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
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.
passion men views
His (Lenin's)humanitarianism was a very abstract passion. It embraced humanity in general but he seems to have had little love for, or even interest in, humanity in particular. He saw the people with whom he dealt, his comrades, not as individuals but as receptacles for his ideas. On that basis, and no other, they were judged. He judged man not by their moral qualities but by their views, or rather the degree to which they accepted his.
princess opposites lunch
I was very fond of Princess Diana. She used to have me over to lunch to ask my advice. I'd give her good advice, and she'd say: 'I entirely agree. Paul, you're so right.' Then she'd go and do the opposite.
leader inspire president
The most intimidating world leader was Lyndon Johnson, who became U.S. President when John Kennedy was assassinated. He exulted in this power and liked to inspire fear.
unique views racism
If anti-Semitism is a variety of racism, it is a most peculiar variety, with many unique characteristics. In my view as a historian, it is so peculiar that it deserves to be placed in a quite different category. I would call it an intellectual disease, a disease of the mind, extremely infectious and massively destructive.
evil toss crooks
The most evil person I ever met was a toss-up between Pablo Picasso and the publisher-crook Robert Maxwell.
cutting palin
I like that lady - Sarah Palin. She's great. I like the cut of her jib.
dog europe chinese
In 1924 Mao took a Chinese friend, newly arrived from Europe, to see the notorious sign in the Shanghai park, 'Chinese and Dogs Not Allowed'.
doors ifs wide
If I see a door ajar, I push on it to see how far it will open, and if it opens wide I go through it.
study outstanding humans
Human beings are infinitely worth studying, especially the peculiarities that often go along with outstanding gifts.
party class pressure-groups
Bismarck had cunningly taught the parties not to aim at national appeal but to represent interests. They remained class or sectional pressure-groups under the Republic. This was fatal, for it made the party system, and with it democratic parliamentarianism, seem a divisive rather than a unifying factor. Worse: it meant the parties never produced a leader who appealed beyond the narrow limits of his own following.
inspirational inevitability
There are no inevitabilities in history
people example followers
Marxism, Freudianism, global warming. These are proof - of which history offers so many examples - that people can be suckers on a grand scale. To their fanatical followers they are a substitute for religion. Global warming, in particular, is a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science.
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.