Antony Beevor Zitate auf Englisch

Zitat des Tages von Antony Beevor:

The duty of a historian is simply to understand and then convey that understanding, no more than that.

Every country has its own perspective on the Second World War. This is not surprising when experiences and memories are so different.

Antony Beevor

If you smash a city when you're trying to capture it, you actually end up providing the perfect terrain for the defenders while blocking the access for your own armoured vehicles.

Antony Beevor

I think it's outrageous if a historian has a 'leading thought' because it means they will select their material according to their thesis.

Antony Beevor

There are one or two very good women military historians who use imagination, great study and research; they can put themselves in the boots of the soldier.

Antony Beevor

It is important to understand the continuing, confused fascination with the Second World War. For most of us, the great unspoken question is how would we have behaved in the face of danger and when forced to make major moral choices.

Antony Beevor

The reason that 'Stalingrad' took off was because it emphasized the influence of history on the individual.

Antony Beevor

It takes me three or four years to research and write each book and the individual stories stay with you for a long time afterwards.

Antony Beevor

The power of historical fiction for bad and for good can be immense in shaping consciousness of the past.

Antony Beevor

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.

Antony Beevor

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.

Antony Beevor

The duty of a historian is simply to understand and then convey that understanding, no more than that.

Antony Beevor

Some novelists want to give people in history a voice because they have been denied it in the past.

Antony Beevor

I feel slightly uneasy at the way historians are consulted as if history is going to repeat itself. It never does.

Antony Beevor

When my first novel was published, I went in great excitement round bookshops in central London to see if they had stocked it.

Antony Beevor

I can't envisage stopping writing.

Antony Beevor

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.

Antony Beevor

I love 'Blackadder,' but history it certainly ain't.

Antony Beevor

I am not someone who believes I am going to find a historical scoop.

Antony Beevor

It was only after five years in the army, when I was having to do a very boring job in a very boring place, that I thought: 'Why not try writing a novel?' partly out of youthful arrogance and partly because there had been a long line of writers in my mother's family.

Antony Beevor

I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales and then, with any luck, I may be proved wrong.

Antony Beevor

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.

Antony Beevor

I was planning to stay in the Army all my life, but I ended up being posted to a training camp in Wales and was so bored there, I wrote a novel.

Antony Beevor

The vital thing for me is to integrate the history from above with the history from below because only in that way can you show the true consequences of the decisions of Hitler or Stalin or whomever on the ordinary civilians caught up in the battle.

Antony Beevor

The British bombing of Caen beginning on D-Day in particular was stupid, counter-productive and above all very close to a war crime.

Antony Beevor

To begin impatiently is the worst mistake a writer can make.

Antony Beevor

Restorers of paintings and pottery follow a code of conduct in their work to distinguish the original material from what they are adding later.

Antony Beevor

I have come across both inspiring teachers of history and deplorable ones over the years, so one cannot generalise, except perhaps to observe that the profession seems to encourage anti-militarist sentiments.

Antony Beevor

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.

Antony Beevor

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.

Antony Beevor

Alpacas are very endearing, and they all have very different personalities.

Antony Beevor

When I started to write, I realised that you need a bit of both: the overall context as well as the individual's experience.

Antony Beevor

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.

Antony Beevor

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.

Antony Beevor