Chinua Achebe Quotes

The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations of the victors. History is written by the survivors.

History is not just written by the winners; it's written about them.

People say history was written by the winners. No, it wasn't. It was written by the bullies.

There is that great proverb - that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. That did not come to me until much later. Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian. It's not one man's job. It's not one person's job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail - the bravery, even, of the lions.

Every historian has a vested interest. "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" was not about the Roman but the British empire. What price the truth?

Since Caesar, we know his historians are liars. The good writers get read. Bad history doesn't get read.

Historians relate not so much what is done as what they would have believed.

History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.

Now, there are some who would like to rewrite history - revisionist historians is what I like to call them.

As a historian, I've spent much of my career warning people about the dangers of nostalgia.

I have begun the 'History of England' by Mr. Hume. It seems to me very interesting, though it is necessary to recollect that it is a Protestant who has written it.

A lot of what we think of as history is actually just a version of events which may or may not be true.

The writing of history reflects the interests, predilections, and even prejudices of a given generation.

The easiest way of change history is to become a historian.

When you say, "History is written by the winners," you like to think about someone who isn't you. You want to think, "Oh, that's the juggernaut I'm standing against." But you're probably part of it.

History is often not what actually happened but what is recorded as such.

History does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another.

History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?

It is the winners who write history - their way.

History is a capricious creature. It depends on who writes it.

Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well.

As a historian I understand how histories are written. My enemies will write histories that dismiss me and prove I was unimportant. My friends will write histories that glorify me and prove I was more important than I was. And two generations or three from now, some serious sober historian will write a history that sort of implies I was whoever I was.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

Each age tries to form its own conception of the past. Each age writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time.