“... a supporter of Israel well before I was a United States senator … If I forget thee, o Israel, may I cut off my right hand.’ Ilhan Omar was accused of antisemitism for pointing up the ‘political influence’ in the US ‘that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country’, but Schumer and Booker made no secret of their allegiance and ...”

“... of global capitalism. In the fight against Aids, hunger, lack of water or global warming, we may recognise the urgency of the problem, but there is always time to reflect, to postpone decisions. The main conclusion of the meeting of world leaders in Bali to talk about climate change, hailed as a success, was that they would meet again in two years to ...”

“... count of 397 was announced, 640 civilians evacuated to refugee camps … Such a fortnight’s work may be deemed representative.This is Truong Nhu Tang’s description of being on the receiving end of a B-52 attack: The concussive whump whump whump came closer and closer … Then, the cataclysm walked onto us, everyone hugged the earth – some screaming ...”

“... millennials prepared for a global systemic catastrophe? Or even a life without smartphones? They may not be. But then, who ...”

“... but some of the most remarkable and evocative have only come to light recently, and there may be more to be discovered. Taylor is not compiling an anthology, but he listens carefully to the seamen’s voices and brings out their personalities by paraphrase more than direct quotation. Deep-sea sailors were not, as is sometimes suggested, the wretched ...”

“... texts. The Crusades are one obvious case, and a provisional territorial impulse, at least, may be discerned in the Latin Crusader kingdoms and fiefdoms established in the Holy Land. However, the Latin kingdoms lacked the material and cultural conditions that might have prolonged territorial control. Before the 18th and 19th centuries, the West’s ...”

“... of aggression’, to impose sanctions, and to ‘take such action by air, sea or land forces as may be necessary’. This was a constitutional moment in international affairs: an anarchic world of self-help and temporary alliances was transformed into a nascent system of governance. The drafters of the Charter were hardly naive. Recognising that the UN ...”

“... chronicle of scandalous goings-on among the Victorian middle classes claims that East Lynne may be ‘one of the most famous unread works in the English language’. Very possibly. Yet it was spectacularly successful in its day, and its popularity has turned out to be more durable than that of most publishing sensations. Newly literate novel-readers in ...”

“... Hawaryat, according to the Ethiopian royal chronicle, had died a decade or so earlier, on 22 May 1760. Bredin’s overall account seems strongly influenced by Graham Hancock’s The Sign and the Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant (1992). Hancock was the first to argue that, as a Freemason (and hence an heir of the Templars), Bruce did not ...”

“... something of the eerie, sunlit stillness of Salvador Dalí’s landscapes of those years, and they may have prompted the anthropomorphic rocks that mimic the poses of the figures. ‘Je fais du surréalisme à la Courbet’ is a phrase that has been repeatedly attributed to Balthus.He later denied saying this and also did his best to minimise or deny his many ...”

“... Timur der Eroberer und die islamische Welt des späten Mittelalters (1993). Those who read French may also consult Jean Aubin’s brilliant and wide-ranging essay ‘Comment Tamerlan prenait les villes’ (published in Studia Islamica in 1963); Aubin was especially interested in Tamerlane’s residual shamanism and his reputation for sorcery. Despotism and ...”

“... many people looked to Cuba as a beacon of hope . . . Cuba would not disappoint them. One may agree or disagree with Castro’s view of history, but this was certainly what he believed in 1959, when he entered Havana in triumph. And it is his belief today, as he continues to defy Washington’s imperial will. Coltman’s perceptiveness on this matter ...”

“... about Cragh among the rest of the de Briouze household, one cannot help wondering whether there may have been something more than a routine response and ordinary feminine pity at work in this instance, something which is now irrecoverably lost to us. The three great churchmen who presided over the 1307 inquiry all continued thereafter in careers that ...”

“... your trip to be, the Hudson Valley feels like a reassuring antidote to the city’s friction. It may have ghosts, but it no longer advertises them. My tattered guidebook, for instance, unlike Richardson’s, describes Olana, the opulent and overbearing mansion once owned by the Hudson River artist Frederic Church, as ‘enchanting’, adding benignly: ‘The ...”

“... urbane: Do not take umbrage at my mother’s words for she’s craz– for she presents, as you may observe for yourself, some slight mental derangement . . . She is forever uncovering similarities between people she sees on television and Putain’s gang, as she calls it, a gang of swine who under different guises created all kinds of havoc. She believes ...”