"Islamic law was far from monolithic, with different schools providing competing accounts. Nevertheless, it was agreed…"

"War tore the guts out of the British empire, weakening it in resources and morale. The first major loss was Ireland."

"The continued dynamism of successive Islamic societies produced fresh bouts of conquest that led to new sources of sl…"

"From the outset in 1917, the Communists believed in a utopian ideology, extreme, organised violence, atheism, a redef…"

"Distorting our knowledge and understanding of the past by making it a matter of good or bad is a reductionism that is…"

"History in part is the trust between the generations, a link through and across time that helps give identity and mea…"

"Hostility to Enlightenment Western values is particularly characteristic of decolonisation. Alas nothing very credibl…"

"The more I thought about it, the more obsessed I became with the idea of a swimming journey. I started to dream ever …"

"From water level, I observed the mating joined in flight like refuelling aircraft, and the random progress of the clo…"

"It is through trees that we see and hear the wind: woodland people can tell the species of a tree from the sound it m…"