Antony Beevor Quotes

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Antony Beevor

Profession : Historian

Birth : December 14, 1946

Teaching the history of the British Empire links in with that of the world: for better and for worse, the Empire made us what we are, forming our national identity. A country that does not understand its own history is unlikely to respect that of others.

Antony Beevor

I get slightly obsessive about working in archives because you don't know what you're going to find. In fact, you don't know what you're looking for until you find it.

Antony Beevor

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

Antony Beevor

When we dwell on the enormity of the Second World War and its victims, we try to absorb all those statistics of national and ethnic tragedy. But, as a result, there is a tendency to overlook the way the war changed even the survivors' lives in ways impossible to predict.

Antony Beevor

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

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 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

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.

Antony Beevor

A blend of fact and fiction has been used in various forms since the dawn of creative writing, starting with sagas and epic poems.

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

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

School-leavers unfortunately will come away thinking the First World War consisted simply of 'going over the top' on the Western Front to slaughter in no-man's-land, when the conflict extended so much further, to the collapse of four empires and numerous civil wars.

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

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

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

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

I just love the days when you come out of the archives with half a dozen excellent descriptions or poignant accounts of personal experiences.

Antony Beevor

In my library/study/barn, there is a Ping-Pong table on which I can pile working books and spread maps.

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

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