“... a reserve squadron of the SAS. Prince Charles, who steered the Benjamin Bowring on her first lap, may have wished that his own tours in support of trade and the flag could be organised with similar lack of protocol. An unsparing account of old-fashioned princely progresses is to be found in The Diaries of Lord Louis Mountbatten 1920-1922, describing tours ...”

“... minutes that have been made available, one can only speculate on the cause, which in both cases may have something to do with covert operations. Most of the Service files are closed, and so are almost (though not quite) all the files dealing with psychological warfare, on which a great deal of reliance was misplaced. The Protocol of Sèvres, which to ...”

“... but as political criticism. We label Coleridge and Hazlitt psychological critics. Coleridge may have been the first to use the word ‘psychological’ in its modern sense, but to contemporaries Hazlitt was something very different: a Jacobinical critic. His book was damned by William Gifford, the most powerful London editor of the day, as a seditious ...”

“... its position and overtake the Alliance as the only contender against the Tories. The short-cut may look attractive but is likely to prove a cul-de-sac. We must not allow ourselves to be diverted from our main task, which is to improve our own direct appeal to the voters. Our salvation lies in our own hands. So, in the absence of a short-cut, how do we ...”

“... population) in time of war. Since many ex-generals serve in the reserves, professional soldiers may often find themselves commanded by civilians. Despite the recent move to the right in Israel politics, moreover, the Army today enjoys nothing like the monolithic role it played in strategic planning during the formative years of the state. Since the Yom ...”

“... his refinement of tone in face of such heartbreak, but I suppose that is one of the graces a poem may strive for. It is a desperate measure to take comfort from the budding of an almond tree: In labour the tree was becoming itself. I, too, rooted to earth and ringed by darkness, from the death of myself saw myself blossoming, wrenched from the caul of my ...”

“... showed a keen eye for the blackish tales of restless lives, lives that fall short despite a devil-may-care audacity. In ‘Pickpocket’, Chop-a-Leg, who has been deaf to medical advice (‘I had diabetes 12 years and wouldn’t quit smokin’), puts his faith in porridge to lower his cholesterol level: ‘I like looking at the Pilgrim on the box. What a ...”

“... of the Christian Religion, perhaps the dominant work of the established Reformation. The reasons may lie simply in the close-knit ties of Renaissance intellectual life. Not only Calvin and Zwingli but Erasmus, Vesalius and Montaigne have walk-on parts in the Platter saga, and Paracelsus, Scaliger and Bandello are only just offstage. The 14-year-old Felix ...”

“... and regulate social life by working through civil society. Despotically ‘strong’ states may be infrastructurally ‘weak’, and vice versa. What is urgently needed in Russia today – and throughout the ex-Communist bloc and the Third World – is an infrastructurally strong state, one that can keep the peace, punish force and fraud, enforce ...”

“... curator for much of the final section. With him comes a switch to politicised melodrama which may be designed to be emotionally ravaging and historically significant, but which never finds its stride. DeFoe begins to utter home truths of great import, and, for a chilling moment, turns into one of those smug idiot savants that Hollywood is so fond of, even ...”

“... modern world: he probably didn’t intend to say that anatomy overrides human agency, though it may well ironise it. Moi’s argument is characteristically detailed and lucid, and arrives at a reading of the Freud texts (he misquoted Napoleon twice, first apropos of all human beings, later just women) that avoids bringing in timeless and ineluctable fate by ...”

“... style would for once be wholly appropriate? Why academic presses rather than HarperCollins? This may be mere circumstance. Perhaps film rights are even now being auctioned. But I suspect not. Corbin’s work is not packaged for bookclubs or bestseller lists. He does not present picaresque narratives, inspiring characters or improving parables, but rather ...”

“... of the peace treaty. An American military government followed, and Independence, celebrated in May 1902, rested on a Constitution which included the so-called Platt Amendment giving the United States the right to intervene in Cuban affairs whenever necessary for ‘the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property and individual ...”

“... parcel of Bachardy’s art-work and papers are incorporated in the Isherwood package and may well have been a deciding factor. As an art gallery and library, the Huntington is well placed to handle the miscellany. It seemed that after his move to Southern California Isherwood would recede into comfortable obscurity. Like Huxley, Chandler and ...”

“... the younger Mrs Castle is a little less prolix: the five and a half years from October 1964 to May 1970 rate only about half a million words – an average daily stint of about two hundred and fifty words, though again there are days which take five or six times more than this to deal with. Was it all worth it? Though anxious not to give Mrs Castle the ...”