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Histories that that show past injustices or crimes can be used to argue for redress in the present.

— Margaret MacMillan The Uses and Abuses of History (2008)

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History

More quotes by Margaret MacMillan

Dictators, perhaps because they know their own lies so well, have usually realized the power of history. Consequently, they have tried to rewrite, deny, or destroy the past.

The Uses and Abuses of History (2008)

Over the years, historians have tried to discern grand patterns, perhaps one grand pattern, that explain everything.

The Uses and Abuses of History (2008)

Lost golden ages can be very effective tools for motivating people in the present.

The Uses and Abuses of History (2008)

History does not produce definitive answers for all time. It is a process.

The Uses and Abuses of History (2008)

We have to be careful to cast our gaze as widely as possible. If we only look for the lessons that reinforce decisions we have already made, we will run into trouble.

The Uses and Abuses of History (2008)

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

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History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

James Joyce Ulysses (1922)

If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!

Thomas Jefferson

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Margaret MacMillan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.