Antony Beevor Mean Quotations

I think it's outrageous if a historian has a 'leading thought' because it means they will select their material according to their thesis

It is this compulsion to look backwards at a time of crisis because one's got no idea of what lies ahead. There is a notion of security that somehow it must resemble the past. It's never going to. Just because we muddled through in the past doesn't mean we can automatically muddle through in the future.