“... flagship, ‘all the world never saw such a force as theirs.’ When it left Lisbon harbour on 28 May 1588, the Armada comprised 150 vessels, ranging from thousand-ton merchantmen to small felucca message boats. The mission, under the command of the duke of Medina Sidonia, was to get boots on the ground for an invasion of England. The fleet carried 18,973 ...”

“... essay on ‘The Use of Pictures and Other Works of Art in Elementary Schools’ (1884), which ‘may afterwards be modified, but never quite got rid of’. Familiarity with beautiful things could make poor families less likely to drink and gamble, he argued, because it would reveal ‘to many children who live in the crowded parts of large towns some of the ...”

“... they appear as squires (scutiferi) or yeomen (valetti). On the battlefield, the work of a minstrel may have overlapped with that of a herald – issuing proclamations, carrying messages, identifying the dead – and some men seem to have done both jobs.Minstrels provided art as entertainment, but also, in a time before the mechanical production and ...”

“... earliest work did not necessarily have these qualities. His 1882 painting of a flamenco dancer may have reminded admiring critics of Goya, but his 1884 portrait of ‘Madame X’, the American-born adventuress Virginie Gautreau, shocked Paris with its louche portrayal of the wife of a wealthy French banker, her naked shoulders and décolleté rendered ...”

“... a pretty good book, probably Leonard’s most popular, and easy to market to new readers, who may have seen Quentin Tarantino’s reasonably faithful film adaptation. I say ‘reasonably’ because, although Tarantino’s streamlined version of the story follows the novel closely, it replaces Jackie Burke, the book’s white heroine, with Jackie ...”

“... goals. He was ‘cynically realistic’, Patterson writes, in his pursuit of ‘real ideals’. He may have been ruthless, but in a corrupt world it was better to trample legislative tradition and get bills through than, as Long said, ‘sit back in my office, all nice and proper, and watch ’em die’. Patterson acknowledges Long’s reputation as a ...”

“... One of Melania’s former friends, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, has speculated that Melania may have helped her sister too. In her memoir Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady (2020), Wolkoff recounts that in 2012, Melania ‘asked me to write a letter on behalf of her sister, Ines’ (about whom almost nothing is ...”

“... cooler than Nick and Ty, who gather at a disused barn on one of their families’ properties. On 1 May the group celebrate ‘Belt Day’ with a ritual that consists of taking their shirts off, painting each other’s torsos, dancing and spinning, drinking from a bottle said to contain a cocktail of ecstasy and ‘herbsbane’, and descending in turns to a ...”

“... be achieved by insisting on a political threat, ‘even’, in Ben-Zaken’s words, ‘one that may be fictitious’. Abravanel was anticipating one of the most dangerous components of modern Israeli statehood as it would come to be personified by Netanyahu. Israel is always on the brink of disaster, as indeed are all the Jews. It will take catastrophe and ...”

“... for two decades ‘as a courtesan, in the precise, centuries-old definition of the word’. She may have lived like Madame de Pompadour but she lacked her purpose and personal influence. Pamela was drawn to power itself, rather than what power could achieve, and had no developed politics of her own. She could easily have been a Republican, if she had ...”

“... embezzled by insiders through hidden offshore entities registered in tax havens. Some of the money may also have gone towards Putin’s first presidential campaign in 2000, which probably seemed an excellent investment at the time. Such schemes comprise what the journalist Oliver Bullough calls kleptocracy. Moneyland, his impassioned but at times specious ...”

“... you to achieve it.’ Bad Blood wasn’t written to be a parable for our current moment, but it may as well have ...”

“... were eighty kilometres away. Life got back on its feet and adjusted to new circumstances.‘We may periodically forget the war,’ he went on, ‘but the war will, every so often, remind us of its existence.’What might seem a diversion from war often turns out to have war as its subject, or to intersect with war. I went to a concert at the Ukrainian ...”

“... for it is essentially one of them. Fish’s argument that theory has no practical consequences may be thought to bring to the fore all the least attractive features of his style of argument. This is on its face a startling thesis: to say that all one has to do is to ignore theory and do whatever comes naturally seems at the outset to be unable to deal with ...”