Simon Schama Quotes About War

Quotes about: War

• But it struck me that the extreme violence and cruelty of the English Civil War had gone understated.

  Simon Schama

  War, Gone, Violence

• The great theme of modern British history is the fate of freedom. The 18th century inherits, after the Civil War, this very peculiar political animal. It's not a democracy, but it's not a tyranny. It's not like the rest of the world, the rest of Europe. There is a parliament, laws have to be made, elections are made.

  Simon Schama

  War, Fate, Animal

• Almost everywhere else in Europe, the more military the state, the stronger the king - except in Britain. Here it was parliament, not the monarchy, who signed the cheques. The longer the war went on, the stronger parliament became, as the purse on which it sat grew bigger and bigger.

  Simon Schama

  Kings, Military, War

• Taxation, the very thing that had triggered the British civil wars, would do so again, this time in America. The taxes may have been different, but the result would once again be disaster. What happened in America was really round two of those wars - the civil war of the British Empire, with the Hanoverians playing the part of the Stuarts, and the Americans the heirs of the revolutionaries, of Cromwell and of William III, the inheritors of a true British liberty, that had somehow got lost in its own motherland.

  Simon Schama

  War, Two, America

• There are some places where history just grabs you by the jugular. This is one of them.

  Simon Schama

  War, History, Civil War

• From the days of the Founding Fathers, right to this (2008) election, how and where America fights to defend its freedom, has been the ultimate question in its politics. The one that triggers rage and sorrow; the one that asks is the price of blood too dear? Or, if it is to stay true to its convictions, does America have no coice but to put its lives on the line?

  Simon Schama

  Father, War, Fighting

• The way history is currently taught in schools, jumping from Hitler to the Henrys, is like a nightmare vision of Star Wars, where you have episode four before you have episode one. The sense of going on a journey, of chronology and continuity, is incredibly important to the imagination.

  Simon Schama

  Stars, War, School

  "This much I know". Interview with Geraldine Bedell, www.theguardian.com. October 15, 2005.

• I first read War And Peace about 100 years after Tolstoy wrote it.

  Simon Schama

  War, Years, Firsts

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