“... past. The extraction and analysis of ancient DNA from human skeletal remains, the field in which David Reich is a leading researcher, is a technical advance that eclipses the advent of radiocarbon dating in the 1950s, and is already transforming our knowledge, not only of human biological evolution, but also of human history and culture. The potential value ...”

“... precedent in Reagan’s 1980s trade war with Japan. If Trump can make any claim to uniqueness, it may be that, once his record on Covid-19 is factored in, he is the only postwar US president whose administration is responsible for the deaths of more Americans than foreigners. During this year’s presidential campaign, while the gap on domestic policy has ...”

“... the same term to the ritual obscenities of bottle-throwing soccer fans somehow seems misplaced. David Riches is aware of this incongruity. His symposium contains 11 papers by 11 different authors drawn from the Proceedings of an ESRC-funded conference held at St Andrews University in January 1985. The violence under discussion is not a concept which readily ...”

“... carry on the business of life to good advantage, without learning.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, sir, that may be true in cases where learning cannot possibly be of any use; for instance, this boy rows us as well without learning, as if he could sing the song of Orpheus to the Argonauts, who were the first sailors.’ He then called to the boy, ‘What would you ...”

“... of Empire by Philip Morgan. But broadly speaking, the radical historians of Empire – David Killingray, Peter Sluglett, Nicholas Tarling – have been confined to the final, historiographical volume, while the more conservative have been given the meaty chapters in the bulk of the History. The purpose of the Historiography volume is to trace ...”

“... the uncontainable. He is the politician who has turned tenacity into an art form. Where others may weary, falter and even stumble, he persists. Successive prime ministers, including those on his own side of the party divide, have flinched at the sight of his form rising from Westminster’s back benches. While no premier would choose to see himself as ...”

“... It is barely worth speaking of anything as tangible as motive in Robert Ford’s murder. Robbery may have been involved, though McCluskie has always denied that it was. Any part it did play was tangential. ‘We had a go at him to get some money,’ Reynolds told the police, ‘he gave me 10p and when I asked for more he said he didn’t have any and ...”

“... to the underground government facility newly photographed in large-format full colour by David Moore. The Last Things (Dewi Lewis, £25) opens with an anonymous quote – ‘Ministry of Defence official, London 2007’ – that reads: ‘I don’t understand how you’ve got this far.’ What follows is a series of shots of unpeopled hallways and ...”

“... until 2010, followed by five years as Miliband’s shadow chancellor, before losing his seat last May aged 48. His defeat, announced at 7 a.m., was the perfect conclusion to Labour’s terrible night: the man the polls predicted would be setting the next Budget was instead out on his ear. Now, a year on, in addition to becoming a lecturer at Harvard and ...”

“... as fast as style, and film is a merciless medium. But certain frozen styles have their appeal, and David Hemmings, as Thomas, owner of the Rolls and famous photographer who was in the flophouse collecting images for a book, is as impressively sulky and obtuse as he always was. I don’t think I had noticed previously how distracted he is throughout the ...”

“... for an audience newly exposed to it as abstraction would be later.When you abandon stories you may still have a message. The aspects of nature that dwarf us can suggest other powers beyond our grasp. In Russia, pictures of plains and forests, snow, sun and thaw, were evocations of the motherland. The emotions they played on were consonant, at least ...”

“... exhibition Constable to Delacroix: British Art and the French Romantics (at Tate Britain until 11 May). It makes it easier to relish the dramatics of Horace Vernet’s Mazeppa, to see that there is more than nice observation of weather in Paul Huet’s picture of a lonely rider, Storm at the End of the Day.Dumas’s novel mixes operatic themes with the odd ...”

“... fortune through some startling and, on occasion, clandestine publishing and movie contracts, as David Reynolds has shown in his riveting In Command of History. Then there is self-justification after retirement, which almost always produces memoirs of numbing boredom: I assume – or hope – that no one alive has actually read every page of all the volumes ...”

“... as from their kinetic extravagance. Auerbach’s achievement is formidable. Unlike his teacher, David Bomberg, whose diverse stylistic excursions seem to test his talent as though he feared he had missed its true direction, Auerbach has followed a single line. His life’s work hangs together – the most recent pictures developing ideas about painting ...”

“... that his lack of a tough environmental policy makes that gesture rather empty. To sift through David Miliband’s cheerful blog at Defra (www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk) is to know that someone in this administration is taking the risks of climate disaster as seriously as they deserve to be taken. In a lecture to the Audit Commission in July, Miliband put ...”