“... When, in War and Peace, young Nikolai Rostov first rides, into action with his fellow hussars against the French at Austerlitz, he feels that the longed-for time has come ‘to experience the intoxication of a charge’, about which he has heard so much. At first he is indeed elated, but then the unseen enemy suddenly becomes visible, Rostov’s horse is shot under him, there is ‘around him nothing but the still earth and the stubble ...”

“... at least, Republicanism cannot exist without equality, since it ensures that no interest group, or class, or faction, can hijack the exercise of popular sovereignty, or merely subvert it, at the expense of other citizens. In Todd’s view, France must face up to the reality of a post-Republican era and admit that its leaders have sold its Revolutionary ...”

“... In South America, the scene of the most serious fighting, there were two separate theatres of war, one in the north (Bolívar’s arena) and one in the south (Argentina and Chile), but in each the main stream of events was complicated by numerous cross-currents. Harvey sorts things out very successfully by anchoring his narrative in the life-stories of ...”

“... which he quotes from here.) After losing territory to the British in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852-53, King Mindon took control of the Yenangyaung oil fields – ‘effectively nationalising the industry’ – and did a deal with Price’s Patent Candle Company Ltd of London and Liverpool, selling them two thousand barrels of Burmese oil a ...”

“... The rubble had been cleared away, but strange grasses and wild herbs had sprung up where the war-demolished houses had been.Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from KensingtonOn​ the opening page of Craig Brown’s One Two Three Four, Brian Epstein and his personal assistant, Alistair Taylor, behold the Beatles for the very first time ...”

“... elegant and it explained why, in the golden age of economic growth after the Second World War, it wasn’t the old colonial and postcolonial exchange of raw materials for manufactured goods that dominated economic growth, but trade in manufactured goods between rich countries. The hour and a half Krugman spent laying out his new trade theory at the ...”

“... realm of that more general, sexually innocent homoeroticism discussed by Paul Fussell in The Great War and Modern Memory (1975) or in Martin Taylor’s less fashionable, less thesis-driven anthology, Lads, republished in 1998. In Taylor’s collection, so often are the poems bad, unaware (Ronald-like?) or puny that the best among them – Gurney’s, Edward ...”

“... it happened in the past and has since been cured . . . Teachers are afraid to talk about social class or class conflict. And the standard immigrant story they teach is always the rags-to-riches story. Let’s face it, the rags-to-riches story is a fraction of 1 per cent of all immigrant experiences. It’s always ...”

“... Conference in Cardiff. He was mainly concerned with the problem of discipline. ‘Guess which class children are most likely to misbehave in?’ The answer turned out to be Citizenship. And which subject would best teach children ‘respect for authority and the importance of discipline in school’? History. Not any old history, however, and certainly ...”

“... to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. (2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea and air forces, as well as other ...”

“... may be found. Likewise, she confirms, so far as this area goes, the traditional view that lower-class Scots showed an unusual thirst for learning – as when the people of remote Glen Tilt petitioned the 3rd Duke in 1769 for a school convenient for their ‘bairns’, who would otherwise ‘be lost for want of education’ – but undermines the myth that ...”

“... of his source material. Nelson himself wrote to his wife in August 1793: ‘I hardly think this war can last, for what are we at war about?’ The French had executed Louis XVI in January, which might have given Nelson a hint. Further clues to the significance of this particular ...”

“... emphasis on historical evolution rather than on historical continuity is, in the immediate post-war period, more progressive than reactionary. In the first three novels, Waverley, Guy Mannering and The Antiquary, the leading characters are brought to welcome a somewhat inglorious peace and what feels like a liberal settlement. All three heroes end facing ...”

“... National Guard. Nowadays the neighbourhood hardly looks like the front line in New York City’s class war. Instead of a volatile confluence of uptown socialites and Bowery gang members, the place was thronged with New York University students and well-heeled shoppers, and their single largest gathering was not around a provocatively sited opera house ...”

“... in the birth of the field of international relations in the two decades before the First World War, he read, especially by founding and supporting one of the new discipline’s flagship journals, the Journal of Race Development. ‘That can’t be right,’ he thought. Some more digging told him that it was. The Journal of Race Development, established in ...”