Jill Lepore History Quotations

Modern political science started in the late nineteenth century as a branch of history.

History's written from what can be found; what isn't saved is lost, sunken and rotted, eaten by earth.

Theories of history used to be supernatural: the divine ruled time; the hand of God, a special providence, lay behind the fall of each sparrow. If the present differed from the past, it was usually worse: supernatural theories of history tend to involve decline, a fall from grace, the loss of God's favor, corruption.

Americans like to get rich fast. That this means we go broke fast, too, is something that we have become very good at forgetting. Our ignorance of history is matched only by our unfailing optimism; it's actually part of our optimism.

Democracy is difficult and demanding. So is history. It can crack your voice; it can stir your soul; it can break your heart.

No nation has a single history, no people a single song.

Clarence Darrow, America's best-known trial lawyer, was also one of American history's most skilled orators.

The idea of progress - the notion that human history is the history of human betterment - dominated the world view of the West between the Enlightenment and the First World War.