I have come across both inspiring teachers of history and…

The memory of the Second World War hangs over Europe, an inescapable and irresistible point of reference. Historical parallels are usually misleading and dangerous.

— Antony Beevor

I believe passionately in preemptive pessimism, especially before a book comes out. I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales, and then, with…

— Antony Beevor

It is important to understand the continuing, confused fascination with the Second World War. For most of us, the great unspoken question is how…

— Antony Beevor

I was in Estonia when a professor asked me if I was aware that making any criticism of the Red Army during the war…

— Antony Beevor

“Hitler had learned nothing and had forgotten nothing.”

— Antony Beevor

The blurring of fact and fiction has great commercial potential, which is bound to be corrupting in historical terms.

— Antony Beevor

A blend of fact and fiction has been used in various forms since the dawn of creative writing, starting with sagas and epic poems.

— Antony Beevor

When my first novel was published, I went in great excitement round bookshops in central London to see if they had stocked it.

— Antony Beevor

I feel slightly uneasy at the way historians are consulted as if history is going to repeat itself. It never does.

— Antony Beevor

I'm often reassured in a bizarre - perhaps perverse - way when I find in the archive stuff that contradicts what my assumptions have…

— Antony Beevor

The duty of a historian is simply to understand and then convey that understanding, no more than that.

— Antony Beevor

I love 'Blackadder,' but history it certainly ain't.

— Antony Beevor

Every country has its own perspective on the Second World War. This is not surprising when experiences and memories are so different.

— Antony Beevor

There are one or two very good women military historians who use imagination, great study and research; they can put themselves in the boots…

— Antony Beevor

I think one of the great disasters (in military history) is the way that the Second World War has become the defining reference point…

— Antony Beevor