Historians From The United States

"Concerns about the decline of liberty in our whole polity is what threatens all of the aspects of it, including democracy."

"I feel embarrassed to be an American today – this is disgraceful behaviour"

"Seeing what Hitler and the Nazis had done, I knew there was real evil in the world, and after that, I couldn’t take pacifists seriously."

"...Climate change is now fused with geopolitics."

"...Refugee crises or population displacement, and radicalization of people angry with their own government or willing to take action against countries that they regard as the big polluters. Scarce resources leading to political violence, terrorism — that’s the kind of secondary threat progression that the U.S. intelligence community will be looking at."

"During the Ebola crisis, the U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence agency, through its satellite platforms, collected and then publicly disseminated via its website information about the spread of Ebola in West Africa. That is exactly the direction that we need to go in with climate change."

"The peace does not keep itself, and though it may be intellectually unfashionable to say so, the world needs a policeman."

"It’s incumbent for assessments /about climate change/ to be as widely read as possible so that we understand this, so that members of the public can hold policymakers’ feet to the coals about making changes. There’s no good if we find out in 50 years’ time, they were being briefed on this. The stakes are too high for that."

"The Kremlin has managed to get a candidate who’s very favorable to itself in the White House. It is still slightly hypothetical, because we don’t know the results of the investigation, but the fact that [the FBI] started an investigation at all, and this question had to be asked at all, shows how weird and unprecedented this situation is."

"The KGB’s greatest attempt to meddle in U.S. presidential elections in the Cold War was against Ronald Reagan, whom the Kremlin regarded as the greatest single threat to the Soviet Union, which he probably was. So, in his various election bids, they did everything that they could, first, to undermine him, and second, to gather compromising material on him. They tried to dig up anything they could that would blacken his name, but they couldn’t find anything. And when that happened, they tried to do anything they could to support his opponents. Moscow sent a telegram to the KGB officers stationed in the U.S. saying essentially, “It doesn’t matter which party you get an agent in, Democrats or Republicans, but whoever it is must defeat Ronald Reagan.” None of this worked. Reagan won in a landslide. But the Kremlin’s strategy was clear: promote favorable candidates and undermine those hostile to Moscow."

"“The Cambridge History” has a clear applied-history spirit to it in that it’s trying to understand what’s going on today by looking to the past. That’s really what we’re trying to do."

"Climate change and pandemics are linked; climate change will, scientists tell us, create more new disease outbreaks."

"The U.S. military’s been talking about rising sea levels on bases since the 1970s, if not earlier."

"I believe that the myths perpetrated by all monotheistic religions — all religions indeed — have caused more lasting harm to the human race than any other single set of beliefs (2008)"

"The ancient antagonisms that tore Europe apart twice in the twentieth century (and countless other times in the preceding centuries) are no more and, we can only hope, will never be resuscitated. The virulent racism that dominated so many of the ways other peoples were seen in the West during the nineteenth century may not have vanished, but it has certainly withered. (2008)"

"Like many of the north-Indian ashraf classes, Hali too considered Muslims to be the descendants of foreign conquerors... 'We were fire O Hind', he exclaimed, 'you've turned us into ash.'... Intended to invigorate his dejected co-religionists, not erect walls of antipathy against non-Muslims, these self-projections of a member of the north-Indian ashraf classes were susceptible to serious misinterpretation by those who had always questioned the loyalty of the Muslim to their adopted homeland."

"One of the most memorable twelfth-century observations about the crusade was how comfortable the soldiers felt around corpses. Two writers say, essentially, the people naturally feel horror at the dead, but the crusaders learned to walk among them and even sleep beside them. How did that happen? How did a basic human impulse, that crosses the medieval-modern divide, become lost?"

"If the crusades have any lesson to teach us it is this... Mixing myths (in the proper sense) with politics leads only to calamity. And like all of history's truly important lessons, knowing its answer won't do us any good until everyone figures it out."

"This is one moral I am comfortable drawing: When the leaders who direct wars and the men who wield the weapons of war become convinced that their actions align perfectly with the divine, we are inviting unthinkable atrocities. It’s a big enough lesson that putting it into words verges on the maudlin. But, unfortunately, it’s a lesson that is relevant for our world."

"Were the crusades a clash of civilizations? In brief, yes. That at least is the answer that the crusaders would have given. And the idea didn't die with them. In the centuries following, historians, whether celebrating or condemning the crusades, whether seeing them born of faith or colonial greed, nonetheless discussed them in terms of Islam vs. Christianity and East vs. West."

"...I truly believe that the First Crusade was comparable to World War I in the way that it introduced into Europe a new and extraordinary brutal style of combat and in the way that, in the crusade’s aftermath, nothing looked quite the same as it once had done."

"During my research on ghost tours in the South that included slavery as a theme, I found that many of these tours had characteristics in common, such as the romanticization of relationships between enslavers and the enslaved, the diminishment of the sexual abuse that enslaved Black women endured, a gratuitous focus on violence, an exoticization of Black faith traditions, and a demonization of white women. I would say that if tourists hear narratives about slavery that sound too easy-going to be true or too grotesque to be respectful of people’s lived experience, they are probably listening to exaggerated or fabricated narratives crafted to increase revenue rather than to educate the public."

"I look for strong female characters that are up against challenges but are OK in the end."

"It is indeed a delicate task to work with evidentiary sources as well as the imagination to interpret the past, but I would argue that historians do this all the time. We always bring our creative mental faculties to bear when reconstructing the past. We draw inferences from sources, speculate about cause and effect, and envision times and places that we can never experience directly. Some scholars (and I count myself among them!) enjoy the challenge of pushing this process further to write history in intentionally narrative ways and even to write fiction based on historical knowledge and primary sources."

"Ironically, during four years of war, MacArthur may have owed the most to the very people he was certain were out to discredit and disparage him. While never among his fans, Franklin Roosevelt and George Marshall nonetheless consistently supported MacArthur within the framework of their global priorities, from the first efforts to resupply the Philippines to MacArthur's appointment as Allied supreme commander. Even then, where would MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area have been had not Ernie King urged the Joint Chiefs to pour resources into the Pacific and wage a two-front war?"

"There is no “radical relativism” plaguing modern knowledge fields, and certainly none plaguing atheists or physicalists or scientists—we are to a clear super-plurality all realists, not relativists, regarding knowledge of ourselves and the world. And secular science has provided extensive justifications for belief in the reliability of the human mind—to the extent that it actually is reliable. Remember, without those installed software fixes, of formal logics and mathematics and critical thinking and the scientific method, it’s actually pretty un-reliable. So there is no reason to believe that any of this comes from God—to the contrary, that inborn human reasoning is so terrible proves it cannot come from God. … God would want to send us that software fix! So the fact that no book purported to be God’s communications contains that crucial information means no such book actually contains God’s communications."

"George Marshall may well have sighed at the results of the March 1945 poll- not at his own place but at MacArthur's. Marshall, more than most, knew the whole story of MacArthur's war. It is a mark of Marshall's own greatness that he so deftly managed MacArthur's fiery comet and unselfishly used its brilliance to accomplish the objectives of a global war."

"Nine hours later, after other Japanese air attacks against northern Luzon were reported, several hundred Mitsubishi bombers and Zero fighters roared over Clark Field outside Manila and destroyed the bulk of American airpower in the Philippines — MacArthur's air force — as it sat on the ground. Even after years of increasingly hostile Japanese intentions and fair evidence that something was building to a head in the Far East, some might be tempted to forgive MacArthur for being the victim of a surprise attack. But how could he still have his airplanes lined up wingtip to wingtip nine hours after being notified of the attack on Pearl Harbor? Two days later, with the Philippine skies largely void of defending planes, another Japanese air attack destroyed the American naval base at Cavite. MacArthur "might have made a better showing at the beaches and passes, and certainly he should have saved his planes on December 8," a newly appointed brigadier general who had long served as the general's aide confided to his diary. "But," wrote Dwight D. Eisenhower, "he's still the hero." The man was clearly fallible, but the legend was not. In the dark days of early 1942, when rallying cries and heroes were in short supply, the legend had to be preserved at all costs. FDR knew it. Leahy appears to have blindly affirmed it. King, Nimitz and Halsey would all come to grips with it in their own ways. But for now, America desperately needed a hero, and Douglas MacArthur was the man of the hour."

"Whereas Leahy was stern, reserved, and even dour, King was nothing short of bombastic. Throughout his career, King's personality was routinely commented upon- and frequently feared- by his contemporaries and junior officers alike. His seniors usually found it merely annoying, although many- Forrestal was clearly an exception- tended to overlook his grating manner because there was no question that this demanding and strong-willed individual was also highly intelligent and capable of delivering results. King simply had no tolerance for subordinates who failed to carry out his orders to his satisfaction. Considering King's satisfaction was a very high bar, many failed to clear it. "On the job" wrote historian Robert Love in his history of the chiefs of naval operations, "[King] seemed always to be angry or annoyed." But some of that anger or annoyance may well have been a mask that was best breached when one stood up to him or took the initiative in doing what King likely would have done had he been in the other's shoes."

"On a raw November day in 1863, the Twenty-Fourth Wisconsin formed beneath Missionary Ridge outside Chattanooga, Tennessee. Union troops were trying to lift the siege of the town, but Confederate defenders were proving stubborn. Quite suddenly, without orders, Union regiments in the center of the line began to move up the ridge. When their wild advance was over, among the battle flags atop the crest was the standard of the Twenty-Fourth Wisconsin, carried there by its eighteen-year-old "boy colonel," Arthur MacArthur, whose son, Douglas, would spend most of his own military career trying to emulate his father's charge."

"Because the Medal of Honor is presented “in the name of the Congress of the United States,” it is frequently called the Congressional Medal of Honor. The terms are used interchangeably, but regardless of designation, the Medal of Honor remains the most prestigious and treasured of all decorations in the armed services."

"The Medal of Honor is the most revered and highest award for military valor in action. Since the decoration’s inception in 1861, for the Navy, the medal has been bestowed in the name of Congress 3,530 times, including on one woman and on 19 individuals who have received multiple awards. The standards to award the medal have evolved over time. On July 25, 1963, Congress approved guidelines and established the current criteria to recognize “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of one’s life above and beyond the call of duty.” Secretary of War Edwin Stanton first bestowed the medal on the surviving members of a Union Army scouting detachment known as Andrews’ Raiders on March 25, 1863. Pvt. Jacob Parrott holds the distinction of being the medal’s initial recipient. Though each honoree possesses a unique story and deserves the gratitude of the nation, three recipients illustrate that heroism can overcome prejudice."

"It is my personal conviction that almost any one of the newborn states of the world would far rather embrace Communism or any other form of dictatorship than acknowledge the political domination of another government, even though that brought to each citizen a far higher standard of living."

"I remember him as if it were yesterday. The old soldier emerged from the elevator in the hotel lobby at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, dapperly attired in a dark blazer with the crest of the 101st Airborne Division on his pocket. His neatly cropped gray hair reflected a military man far younger than his current seventy-nine-plus years. I am not sure what I had expected to see. At the time of our initial encounter, most veterans of World War II were in their late seventies or early eighties. Most veterans who visited West Point to share their reminiscences with the cadets walked with the aid of canes or walkers. In Winters's case, there was a noticeable spring in his step that belied his age."

"Quiet is easy to achieve," Dick repeatedly said, "but true peace must come from within." That was where the farm came in, a quiet piece of Pennsylvania where he could forget about the war. Without that refuge, Dick's thoughts always returned to the war, those horrendous battles, those fallen comrades, those lucky ones who suffered the million-dollar wound and returned to the States while the survivors went on. He approached the subject of what he referred to as "flashes from the past" only after we had known each other for five years. He turned to me once, changing the subject that we had been discussing, and said, "Don't you think it's strange that fifty-eight years after the war, I can't get these images out of my mind?" "Not at all, Dick. Every soldier bears the emotional scars of combat long after the war ends. War is only attractive to those who know nothing about it. I remember how one of the war's correspondents, I think it was Ernie Pyle, but I'm not sure, said at war's end, 'All we can do is fumble and try once more- try out of the memory of our anguish- and be as tolerant we can.'"

"This shy, quiet gentleman who introduced himself simply as "Dick Winters" immediately made an indelible impression on me. From the beginning, I was "Cole," he was "Dick." Never once for the next thirteen years did we ever address each other by rank or surname. Over dinner Dick and I discussed a myriad of topics, all associated with his wartime experience and his thoughts on leadership in war. Why were some commanders more effective than others in inspiring their men? How did you identify the best soldiers in your company? Had he relieved any commander in combat? To what did he attribute his success in Easy Company? Were his leadership principles applicable to the civilian and the corporate worlds? Minutes evolved into hours as we discussed leadership under a number of circumstances. Before we finished dinner, I had already decided that I would include Dick Winters in the book I was writing about combat leadership in World War II. To my great satisfaction, he invited me to spend a few days on his farm outside Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania. By the time that the evening was over, I had received the best primer on leadership than I had obtained in twenty-five years of commissioned service."

"Climate justice means recognizing climate change as a moral, political, and economic issue that requires fundamentally reorganizing our global society and economy, not just a question of tweaking incentives and adding technologies. (p 180)"

"The world's most powerful governments and corporations will not act if they are not pressured from below. (p 181)"

"It is especially youth worldwide who are proving willing to acknowledge and mobilize for the kind of deep structural change that we need. Like the inhabitants of Third World countries and especially small island nations, they know that they are, and will be, the victims of others' policies and insouciance. (page 179)"

"The failure of several decades of top-down reforms, from the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 through the Paris Agreement of 2015, to make any serious dent in our ever-increasing global emissions should be evidence enough that our current institutions are not capable, on their own, of imagining or enacting the kind of changes we need. (p 184)"

"It's hard to mobilize to fight without a vision of the kind of social change you want, and when you have that vision, it's hard not to mobilize to bring it about. The proposals put forth by the degrowth movement, the buen vivir movement, and the Green New Deal for Europe for an economic slowdown predicated on redistribution and social justice have begun to make that alternative vision much more concrete. Youth, and communities on the front lines, already experiencing the ravages of the warming climate, are bringing increasing popular and political urgency to the dire warnings of scientists. (page 185)"

"We need to understand the system in order to change it. (page 140)"

"The framework of the Green New Deal gives us some radical, concrete, aspirational, yet achievable goals to fight for. A degrowth approach can liberate us to imagine a different, low-carbon, more just, and better world. (page 179)"

"We need to bring issues together because we need to bring people together to build the power necessary to create change. (page 140)"

"Confronting climate change means understanding how we got to this point, and challenging some of the basic ways our society and economy are organized. (page xvii)"

"We are facing a climate catastrophe...The discourse might be going in the right direction, but our actions are going in, decidedly, the wrong direction. (page xi)"

"We need to change our economy and our politics if we want to shift to a low-emissions society-our economy because we need to create a system of production that prioritizes human needs rather than increasing consumption, and our politics, because to make this change, we need to take control from a corporate system that has every interest in perpetuating itself. (page 30)"

"Justice matters for its own sake, but I've tried to show here that social, racial, and economic injustice are tightly bound with the history and institutions that have led us to the brink of climate disaster. Our world continues to be shaped by ideologies and practices of progress rooted in Europe's colonial expansion and exploitation of the resources and labor of people of color in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Europeans destroyed traditional lifeways and displaced, dispossessed, and enslaved people of color in their drive to build a new industrialized world based on ever-intensifying extraction of the planet's resources. (page 139)"

"Shivaji was not attempting to create a universal Hindu rule. Over and over, he espoused tolerance and syncretism. He even called on Aurangzeb to act like Akbar in according respect to Hindu beliefs and places. Shivaji had no difficulty in allying with the Muslim states which surrounded him – Bijapur, Golconda, and the Mughals – even against Hindu powers, such as the nayaks of the Karnatic. Further, he did not ally with other Hindu powers, such as the Rajputs, rebelling against the Mughals."

"Although mortal, existential enemies, both Reds and Whites were united on one point: They wanted the boundaries of the Russia they hoped to control to be as wide as possible. Both sides had little but hatred for these non-Russian independence movements, especially the one in Ukraine, a land so rich in grain, iron, and coal."