“... its persistence has to be explained away. Marxism, he diagnoses, is not a system of rationally-held beliefs. Its structure is that of myth, designed to satisfy ‘the human desire for beliefs which are at the same time scientific and unquestionable’. But the physician has been infected by the patient. Just as a fact and a truth is any opinion that ...”

“... below); the equestrian portrait of Niccolò da Tolentino in the Duomo; and the windswept David, painted on a leather shield now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. In a lost Assumption of the Virgin, it is said, he portrayed himself as Judas. There is no doubting Andrea’s impact among his contemporaries: a challenging figure with a ...”

“... Camp Ashraf after the invasion came away convinced that the group could be a useful ally. General David Phillips, a military policeman who spent time there in 2004, argues that the MEK is no more a cult than the US marines: in both organisations you have to wear a uniform, obey orders and follow rituals that seem bizarre to the uninitiated. Positive feelings ...”

“... on Brunel’s Great Western Railway. Studies of Faraday’s experimental sophistication (by David Gooding) and his Sandemanian faith (by Geoffrey Cantor) have deepened, rather than challenged, our sense of his eminence. James’s work, meanwhile – in his own publications and his DNB entry on Faraday – has highlighted Faraday’s importance as a ...”

“... Journalism) to more than 90 per cent of all the deaths in drone strikes (the ex-military officers David Kilcullen and Andrew McDonald Exum). In March 2012, the New York Times reported that all military-age males, armed or unarmed, are considered to be combatants unless there is posthumous evidence proving otherwise; the Obama administration recently disputed ...”

“... They remained of ‘one language, one society, and one religion’ for about 250 years, and held themselves to ‘the two great commandments, of loving the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind, and our neighbour as ourselves’. (‘This is the primitive religion of both Jews and Christians,’ Newton remarked, ‘and ought to be the ...”

“... the hospital and made, by all accounts, a bit of a scene. Had news of Barthes’s condition been held up by a conspiracy to stop people getting the idea that Mitterrand had put the evil eye on him? Did the staff even know what a prestigious patient they had on their hands? ‘It’s a shame there is no photographer in the room,’ Laurent Binet writes in his ...”

“... in Algeria were accompanied by archaeologists whose brief was to discover how the Romans had held the territory. The first questions were: where were the roads, and where the forts? Once Algeria was brought under French control, attention turned to agricultural production and the question of how the region had managed to become the bread-basket of ...”

“... of Animal Farm was delayed by Warburg’s shortage of paper, he maintained that Nye Bevan had held it up, fearing its effect on the outcome of the 1945 election. Later, in the days of Nineteen Eighty-Four, he kept a notebook listing the names of people he thought might be Communists. He had a conscience fit for a Jesuit confessor. After the death of his ...”

“... any memory of his existence’ and so changed her son’s name from James Donald Bowman to James David Hamel: ‘Hamel’ was the name of her next husband; she wanted to preserve the ‘J.D.’, but the Donald had to go. He’s only been known as ‘J.D. Vance’ – sometimes with dots, sometimes without – since 2014, when he changed his name to honour ...”

“... Meanwhile, Modi’s cronies have flourished. The Economist estimates that the share of wealth held by billionaires in India that derives from cronyism has risen from 29 per cent to 43 per cent in six years. According to a recent Oxfam report, India’s richest 1 per cent owned more than 40.5 per cent of its total wealth in 2021 – such statistics are ...”

“... had gathered. Local residents were appalled; up until this point free parties had usually been held far from towns and cities. ‘I have never seen such filth and degradation,’ one councillor fumed. ‘These people have turned Castlemorton into a cesspit, a human rubbish tip.’ What was it about raves that had to be stopped? Breaking into warehouses ...”

“... A Transparent Novel (2004) touches on similar questions. It’s about another public performance, David Blaine’s 44 days living without food in a Perspex box suspended over the Thames. One girl is convinced that the box is made of glucose: ‘When he thinks nobody’s looking, can’t you see the bastard licking?’ Other onlookers call him ‘a fake, a ...”

“... these things. Djokovic has won the most slams (24 to Nadal’s 22 and Federer’s 20) and held the number one ranking for the longest period (428 weeks in total). He also has a leading head-to-head record against the other two. But Federer has the most titles overall (103 to Djokovic’s 100 and Nadal’s 92) and the most at Wimbledon, the tournament ...”

“... merely the unprintable overflow from other magazines); and besides, its quality has more or less held steady down the years. It is, of course, the gossip-and-disclosures side which gives the Eye its particular place in social and journalistic history; and this investigative side – on which Marnham rightly concentrates – has fluctuated wildly in ...”