freethinker, but we may see in the Club, beyond its immediate therapeutic role for Johnson, an ambitious development of Shaftesbury’s ideal within an intellectual elite. The founding nine members included men (there were no women) who were there primarily as friends of ...”

“... in the pulp magazines dedicated to horror, unease and thrills. Though the zombies’ heritage may derive from the Caribbean, they have certainly long since ‘gone global’: the film series Resident Evil, one of the most popular manifestations of the zombie, began life as a Japanese video game; the grisliest films in the field are Italian; and there’s ...”

“... a work of critical commentary, as mind-expanding as a perfect peach (eat it now – by tomorrow it may be going off). But it is also a novel posing as a memoir, with scenes so gentle that the foreboding takes a second or so to creep in: ‘Autumn in Los Angeles is a kind of shrivelling, a contraction not just of time, the daylight hours, but of ...”

“... system and weight of values given to particular objectives. Two equivalently small and weak states may decide to comply with a particular international treaty obligation – or not – for entirely different reasons. Powerful states may also react differently. Look at the varying ways the US, Spain and the UK have dealt with ...”