Ajp Taylor Quotes

[Otto von Bismarck] only considered the interests of his own country - always the worst offense that a statesman can commit in the eyes of foreigners.

In retrospect, though many were guilty, none was innocent.

Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.

Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.

History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past.

Revolutions in short are made in the name of the proletariat, not by it, and usually in countries where the proletariat hardly exists.

Revolutions occurred in almost every European city with more than 50,000 inhabitants. The occasion for the revolutions was hunger.

Study of the past often turns into love of the past and a desire to keep it.

There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the Establishment — and nothing more corrupting.

Marx was concerned to change society or rather, if he adhered rigidly to his system, expected society to change in the way he wanted.

Our task as historians is to make past conflicts live again; not to lament the verdict or to wish for a different one. It bewildered me when my old master A. F. Pribram, a very great historian, said in the nineteen-thirties: 'It is still not decided whether the Habsburg monarchy could have found a solution for its national problems.' How can we decide about something that did not happen? Heaven knows, we have difficulty enough in deciding what did happen. Events decided that the Habsburgs had not found a solution for their national problems; that is all we know or need to know. Whenever I read the phrase: 'whether so-and-so acted rightly must be left for historians to decide', I close the book; the writer has moved from history to make-believe.

The British are entitled always to mistrust other people but others are not entitled to mistrust the British. That is why England is known or was known abroad as 'Perfide Albion', because the British have two standards, one for themselves and one for other people.

There is nothing more disastrous than a committee of extremely able men.

Increasing prosperity for the capitalists has everywhere brought with it increasing prosperity for the proletariat, instead of the increasing misery which Marx foretold. The most advanced capitalist countries are also those where the working class has the highest standard of life.

It is always tempting when you have political discontent in your own country to say it is the fault of some other country and not of your own government.

The Germans drew up elaborate plans for moving Italian forces to the French front, and the Italians enjoyed this planning greatly.

earlier wars, and in the Second World War, generals, even marshals, also ran risks and died in action. In the First World War they led comfortable lives. All except Kitchener. He was the only outstanding military figure on either side who came to a violent end. Asquith

Those British generals who prolonged the slaughter kept their posts and won promotion; any who protested ran the risk of dismissal. By

The statistics tell part of the story. In America government spending increased from 7.5 percent of GDP in 1913 to 19.7 percent in 1937, to 27 percent in 1960, to 34 percent in 2000, and to 41 percent in 2011. In Britain it rose from 13 percent in 1913 to 48 percent in 2011, and the average share in thirteen rich countries has climbed from 10 percent to around 47 percent.4 But these figures do not fully capture the way that government has become part of the fabric of our lives. America’s Leviathan claims the right to tell you how long you need to study to become a hairdresser in Florida (two years) and the right to monitor your e-mails. It also obliges American hospitals to follow 140,000 codes for ailments they treat, including one for injuries from being hit by a turtle. Government used to be an occasional partner in life, the contractor on the other side of Hobbes’s deal, the night watchman looking over us in Mill’s. Today it is an omnipresent nanny. Back in 1914 “a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman,” the historian A.J.P. Taylor once observed. “He could live where he liked and as he liked. . . . Broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.” Today the sensible, law-abiding Englishman cannot pass through an hour, let alone a lifetime, without noticing the existence of the state.

History is not a manifesto for action, a list of crimes to be avenged, a litany of positions to be reversed or a collection of rights to be wronged. History is, to paraphrase the great A.J.P. Taylor, the answer you give a child when he or she asks you: ‘What happened?’ It is a description of what happened.

It is important to remember that events now long in the past were once in the future.

we need to stop asking the history of centuries past to vindicate our actions today. History is not a manifesto for action, a list of crimes to be avenged, a litany of positions to be reversed or a collection of rights to be wronged. History is, to paraphrase the great A.J.P. Taylor, the answer you give a child when he or she asks you: ‘What happened?

In retrospect, though many were guilty, none was innocent.” The Origins of the Second World War A.J.P. Taylor

On the contrary, all experience shows that revolutionaries come from those who are economically independent, not from factory workers. Very few revolutionary leaders have done manual work, and those who did soon abandoned it for political activities. The factory worker wants higher wages and better conditions, not a revolution. It is the man on his own who wants to remake society, and moreover he can happily defy those in power without economic risk.

Soup kitchens were the prelude to revolution. The revolutionaries might talk about socialism, those who actually revolted wanted 'the right to work'- more capitalism, not its abolition.

Once men imagine a danger they soon turn it into a reality.

it is the job of generals and admirals and air marshals to prepare for wars. They can only prepare for war at all sensibly if they envisage an antagonist and when they cannot see an obvious antagonist, then they find unlikely antagonists.