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“... With the virtual disappearance of the Jewish working class in the Diaspora, and the decline of the Labour movement in Israel, Jewish socialism is beginning to look historically limited, rather than an intrinsic part of a cultural heritage. The idea that the Jews are somehow natural radicals by virtue of their internationalism, messianism and inherited ethic of social justice does not stand up to scrutiny ...”

“... a fashion victim or second in birth order in her family in understanding why she campaigned for Ralph Nader in the last American Presidential election? Which of these characteristics defines her identity? Is it, moreover, really possible to embed opinions and prejudices squarely in a specific cultural tradition, when the word ‘culture’ signifies a ...”

“... Ralph Bunche​ died aged 67 because he chain-smoked, slept too little, was diabetic and worked too much. It didn’t help that he spent decades yoked successively to four demanding Scandinavians. Bunche was a brilliant young professor at Howard University, making his name as an Africanist, when Gunnar Myrdal hired him to work on his Carnegie-funded study of race in America ...”

“... of this chicken.’ In another shed, I watched an aquacade about the sinking of Atlantis starring Ralph the Pig. After two students in togas talked about the wrath of the volcano god, Ralph, a large but shapely pig, emerged nude and dived gracefully into the lagoon. Over dinner with the English department that evening (hush ...”

“... men, John and Marcus. Bratrud was present when some children told the men about their visions: Ralph tapped me on the shoulder and I bent down to hear him say: ‘I see two swords surrounding us in this place. The swords of God’s angels. Nothing can touch us.’ … His own voice was too weak to carry … I therefore announced that ...”

“... or Benedicts or something from a quite different branch of the family. The film (directed by Martin Campbell) was well paced, and organised the old tropes elegantly around the new engine. But by the end it was already beginning to feel tired – with how many more Bond movies to come. It looked good, it was good, but there was some kind of ...”

“... In certain precincts of American political culture, the mere mention of the name Ralph Nader still provokes scowls. Many Democrats remain convinced that Nader’s presidential campaign in 2000 cost Al Gore the White House and ushered in the calamitous reign of George W. Bush. The obsession with Nader is at first puzzling: blame for Bush’s ascendancy can be traced to many other sources ...”

“... and motorbikes, just in case the bomb doesn’t do the trick. Bond, naturally, is driving an Aston Martin. There is a magnificent chase along the improbable streets, the town becoming the nightmare negative of a racetrack. And we haven’t even arrived at the film’s credits yet. I don’t want to say it’s all downhill from here, because, quite apart from ...”

“... the doubts and agonies of his adolescence’ and mature into a figurehead of Victorian normality. Ralph Rader’s Maud: The Biographical Genesis (1963) began by acknowledging the ‘curiosity aroused in me by Tennyson’s Maud and Locksley Hall, ostensibly dramatic poems which were strangely flawed, I always felt, by some hidden emotional connection with the ...”

“... she was christened, was the late and much loved only child of ageing parents who doted on her. Sir Ralph and Lady Milbanke were justified in admiring their daughter’s intelligence and high spirits, if less sensible in giving in to them. In due course she was brought from the family home in County Durham to be launched in London. From Seaham Hall, a solid ...”

“... to look as if they might be an item, and has several interrupted meetings with a man from Lockheed Martin who is offering him a high-level job, another relation to the heavens. Oh, and then there is the ostensible main business of the film. In the Roman film Clooney is a tribune called Autolycus. He has lots of jovial strutting to do, and like his namesake in ...”

“... book. There is no doubt that Campbell has written his own book. It begins: ‘Professor Martin Sturrock was feeling stressed enough already, even before the phone call from Simon telling him Aunt Jessica had died.’ But can he really expect reviewers to forget his former role in the New Labour government when he uses ‘sell’ and ‘good’ in ...”

“... mentions Vespucci, whose accounts of his travels had been published by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in a volume that included a map christening the newly found continents ‘America’. More added detail to lend his fantasy substance, including the Utopians’ alphabet, a woodcut of their croissant-shaped island resembling maps in ...”

“... but this may prove at least as difficult as Bahro’s policy of a more general public conversion. Ralph Miliband’s incisive essay on capitalist democracy in Britain will be read as a challenge to more orthodox arguments. ‘Capitalist’ is still a term which only the hard Right can live with, as socialist intellectuals and militants now use ...”

“... on view in The Shock of the Old bring historical grit to the seemingly timeless natural world. Ralph Blakelock is best known for his mysteriously atmospheric paintings of American Indian encampments, and for his later descent into madness. He is represented here by the early, brilliant A Sawmill in the Woods (c.1870), graced with a hand-carved ...”