Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson
British journalist, author, and historian who edited the New Statesman and penned over forty works, including the 1959 novel, Left of Centre, and the 1997 non-fiction work, A History of the American People. He also wrote four works on art and architecture and two memoirs.
NationalityBritish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth2 November 1928
powerful earth-day arrogance
The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.
war world versailles
The Second World War took place not so much because no one won the First, but because the Versailles Treaty did not acknowledge this truth.
political action global-warming
Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.
political vices century
...the century's most radical vice... the notion that human beings can be shoveled around like concrete.
writing careers creative
At some time in their careers, most good historians itch to write a history of the world, endeavor to discover what makes humanity the most destructive and creative of species.
war self long
Long periods of recession, which tend to be self-perpetuating, are usually ended by war, or by preparations for it.
boys editors littles
I very much wanted to be editor of the 'New Statesman!' But I never wanted to be prime minister, except maybe as a little boy.
democracies-have enemy democracy
Democracy has many enemies, and the terrorist is only one of them.
christian religious views
In the last generation, with public Christianity in headlong retreat, we have caught our first, distant view of a de-Christianized world , and it is not encouraging.
hunting foxes delight
If we want foxes, to observe and delight in, we must have hunting.
beautiful night luxury
Hell is being trapped in a night-club with the'beautiful people'and forced to live in a'luxury penthouse flat'.
eye views history
Every good historian is almost by definition a revisionist. He looks at the accepted view of a particular historic episode or period with a very critical eye.
differences evil pits
If you depart from moral absolutes, you go into a bottomless pit. Communism and Nazism were catastrophic evils which both derived from moral relativism. Their differences were minor compared to their similarities.
race long earth
In the long term, it is desirable that the human race, faced with the prospect of extinction on Earth, should prepare an escape route for itself to another inhabitable planet.