Under Lenin, hardly less than under Stalin, historians harbored critical opinions at their peril. The writing, let alone the publication, of political diaries was virtually impossible.

Any historian worth their salt should be aware of wars, conflicts, catastrophes. They happen. This is part of the panorama.

The advance of standard English culture was less assisted by government policy than by the sheer weight, wealth, and number of England's well-established cultural institutions.

It's the historian's job not to ridicule the myths, but to show the difference between myth and reality.