Inspired by atomistic science, thinkers in early modern England, including John Locke, developed a conceptual framework whereby it is the mixture of parts, unregulated by any superior form, which constitutes both the natural world and the body politic.

A new study of Alexis de Tocqueville emphasises his French intellectual background and makes the case that his classic analysis of American democracy may be understood as well, or even better, if it is considered primarily in terms of the old European society for which it was written.

It is difficult to define the picturesque, and yet it is a term commonly associated with the Irish landscape. What makes one site or location a more worthy attraction than another may seem arbitrary, but there is a religious and cultural architecture to what we might consider accidental beauty.

The popular historian James Anthony Froude believed that superior strength was as a rule a sign of superior merit, held Irishmen in particularly low esteem and offered Oliver Cromwell as the model for how a superior race should govern a race that was unfit for self-government.

He came from out foreign and he spoke wild funny. All the older girls thought he was the last word from the day and hour they set eyes on him but they were stupid, and he would no more look at them than if he was the man in the moon.

To get into the best English society, Oscar Wilde thought, one must either feed people or shock people. And so, while they fed him, he shocked them with his wit and insolence. And yet he managed for the most part to insult the English without offending them.

Jason Sommer’s fourth poetry collection exhibits a master’s command of language, rhythm, and image, a formidable narrative gift and an unflinching willingness to take on themes that are both intensely personal and expansively historical.