John Lewis Gaddis Quotes

Revisionism is a healthy historiographical process, and no one, not even revisionists, should be exempt from it.

Stalin’s postwar goals were security for himself, his regime, his country, and his ideology, in precisely that order.

George Kennan and Paul Nitze were the Adams and Jefferson of the Cold War. They were there for the beginning, they witnessed its course over almost half a century, and they argued with each other constantly while it was going on. But they maintained throughout a remarkable friendship, demonstrating-as few others in our time have-that it is possible to differ with civility. Nicholas Thompson's is a fine account of that relationship, carefully researched, beautifully written, and evocatively suggestive of how much we have lost because such civility has become so rare.

I expressed skepticism, in the first chapter, about the utility of time machines in historical research. I especially advised against graduate students relying on them, because of the limited perspective you tend to get from being plunked down in some particular part of the past, and the danger of not getting back in time for your orals.

It is worth starting with visions, though, because they establish hopes and fears. History then determines which prevail.