“... democratic competition, rather than violence, was not always realistic.’ Islamist radicals may not be able to force through illiberal legislation at the national level, where they have to contend with moderate, secular, Christian and Hindu opposition, but they have at times been able to dominate local law-making. In Aceh, a version of sharia law now ...”

“... though the main season usually starts in April and if there is stability by then many tourists may well return. Rached Ghannouchi, Nahda’s veteran leader, is a serene figure who projects a gentle smile without parting his lips. He wears an ancient red fez and sits calmly with his hands folded in his lap. He places the revolution that allowed him to come ...”

“... grip on civil society, even in the interests of the ‘modernisation’ it preaches. Someone may have to write a book called Russia in 2013; it might not look very different from ...”

“... the jealous type, it’s fun to read reviews of Junot Díaz in mainstream American papers. There may not be an American writer alive whose ratio of positive to negative press is more favourable; critics do backflips for the guy. Unfortunately, given the corporate prudery of their employers, they can’t quote his most perfervid prose. I offer this from his ...”

“... with the war effort given his mistreatment by the British government a couple of years earlier. In May 1940, just after Germany attacked the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, Perutz was taken from Cambridge to Bury St Edmunds under Churchill’s policy of internment. A little later he was moved to Huyton, near Liverpool, and then moved again in mid-June to ...”

“... earlier to tuberculosis, contracted from his mother, brother or wife, or to the alcoholism which may not have killed him but certainly escorted him to an early grave. A better place to start might have been with an even greater mystery than those lost six days: Poe’s secret marriage at the age of 26 to his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm, a ...”

“... he has work to catch up on in the evening while she entertains the handsome youth. Whatever Marisa may think of this, Felix sees himself and his wife as sexual adventurers. His obsession is ‘eroticised fidelity’, while she, reciprocally, is a married libertine: ‘She followed her fancy, drank hard, declined motherhood with fervour, doted on no man, and ...”

“... at Fisk University in Tennessee, had formed with another woman, and a white woman at that. On 7 May 1930 Larsen wrote to Van Vechten ‘to say that tomorrow I am leaving for Nashville, a dutiful wife going down to visit her husband’. The duties involved pretending that the marriage was still alive, in order to safeguard Elmer’s position at the ...”

“... that the extension of US power is a good thing – which few Democrats openly question. Obama may want to withdraw from Iraq, but it isn’t at all clear that he’ll be able to if he becomes president. This is not to suggest that there are no differences between Republicans and Democrats. The Age of Bush has made this contention difficult for even the ...”

“... and sexual betrayal could have unfolded just as easily in South-East Asia (or New Jersey). There may be no way for a contemporary author to permit himself to try to write fully from within another culture, but if it is ethically impossible to negotiate the antithetical traps of writing from abroad as either coloniser or tourist, that is a fascinating problem ...”

“... He was a finely ironic self-dramatist, too, scheduling the first trial of Airship No. 2 for 11 May 1899 – the Feast of the Ascension. Paris, unsurprisingly, adored him. In 1901, at the height of his fame, a newspaper described him as the city’s ‘god’, and noted the homophony between his name and those of Porthos and Athos. Milliners created a ...”

“... physical chemistry, if other academics had been attacked. He said: ‘Myself for a start.’ In May he was in England when he got a phone call from his wife. His son Muhammad, a 22-year-old student, had been kidnapped and his house stripped. ‘They wanted $40,000 but I was able to reduce it to $7000.’ When Muhammad was returned, Dr Isa found he had been ...”

“... regime loyalists, with tribal loyalties to Saddam Hussein, and a second are foreign fighters who may be coming in from Syria.’ The pilots themselves admitted they see few Iraqis and then only from the air. A troop commander said: ‘The men are mostly 5'6"; to 5'10"; tall and are between 150 to 180 pounds. The hardest part is picking out the bad ...”

“... some impalpable ‘Mediterranean’ culture. Seen from Pasolini’s lunar perspective, Berlusconi may represent a new sort of power. This, broadly, is the view of Paul Ginsborg, whose book deserves to be read and argued over as widely as possible. For Ginsborg, Berlusconi’s brand of fascism involves creating a way of life centred on the need to acquire ...”

“... Africa Pavilion visitors were shown how ostrich feathers were cut from the living bird, which may have reminded oldsters of the days when British geese were stripped, none too humanely, to provide quills. Palestine was not really part of the Empire, but it shared a double-domed pavilion with Cyprus. An item judged worthy of interest to Metrolanders was ...”