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History is the great propagator of doubt.

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
Doubt
History
Great

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The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.
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Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
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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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In my opinion we learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour. We study it, as we listen to music or read poetry, for pleasure, not for instruction.
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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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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.
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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?
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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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If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.
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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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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.
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There is nothing nicer than nodding off while reading. Going fast asleep and then being woken by the crash of the book on the floor, then saying to yourself, well it doesn't matter much. An admirable feeling.
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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
A. J. P. Taylor
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Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
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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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History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past.
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There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting.
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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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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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