Reality is a powerful solvent.

As citizens of a free society, we have a duty to look critically at our world. But if we think we know what is wrong, we must act upon that knowledge.

Contrast 1968, when the CEO of General Motors took home, in pay and benefits, about sixty-six times the amount paid to a typical GM worker. Today the CEO of Wal-Mart earns nine hundred times the wages of his average employee. Indeed, the wealth of the Wal-Mart founder's family in 2005 was estimated at about the same ($90 billion) as that of the bottom 40% of the US population: 120 million people.

I don't much mind being expelled from communities.

I don't believe that one should have one-size-fits-all moral rules for international political action.

We are not merely historians but also and always citizens.

My history writing was based on what I saw in strange, exotic places rather than just reading books.