A.J.P. Taylor is History

From R.J. Stove:

Almost every tome among the three dozen bearing Taylor’s name can be read with benefit, as much for its erudition as for its streamlined English. Even a comparative potboiler like British Prime Ministers and Other Essays furnishes permanently instructive insights into 10 Downing Street’s best known occupants. It is tempting to discourse at length on Germany’s First Bid for Colonies, on English History 1914–1945, and on War by Timetable. Nonetheless, two major scholarly feats deserve notice above all: The Habsburg Monarchy, which helped make him, and The Origins of the Second World War, which almost destroyed him.

When The Habsburg Monarchy emerged in 1941, its subject remained largely unknown even among Britain’s well-educated. Comprehensive Habsburg studies by Taylor’s compatriots Edward Crankshaw and C.A. Macartney had yet to appear. Taylor’s overview has the defects of its pioneering qualities: few experts now accept Taylor’s assumption of the early-20th-century Austrian imperium’s “unavoidable” decline. Today’s consensus—shaped by such historians as Alan Palmer, Alan Sked, and John Van der Kiste—stresses the opposite: Franz Josef’s and his successor’s pragmatic conservative radicalism. But though intermittently outdated, Taylor’s survey avoids irrelevance. Not the least important element in its appeal is Taylor’s failure to decide on his own final attitude towards the Habsburgs. Part of him—the larger part, it must be admitted—accepted the conventional Whig caricature of them as mere amusing dinosaurs. Part of him, more sensibly, respected their “sane internationalism”—a phrase coined by chronicler Sir Charles Petrie, no friend of Taylor—as a cherishable contribution to peace. (Read more.)

Weaponry and war has been a concern for humanity from its very earliest days. Empires from Greece, Rome and Persia to Napoleonic France and Colonial England have all been built on a backbone of superior firepower. From Roman’s peasants fearing Hannibal’s elephants to Irish farmers dreading the sight of Viking warships on the horizon, from Paul Revere’s “The British are coming!” to the 1950’s “Duck and Cover” drills, weaponry has haunted our nightmares for as long as it’s fueled the dreams of boys and conquerors.
The right of protection against tyranny was so important to our founding fathers that they included it as the Second Amendment to the Constitution. This debate still rages, as we weigh the costs of our gun culture against this principle. Technology, as always, drives innovation. And that is just as true with weapons as it is with the Internet.
- See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/08/15/12-Weapons-That-Changed-Everything#sthash.IoqizusH.dpuf

Weaponry and war has been a concern for humanity from its very earliest days. Empires from Greece, Rome and Persia to Napoleonic France and Colonial England have all been built on a backbone of superior firepower. From Roman’s peasants fearing Hannibal’s elephants to Irish farmers dreading the sight of Viking warships on the horizon, from Paul Revere’s “The British are coming!” to the 1950’s “Duck and Cover” drills, weaponry has haunted our nightmares for as long as it’s fueled the dreams of boys and conquerors.
The right of protection against tyranny was so important to our founding fathers that they included it as the Second Amendment to the Constitution. This debate still rages, as we weigh the costs of our gun culture against this principle. Technology, as always, drives innovation. And that is just as true with weapons as it is with the Internet.
- See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/08/15/12-Weapons-That-Changed-Everything#sthash.IoqizusH.dpuf

Weaponry and war has been a concern for humanity from its very earliest days. Empires from Greece, Rome and Persia to Napoleonic France and Colonial England have all been built on a backbone of superior firepower. From Roman’s peasants fearing Hannibal’s elephants to Irish farmers dreading the sight of Viking warships on the horizon, from Paul Revere’s “The British are coming!” to the 1950’s “Duck and Cover” drills, weaponry has haunted our nightmares for as long as it’s fueled the dreams of boys and conquerors.
The right of protection against tyranny was so important to our founding fathers that they included it as the Second Amendment to the Constitution. This debate still rages, as we weigh the costs of our gun culture against this principle. Technology, as always, drives innovation. And that is just as true with weapons as it is with the Internet.
- See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/08/15/12-Weapons-That-Changed-Everything#sthash.IoqizusH.dpuf

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