Antony Beevor Quotes
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The memory of the Second World War hangs over Europe, an inescapable and irresistible point of reference. Historical parallels are usually misleading and dangerous.
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I joined the Army in 1965 and served with the 11th Hussars, which I loved. The regiment was so relaxed - a salute was more like a friendly wave.
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The blurring of fact and fiction has great commercial potential, which is bound to be corrupting in historical terms.
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When I started to write, I realised that you need a bit of both: the overall context as well as the individual's experience.
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I love 'Blackadder,' but history it certainly ain't.
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The temptation in any approaching crisis or conflict is, because people haven't got a clue what lies ahead, they're always searching into the past for some sort of pattern ... to galvanise the nation or their supporters and put themselves on a pedestal to sound Churchillian or Rooseveltian.
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Entertainment history is now the main source of supposedly historical knowledge for more and more people, but 'histo-tainment' is superficial and lacks all context.
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Politicians are often tempted to deploy history as a weapon against each other.
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I read round the subject, I make a skeleton outline, and then I start work in the relevant archives. During the marshaling of the material, I copy the material from each archive file across to the relevant chapter in the skeleton outline.
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At the beginning of June 1944, the war was reaching a climax. German troops had been brutalised by the savagery of the ongoing fighting in Russia, where the Red Army was secretly preparing its vast encirclement of the Germans' Army Group Centre.
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A blend of fact and fiction has been used in various forms since the dawn of creative writing, starting with sagas and epic poems.
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Some novelists want to give people in history a voice because they have been denied it in the past.
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The great European dream was to diminish militant nationalism. We would all be happy Europeans together. But we are going to see the old monster of militant nationalism being awoken when people realise how little control their politicians have.
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Every country has its own perspective on the Second World War. This is not surprising when experiences and memories are so different.
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I just write the sort of book that I would enjoy reading myself, a book that is both scholarly and recreates the experience of people at that time.
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I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales and then, with any luck, I may be proved wrong.
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The majority of soldiers and officers of the Soviet Army and the allied armies treated the local population humanely.
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I used to write in a room overlooking the valley from where I could see too much, whether checking the sheep and alpacas or seeing the trout rise on the lake.
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At a purely practical level, history is important because it provides the basic skills needed for students to go further in sociology, politics, international relations and economics. History is also an ideal discipline for almost all careers in the law, the civil service and the private sector.
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When I was younger I used to get my best writing done at night, but now it has to be during the day. I usually finish work at half past seven, then go back to the house to open a bottle of wine, have dinner, and then read or watch television.
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One has this image of the Soviet state and the Red Army as being extremely disciplined but in the first four months of 1945 their soldiers were completely out of control.
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The great help of being in the Army is to understand why are the armies clever in what they describe as emotional intelligence, making soldiers come to terms with the death of comrades by certain rituals.
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I just love the days when you come out of the archives with half a dozen excellent descriptions or poignant accounts of personal experiences.
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The duty of a historian is simply to understand and then convey that understanding, no more than that.