Quotessence
Home / Authors / Linda Colley
Linda Colley

Linda Colley Quotes

Historian

Filter quotes by topic

AllBritish HistoryBritainBritishGreat BritainWarWayEnglandMenMilitaryPeopleAuthorityBritonsCenturyPeriodsPoliticalScotlandStatesWales18th CenturyAristocracy

Famous Linda Colley Quotes

“From the 15th century to 1688, England and Wales, like Scotland, had been peripheral kingdoms in the European power game, more often at war with each other that with Continental powers, and - except under Oliver Cromwell - scarcely very successful on those occasions when they did engage the Dutch, or the French, or the Spanish.”

WarGamesSuccessfulCenturyEnglandKingdomsOccasionsScotlandDutchWalesBritish HistoryContinentalCromwell
Book:Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837
Create image

“Jacobitism involved much more than a debate about the merits of a particular dynasty. Men and women were well aware that its success was almost certain to involved them in civil war. And the more politically educated knew that the Stuart Pretender was a pawn in a worldwide struggle for commercial and imperial primacy between Britain and France.”

MenWellsWarCertainStruggleParticularInvolvedMen And WomenDebateEducatedFranceMeritCivil WarBritainPawnsBritish HistoryDynastyPrimacyPretender
Book:Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837
Create image

“The pre-war empire had been sufficiently informal and sufficiently cheap for Parliament to claim authority over it without having to concern itself too much about what this authority entailed. The post-war empire necessitated a much greater investment in administrative machinery and military force. This build-up of control had to be paid for, either by British taxpayers or by their colonists.”

WarForceGreaterToo MuchMilitaryAuthorityConcernClaimsPaidInvestmentBritishPostsEmpiresOver ItParliamentMachineryTaxpayersBritish HistoryAdministrativeMilitary ForcePost WarColonists
Author:Linda Colley
Create image

“Virtually every war fought since the Act of Union had gone badly at some stage, but before 1783 none had ended in defeat. Nor would any major war in which Britain was involved after this date end in defeat. Those who are curious about this country's peculiar social and political stability probably need look no further than this for essential cause.”

NeedsLooksWarEndsCountryPoliticalSocialCausesGoneStageInvolvedEssentialsMajorsUnionsDefeatCuriousBritainStabilityPeculiarBritish History
Author:Linda Colley
Create image

“For women to be supplying the soldiery with banners, flannel shirts and other material comforts was, superficially, all of a piece with their ministrations to their menfolk at home. Such contributions to the war effort were socially acceptable because they could be seen as an extension into the military sphere of the traditional female virtues of charity, nurture and needlework. Yet in reality what the women were doing represented the thin end of a far more radical wedge. Consciously or not, these female patriots were staking out a civic role for themselves. And many of them relished it.”

WarEndsHomeRealityEffortRolesVirtuePiecesMilitaryMaterialsComfortFemaleCharityTraditionalRadicalShirtsContributionSpheresAcceptablePatriotNurtureExtensionsCivicsBannerBritish HistoryWedgesFlannelsNeedlework
Author:Linda Colley
Create image

“In the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, as in so many later conflicts, British women seem to have been no more markedly pacifist than men. Instead, and exactly like so many of their male countrymen, some women found ways of combining support for the national interest with a measure of self-promotion. By assisting the war effort, women demonstrated that their concerns were by no means confined to the domestic sphere. Under cover of a patriotism that was often genuine and profound, they carved out for themselves a real if precarious place in the public sphere.”

IfsMenWayMeanHas BeensWarRealSelfSeemsFoundInterestEffortSupportConflictConcernProfoundMalesBritishGenuineFranceRevolutionarySpheresPromotionConfinedCountrymenPacifistCombiningPrecariousBritish HistoryNational InterestsAssistingSelf PromotionNapoleonic
Author:Linda Colley
Create image