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" The E.U. is an organization that was created after the Second World War for calming down the nationalism of member states, and it did so very successfully. "

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" Transience is one of the fundamental characteristics both of the human condition and of the political order. "

" None of Europe's modern nations are genuinely native. "

" Northern Ireland must, in future, be absorbed into the Irish republic. Wales and Scotland must advance from devolution to full independent status. The four nations of these islands must commit themselves absolutely to the project of a United Europe. "

" Europe's fragmentation puts the wider historical picture beyond reach. "

" People don't see very often their death coming... Look at the French Revolution: The king of France was thinking in the 1780s, 'We're doing rather better than my father in the 1770s.' "

" All political institutions will end sooner or later. The question is when and how. "

" I can just remember the blitz of Manchester, or perhaps my father's tales about the blitz of Manchester. I can remember the blackout, the powdered eggs, and the gas masks. But I think no British person should pretend that being resident in England could count as being in the thick of the action. "

" History must give the Poles the principal credit for bringing the Soviet bloc to its knees. "

" In 1945, when the Second World War technically ends in Poland, the incoming Soviet army liberates some groups of people but begins to oppress the general population, in some ways more harshly than it had happened before. "

" Each side tries to legitimize their aims by appealing to history, sometimes selectively choosing episodes and other times just by inventing history. "

" The most noticeable thing about the Soviet collapse was that it followed a natural course. "

" Poland in the 1990s saw a surge of unrestrained, American-style capitalism. With millions of Poles living in the U.S.A., the defeat of communism led many to aim for a lifestyle derivative of Chicago or Detroit. "

" In the 21st century, there will probably be a reflex against the disintegration of traditional European culture. What started as a reaction will come full circle, and there will be a return to the roots. "

" It's the historian's job not to ridicule the myths, but to show the difference between myth and reality. "

" I do belong to the club which doesn't see a distinction between academic history and popular history. "

" Traditionally, historians thought in terms of invasions: the Celts took over the islands, then the Romans, then the Anglo-Saxons. It now seems much more likely that the resident population doesn't change as much as thought. The people stay put but are reculturalized by some new dominant culture. "

" The advance of standard English culture was less assisted by government policy than by the sheer weight, wealth, and number of England's well-established cultural institutions. "

" Serenity is the balance between good and bad, life and death, horrors and pleasures. Life is, as it were, defined by death. If there wasn't death of things, then there wouldn't be any life to celebrate. "

" Capacity of human societies both to absorb and to discard cultures is much underestimated. "

" At the end of the Roman Empire, in the Byzantine period, the empire shrinks and shrinks until it consists of one city, Constantinople, and the Ottoman Turks can encircle it. "

" Under Lenin, hardly less than under Stalin, historians harbored critical opinions at their peril. The writing, let alone the publication, of political diaries was virtually impossible. "

" Poland was the racial laboratory of the Nazis. This is where they started to put their abhorrent theories into practice. "

" It's unimaginable to meet a Pole or a German who does not know about the history of their country. But lots of English people don't know the difference between Britain and England. "

" I don't see why a book shouldn't be intellectually sound, entertaining, and fun to read. Historians who write academic history, which is unreadable, are basically wasting their time. "

" Why are some things remembered and others forgotten? That is the theme I want to pursue about the Second World War. "

" I happen to belong to that group opinion which holds the break-up of the United Kingdom to be imminent. "

" Our mental maps are distorted by who are the 'winners' of history and who are the powers of today. "

" All states and nations, however great, bloom for a season and are replaced. "

" It's our vanity that makes us think that what forms part of our world today must be stable and secure. "

" The United Kingdom is not, and never has been, a nation state. "