“But what interests me is the sharp contrast drawn between the practical and the concrete, which are praised, and ‘programmes and ideals’, which are condemned. This exaltation of practical action over idealistic theorising is, of course, the hall-mark of conservatism. In Namier’s thought it represents the voice of the eighteenth century, of England at the accession of George III, protesting against the impending onset of Acton’s revolution and reign of ideas. But the same familiar expression of out-and-out conservatism in the form of out-and-out empiricism is highly popular in our day. It may be found in its most popular form in Professor Trevor-Roper’s remark that, ‘when radicals scream that victory is indubitably theirs, sensible conservatives knock them on the nose’. Professor Oakeshott offers us a more sophisticated version of this fashionable empiricism: in our political concerns, he tells us, we ‘sail a boundless and bottomless sea’, where there is ‘neither starting-point nor appointed destination’, and where or sole aim can be ‘to keep afloat on an even keel’.”

E.H. Carr, What is History? (1962), pg. 150.

“In Marx’s final synthesis history meant three things, which were inseparable one from another and formed a coherent and rational whole: the motion of events in accordance with objective, and primarily economic, laws; the corresponding development of thought through a dialectical process; and corresponding action in the form of the class struggle which reconciles and unites the theory and practice of revolution. What Marx offers is a synthesis of objective laws and of conscious action to translate them into practice, of what are sometimes (though misleadingly) called determinism and voluntarism.”

E.H. Carr, What is History? (1962), pg. 132-133.

“Man now seeks to understand, and to act on, not only his environment, but himself; and this has added, so to speak, a new dimension to reason, and a new dimension to history. The present age is the most historically minded of all ages. Modern man is to an unpresented degree self-conscious and therefore conscious of history. He peers eagerly back into the twilight out of which he has come in the hope that its faint beams will illuminate the obscurity into which he is going; and, conversely, his aspirations and anxieties about the path that lies ahead quicken his insight into what lies behind. Past, present and future are linked together in the endless chain of history.”

E.H. Carr, What is History? (1962), pg. 130.

“Did what Bismarck created really work well? I should have thought that it led to an immense disaster. This does not mean that I am seeking to condemn Bismarck who created the German Reich, or the mass of Germans who wanted it and helped to create it. But, as a historian, I still have many questions to ask. Did the eventual disaster occur because some hidden flaws existed in the structure of the Reich? or because something in the internal conditions which brought it to birth destined it to become self-assertive and aggressive? or because, when the Reich was created, the European or world scene was already so crowded , and expansive tendencies among the existing Great Powers already so strong, that the emergence of another expansive Great Power was sufficient to cause a major collision and bring down the whole system in ruins? On the last hypothesis, it may be wrong to hold Bismarck and the German people responsible, or solely responsible, for the disaster: you cannot really blame the last straw.”

E.H. Carr, What is History? (1962), pg.125.

“When we call a historian objective, we mean I think two things. First of all, we mean that he has a capacity to rise above the limited vision of his own situation in society and in history – a capacity which… is partly dependent on his capacity to recognise the extent of his involvement in that situation, to recognise, that is to say, the impossibility of total objectivity. Secondly, we meant that he has the capacity to project his vision into the future in such a way as to give him a more profound and more lasting insight into the past than can be attained by those historians whose outlook is entirely bounded by their own immediate situation. No historian today will echo Acton’s confidence in the prospect of ‘ultimate history’. But some historians write history which is more durable and has more of this ultimate and objective character, than others, and these are the historians who have what I may call a long-term vision over the past and over the future. The historian of the past can make an approach towards objectivity only as he approaches towards the understanding of the future.”

E.H. Carr, What is History? (1962), pg. 119.

“It appears to me simply untrue to say that our understanding of the problem of social organisation or our good will to organise society in the light of that understanding have regressed: indeed, I should venture to say that they have greatly increased. It is not that our capacities have diminished, or our moral qualities declined. But the period of conflict and upheaval, due to the shifting balance of power between continents, nations and classes through which we are living, has enormously increased the strain on these capacities and qualities, and limited and frustrated their effectiveness for positive achievement.”

E.H. Carr, What is History? (1962), pg. 114.

“Progress does not and cannot mean equal and simultaneous progress for all. It is significant that almost all our latter-day prophets of decline, our sceptics who see no meaning in history and assume that progress is dead, belong to that sector of the world and to that class of society which have triumphantly played a leading and predominant part in the advance of civilisation for several generations. It is no consolation to them to be told that the role which their group has played in the past will now pass to others. Clearly a history which has played so scurvy a trick on them cannot be a meaningful or rational process. But, if we are to retain the hypothesis of progress, we must, I think, accept the condition of the broken line.”

E.H. Carr, What is History? (1962), pg. 112-113.

“…No sane person ever believed in a kind of progress which advanced in an unbroken straight line without reverses and deviations and breaks in continuity, so that even the sharpest reverse is not necessarily fatal to the belief. Clearly there are periods of regression as well as periods of progress. Moreover, it would be rash to assume that, after a retreat, the advance will be resumed from the same point or along the same line.”

E.H. Carr, What is History? (1962), pg. 112-113.

“Determinism is a problem not of history, but of all human behaviour. The human being whose actions have no cause and are therefore undetermined is as much an abstraction as the individual outside society… Professor Popper’s assertion that ‘everything is possible in human affairs’ is either meaningless or false. Nobody in ordinary life believes or can believe this. The axiom that everything has a cause is a condition of our capacity to understand what is going on around us. The nightmare quality of Kafka’s novels lies in the fact that nothing that happens has any apparent cause, or any cause that can be ascertained: this leads to the total disintegration of the human personality, which is based on the assumption that events have causes and that enough of these causes are ascertainable to build up in the human mind a pattern of past and present sufficiently coherent to serve as a guide to action.”

E.H. Carr, What is History? (1961), pg. 89.

I’ve decided to start including quotes on the blog from books that I’m reading, both fiction and non-fiction. I think there’s a wealth of understanding to be gained from the study of history and the study of political ideology, especially with regards to ones worldbuilding. Making things up as you go can be a hard task on its own, but no world will feel more concrete and real than one that observes real the real historical tendencies of human development. Marxism, and its analytical framework of historical materialism, is of great value to a writer that wishes to create worlds that feel grounded, even in their fantastical elements. It can help you develop an idea of where struggle comes from, why struggles occur, why the scales of power shift, and in doing so allow you to better assert a world in motion, with conflict and change at its very core. Ursula K Le Guin, though an anarchist and not a Marxist, created very compelling worlds and histories through her modelling of fictional societies within an anthropological framework, which gives an air and quality of believability in her worlds despite their fictional nature.

The study of our own world and its history can only improve ones ability to create their own worlds and their own histories.