Quotation by

James Buchan

If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside.

History

Understanding this quote AI Analysis

James Buchan means that to write accurate history, one must avoid being influenced by strong emotions from the time being studied. This requires historians to wait until those intense feelings calm down so they can analyze events more objectively.

More by this author

All quotes by James Buchan →

More quotes about History

See all →

Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.

If I had been elected president in 1948, history would be vastly different. I believe we would have stemmed the growth of Big Government, which had begun with the New Deal and culminated with the Gre…

For most of our history, Americans enjoyed both liberty and security from foreign threats.

There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history. It is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.

This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices repre…

What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because i…