A. J. P. Taylor
A. J. P. Taylor
Alan John Percivale Taylor FBAwas an English historian who specialised in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy. Both a journalist and a broadcaster, he became well known to millions through his television lectures. His combination of academic rigour and popular appeal led the historian Richard Overy to describe him as "the Macaulay of our age"...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth25 March 1906
men respect-each-other ifs
If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.
strong hero nazism
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.
running regret past
Every historian loves the past or should do. If not, he has mistaken his vocation; but it is a short step from loving the past to regretting that it has ever changed. Conservatism is our greatest trade-risk; and we run psychoanalysts close in the belief that the only "normal" people are those who cause no trouble either to themselves or anybody else.
giving caves may
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.
past way rounds
The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
looks england vices
Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
history events convincing
History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
years political heaven
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.
loyalty mistake writing
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.
long age goes-on
The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.
communism crusades imaginary
The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.
wickedness shapes blunders
Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
littles rage terrorist
Fascism was little more than terrorist rule by corrupt gangsters. Mussolini was not corrupt himself but he did nothing except to rage impotently.
country african-tribes groups
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.