“... of acute crisis, one can view the justices’ intervention more charitably. However much the Court may have hurt itself, did it not save the larger Constitutional structure from greater damage? Perhaps. But even pessimists should question the way the Court chose to intervene. The more democratic solution would have been not to stop the Florida courts from ...”

“... the bar. (Bruno didn’t believe in heat.) Also, it would probably be raining out. You knew it was May or October because it was bright outside. But there was a period of only a week or so in high summer when the light came through the transom and puddled on the floor in a particular way. I’ll always remember that. I imagine it must be like that in certain ...”

“... comments in question’ – evidently advocating the tactical use of nuclear weapons – ‘may be mine’, but, if they are, he reassuringly notes that ‘they refer to the European theatre, not to Vietnam.’ When his opponents pointed out the radically destabilising effects of an anti-missile system – giving the side possessing such a system the ...”

“... in the intervening years. Macmillan’s feeling at the time was that ‘in essence, the plan may be right but it cannot be rushed.’ This sentiment might stand as the epitome of the feelings of most ministers on most subjects throughout the decade. If they subscribed to any one doctrine, it was not Butskellism or even conservatism, it was the Doctrine ...”

“... both treasurer and leader of ‘the Union’, with Christabel directing policy. Lenton and Cohen may have been acting under their own steam but they had been fired up by Mrs Pankhurst’s inflammatory rhetoric and open incitements to violence. Though she insisted that targeted buildings should be empty and life was sacrosanct, she gave public blessing to ...”

“... and bring them to some type of justice. It’s generally referred to as a rendition.’ That may be what they call it in Washington, but there are no instances of ‘polite’ rendition. I believe the reason CIA veterans always claim that torture never crossed their minds when they politely picked people up is a genuine fear of being charged under the ...”

“... did not prevent increased spending on education, health or measures to reduce child poverty. It may seem a tall order to ask for a levy which fulfils these conditions, but Rudolf Meidner, the former chief economist of the LO, the main Swedish trade union federation, and an architect of the country’s welfare state, devised such a measure in the ...”

“... At the start of his presidency, Bush had paid little attention to Russia, which Condoleezza Rice may have presented to him as a potential ‘rogue state’. Then, in June 2001, he met Putin and suddenly decided that this little guy was a delightful buddy he could do business with. Agreement about the ‘coalition against terror’ prolonged the ...”

“... display, that it is possible to inhabit a character completely different from one’s own.’ It may have been a distinctive feature of Redgrave’s career that he more and more found himself playing characters who were not very different from his own divided self. He was never simply one thing, and his famous parts – Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, Leo in ...”

“... Doping dissolves the vital connection between professional cyclists and ordinary pedallers. It may have taken us almost twice as long as the slowest rider in the Tour to climb L’Alpe d’Huez, but we negotiated the same 21 hairpins, felt the same tug of gravity on every bend and were cheered, with only the merest hint of sarcasm, by the same crowd. We ...”

“... San Francisco. He got a great deal from his time with Winters and wrote about it at length in what may be his finest essay, ‘On a Drying Hill: Yvor Winters’. He wore glasses and smoked a pipe, and both of these adjuncts served to mask a face that was not in any case volatile. Pleased or displeased, he was most of the time thoughtfully of the same ...”

“... of trying to read Mbeki’s mind, always in a manner maximally sympathetic to him. Such sympathy may be seen as a biographer’s duty but it is striking how much less willing Gevisser is than most to describe Mbeki as paranoid, and he never mentions the grandiosity that goes with it. Gevisser’s major claims for Mbeki are that he steered the ANC towards ...”

“... Senator McCarthy’s power was at its noxious zenith. The citizens of Mosinee, Wisconsin used May Day 1950 to stage an ‘Iron Curtain’ fantasia in which schoolchildren paraded with posters of Stalin and ‘secret police’ carried out mock arrests and purges. It was in this atmosphere that Arthur Schlesinger Jr published his influential book The Vital ...”

“... but one pays a price for it in the end.’ This well-meant but accidentally brutal biography may be the ...”

“... to get us to that crucial moment, both for Ngugi and for the literary scene in Africa, so we may as well address it now. Whatever his misgivings at Makerere and after, Ngugi continued writing in English. A Grain of Wheat was followed by three plays, a collection of essays, a book of short stories and another play. In 1977 Heinemann published Petals of ...”