The author's insights into Mrs Thatcher's working methods and the strange clique of zealots who provided her with the intellectual confidence to change Britain are fascinating.

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The Renaissance and the Reformation boosted mankind's intellectual and cultural self-confidence.

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They instilled a love of learning and the confidence to exercise his intellectual muscles.

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To assume that a lack of confidence is the reason so few women are intellectual leaders is too simplistic.

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Mr Collini, professor of English literature and intellectual history at the University of Cambridge, is eager to rebuild their confidence.

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On a more intellectual level, Benedict the theologian has long displayed an acute analysis of Western civilisation's crisis of confidence.

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