But my own greatest debt to the Duke was the discovery of Namier. Now here was a level of history the existence of which I had never previously suspected. I was absolutely enthralled by his use of the minutiae of personal case histories, and it seemed to me that he was a historian who was writing about real people, about human beings and not just about Heroes, great principles, ideas, and that sort of thing. I was delighted above all in his portrayal of the great Duke of Newcastle, for me the very quintessence of the anti-hero, a personage of delightfully unglorious proportions.
British historian (1917–1996)
Richard Charles Cobb CBE (20 May 1917 – 15 January 1996) was a British historian and essayist, and professor at the University of Oxford. He was the author of numerous influential works about the history of France, particularly the French Revolution. Cobb meticulously researched the Revolutionary era from a ground-level view sometimes described as "history from below".
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Richard Charles Cobb
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Napoleon was a tyrant quite as abominable as Hitler; and the fact that he did not kill quite so many people is due merely to purely technical deficiencies. Even so, by early nineteenth century standards, he reached an unprecedented score.
It is insulting to the brave Russian peasants, to the brave British and Allied soldiers, who died for the freedom of their countries, to suggest that they were on the wrong side, were deluded and failed to appreciate the merits of French liberty.
Dr Wober's letter is a timely reminder of the skill employed by members of the French Communist Party in "colonizing" institutions from within. Some measure of their patient ability in this respect may be gathered from the manner in which they penetrated research organizations and institutions of higher learning during the previous régime, at a time when they had no friends in high official posts.
Now, with ministers in crucial areas of the bureaucracy, we may expect to see them extending their permanent influence and patronage, this time from above.
One must cling to what crumbs of comfort that remain: after 1947, the ministries that had been in Communist control for the previous three years were effectively purged. But such a purge would be much more difficult a second time.
One is constantly amazed at the arrogant effrontery and insensitivity of intellectuals. What right has Bernard Levin to sit in judgment on the opinion of ordinary and decent people? How do Lord Longford and he know, what most people will doubt, that Myra Hindley, a woman of low and calculating cunning, as well as of consummate evil, is genuinely repentant? We do not believe it. What is there "hysterical" about hatred for utter and calculated cruelty? And is there to be no compassion for the parents of children loved and cherished, the victims of these two fiends? A minimum of modesty might have induced this self-appointed pontificator of morality to have spared us his attentions in this season of good will and family love.
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