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The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.

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
Communism
Even
Specter
Crusade
Crusades
Imaginary

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History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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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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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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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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We learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour.
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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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Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
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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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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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Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
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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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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
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The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
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History is the great propagator of doubt.
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Conformity may give you a quiet life it may even bring you to a University Chair. But all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
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Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
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