Historians From England

"You crawl on your stomach for hours … climbing up yawning abysses (lighted only by an acetylene lamp …) and get knocked on the head by stalactites and on the legs by stalagmites, and in the end arrive at all sorts of wonders; bison modelled in clay, and portraits of sorcerers, and footprints of Magdalenian man."

"Mud, muck, ooze upon the floor, torn tents and thunder – all were forgotten as the sherry bottle was opened"

"Europe was only after all a peninsula of Africa and Asia"

"j’aime mieux écrire que discuter de vive voix [I much prefer to write than discuss aloud]"

"The frank recognition of the dominance of power politics in international relations has not been without its effect on the writing of domestic French history. One consequence is that the traditional admiration for Napoleon, and the effort to present him as something other than a military conqueror and dictator, has become difficult even for French historians. Emphasis on the ideological element in the policy of revolutionary governments has also diminished and the desire for territorial aggrandizement, and even more for economic change, come to be seen as a dominant influence over their foreign policies."

"The circumstantial interpretation seems to be forced on us particularly when we look at the history of international relations during the revolutionary period. True, public opinion in all countries saw the struggle as an ideological one between revolution and established order; but those who actually determined international policies were free from this illusion, though they had to allow for and were prepared to make use of it in others. The history of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars can be told almost exclusively in terms of power politics and explained by the traditions of the countries involved and the personalities of their rulers and ministers."

"Just seventeen years ago the late Alfred Cobban opened the case against the "orthodox interpretation" of the French Revolution. Ten years later, in 1964, he summed up that case in his brilliant essay on The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution. Cobban's argument and works inspired by or complementary to his revisionism have profoundly affected the historiography not only of the Revolution but of the Old Regime as well. We are today still working out the implications of Cobban's position. Briefly, what Cobban did was to demonstrate that the empirical data gathered by historians, including "Marxist" and "Neo-Marxist" historians, had exploded the "Marxist" theory which purported to explain the Revolution."

"The "revolutionary bourgeoisie" as a class concept, Cobban found, dissolves under close analysis. What remains is a loose congeries of socially and economically disparate "middle classes." "Feudalism," whatever it had been, did not exist in eighteenth-century France. What was "overthrown" in 1789 was a vestige of feudalism—admittedly a hated and often onerous one—seigniorial rights. And it was the peasantry, not the "revolutionary bourgeoisie," which acted first and unanswerably against what they labeled "feudalism." In so acting, that is, without regard to and even in opposition to the desires of the Third Estate majority in the National Assembly, the peasantry cannot be subsumed "within the cadre of a bourgeois revolution.""

"At any point the course of the Revolution could be diverted by a chance happening or an individual decision determined by a freak of personal character. No adequate general history of the Revolution can fail to bring before our eyes a host of individuals, marking with their own idiosyncrasies the events in which they participated. The records are so ample that the deeds and personalities of lesser men as well as of the great stand out clearly. At the same time, the historian whose bias lies in the detection of great impersonal forces can write the history of the Revolution in quite different terms. It would be a mistake to suppose that either approach is exclusively right. The right approach is determined only by the nature of the questions the historian is asking and the right answer by the material of which he asks them."

"In our present case of the historical paradigm, the outsider, Cobban, appeared and precipitated the overthrow of the old paradigm but unfortunately, if understandably, he could not provide a new one. That is the problem, the crisis now facing students of the Old Regime and the Revolution."

"The emphasis on the social grounding of politics was, moreover, something which Cobban himself shared, as he showed by developing a "social interpretation of the French Revolution" which highlighted the role of disenchanted venal office-holders (rather than a supposedly triumphant capitalistic grouping) as the true Revolutionary bourgeoisie. He and other Anglo-American scholars who followed in his wake invariably saw the eighteenth-century economy as traditionalist and uncapitalistic – a view which fitted in nicely with the "immobile history" preached by third-generation Annaliste Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie."

"It remained for Alfred Cobban to play the role of Copernicus and point out the emperor-theory's nakedness. At least his writings of some twenty years ago constitute the most apparent landmark of the revisionist school. Cobban's main points were that the French bourgeoisie of the eighteenth century — he did not question its existence — was neither (a) capitalist or industrial, (even in intent), nor (b) revolutionary. Rather than being a class of "industrial entrepreneurs and financiers of big business," the bourgeoisie was composed of "land-owners, rentiers, and officials." Itself a class deeply involved in privileges, it abhorred the thought of revolution. Moreover, this bourgeoisie was, he thought, not rising but declining. Cobban recognized the confusions in the situation and called for new, freshly directed research. He was sure that historians had imposed on the Old Regime a "sociological theory" drawn from a later age, one that did not fit that earlier epoch. They had looked into the mirror of their own age rather than into the past, and they had seen Rockefeller and Lenin rather than the real Necker and Voltaire, thus misreading the whole code. Cobban further noted the obvious fact that so far as France was concerned, the Revolution did not usher in a triumphant capitalism but in fact had impeded modernization, industrialization, technological innovation for a century or more. He added that when historians construed the Parisian sans culottes of the Revolution as an incipient proletariat they also mistook reality by importing later ideas, a point others had already made."

"The revolution was to an important extent one against and not for the rising forces of capitalism. In addition it can be interpreted...in terms of a general tension and social antagonism between the poor and the rich."

"The immediate future may be determined by a race between the United Kingdom and the EU over which beats the other to a major crisis."

"All the nations that ever lived have left their footsteps in the sand. The traces fade with every tide, the echoes grow faint, the images are fractured, the human material is atomized and recycled. But if we know where to look, there is always a remnant, a remainder, an irreducible residue."

"The difference between a referendum and a plebiscite is a fine one. Both pertain to collective decisions made by the direct vote of all qualified adults. The referendum, which derives from Swiss practice, involves an issue that is provisionally determined in advance, but that is then 'referred' for a final decision by the whole electorate."

"That the United Kingdom will collapse is a foregone conclusion. Sooner or later, all states do collapse, and ramshackle, asymmetric dynastic amalgamations are more vulnerable than cohesive nation-states. Only the 'how' and the 'when' are mysteries of the future. An exhaustive study of the many pillars on which British power and prestige were built — ranging from the monarchy, the Royal Navy and the Empire to the Protestant Ascendancy, the Industrial Revolution, Parliament and Sterling — indicated that all without exception were in decline; some were already defunct, others seriously diminished or debilitated; it suggests that the last act may come sooner rather than later.110 Nothing implies that the end will necessarily be violent; some political organisms dissolve quietly. All it means is that present structures will one day disappear, and be replaced by something else."

"One has to put aside the popular notion that language and culture are endlessly passed on from generation to generation, rather as if 'Scottishness' or 'Englishness' were essential constituents of some national genetic code. If this were so, it would never be possible to forge new nations — like the United States of America or Australia — from diverse ethnic elements."

"Historians usually focus their attention on the past of countries that still exist, writing hundreds and thousands of books on British history, French history, German history, Russian history, American history, Chinese history, Indian history, Brazilian history or whatever. Whether consciously or not, they are seeking the roots of the present, thereby putting themselves in danger of reading history backwards. As soon as great powers arise, whether the United States in the twentieth century or China in the twenty-first, the call goes out for offerings on American History or Chinese History, and siren voices sing that today’s important countries are also those whose past is most deserving of examination, that a more comprehensive spectrum of historical knowledge can be safely ignored."

"There are shades of barbarism in twentieth-century Europe which would once have amazed the most barbarous of barbarians. At a time when the instruments of constructive change had outstripped anything previously known, Europeans acquiesced in a string of conflicts which destroyed more human beings than all past convulsions put together."

"The most obvious fact of the Soviet collapse is that it happened through natural causes. The Soviet Union was not, like ancient Rome, invaded by barbarians or, like the Polish Commonwealth, partitioned by rapacious neighbours, or, like the Habsburg Empire, overwhelmed by the strains of a great war. It was not, like the Nazi Reich, defeated in a fight to the death. It died because it had to, because the grotesque organs of its internal structure were incapable of providing the essentials of life. In a nuclear age, it could not, like its tsarist predecessor, solve its internal problems by expansion. Nor could it suck more benefit from the nations whom it had captured. It could not tolerate the partnership with China which once promised a global future for communism; it could not stand the oxygen of reform; so it imploded. It was struck down by the political equivalent of a coronary, more massive than anything that history affords."

"On reading somewhere that the Welsh name for 'England', Lloegr, meant 'the Lost Land', I fell for the fancy, imagining what a huge sense of loss and forgetting the name expresses. A learned colleague has since told me that my imagination had outrun the etymology. Yet as someone brought up in English surroundings, I never cease to be amazed that everywhere which we now call 'England' was once not English at all."

"Contrary to some expectations, Europe's brush with modern power revived its Christian culture. The 'Railway Age' was also the age of muscular Christianity."

"They wanted peace and they fought for thirty years to be sure of it. They did not learn then, and have not learned since, that war only breeds war."

"It is indeed the duty of historians to stress the contrast between the standards of the past and the standards of the present. Some fulfil that duty on purpose, others by accident."

"Theorists of propaganda have identified five basic rules: 1. The rule of simplification: reducing all data to a simple confrontation between 'Good and Bad', 'Friend and Foe'. 2. The rule of disfiguration: discrediting the opposition by crude smears and parodies. 3. The rule of transfusion: manipulating the consensus values of the target audience for one's own ends. 4. The rule of unanimity: presenting one's viewpoint as if it were the unanimous opinion of all right-thinking people: drawing the doubting individual into agreement by the appeal of star-performers, by social pressure, and by 'psychological contagion'. 5. The rule of orchestration: endlessly repeating the same messages in different variations and combinations."

"The debased coinage of his reign bore his initials, ICR: Iohannes Casimirus Rex. These were taken to stand for Initium Calamitatum Reipublicae, the Beginning of the Republic's Catastrophes."

"Arguably, the only fruit of the Crusades kept by the Christians was the apricot."

"Historical knowledge does not need artificial protection. ... The truth about the past can only be established and strengthened by the clash of wisdom and absurdity. If absurdity is banned by the law, wisdom too is diminished."

"When Henryk Sienkiewicz set Poland alight with his tales of chivalry, it was Cossack life in 17th-century Poland that stirred his readers. Just as many great 'Englishmen' turn out to be Irishmen or Scots, so many great 'Poles', like Mickiewicz, Słowacki, or Kościuszko, turn out to be Lithuanians."

"For more than five hundred years the cardinal problem in defining Europe has centred on the inclusion or exclusion of Russia."

"In eleventh-century Europe, kingdoms, like other landed estates, were family firms and, as in modern family businesses, there was no fixed order of succession. At any time a struggle for control could pit brother against brother, nephew against uncle or, as here, son against father. Victory brought massive rewards. We know from Domesday Book (1086) that the winner in this game of thrones got no less than 20 per cent of all the land in England."

"Cutch is composed chiefly of hills, woods, and sandy wilds; and we are utterly ignorant of any particulars, relating to the interior part of it, The mouths of several rivers appear in the map of its coast: and the ancient maps describe the Puddar river, as discharging itself into the gulf of Cutch, through these opeyings. It is possible that the tiver formed by the Caggar, and other streams, may discharge itself by one or more of these openings; unlefs it loses itself in the sands of the desert, which borders on the north of Cutch. ... A MS. map describes the junction of the Sursooty and Caggar rivers: probably this junction is formed above Sursooty town; for Tamerlane had not crofsed the Caggar when at Sur- sooty ; and the Sursooty river lay beyond the Caggar."

"But despite dangers to themselves, rulers and would-be rulers were expected to share the risks when they sent their followers to fight, not stay behind their desks as rulers do today. For as long as this expectation prevailed, it was virtually impossible for women to become monarchs."

"Reconstructing the past is rather like translating poetry. It can be done, but never exactly. Whether one deals with prehistoric recipes, colonial settlements, or medieval music, it needs great imagination and restraint if the twin perils of artless authenticity and clueless empathy are to be avoided."

"The formula Muscovy + Ukraine = Russia does not feature in the Russians’ own version of their history; but it is fundamental."

"If enough people in society can be convinced that history is governed by scientific laws: that Soviet-style Socialism is the inevitable product of historical progress: and that the Soviet Union embodies all the finest socialist ideals of peace, equality, and justice, then rational people should be incapable of defying the rule of the Soviet government and its chosen allies."

"The spruce beauty of the slender red line."

"Michael Howard is an excellent and succinct writer and his book is very easy to read."

"Soon the men of the column began to see that though the scarlet line was slender, it was very rigid and exact."

"An elegance of style which, since his much esteemed early work The Franco-Prussian War, has always distinguished his writing has not been achieved by a sacrifice of accuracy or relentless extension of his "wide learning", and his critical judgments – sometimes feline, sometimes ruthless – are usually cogent. More than that. I suppose that during recent decades nobody on either side of the Atlantic has so effectively brought military studies securely within the domain of the humane disciplines. If he has not civilized Bellona single-handed, he is primus inter pares."

"The collapse at Sedan, like that of the Prussians at Jena sixty-four years earlier, was the result not simply of faulty command but of a faulty military system; and the military system of a nation is not an independent section of the social system but an aspect of it in its totality. The French had good reason to look on their disasters as a judgment. The social and economic developments of the past fifty years had brought about a military as well an industrial revolution. The Prussians had kept abreast of it and France had not. Therein lay the basic cause of her defeat."

""Covenants without swords are but words." Thus did Hobbes sum up, typically, one of the more elementary and depressing truths of political science. At the root of save all the most primitive or the most celestial of social organizations there must lie the sanction of force: force not to create right but to uphold it; force to assure order, to cow rebellion at home and to subdue enemies abroad. That it is not in itself the foundation of society, that it is only the one factor out of many which go to constitute a political community, has been emphasized by political thinkers at least since the days of St Augustine. But as yet no community of any degree of complexity has succeeded in existing without force, and the manner in which that force is organized and controlled will largely determine the political structure of the State."

"Hobbes's ideas seemed at least as relevant to the middle decades of the twentieth century as they had been to those of the seventeenth. (Happy the generation now growing up in our universities whose natural affinity appears to be rather with Rousseau!) A situation in which recourse to force is such an imminent probability that one's whole life and policy has to be adjusted to it is not, save in the most formal sense, a state of peace. It is for that reason that I equate peace with that unfashionable term 'Order'; an emphasis which probably brands me as a temperamental Tory rather than a temperamental Whig."

"So long as the conventional balance remains so uneven, the Western strategy of relying on the first use of nuclear weapons to defend ourselves is not only morally dubious but politically incredible. But the responsibility for this strategy does not lie with the United States. It lies with the governments and peoples of Western Europe who have, for the last thirty years, refused to take the necessary measures to provide for their own conventional defence. That is where the CND is so dangerous. Their present campaign is sending a signal both to Moscow and to the United States, not simply that the peoples of Western Europe are not prepared to defend themselves with nuclear weapons, but that they are not prepared to defend themselves at all: a signal that could create a quite terrifying degree of instability by presenting the leaders of the Soviet Union with options that hitherto have been firmly closed to them."

"The gravamen of Geyl’s charge against Toynbee is not that he makes sense of the past: it is that to do so he resorts to quite ludicrous distortions, selecting evidence to conform to his views and ignoring all that does not. The abuse of history in fact lies less often in the motives of the historian than in his methods. It was after all the most honourable loyalties and affections which led Cardinal Gasquet to attempt the vindication of the monastic orders against the charges of Protestant historians; the formidable Coulton may have been inspired merely by acrimonious anti-Popish spite; but Coulton was an honest scholar, and Gasquet, one is forced to conclude, was not."

"Many Christians, of whom I am one, see no moral dilemma inherent in the possession, and if necessary the use, of nuclear weapons to deter their use against our own peoples by a Soviet state whose leaders are explicitly unconstrained by those considerations of "bourgeois morality" which so properly worry us. It is the initiation of the use of these weapons that causes so many of us such profound concern; and we have come to depend on that initiation because we have acquiesced in a decision to maintain a standard of living far higher than that of our adversaries, rather than provide the resources needed for a convincing defence by non-nuclear means of the territories of Western Europe."

"As an investment on which he expected a good return, Robert Bloet had been willing to pay £5,000 for his bishopric. Henry of Huntingdon remembered being in Bishop Robert’s household: ‘the handsome knights, noble young men, expensive horses, his golden and gilt dishes, the number of courses, the splendour of his servants, the purple garments and the satins’."

"The major churches were immensely rich. Approximately one-quarter of the wealth of all England as measured in Domesday Book belonged to them."

"Opinion against ordeals hardened during the twelfth century, and in 1215 the pope prohibited priests from taking part in them, a ban which effectively ended the practice, leading, in Britain, to trial by jury instead."