The Function Of A Great Library Is

Each Decision - To Kill, To Sign A Petition, To Write A Letter, To Make A Speech, To Attack, To Lie, To Surrender - Was Made At Some Point In Somebody's Day.

What's Somewhat Puzzling Is That Churchill Himself Knew What The Reaction Would Be To Any Sort Of Aerial Attack On Cities, Because In 1938 He Said That In A Future War British Cities Would Be Attacked By Bombing, And That The Response Would Be That All Men Would Want To Join The Fight Because They Would Be So Incensed By This Cowardly Manner Of Attack. Which Is A Very Natural Response: When Something Drops On You From The Air And Blows Up A Bunch Of Buildings And Kills People In Their Sleep, The Reaction Is Going To Be Rage, Confusion, And A Search For Something To Destroy In Retaliation.

I Did Not Know That The Planning For Biological And Chemical Warfare Was So Widespread In England, And Even In France Before France Fell. It Was News To Me That There Had Been Talk, Even In The First World War, Of Dropping Colorado Beetles On German Potato Crops And That Kind Of Thing.

The Equivocations, The Confusions, The Contradictions. There's No Way We Can Live Through Or Comprehend Something So Big That Happened So Long Ago. We've Lost True History. But If We Are Willing To Tolerate The Contradictions, And If We Suffer Through Events Rather Than Ticking Them Off, We May At Least Get Closer To Understanding What Happened Than If We Grip The Handrail Of A Carefully Polished And Reassuringly Heroic Narrative.

Gandhi Was Such An Important Figure To The Pacifists Of The '30s, And He Was Such An Extraordinary Embodiment Of Nonviolence, That I Thought It Was Necessary To Have Him In There. When He Would Say Something About The War, It Was To Some Extent News - And He Was Sure To Have A Response That Was Different From That Of Other World Leaders.