The west has a great deal to answer for in the Middle East, from Britains belated empire-building after the First World War to the US and British policy that condemns modern Iraq to the material and social squalor of a half-century ago. – James Buchan
If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside. – James Buchan
Even before he came to power in 1997, Gordon Brown promised to change the accounts to parliament from simple litanies of cash in and cash out, to a more commercial system that took notice of the public property the departments were using. This system is known as resource accounting. – James Buchan
The truth is, of course, that history is not completed in modern commerce any more than philosophy is perfected in political economy. In other words, there is nothing timeless or God-given about filling stations and penicillin and plastic bags. – James Buchan