“... the Crucible, their battlefield, Nobody needs to go home on a shield. But now on Friday, 21st of May We hear what happens in a proper fight. Eight thousand miles south in San Carlos Bay The invasion has been going on all night. Men on both sides have really died today. The bridgehead’s been wide open since first light. Out in the Sound our gun-line ships ...”

“... Comparisons, even facetious ones, are invidious, but the fact that in this case they are so absurd may serve as an introduction to reflection on the principles of anthologising. A book of comic verse is ‘legitimate’, as the comic is a necessary category in literature. A book of homosexual verse (now we have one) is not, since homosexuality is not a ...”

“... contract with Little, Brown. And then there are all the lulling schoolroom exchanges:     ‘May I ask any question?’     I was fearful, but I looked back into Her eyes and nodded calmly.     ‘You will not think it is a silly question?’     ‘Never.’     ‘Very well then, ’ She said, ‘Who is this Horus?’     ‘Oh, He ...”

“... major sickness in our society. Where will those voters be on Polling Day, perhaps as early as next May, but probably in October 1987? At the time of the Limehouse Declaration of 1981, two underlying themes were dominant in the minds of the Gang of Four. The first related to the growing polarisation of politics, marked, on the one hand, by the era of Mrs ...”

“... after a two-year apprenticeship. Most of them belonged to the humbler classes and a majority may have been women, although Pliny, writing to Trajan, had already noted that they were ‘of every age, rank and sex’. They offered an alternative society open on terms of spiritual equality to all. In the middle of the third century Christian villagers in ...”

“... in Britain who belong to racial minorities do not share a single set of left-wing views: they may all be opposed to racism, but they have different ideas about how to overcome it. Joe Williams, a black councillor in Reading who has been a forthright campaigner for racial equality for many years, recently opposed a council proposal to spend money on ...”

“... of the Institute of Historical Research and didn’t contribute to any of these volumes.) They may have realised, too, that, with the Labour Party now less socialist than Macmillanite Tories, the time for internal squabbles has passed. But their intellectual mentors, too, have moved in different directions, leaving the students with less to argue ...”

“... aren’t proposing any alternatives to democracy, they simply want us to know that its luck may finally have run out. That’s what makes this crisis for democracy different from any that have gone before. We might be worried that the Chinese are stealing a march on us with their neat, streamlined, ruthless, election-free politics. While we’re ...”

“... Heepishly, he wrote to Archbishop Temple: ‘My earnest prayer is that this good man’s sacrifice may be used by God to purge me if possible from faults which He alone sees.’ No question of anyone else being able to see any such faults. Did he ever pause for a moment towards the end of his long life and wonder whether he might have been wrong about ...”

“... to talk to Eliza, she suggests, because they’re ‘reluctant’ to talk to other people: they may want a ‘therapist’ to reflect their own feelings back to them unchallenged, but that isn’t the sort of therapist Turkle thinks they should have. The attraction of robot companions, it seems, is their total compliance, loyalty and predictability. The ...”

“... political system. The Lib Dems don’t see that as any responsibility of theirs, and they may choose to get out while the going is good. 20 ...”

“... his will Bess was instructed to hold an annual séance after his death to try and get in touch. He may have described himself as ‘a charlatan, a mountebank, a vaudevillian, and an itinerant magician’, but Houdini didn’t behave as though he’d quite convinced himself that he didn’t have supernatural powers. From 1918, his performances became more ...”

“... smacking of subservience, Nasser signed an agreement to buy weapons from Czechoslovakia. Then, in May 1956, he defied Washington by establishing diplomatic relations with China. Faced with these complications, Dulles reversed course, casting Nasser as the villain. Yet, according to Nichols, his motives had less to do with Nasser’s behaviour than with ...”

“... modern history. In terms of the way historians approach and conceive of the era, Hobbes’s shadow may well be longest. Who was he and why is he now seen to be so important? One of the most informative and entertaining hagiographies, and the starting point for all modern treatments, was written by the antiquarian John Aubrey towards the end of Hobbes’s long ...”

“... dramatic dimensions. Only the postgraduate’s philosophical and literary adventures with Theory may be one dimension too many, not doing much to further an understanding of Hegel, Marx, Foucault and Adorno, or of Marco Roth. Eugene was an emotional monster of a father, but he did at least point his son to The Way of All Flesh, Fathers and ...”