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“... available to historians – such as letters, journals, parish registers, court records – may contain bits and pieces of detailed material of this sort, they can never be fitted together into a single coherent whole. And it is no use guessing on the basis of analogy from present to past. ‘Conjectural history’ is a waste of time. This thesis seems ...”

“... of reach for those who need it most urgently, but cannot pay for a lawyer. He and his successors (David Gauke is the fourth justice secretary in three years) failed to resist the cuts that by 2020 will have reduced the Ministry of Justice’s budget by 40 per cent in a decade, and have already caused it to lose many of its senior and most competent civil ...”

“... civilisation. This new understanding of Sign – as any of the natural and regional sign languages may be called – matters to all of us. It will, I think, have profound effects on what future generations think that language ‘is’. In speaking of ‘natural’ languages I mean just that: languages that evolve in the ways in which spoken languages do, but ...”

“... debt-ridden lawyer-politician from achieving his potential income. Indeed, ‘O’Connell may well have had more at stake in the Catholic question, materially speaking, than any other person in the United Kingdom.’ His resentment was both intensified and balanced by a remarkable self-confidence, and MacDonagh is particularly good at showing how the ...”

“... to have fallen on Robert Rhodes James. If so, it is an excellent decision. Meanwhile Mr David Carlton has produced a scholarly, well-written work of some five hundred pages. The author admits very fairly that it is in the nature of an interim verdict since the official records of the 1950s, including the Suez crisis, are closed under the Thirty Year ...”

“... propose a man’s health on his 359th [it was actually the 361st] birthday,’ Shaw said, ‘you may be sure that … what his health requires is country air … But Stratford wants a new theatre. The Memorial is an admirable building, adapted for every conceivable purpose – except that of a theatre.’ Shaw’s fellow governors felt it necessary to make ...”

“... over his life and over his conduct as a leader of the Revolution, and what is soon evident about David Lawday’s spirited and highly readable biography is that he stands Danton in a flattering light and pays insufficient attention to movements in the shadows. ‘The Gentle Giant of Terror’, the subtitle calls him: which suggests, along with revolutionary ...”

“... literature: ‘effects-based operations’ were defined by the former US air force general David Deptula during the First Gulf War as a means of applying the minimum conventional force to achieve the greatest strategic effect. In US government planning, ‘proxy warfare’ is the preserve of wily enemies, Iran and Russia in particular. The US National ...”

“... mosques. Below, at the foot of the Western Wall of the Second Temple, the Orthodox pray; they may not set foot on the Mount itself. In this city the most palpable fake and the most obvious bit of tourist razzmatazz acquires some mythical resonance. Incidentally, it is remarkably beautiful and has a benign winter climate; these qualities no doubt enhanced ...”

“... climate, our deafening present’ to European traditions resulted in a realist tradition which may turn out to be America’s greatest contribution to 19th and 20th-century painting. Professor Novak’s book is fascinating because she sets about showing how the work of the prolific and confident landscape painters of the mid-1800s can be related to ...”

“... the president on the dark and seedy streets of the wrong side of Washington says in language that may seem a little advanced for the 1860s: ‘Well, I’ll be fucked.’ Lincoln says: ‘I wouldn’t bet against it.’ The posters for the movie, its length (two and a half hours) and the general air of piety that surrounds Lincoln’s name lead us to expect ...”

“... and I said it was. She asked me if anything was the matter, and I denied it.’ His first novel may be thought to have furnished a model for the clifftop-to-shoreline murder site in le Carré’s 23rd. He was outshone by the blaze and sophistication of le Carré’s success. His friend’s discriminating treatment of the secret service was seen by him as a ...”

“... have a tendency to roll over if they hit a fixed object, such as a guard rail. Market forces may cause industry to act where government has failed. Bradsher wrote last year that gas prices in the US would have to hit $2.50 a gallon and stay there for a while to have any negative impact on SUV sales. (A gallon of petrol in the UK costs $5.75, a figure ...”

“... a mile off, and sees through Angier every time, until Angier, with the help of Nikola Tesla, alias David Bowie, discovers a trick that isn’t a trick at all but a bit of new weird science. This is no longer magic according to Borden – a stage magician for him is, in the words of the novel, ‘not a sorcerer at all, but an actor who plays the part of a ...”

“... as art. Avedon, he reported, had said: ‘You know, Peter – sometimes I think that Susan may be the enemy.’Of course, Hujar’s problem with Sontag may have been that she failed to mention him in On Photography. He tended to begrudge other photographers their fame or success, even snubbing Beaton and Arbus out of ...”