A poem I write is not just about me; it is about national identity, not just regional but national, the history of people in relation to other people. I reach for these outward stories to make sense of my own life, and how my story intersects with a ...
All of the agreed-upon pariahs throughout pop-culture history put their identities into the thing we decry. And yet we derive our own identities from the act of hating. We connect on the things we are disappointed in. Some may argue that nothing in h...
I think history is continuous. It doesn't begin or end on Pearl Harbor Day or the day Lyndon Johnson withdraws from the presidency or on 9/11. You have to learn from the past but not be imprisoned by it. You need to take counsel of history but never ...
Jewish history has been in my cultural DNA since I was a child growing up in post-war London. In the midst of that dark, gray, lamenting monochromatic world of the '50s, I had a sense that both Jewish and English history were full of color and light ...
I've often said that far more sensible than a 'make poverty history' campaign would be a 'make wealth history' campaign. It is, after all, the wealthy people who do all the damage. The less money you earn, the fewer resources you use up.
I see myself as, first and above all, a teacher of history; next, a writer of European history; next, a commentator on European affairs; next ,a public intellectual voice within the American left; and only then an occasional, opportunistic participan...
Accuracy is paramount in every detail of a work of history. Here's my rule: Ask yourself, 'Did this thing happen?' If the answer is yes, then it's historical. Then ask, 'Did this thing happen precisely this way?' If the answer is yes, then it's histo...
Economists should be modest and be aware that they are part of the broader social science community. We need to be pragmatic about the methods we use. When we need to do history, we should do history. When we need to study political science, we shoul...
It's easy to forget history or give it a cliff notes. The cliff notes of history. But mainly, so much of what happens in 'Eyes on the Prize' happened in Jackson, Mississippi. Jackson, Mississippi isn't really known for any other touchstone to the mov...
The history of the past, a hundred years from now, won't be the history of the past that we learned in school because much more will have been revealed, and adjectives we can't even imagine will have been brought to bear on what we did learn in schoo...
My dad said, 'Go to college and take whatever you want.' So, I went to the University of Miami. When I got up to the line at registration, I saw that you had to take math and history. I said, 'There's no way I'm taking math and history.' And right ne...
If you stop and think about our history, one of the reasons we had an American century and there is an American dream was because at key points in our history we made very bold decisions about making sure that there was very broad, universal access t...
When we work with history, to a very great degree we are all guessing. But by using motifs of time and history in a fantasy setting, we are acknowledging that this educated guesswork, invention, fantasy underlie our treatment of the past and its peop...
Between France and Senegal there's a history. There's a language that we both speak. There's a culture that we share and to which both of our peoples have contributed. But beyond our history, beyond our language, beyond the links that have united us ...
Theories of history used to be supernatural: the divine ruled time; the hand of God, a special providence, lay behind the fall of each sparrow. If the present differed from the past, it was usually worse: supernatural theories of history tend to invo...
Carl Fogaty: There. You see how cozy it can be when you decide to play nice? Now come, Joey. Get in the car. You won't need your toothbrush. We'll take care of everything.
Macaulay Connor: My father was a history teacher. Tracy Lord: English history has always fascinated me. Robin Hood, Cromwell, Jack the Ripper. Where did he teach? Your father I mean.
Lester Siegel: We made history today. "History starts out as farce and ends up as tragedy." John Chambers: Quote's the other way around. Lester Siegel: Yeah? Who said it? John Chambers: Marx. Lester Siegel: Groucho said that?
Murray: I'm so sorry Doris. I really am. He's gone. Doris Vinyard: He's just a boy. Without a father. Murray: Doris, you don't know the world your children are living in.
Seth: [singing] My eyes have seen the glory of the trampling at the zoo, / We've washed ourselves in niggers blood and all the mongrels too, / We've taken down the zog machine Jew by Jew by Jew, / The white man marches on!
Bob Sweeney: [arguing with Danny Vinyard about his "Mein Kampf" paper] I think the street would kill you. Your rhetoric and your propaganda aren't gonna save you out there.