Antony Beevor

Historian

1946-12-14

Antony Beevor is a British military historian and author. He was born on 1946-12-14 and is known for bestselling works on the Second World War including Stalingrad and Berlin. He was knighted for services to literature.

Books by Antony Beevor

Stalingrad
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The Fall of Berlin, 1945
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The Second World War
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Quotes by 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
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To begin impatiently is the worst mistake a writer can make
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I think it's outrageous if a historian has a 'leading thought' because it means they will select their material according to their thesis
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To begin impatiently is the worst mistake a writer can make
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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.
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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.
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In the Iraq war, for instance, so much of the information is digitized and can easily be wiped out. That will make it very hard to write accurate histories. Also, there's a much greater opportunity for suppression of information before it can even be archived.
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Politicians are often tempted to deploy history as a weapon against each other.
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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.
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Counter-knowledge covers the propagation of false legends and conspiracy theories often used for political purposes or fundamentalist religious propaganda.
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I think it's outrageous if a historian has a 'leading thought' because it means they will select their material according to their thesis.
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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.
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The greatest heroes of the Normandy battlefield were the unarmed medics, whom snipers often shot at despite their Red Cross armbands.
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I feel slightly uneasy at the way historians are consulted as if history is going to repeat itself. It never does.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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