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“... from the sloth and decadence of the Thirties by the catastrophes of Dunkirk and the fall of France. A welling-up of patriotism united all classes in a determination to fight on. By standing alone against Hitler in the summer of 1940, the British ensured that ultimately the war would be won and the evils of Nazism destroyed for ever. Now for the Ponting ...”

“... interest of the love affair. Marguerite Duras was born in Indo-China in 1914 (returning to France when she was 17), so she is of an age with the heroine of The Lover, a 15-year-old schoolgirl in 1930. Perhaps it is the pictorial value of The Lover that attracts so strongly, for this novel won the Prix Goncourt in 1984. We begin with the old lady ...”

“... of ‘the difficulty of maintaining social distinctions in an impatiently equalising world’. In France and its empire, the logic led to granting full civil rights to religious minorities (first Protestants, then Jews), and then, if only temporarily, to black slaves. It did not do similar things for women but Hunt implicitly takes a stand against those ...”

“... to for inspiration. In the 1910s and early 1920s, a work-study programme took young Chinese to France, where they found jobs in factories and went to evening classes. Underfed and underwhelmed by the realities of European democracy, some joined communist groups. The young Chinese radicals struggling to get by in ...”

“... devaluations British farm prices, both to consumers and to producers of the relevant products, rose about 12 per cent in this period. But strong sterling would make it impossible for the UK to have it both ways. Green currencies may only be devalued or revalued towards, never away from, par. Sterling recently reached a level which brought our green pound ...”

“... to the antique remains of Rome, or the heroic history paintings epitomising la gloire of imperial France, the visual language of the British Empire was rarely grand or public.’ Pictures never expressed the idea of the imperial as forcefully as railways, harbours or cities, and the architecture associated with them – Lutyens’s Delhi is not modest. There ...”

“... to bring it up to the average among similar countries. Over the course of the 2010s that share rose in most countries, but in the UK it fell. In particular, the share of GDP spent on investment in healthcare (new hospitals, new beds etc), which in 2010 was around the average among ‘peer’ countries (Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, ...”

“... minister granted her dual nationality on the grounds of her ‘evident cultural links’ with France, and in 1980 she became the first woman member of the Academy. In that same year, Les Yeux Ouverts: Entretiens avec Matthieu Galey was published in Paris. Galey, a French journalist, had been to interview her on Mount Desert Island. The title of the book ...”

“... with the arrival at Alexandria of the French fleet and 36,000 troops under Napoleon’s command. France wanted a foothold in the eastern Mediterranean to stem the flow of India’s riches to Britain. It was a military expedition with cultural ambitions. Napoleon let no one forget that he was following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. A Commission on ...”

“... feminine nom de plume to avoid military censorship, and that he lives ‘in exile’ in southern France. The impression given is that Khadra is a dissident, rather than a staunch defender of the Algerian army, an institution that bears considerable responsibility for the country’s descent into war. Khadra is a talented writer, but he isn’t a ...”

“... boy with no parents who took every chance he was offered (along with quite a few he wasn’t) and rose to become a celebrated performing rider in the bullrings of Spain. He kept a journal assiduously as he went, and wrote up his Memoirs in four volumes with hand-drawn illustrations, tables of contents and footnote glosses for those without his linguistic ...”

“... personal. The 18th century’s claim to have been a high summer of letter-writing in England and France is based on a series of linked factors: a tipping point in literacy levels, dramatic commercial expansion, which demanded the movement of people across nations and colonies, and the sophistication of the postal services organised by two highly bureaucratic ...”

“... Revolution’. In April, the House of Commons responded by voting for war with France. Initially, that war, which would continue intermittently for much of the next century, was fought in Ireland. The campaigns of 1689-91 bequeathed to modern Ireland many of its most important lieux de mémoire: Limerick, Londonderry, the Boyne and ...”

“... could give them a clear advantage in the big races, including the three-week-long Tour de France, the sport’s premier event. How large an advantage is open to dispute: one study puts the increase in ‘peak power output’ for recreational cyclists taking EPO at 12-15 per cent, which translates into an 80 per cent increase in endurance (time riding ...”

“... example, familiar to readers of this paper, of Hilda Murrell. In 1984, Miss Murrell, a 72-year-old rose specialist who lived in Shrewsbury, was taken out of her house in her own car, driven to a field outside the town and systematically, apparently ritualistically, stabbed. She was left unconscious in the field, where she died of exposure. The Shrewsbury ...”