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“... They may allow themselves some guarded asides on the psychology of chiliasm, but would reject Norman Cohn’s full-frontal psychopathology of anti-semitism. They probably accept, as true for that decade, Sir Lewis Namier’s vision of the politics of the 1760s as dominated by clique and pique rather than by constitutional principle, but would hesitate ...”

“... underworld and that hollow muscly facade were also making much the same point – so Cadmus is Sir Edward Carson raising his bronze fist against the twisty tail of Home Rule – a theatrical gesture he copied from James Larkin who raised the dragon people against their bosses but let’s say instead that Cadmus is Willie Whitelaw sitting at a bootshaped table ...”

“... R.V. Jones, the happy beam-hunter of 1940 and premier intelligencer thereafter (... and Science), Norman Rose (and Zionism) and Roy Jenkins (the Government of 1951-55) are predictably good. The uneven John Keegan (... ’s Strategy), though seemingly disqualified by his recent published confession that he cannot understand Clausewitz, nevertheless succeeds ...”

“... defined include Bernard Lewis, Stanford Shaw, David Fromkin, Justin McCarthy, Guenther Lewy, Norman Stone, Michael Gunter, Andrew Mango, Roderic Davison, Edward Erickson and Steven Katz, and although all of them have had dealings with Turkish academic institutions, none is likely to have bent his opinion to suit ...”

“... taken for a pauper. Indeed, real princes have masqueraded as the pauper Robin Hood; according to Edward Hall’s 1548 chronicle, in 1510 (good?) King Henry VIII and his courtiers one morning dressed up as Robin Hood and his ‘out lawes’, hoods, tights and all. Presumably, nobody was robbed – or no more than usual. In some texts, the opposition between ...”

“... set the Imperial Edwardian tone of much that was to follow – was made by the back elevation of Norman Shaw’s Piccadilly Hotel. ‘It’s a grim business this new stone section of the Quadrant,’ C.H. Reilly wrote in 1922. ‘No one can deny the power of the design. The situation of a bull in a china shop is not improved by the magnificence of the ...”

“... knew that. Have you come far?’ ‘Only from Westminster, maam.’ ‘And you are …?’ ‘Norman, maam. Seakins.’ ‘And where do you work?’ ‘In the kitchen, maam.’ ‘Oh. Do you have much time for reading?’ ‘Not really, maam.’ ‘I’m the same. Though now that one is here I suppose one ought to borrow a book.’ Mr Hutchings smiled ...”

“... overriding economic considerations. The Foreign Office itself has comparatively little say. In Sir Edward Grey’s day, before 1914, it could operate without much regard for the other departments of government: now this autonomy has disappeared, and foreign policy is only one among several ways in which Britain seeks uneasily to find a way out of her economic ...”

“... to tackle the thousand pages of Karl’s Joseph Conrad, or the shelf of books – Jocelyn Baines, Norman Sherry, Zdzislaw Najder, Eloise Knapp Hay – that would provide a richer and more chaotic account of this mostly painful career; and not everybody will be put off by Mr Tennant’s not saying anything very interesting about the fictions, of which he ...”

“... was an established national fact, but still decidedly modern, often with racy connotations. When Edward Prince of Wales asked his father, George V, if he could have the use of Fort Belvedere at Windsor the king was surprised: ‘What could you possibly want that queer old place for? Those damn week-ends I suppose.’ He caved in and perhaps regretted it, for ...”

“... The historian Edward Hallett Carr died on 3 November 1982, at the age of 90. He had an oddly laconic obituary in the Times, which missed out a great deal. If he had died ten years before, his death would probably have been noticed a great deal more, for Carr was an eminent left-wing historian, had a huge record of publication, and had embarked, 35 years before his death, on a History of Soviet Russia which has been described as ‘monumental’ and ‘a classic ...”

“... his first ship – for in 1916 the decision was finally taken by the Standard’s new owner, Sir Edward Hulton, to end its 60-year career as a morning paper. Griffiths is not entirely convincing as to how and why this collapse came about: the paper had been making a profit at least until 1911 and other newspapers found their fortunes underpinned rather than ...”

“... while Amys’s wife looks on approvingly (‘We can always produce more kids’). The minute Edward II set eyes on Piers Gaveston (probably in 1297), the Cottonian chronicle says, ‘he bombarded (?) him with love (amorem) to the extent that he entered into a covenant of brotherhood (fraternitatis fedus) with him. He chose with steadfast determination to ...”

“... information here (lest the Russians get to know of it?), but the British told the Americans and Norman Moss found full details in their FBI files. Klaus Fuchs was born in 1911, the son of a German pastor with left-wing sympathies who taught his children the Lutheran precept of acting according to their own consciences rather than obeying established ...”

“... candour,’ or ‘there was ... an impenetrable thoughtfulness hanging on the air like scent.’ Edward Nesbit, the old poet, is vapid and boring about the distresses of the 20th century, and our need for the Great Secret, but no more than his character requires him to be. There is a small besetting flaw, Clarke’s equivalent to Ackroyd’s haziness. It’s ...”