The accounts that history presents have to be paid. Past has to be reconciled with present in the life of a nation. History is an insistent force: the past is what put us where we are. the past cannot be put behind until it is settled with.

Our culture is teleological-it presumes purposive development and a conclusion.

The accounts that history presents have to be paid. Past has to be reconciled with present in the life of a nation. History is an insistent force: the past is what put us where we are. the past cannot be put behind until it is settled with.

But Americans are different from everyone else in the world - except the Canadians, and Americans are more different from the Canadians than they often think.

The center holds; passion falls away. That is what happened ideologically in Western Europe over recent years.

The problems of elites is an old one for which Americans have found no solid answer.

For four hundred years European civilization has dominated the world - for better or for worse. It is convenient, and flattering, for Americans to assume that this is all over; but it very rash to do so.