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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
Even
Specter
Crusade
Crusades
Imaginary
Communism

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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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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 war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
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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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The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.
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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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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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There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting.
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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 a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
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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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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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We learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour.
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Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A. J. P. Taylor
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The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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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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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Lenin was the first to discover that capitalism 'inevitably' caused war and he discovered this only when the First World War was already being fought. Of course he was right. Since every great state was capitalist in 1914.
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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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