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“... We owe much to your country,’ the Anglican archbishop of Uganda told Patrick Marnham shortly before being shot in 1977. ‘We need you, and not just your knowledge; we need your fellowship. Most people here know this. What we have become, you made us.’ The tragedy of this statement suffuses Fantastic Invasion, the record Patrick Marnham brought back with him from a series of visits to West and East Africa ...”

“... At 11.32 on a cold morning in London early last year six young men, who had been on a spending spree and had mailed 203 lb of women’s cocktail dresses, children’s toys and ties back to Baghdad, entered and took over the Iranian Embassy in Princes Gate. It was not immediately clear who they were or why they were there, but soon Scotland Yard learnt that behind the stuccoed facade overlooking Hyde Park there were 19 hostages, among them a British policeman ...”

“... One of the first reactions to the kidnapping in the spring of 1978 of Aldo Moro, leader of the Italian Christian Democratic Party, was fascinated disbelief. How could such a superbly timed and orchestrated feat, involving some fifty actors, the knocking-out of a local telephone system and the diverting of police cars, as well as routes and steps planned meticulously many months before, possibly be the work of Italians? How could a group like the Red Brigades, well-known for their chronic disorganisation, conceivably have pulled it off? The same incredulity was displayed when the Basque Nationalists assassinated Franco’s political heir, Carrero-Blanco ...”

“... And do you think, Dame Freya,’ an interviewer once asked Freya Stark, ‘that travel broadens the mind?’ There was a pause. The explorer pondered; a distant, reflective gaze settled on her face. The young man sat back, well pleased to see his question taken so seriously: for a minute, he could have been forgiven for thinking he was onto a winner ...”

“... When a Mafia suspect called Joseph Miceli Crimi led police, in March 1981, to an office safe in Castiglion Fibocchi, near Arezzo, which contained the names of prominent Italians and documents linking them to a series of dubious and highly confidential deals, the stability of the entire country came under threat. So, too, did the international institution of Freemasonry ...”

“... always exceedingly shaky, lasted for nine years. Iris later commented on the marriage with what Moorehead calls ‘exemplary restraint’, saying ‘I watched her become so much younger and so much more vulnerable . . . My instincts told me the choice was not wise.’ Nor did she think it wise when, in 1927, Sybil got divorced from Scott and married the ...”

“... which people in the entertainment industry present awards to each other; it seeps into passages of Caroline Moorehead’s biography of Sidney Bernstein. ‘In every field, whether art, medicine, the sciences or technology,’ she begins, ‘there are a few figures who stand out, not only for their personal achievements, but for the way they always seem a ...”

“... to Baghdad poor and with few connections, she took rooms in a shoemaker’s house whence – as Caroline Moorehead writes – ‘she made sorties by rowing a boat across the Tigris, to soirées where she observed the British and local life.’ She scandalised officialdom by appearing at parties in Arab costume and accepting the hospitality of beduin ...”

“... matters they are not prepared to comment. What, for instance, should be expected of children? Caroline Moorehead, the editor, must have an opinion here, but she does not explain what it is. ‘In Medieval Europe,’ she declares, ‘children were regarded as adults in miniature: small, immature grown-ups who needed time – but not very much of it ...”

“... drawn from a very small circle within the Protestant haute bourgeoisie of Geneva. Much of Caroline Moorehead’s immense chronicle is about the individuals – some extraordinarily courageous and eccentric, a few disastrously timid – who established ‘a movement which has no equal in size or commitment outside of organised religion’. The Red ...”

“... up on one of her Kenya homes: ‘When Things Get Bad, Run.’ Here’s an early snippet from Caroline Moorehead on a related theme, the socialite/misanthrope dilemma, which recurs, essentially unchanged, throughout the book: ‘Martha was happy, she had discovered, on her own; happy, but already aware of the particular dangers of prolonged ...”

“... with social movements – enables us to survey the opportunities and hazards of the genre. Caroline Moorehead aims to portray ‘what modern pacifists are actually like’, and to bring out ‘their style, their diversity, their origins and their eloquence’. With much sympathy she emphasises the range of their reforming interests and their ...”

“... of the killing, as if suddenly shocked by the majority decision of his comrades. (According to Ms Moorehead, Moro drowned in his own blood: the bullets were cleverly aimed in a neat circle; none of them penetrated his heart.) He seems not to believe that the despised, corrupt, compromising Christian Democrats are really going to refuse to deal. By so doing ...”

“... idealistic, tragic – this was the quotidian language of Russell’s official self-conception. Caroline Moorehead’s biography is at its least comfortable in dealing with this aspect of its subject: it is as if she can’t quite see where all this is coming from, and is mildly embarrassed by it. Nor does she make any real effort to relate Russell’s ...”

“... in her autobiography, Images and Shadows, published in 1970; there’s a fair amount left over for Caroline Moorehead to explore in her nuanced and generous biography (2000). Antonio seems to have been energetic, capable, humorous and affectionate, not interested in literary talk – and Iris noted that he ‘seldom listened to any woman’s ...”