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If I can just see the European war out I think I might feel justified in quitting the war.

Europe cannot survive another world war.

If you were born in Britain after World War II, you see a continuous atmosphere of decline, moral and economic and political.

In 1913 many believed that there would never again be a war in Europe. The great powers of the continent were so closely intertwined economically that the view was widespread that they could no longer afford to have military confrontations.

European nations began World War I with a glamorous vision of war, only to be psychologically shattered by the realities of the trenches. The experience changed the way people referred to the glamour of battle; they treated it no longer as a positive quality but as a dangerous illusion.

I'm really still a child of the Forties. I still think about it a lot, about the repercussions of armed conflict. Until 1953 we had rationing. We couldn't buy meat, we couldn't buy pleasurable goods like cigarettes and sweets. I didn't starve - my family were lucky - but I knew what it was like standing in line waiting for foodstuffs.

The adverse economic events following the First World War turned me toward economics.

World War I broke out largely because of an arms race, and World War II because of the lack of an arms race.

I remember people who'd had a lot of hardship during the war. They'd thought we'd won.

As often happens during a war, some parts of the country prospered, notwithstanding the constant loss.