“... club which, if the ‘Left Behind’ series continues to sell at its present rate, he may one day be eligible to join) and was its first president. It is a secretive organisation, made up of some five hundred invited members, including former Senators (Jesse Helms), Congressmen (Tom DeLay), figureheads of the radical Right (among them, Larry ...”

“... Most of the inhabitants were certainly Slavs, and many were Polish speakers, but a majority may have been Czechs or Wends. There were also quite a few Jews, who at this time seem to have coexisted more or less happily with their Christian neighbours. In 1327, Vretslav was inherited by the Bohemian Crown, becoming definitively part of the Holy Roman ...”

“... but the waist size of the corset was not to alter, ‘in order that the original waist measure may be retained’. The practice of footbinding springs to mind. Mothers who rejected this advice and were sorry later could always put their adolescent daughter into the Redresseur, a grim-looking article which laced both front and back and not only compressed ...”

“... of tea and its methods of production, and suggests that because it is made with boiling water, it may have been responsible for keeping great numbers of people alive in a world of water-borne fatal diseases, but much of the book describes the grisly social, political and economic particulars of the history of tea production. There was a familiar degree of ...”

“... or far too much. His now hackneyed and rather inferior quip – ‘When I am dead, I hope it may be said:/”His sins were scarlet but his books were read”’ – prompts the thought that if he had committed any scarlet sins they would have been made public long ago. His elderly infatuation with Lady Juliet Duff, subject of many epigrams, was probably ...”

“... Deployment that provides a ready attack option is part of this process. But, however much he may be deplored, it is up to the Iraqis to remove any ruler who abuses them. ‘Pre-emptive defence of world order’ looks a little thin as an explanation for the deployment of so many of our overstretched Armed Forces. Should we look for an explanation from the ...”

“... that is to say with most pleasant conversation and with philosophical problems. The events may seem familiar. The world they took place in is not. The Linceans were like children who surreptitiously lifted a corner of loose wallpaper and found another, more coherent pattern underneath. The parents ceased to be amused when they saw that they were ...”

“... If the war goes badly, it might well destroy Blair’s authority for ever. A delayed victory may prove as fatal as a defeat. Massive casualties in the Gulf – on either side – and even a few deaths at home are likely to be considered by the electorate as too high a price to pay for recklessly putting ideas about a new world community into ...”

“... a great deal since 1865. Today’s politicians have a direct line to the divine. Lincoln may not have known God’s will, but George W. Bush is certain that he does. It is worth remembering Lincoln’s great ‘lyceum’ speech, delivered in 1838 when he was just starting out in Illinois politics. Shocked by mob attacks on abolitionists, he pleaded ...”

“... a koori or murri tribe (these are the current preferred terms for Aboriginal peoples). All this may sound politically correct, but the fact is that words empower and disempower. Maybe such protocols of acknowledgment work, maybe they don’t. If they work, it is because of a slow cultural osmosis. If they don’t, it’s because they have run dry with ...”

“... of a genocide. In reminding us of this Bevan has performed a valuable service, no matter what we may think about a rebuilt Warsaw or a cherished ruin. We have the privilege of wondering whether the fetishism of built objects (the heritage industry) might be a sign of our loss of authentic memory, as it was for Pierre Nora in his monumental survey of the ...”

“... place.’ But this particular passage comes from Mlle de Scudéry’s novel Le Grand Cyrus, which may be ‘thinly veiled’ fiction, but is still, decidedly, fiction. Craveri devotes all too little attention to the difficult questions of early modern French generic conventions, literary style, the meaning of patronage relations for literature, and the effect ...”

“... to force a rebel’s surrender. If the rebel is subsequently killed or captured, the family may still pay for what he has done, often with their lives. Isa I.’s house was raided by the security forces so often that he eventually suggested they pitch a tent in his backyard. They were looking for a distant relative who had joined the rebels several ...”

“... to say, John and I turned from the deck-rail to walk the very few steps to the saloon doors. John may even have had his hand on the door handle. But then, all at once, the boat tipped: it toppled so sharply towards the water that we both fell and begin sliding back down the smooth, now steeply tilted deck. I felt I was moving fast, as though down an icy ...”

“... mind with the food of cooks who didn’t use recipe books at all. Whoever Apicius was (and it may be that he was an amalgam of various cooks), he was very keen on ‘surprise dishes’, such as ‘whitebait tart without whitebait’ and ‘salt fish without salt fish’, which sounds more Blumenthal than Smith. And what an odd view future archaeologists ...”