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" Winners of wars get a standing start in the post-war stakes of remembrance. "

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" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

" I wanted to produce a book that would demonstrate not only the rich diversity of people who answered to Anders's command but also the extraordinary variety of their experiences and emotions: from death to despair, fear and longings and eventually to hope. "

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

" Fifty years would seem to be time enough to prepare a definitive history of the Second World War. In an age of instant data-gathering, one might think that the historians could have arrived at a consensus for interpreting the main events of the war. In reality, no such consensus exists. "

" One of the few things that can be said for certain about Europe's prehistoric peoples is that they all came from somewhere else. "

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

" 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. "

" I first heard of General Anders and his army more than 50 years ago. I admired him then, and I admire him still; and I feel a special bond with the men, women and children whom he rescued from hunger, disease, and official abuse. Theirs is a story of endurance and fortitude that gives one faith in the human spirit. "

" In the long run, Europe will certainly move toward unification. But it will be a process of push and pull, and there will be resistance. "

" I first came across the Anders Army story by accident. When I first went to live in Oxford in the 1960s, I discovered that some of my close neighbours had been on the Anders trail. "

" It is important to remember that John Paul II was not an American or a Frenchman. "

" It was in the 20th century that national sovereignty really ruled the roost, and the E.U. was formed to cure that. "

" The historical profession is nowhere famous for its tolerance, but there are not many countries where historians can expect to pay for their opinions with penal servitude or the firing squad. "

" A bad historian is even more dangerous than dead documentary wood. "

" 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. "

" The question is whether a confident Europe will be a rival for North America - or whether they will work together and become a more unified bloc. "

" The last years of fading communism provided an ideal environment for Poland's Catholic Church, which acted as an umbrella for dissenters of all sorts. "

" The Euro Sceptics are the English National Party in disguise, and they have poor old David Cameron over a barrel. "

" So long as classical education and classical prejudices prevailed, educated Englishmen inevitably saw ancient Britain as an alien land. "

" The Law and Justice government does not want a bunch of foreign historians to decide what goes on in 'their' museum. "

" Any historian worth their salt should be aware of wars, conflicts, catastrophes. They happen. This is part of the panorama. "

" Young people have to learn in a cocoon filled with false optimism. Unlike their parents and grandparents, they grow up with very little sense of the pitiless passage of time. "

" Poland is the natural bridge between East and West. "

" 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.' "

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