The Japanese Co-Prosperity Zone began as a racist utopia and ended as a cross between an abbatoir, a plantation and a brothel.

In Stalin's Russia racial persecution was often disguised as class warfare. More than 1.5 million members of ethnic minorities died as a result of forced resettlement.

No civilization, no matter how mighty it may appear to itself, is indestructible.

I refuse to accept that Western civilization is like some hopeless old version of Microsoft DOS, doomed to freeze, then crash. I still cling to the hope that the United States is the Mac to Europe's PC, and that if one part of the West can successfully update and reboot itself, it's America.

The law of unintended consequences is the only real law of history.

Today, the average Korean works a thousand hours more a year than the average German. A thousand. ... That is the end of the Great Divergence.

A historian is battling all the time to remember as much as possible.