Quotes of the Quarter

“The difficulty with any work that sets out to be directly revisionist is that it almost inevitably becomes destructive in its criticism. No true historian can ever believe that he or she has written the last word on a subject. Conversely, he or she should not despise the efforts of predecessors or seek to detail their faults without granting equal exposure to their merits.”

James Goldrick (1984)

“After some months devoted to ‘reading myself into’ the subject I was required to handle, and to studying the archival material available, I asked the Admiralty for access to the First Lord’s and First Sea Lord’s papers of my period. I did this as a test case regarding the guarantee of full and free access to all relevant documents promised to the authors of the Military Histories, since, largely thanks to Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond, I was fully apprised of the serious troubles Sir Julian Corbett had experienced with the Admiralty over his volumes of the Official Naval History of World War I. Although, perhaps too imaginatively, I visualized the flurry of embarrassment which my request for such closely guarded records caused among the civil servants across the Horseguards Parade, the papers were made available to me – after some delay. I have here used them – or the survivors from among them – again, though more extensively and with greater freedom than was prudent a quarter of a century ago.”

Stephen Roskill (1977)

“We shall sail with the first breeze, and be assured I will return either crowned with laurel, or covered with cypress.”

Nelson (1798)