To answer the obvious question, the second author of this book is not the former British Prime Minister, but a retired historian from Hull: his colleague is widely known as a compiler of reference books. With the assistance of 37 contributors, they have produced an ambitious collection of 9,000 historical quotations divided into 90 thematic chapters and provided with source references and notes on meaning and context (sometimes at greater length than the quotation itself). These quotations were chosen to “shed light on the important events, ideas, issues and personalities of world history”. Unlike many dictionaries of quotations, this volume does not demand that the quotations be memorable in expression: many of those chosen might be described as anecdotal rather than epigrammatic.
The earliest passages quoted are from Sumerian proverbs of about 2600BC, the latest comes from President Bush's premature declaration of the end of the 2003 war in Iraq. One of the sources quoted is a secondary work not yet published at the time the dictionary was compiled! Comments on a period by later historians are listed under the period.
The contributors have had a difficult task in boiling down their sources to a sufficiently small bulk. How did they decide which four of Luther's 95 theses should be featured? Conversely, such was Abraham Lincoln's economy of speech that the whole of the Gettysburg Address could be given. The editors have also found room for many periods (such as ancient Japan) which are not commonly found in books of this type. It is likely that many of the quotations will be unfamiliar to most readers. Who would have expected to find geo‐politicians reminiscent of Machiavelli in ancient India, or officials worrying about environmental degradation in ancient China? On the other hand, well‐known quotations are shown not always to be what they seem. When the officials of the Royal Mint inscribed the quotation “Standing on the shoulders of giants” (in order to see farther) on their British £2 piece, they undoubtedly supposed it was first said by Sir Isaac Newton. But this dictionary shows that it actually originated 600 years earlier with the obscure Bernard of Chartres. Sometimes a quotation believed to be anonymous or proverbial can be attributed to a specific person: thus it is shown who first said “Vote early, vote often”, and who first wrote that Mussolini made the trains run on time. The contributors have occasionally cast doubt on the true provenance of quotations (for instance they speculate that “Lions led by donkeys” was not a description of the British Army by the German General Hoffman, but an invention of the historian Alan Clark). Nor have they forgotten the quotations that everyone attributes to a particular source without any real warrant, as in the case of Voltaire's proverbial defence of free speech.
In a book with such an enormous scope, it would be unfair to complain at the omission of any critic's favourite quotation, but a more general lapse may be pointed out. The editors evidently take the now outmoded view that in the history of the British Isles, Scotland, Wales, and even to a considerable extent Ireland figure only on those infrequent occasions when their affairs had a major impact on England. Did nobody say anything of significance about Scottish politics after 1746 or Welsh politics after 1284?
Readers should be warned that the Index is not of the type they might expect. Most dictionaries of quotations would index each entry under every significant word, but this index is simply under subjects or authors. Even on this criterion, it has gaps: for instance, there are several quotations on the history of Scotland (like the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots) which are not indexed under “Scotland”.
A review of this kind demands the quotation of a few examples – chosen perforce from among the shorter ones. Thus we have Disraeli's comment on Gladstone: “He has not a single redeeming fault”. Or Alice Roosevelt Longworth on President Coolidge: “He looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle”. Or this exchange between two politicians of the 1920s: J.H. Thomas: “I've an 'ell of an 'eadache”. Lord Birkenhead: “Take two aspirates”. Finally, Winston Churchill said, “it is a good thing for uneducated men to read books of quotations”. But this book proves it to be a good thing for everyone to do so.
