There is a fuzzy but real distinction that can and I believe should be made, between patriotism, which is attachment to a way of life, and nationalism, which is the insistence that your way of life deserves to rule over other ways of life.

To win power anywhere you have to convince people that you can do something for them.

Mills insisted that a sociologist's proper subject was the intersection of biography and history.

It's an old anarchist dream that people can take care of their own lives.

Like Americans, people outside America want fun, want an emotional compensation for the utilitarianism and calculation that mark the rest of their lives.

If the Bible is a creation myth, it is an amorphous confusing one

Some versions of patriotism come close to the tribal, which we all want to surpass, and some don’t.