Quotes About History

In Homers Ilias scheint Thetis jedenfalls keine Einwände gegen die Beziehung ihres Sohnes Achilles zu Patrokles gehabt zu haben. Und Königin Olympias von Makedonien (eine der mächtigsten Frauen der Antike, die angeblich ihren Mann ermorden ließ) hatte offenbar nichts dagegen, als ihr Sohn Alexander der Große seinen Geliebten Hephaestion zum Essen nach Hause brachte.

For thousands of years priests, rabbis and muftis explained that humans cannot overcome famine, plague and war by their own efforts. Then along came the bankers, investors and industrialists, and within 200 years managed to do exactly that.

As we come to make the most important decisions in the history of life, I personally would trust more in those who admit ignorance than in those who claim infallibility. If you want your religion, ideology or world view to lead the world, my first question to you is: 'What was the biggest mistake your religion, ideology or world view committed? What did it get wrong?' If you cannot come up with something serious, I for one would not trust you.

History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods…

Alamogordo, 16 July 1945, 05:29:53. Eight seconds after the first atomic bomb was detonated. The nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer, upon seeing the explosion, quoted from the Bhagavad Gita: 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

Studying history aims to loosen the grip of the past. It enables us to turn our head this way and that, and begin to notice possibilities that our ancestors could not imagine, or didn't want us to imagine.

History isn't a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. Whenever we choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others.

If we accept a mere tenth of what animal-rights activists are claiming, then modern industrial agriculture might well be the greatest crime in history. When

Sapiens by contrast is more like a banana republic dictator. Having so recently been one of the underdogs of the savannah, we are full of fears and anxieties over our position, which makes us doubly cruel and dangerous. Many historical calamities, from deadly wars to ecological catastrophes, have resulted from this over-hasty jump.

Though historians occasionally try their hand at prophecy (without notable success), the study of history aims above all to make us aware of possibilities we don't normally consider. Historians study the past not in order to repeat it, but in order to be liberated from it.

Most history books focus on the ideas of great thinkers, the bravery of warriors, the charity of saints and the creativity of artists. They have much to tell about the weaving and unravelling of social structures, about the rise and fall of empires, about the discovery and spread of technologies. Yet they say nothing about how all this influenced the happiness and suffering of individuals. This is the biggest lacuna in our understanding of history. We had better start filling it.

To study history means to watch the spinning and unravelling of these webs, and to realise that what seems to people in one age the most important thing in life becomes utterly meaningless to their descendants.

In 1775 Asia accounted for 80 per cent of the world economy. The combined economies of India and China alone represented two-thirds of global production. In comparison, Europe was an economic dwarf.3

History is often shaped by small groups of forward-looking innovators rather than by the backward-looking masses. Ten

An empire that cannot sustain a blow and remain standing is not really an empire. Yet

Mucho antes de la revolución industrial, Homo sapiens ostentaba el récord entre todos los organismos por provocar la extinción del mayor número de especies de plantas y animales. Poseemos la dudosa distinción de ser la especie más mortífera en los anales de la biología.

There was nothing special about humans. Nobody, least of all humans themselves, had any inkling that their descendants would one day walk on the moon, split the atom, fathom the genetic code and write history books.

si sumamos todas las víctimas de todas estas persecuciones, resulta que en esos tres siglos los politeístas romanos mataron a no más que unos pocos miles de cristianos.1 Por el contrario, a lo largo de los siguientes 1.500 años, los cristianos masacraron a millones de correligionarios para defender interpretaciones ligeramente distintas de la religión del amor y la compasión.

archaeological evidence consists mainly of fossilised bones and stone tools. Artefacts made of more perishable materials – such as wood, bamboo or leather – survive only under unique conditions. The common impression that pre-agricultural humans lived in an age of stone is a misconception based on this archaeological bias. The Stone Age should more accurately be called the Wood Age, because most of the tools used by ancient hunter-gatherers were made of wood.

The single most remarkable and defining moment of the past 500 years came at 05:29:45 on 16 July 1945. At that precise second, American scientists detonated the first atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico. From that point onward, humankind had the capability not only to change the course of history, but to end it.

The dog was the first animal domesticated by Homo sapiens, and this occurred before the Agricultural Revolution.

Today most of us speak, think and dream in imperial languages that were forced upon our ancestors by the sword.

The more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course, and the faster our knowledge becomes outdated.

Shepherds and farmers throughout history showed affection for their animals and have taken great care of them, just as many slaveholders felt affection and concern for their slaves.