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I was a narrative historian, believing more and more as I matured that the first function of the historian was to answer the child's question, What happened next?
A. J. P. Taylor
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A. J. P. Taylor
Age: 84 †
Born: 1906
Born: March 25
Died: 1990
Died: September 7
Historian
Historian Of The Modern Age
Journalist
University Teacher
Alan John Percivale Taylor
Firsts
Narrative
First
Function
Children
Answer
Believe
Question
Answers
Happened
Matured
Child
Historian
Next
Believing
More quotes by A. J. P. Taylor
The male clerk with his quill pen and copper-plate handwriting had gone for good. The female short-hand typist took his place. It was a decisive moment in women's emancipation.
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History is the great propagator of doubt.
A. J. P. Taylor
History gets thicker as it approaches recent times: more people, more events, and more books written about them. More evidence is preserved, often, one is tempted to say, too much. Decay and destruction have hardly begun their beneficent work.
A. J. P. Taylor
Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A. J. P. Taylor
A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
A. J. P. Taylor
If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.
A. J. P. Taylor
Like most of those who study history, he (Napoleon III) learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.
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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer - the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.
A. J. P. Taylor
The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
A. J. P. Taylor
George VI in the conventional parlance was a Good King who sacrificed his life to his sense of duty. If we are to have monarchs it would be hard to find a better one.
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A racing tipster who only reached Hitler's level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.
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Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.
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In 1917 European history, in the old sense, came to an end. World history began. It was the year of Lenin and Woodrow Wilson, both of whom repudiated the traditional standards of political behaviour. Both preached Utopia, Heaven on Earth. It was the moment of birth for our contemporary world.
A. J. P. Taylor
American statesmen might like some Europeans more than others and even detect quaint resemblances to their own outlook but they no more committed themselves to a particular group or country than a nineteenth-century missionary committed himself to the African tribe in which he happened to find himself.
A. J. P. Taylor
History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
A. J. P. Taylor
The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.
A. J. P. Taylor
Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
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The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.
A. J. P. Taylor
No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
A. J. P. Taylor