I was a narrative historian, believing more and more as I matured that the first function of the historian was to answer the child's question, "What … - A. J. P. Taylor

Taylor's Law states: "The Foreign Office knows no secrets."

This is the explanation of the paradox of the "Third Reich." It was a system founded on terror, unworkable without the secret police and the concentration camp; but it was also a system which represented the deepest wishes of the German people. In fact it was the only system of German government ever created by German initiative. The old empire had been imposed by the arms of Austria and France; the German Confederation by the armies of Austria and Prussia. The Hohenzollern empire was made by the victories of Prussia, the Weimar republic by the victories of the Allies. But the "Third Reich" rested solely on German force and German impulse; it owed nothing to alien forces. It was a tyranny imposed upon the German people by themselves.

The peace of the world depends on American strength and, still more, on American restraint.