Linda Colley Quotes

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Linda Colley

Profession : Historian

Birth : September 13, 1949

Globalisation is not remotely new; it has been occurring, at differing rates and with differing degrees of scale, for centuries.

Linda Colley

It was hardly their own shining abilities alone that allowed a son, two grandsons, and a son-in-law of Winston Churchill to make their way into parliament.

Linda Colley

In both British and American history, fervent imperialism has always coexisted with bouts of fierce isolationism.

Linda Colley

I was born and spent my first five years in Chester, an ancient city that retains some of its Roman walls and fortifications and contains a great medieval cathedral, as well as Tudor, Stuart and early 19th century architecture. Visiting these things was free, and my parents - who had little money - made the most of this.

Linda Colley

Most national holidays in most countries rest on selective memories of the past.

Linda Colley

For a very long time, loyalists were often left out of patriotic American histories of the revolution. Or they were caricatured as upper-class Tory reactionaries, or - rather like the Jacobites - made the subject only of nostalgic antiquarianism.

Linda Colley

Transatlantic flights are unflattering. Hairstyles flop. Makeup melts away. Faces shrivel or swell from dehydration, and contact lenses give way to spectacles.

Linda Colley

Irrespective of their party affiliation or wishes on the matter, those governing from 10 Downing Street now have to take on much of the aura and role of head of state. And this is bound to have heavy consequences for their family.

Linda Colley

There can never be a single, satisfactory comprehensive account of the 'history of the British empire.'

Linda Colley

From the very beginning, Americans have exhibited a taste for expansion, an appetite for empire. One of the fundamental reasons for this is very clear. Like every other western empire that has ever existed, Americans may claim to have inherited the mantle of ancient Rome.

Linda Colley

Before they became Americans, most white inhabitants of the 13 colonies considered themselves British. It was predictable, therefore, that they would lust after empire, because this was exactly what their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic also did.

Linda Colley

In the past, Britons were scathing about the cruelties of the old Roman empire and the excesses of Catholic empire builders such as the Spanish and the French. They convinced themselves that their empire was different and benign because it rested on sea power and trade rather than on armies.

Linda Colley

For good or for ill, Britain is in some respects moving away from a prime-ministerial system towards a presidential one. This is emphatically not, as is sometimes argued, simply a function of Tony Blair's personal ambition. The shift towards a more presidential style was already visible under Margaret Thatcher.

Linda Colley

High-level political wives are by no means new. In the 18th and 19th centuries, when patricians dominated British political life, it was common for politicians' spouses to play an active political role.

Linda Colley

British prime ministers and prime ministers' spouses and children are together becoming ever more like first families. They need to be given sufficient resources and personnel to enable them to carry out their shifting roles efficiently, decently, and safely.

Linda Colley

Look at how the British covered India with railroads, and it is easy to view them as modernisers. Look, however, at the abysmal levels of mass illiteracy in the subcontinent they left behind in 1947, and they appear rather differently.

Linda Colley

The immediate impact of British imperial free-trading was often the collapse of local indigenous industries which were in no position to compete, and a consequent destruction of livelihoods and communities.

Linda Colley

The British especially have no excuse for forgetting that empire is a most complex and persistent beast. And it has claws.

Linda Colley

Far from being aberrant and un-British, criticising a war in which our troops are actively engaged is a long-established parliamentary and political tradition.

Linda Colley

Once conscription was introduced during the First World War, and once Britain's wars ceased being confined to the empire or to continental Europe and began seriously threatening our own shores and safety, it became much easier to denounce any anti-war agitation and argument as inherently irresponsible and unpatriotic.

Linda Colley