Linda Colley

“Far from being aberrant and un-British, criticising a war in which our troops are actively engaged is a long-established parliamentary and political tradition.”

“Never fly to the U.S. the day before Thanksgiving or the weekend after because every airport is guaranteed to be crammed to bursting with people in transit to, or from, their home town.”

“Historically, individuals possessed of the confidence that privilege and good fortune bestow have often proved conspicuous reformers: think only of Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

“I'm struck by how impressively John Elliott assimilated new work on early modern England and colonial America, as well as keeping abreast with his own Hispanic studies, so as to write his recent 'Empires of the Atlantic World.'”

“In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, products and tastes developed in America have increasingly influenced lifestyles in Europe, whereas in previous centuries, it was generally the other way around.”

“'Captives' was a deliberate bridging exercise, an attempt to use detailed knowledge of what Britain was like on the inside, to reach a deeper, more variegated understanding of how its peoples experienced external adventures and aggression over a quarter of a millennium in four continents.”

“States that have experienced revolutions or have acquired their independence from empires - such as the U.S. or Australia - tend to celebrate their constitutional documents and put them on show in special galleries so that every citizen can become familiar with them. In the U.K., this is not properly done.”

“Anyone who has spoken to experienced combat troops knows that they rarely brag about their exploits. Strong and silent is the preferred style.”

“Most national holidays in most countries rest on selective memories of the past.”

“Conservative and Labour governments have arguably championed British rights in Brussels so ostentatiously in order to deflect public attention away from their deference to Washington.”

“Of course the U.K., and its component parts, should seek out as many connections with as many parts of the world as is profitable and feasible. But to play any kind of global role effectively, the U.K. is likely always to require allies within its own continent, and far more enterprise needs devoting to this.”

“For good or for ill, Britain is in some respects moving away from a prime-ministerial system towards a presidential one. This is emphatically not, as is sometimes argued, simply a function of Tony Blair's personal ambition. The shift towards a more presidential style was already visible under Margaret Thatcher.”

“Monarchs, aristocrats, and other powerful and wealthy individuals have usually been happy to have themselves and their possessions and families immortalised in oil paintings and sculpture. But before the 20th century, such dynasts rarely commissioned artworks that set out to represent society as a whole.”

“One of the benefits of working outside the U.K. is that I don't have to keep fielding media/politicians' enquiries about 'Britishness' and its ills.”

“Instead of exporting what they perceived to be rational, modern, humane government to their colonies, the British often found themselves propping up deeply unattractive and corrupt princelings and client rulers because this was the cheapest way of maintaining control.”

“Historically, religion has often proved a more lethal and more divisive force than any secular ideology. It has also often been a more divisive force than race.”

“Many Americans remain very interested in royal goings-on in general, and not just because of their soap-opera appeal. To a greater degree than any other polity, Britain functions as Americans' defining 'other.'”

“Governments should encourage and facilitate the teaching of history, but one does not want them to be able to dictate, for political or partisan reasons, what kind of history and interpretations are on offer to children.”

“Postcolonial critics are, I suspect, wrong when they argue that the mass of British people still mourn the loss of empire. But Britain's politicians - and its Foreign Office - have found it hard to adjust to the loss, not so much of onetime colonies as of the global clout the colonies once afforded.”

“In the past, rulers led their troops into battle and, even in peacetime, called themselves fathers of their people. And modern politics retains abundant masculine rituals. Prime minister's question time in Britain, for instance, is a stylised duel and tournament redolent of testosterone.”