Historically, the judicial branch has often been the sole protector of the rights of minority groups against the will of the popular majority.
Last year in a historic move, the state of New York passed the very first cigarette fire safety standard.
President Obama himself has attributed the legitimacy of the Jewish State not to its historic identity as Jewish territory, but to the Holocaust.
Historically, professors have defended tenure as a way to protect their individualistic thought. But tenure can also be used as a club to wield against the powerless.
I have always regarded historical fiction and fantasy as sisters under the skin, two genres separated at birth.
However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.
America has become amnesiac, a country in which forms of historical, political, and moral forgetting are not only willfully practiced but celebrated.
I really hate the term 'historical novel' - it reminds me of bodice-rippers. But I'm hooked on research, and I really, really enjoy it.
We modern Marxists regard socialism as a historically brief transitional stage between feudalism and capitalism, necessary only in backward countries.
I keep waiting for the day in which everyone who loves 'Downton Abbey' will realize they were actually watching a historical romance novel.
The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy led directly to the passage of a historic law, the Gun Control Act of 1968.
People understand we're on the doorstep of doing something really historic that will help the American people and strengthen our country for the long run.
I couldn't resist hiding some historical details and a few clues relevant to the plot and characters of 'A Discovery of Witches' throughout the pages of the novel.
Historically, unfortunately, race seems to be the major division that humanity has imposed on itself, a way of subdividing into smaller groups.
As an Irish person, there's a historical fascination with America: America is the default green and promised land for Irish people and Italians; that's what we grow up with.
I've never had any interest at all in being a journalist or writing some sort of historically accurate autobiography.
That said, there are certainly still cooks out there who make fantastic historical cornbreads, though the old recipes have often been changed to include modern techniques and ingredients.
What is new in all of this is that the old poles of attraction represented by nation-states, parties, professions, institutions, and historical traditions are losing their attraction.
My particular historical vantage point is a product of my upbringing as that odd duck, a native Washingtonian whose parents were not in government. The first presidential transition of my sentient lifetime, Kennedy's, I remember vividly.
I'm doing my part, building plants at a record rate, having historic conservation levels. The only people not doing their part is the federal government that is siding with the energy companies against the interests of the people of California.
Israel deserves special treatment from the United States, both for historical reasons and because there can be no regional peace without a secure Israel.
