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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

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A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
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If there had been a strong democratic sentiment in Germany, Hitler would never have come to power . [Germans] deserved what they got when they went round crying for a hero.
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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.
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History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
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Fascism was little more than terrorist rule by corrupt gangsters. Mussolini was not corrupt himself but he did nothing except to rage impotently.
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Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
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Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
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Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
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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.
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Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
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When I write I have no loyalty except to historical truth as I see it and care no more about British achievements and mistakes than any other.
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The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
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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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The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
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Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
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The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.
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The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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One of the penalties of being president of the United States is that you must subsist for four years without drinking anything except Californian wine.
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All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.
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