Elizabeth Wiskemann, and Alan Bullock." - Meaning and context.">
p. 98
“

In my opinion, statesmen are too absorbed by events to follow a preconceived plan. They take one step, and the next follows from it. The systems are created by historians, as happened with Napoleon; and the systems attributed to Hitler are really those of Hugh Trevor-Roper, Elizabeth Wiskemann, and Alan Bullock.

— A. J. P. Taylor

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "In my opinion, statesmen are too absorbed by events to follow a preconceived plan. They take one step, and the next follows from it. The systems are created by historians, as happened with Napoleon; and the systems attributed to Hitler are really those of Hugh Trevor-Roper, Elizabeth Wiskemann, and Alan Bullock." in the context of "p. 98" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "A. J. P. Taylor" (Quotes, 1960s, The Origins of the Second World War (1961)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
A. J. P. Taylor

About A. J. P. Taylor

Alan John Percivale Taylor (25 March 1906 – 7 September 1990) was a British historian, journalist, broadcaster and scholar. His approachably written and sometimes contentiously revisionist studies of 19th and early 20th-century subjects brought academic history to a new audience.