Bryant was aware of the liabilities of writing fast-moving, grand, rather literary narratives. With more self-awareness than some scholars may give him, Bryant answered his critics to some extent when he wrote in 1962, In these days of specialized and cumulative scholarship, for one man to try to survey a nation's history in all its aspects is an act of great presumption. It involves problems of arrangement and writing so baffling that it is seldom attempted, and with reason, since, through compression and generalization on the one hand and the selection of misleading detail on the other, it can so easily lead to over-simplification and misrepresentation. I am very conscious of the imperfections of a work that seeks to cover a field of knowledge so much wider and deeper than any single mind can master. Yet, if my work has any virtue, it is that it attempts, however imperfectly, just this. For if the ordinary reader is to understand his country's past, someone must essay the task or the truth will go by default. Because of this I had thought of calling my book "The Tower of Memory". Unless those responsible for a nation's policy--in a parliamentary democracy the electors--can climb that tower, they cannot see the road along which they have come or comprehend their continuing destiny ("The Age of Chivalry", 14).