My History Writing Was Based On What

The Second World War Had A Precipitating Effect In That It Discredited The Empires, As Well As Bankrupting Them. Not Only Could You No Longer, If You Were A Colonial Subject Of France In Africa, Look To France As A Model Of Power And Influence And Civility After What Had Happened In The War. Nor Could The French Any Longer Afford To Run Their Empire. And Nor Could The British, Although They Were Not Discredited In The Way That The French Were.

The Rottenness Of Politics In Yugoslavia Didn't Come As A Surprise. The Main Lesson Is That This Is A War Which Could Have Easily Been Stopped By Europe. What Was Lacking Was Any Will To Do So. It's An Irony Of The Achievement Of Europe That It Had Lived For 40 Years Under The Assumption Of The Unimaginability Of Internal Wars, So It Didn't Know What To Do With It When It Was Confronted With One Close Up.

Above All, The Thrall In Which An Ideology Holds A People Is Best Measured By Their Collective Inability To Imagine Alternatives.

Apparently, The Line You Take On Israel Trumps Everything Else In Life.

I Started Work On My First French History Book In 1969; On 'socialism In Provence' In 1974; And On The Essays In Marxism And The French Left In 1978. Conversely, My First Non-academic Publication, A Review In The 'tls', Did Not Come Until The Late 1980s, And It Was Not Until 1993 That I Published My First Piece In The 'new York Review.'