Linda Colley Quotes

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Linda Colley

Profession : Historian

Birth : September 13, 1949

If the U.S. and its allies can invade a weaker country on the excuse it is abetting terrorism, then why should not India, say, launch a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan on the self-same grounds?

Linda Colley

Embarking upon war is always dangerous for national leaders because it makes them more than ever at the mercy of events. When domestic opinion is acutely divided, however, war can be politically lethal for its makers.

Linda Colley

A vital part of Trump's appeal was his promise to make America emphatically great again, staunching the haemorrhage of jobs and investment to China and Mexico, and cutting back on handouts to NATO and illegal migrants.

Linda Colley

America is the proud possessor of the oldest extant written constitution in the world, which was for its time - 1787 - a highly innovative and important document.

Linda Colley

Any kind of new U.K. federal system would almost certainly demand the creation of a written constitution. Properly drafted, such a document could, among many things, pin down more effectively the proper dimensions of prime ministerial power.

Linda Colley

To be sure, political unions between European countries have often failed in the past, but usually only after relatively brief periods. Denmark and Iceland separated after 130 years; the unions between Spain and Portugal and between Sweden and Norway each lasted less than a century.

Linda Colley

Margaret Thatcher's decision to use Scotland as a testing ground for the poll tax was arguably the most disastrous attempt at fiscal engineering since London slapped the stamp tax on the American colonies in the 1760s.

Linda Colley

London is not just an international financial centre: it is also one of the most ethnically diverse places on earth. Three hundred languages are represented within its boundaries, and - as is true of some other English cities - more than half of London's inhabitants describe themselves as non-white.

Linda Colley

Many of the Victorian and Edwardian activists who campaigned for Irish home rule, for instance, also wanted what they called 'home rule all round': separate parliaments not simply for Ireland but also for the Scots and the Welsh - and for the English.

Linda Colley

The American revolution not only cost Britain the 13 colonies but also forced it to rethink the slave trade and slavery, and influenced its power relations in Asia and the Pacific.

Linda Colley

The 1857 uprising in India did not free the subcontinent, but it changed the way the British viewed and sought to govern it.

Linda Colley

The so-called Boer War advertised British vulnerabilities, and these were confirmed by the Irish rising of 1916 and the subsequent creation of the Irish Free State, blows that attracted the notice and attention of colonial dissidents in Asia and Africa.

Linda Colley

The Canadian risings of the 1830s obliged the men in London to think much harder about settler self-government.

Linda Colley

A break-up of the U.K. would affect the deployment and strength of its armed forces and play havoc with the ownership of its overseas consulships and embassies.

Linda Colley

Even at its most powerful, Britain always needed alliances with other European states. There would almost certainly have been no British victory at Waterloo, for instance, without the assistance of Prussia.

Linda Colley

Of course the U.K., and its component parts, should seek out as many connections with as many parts of the world as is profitable and feasible. But to play any kind of global role effectively, the U.K. is likely always to require allies within its own continent, and far more enterprise needs devoting to this.

Linda Colley

Responding to Britain's future challenges will require unceasing agility in seeking out new alliances and refurbishing old ones inside Europe, not just outside it.

Linda Colley

In the U.S., highly selective renditions of its history have served in practice to impose blinkers on some of its citizens and catered to vested interests.

Linda Colley

The argument that any income redistribution is tantamount to socialism, and that socialism has always been unAmerican, has helped legitimise keeping taxes on America's very wealthy very low.

Linda Colley

Although Britain has, since 1653, had nothing approaching a single, codified constitution, it did for a very long time possess a broad cult of constitutional writing. The Petition of Right of 1628, like the Bill of Rights of 1689, was a cherished text. So, most of all, was Magna Carta.

Linda Colley