What I am against is false optimism: the notion either that things have to go well, or else that they tend to, or else that the default condition of historical trajectories is characteristically beneficial in the long-run.

Apparently, the line you take on Israel trumps everything else in life.

Love, it seems to me, is that condition in which one is most contentedly oneself.

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

Reality is a powerful solvent.

I can still boss people around. I can still write. I can still read. I can still eat, and I can still have very strong views.

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.