London is not just an international financial centre: it is also one of the most ethnically diverse places on earth. Three hundred languages are represented within its boundaries, and – as is true of some other English cities – more than half of London’s inhabitants describe themselves as non-white. Linda Colley Read Quote
The American revolution not only cost Britain the 13 colonies but also forced it to rethink the slave trade and slavery, and influenced its power relations in Asia and the Pacific. Linda Colley Read Quote
The U.S. is the most benign great power we will see in our lifetimes, and it is important for global peace that its leaders continue to value being viewed as benign. Linda Colley Read Quote
From the very beginning, Americans have exhibited a taste for expansion, an appetite for empire. One of the fundamental reasons for this is very clear. Like every other western empire that has ever existed, Americans may claim to have inherited the mantle of ancient Rome. Linda Colley Read Quote
The so-called Boer War advertised British vulnerabilities, and these were confirmed by the Irish rising of 1916 and the subsequent creation of the Irish Free State, blows that attracted the notice and attention of colonial dissidents in Asia and Africa. Linda Colley Read Quote
I write to relieve an intellectual itch. I stumble across a hitherto neglected set of events, transformations, characters, or source materials from the past, and they nag at me until I make sense of them in words. But I also write to seduce and to make my readers think. Linda Colley Read Quote
Thanksgiving is America’s favourite holiday, and a brilliant piece of personal as well as patriotic calendrical invention. Linda Colley Read Quote
For many on the Right, America is to be routinely celebrated because it stands for free enterprise and global power; for many on the Left, America merits perpetual suspicion and censure for the self-same reasons. Linda Colley Read Quote
Brussels and its multifarious networks provide member states not just with trading access but also a guarantee of regular encounters, negotiations, contacts, informants, and alliances. Linda Colley Read Quote
I was born and spent my first five years in Chester, an ancient city that retains some of its Roman walls and fortifications and contains a great medieval cathedral, as well as Tudor, Stuart and early 19th century architecture. Visiting these things was free, and my parents – who had little money – made the most of this. Linda Colley Read Quote