Quotes from Antony Beevor

The vital thing for me is to integrate the history from above with the history from below because only in that way can you show the true consequences of the decisions of Hitler or Stalin or whomever on the ordinary civilians caught up in the battle.

The power of historical fiction for bad and for good can be immense in shaping consciousness of the past.

I was planning to stay in the Army all my life, but I ended up being posted to a training camp in Wales and was so bored there, I wrote a novel.

Alpacas are very endearing, and they all have very different personalities.

I'm often reassured in a bizarre - perhaps perverse - way when I find in the archive stuff that contradicts what my assumptions have been. That's interesting and exciting.

Entertainment history is now the main source of supposedly historical knowledge for more and more people, but 'histo-tainment' is superficial and lacks all context.

In the Iraq war, for instance, so much of the information is digitized and can easily be wiped out. That will make it very hard to write accurate histories. Also, there's a much greater opportunity for suppression of information before it can even be archived.

I joined the Army in 1965 and served with the 11th Hussars, which I loved. The regiment was so relaxed - a salute was more like a friendly wave.

Politicians are often tempted to deploy history as a weapon against each other.

Restorers of paintings and pottery follow a code of conduct in their work to distinguish the original material from what they are adding later.

In my library/study/barn, there is a Ping-Pong table on which I can pile working books and spread maps.

I have come across both inspiring teachers of history and deplorable ones over the years, so one cannot generalise, except perhaps to observe that the profession seems to encourage anti-militarist sentiments.

If you smash a city when you're trying to capture it, you actually end up providing the perfect terrain for the defenders while blocking the access for your own armoured vehicles.

When I was a child I had something called Perthes' Disease which meant I was on crutches, so I was bullied at school and all that sort of stuff.

I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales and then, with any luck, I may be proved wrong.

The temptation in any approaching crisis or conflict is, because people haven't got a clue what lies ahead, they're always searching into the past for some sort of pattern ... to galvanise the nation or their supporters and put themselves on a pedestal to sound Churchillian or Rooseveltian.

What is terrifying is the ability, through mass brainwashing or propaganda, to change normal human instinct, which does not necessarily contain very much hatred.

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

The punishment of shaving a woman's head had biblical origins. In Europe, the practice dated back to the Dark Ages with the Visigoths.

History is never tidy.

I think it's outrageous if a historian has a 'leading thought' because it means they will select their material according to their thesis

To begin impatiently is the worst mistake a writer can make

This armchair strategist never possessed the qualities for true generalship, because he ignored practical problems.

German soldiers made use of Stalingrad orphans themselves. Daily tasks, such as filling water-bottles, were dangerous when Russian snipers lay in wait for any movement. So, for the promise of a crust of bread, they would get Russian boys and girls to take their water-bottles down to the Volga's edge to fill them. When the Soviet side realized what was happening, Red Army soldiers shot children on such missions.