The more history I learn, the more the world fills up with stories.
How sad is it that this tiff sort of cheers me up? If two of the most distinguished, dedicated, and thoughtful public servants in the history of this republic could not find a way to agree to disagree...
The thing that drew me to Lafayette as a subject - that he was that rare object of agreement in the ironically named United States - kept me coming back to why that made him unique. Namely, that we th...
Robert Todd Lincoln, a.k.a. Jinxy McDeath.
Honestly, the only question most Americans ask about a new building at this point is basically: Is it a soul-sucking eyesore of cheap-ass despair? It's not? Whew.
But before we cue the brass section to blare "The Stars and Stripes Forever," it might be worth taking another moment of melancholy silence to mourn the thwarted reconciliation with the mother country...
Still, compared to him, compared to the people we descend from, I am free of history. I'm so free of history I have to get in a car and drive seven states to find it.
In death, you get upgraded into a saint no matter how much people hated you in life.
If this fails to convince, I being out my secret weapon, announcing with portentous deliberation that Barbara. Damn. Walters. Does. Not. Drive. Heard of her?This sort of accusatory conversion of cours...
If there is a recurring theme in Garfield’s diaries it’s this: I’d rather be reading.
I am pro-plaque.
Along with voting, jury duty, and paying taxes, goofing off is one of the central obligations of American citizenship.
There's nothing more depressing than bad capitalism.
I do not think that there can ever be enough books about anything; and I say that knowing that some of them are going to be about Pilates. The more knowledge, the better seems like the a solid rule of...
Wainwright prayed to the graven image of Lafayette, since neither the president nor Congress seemed to be listening. We, the women of the United States, she told the bronze Lafayette, denied the liber...
There is something aesthetically pleasing about trading one engraving - and old map - for another - American money.
She is either male property (Mrs.), wannabe male property (Miss), or man-hating harpy (Ms.).
In other words, after Winthrop has acquired all his butter firkins, food stirrers, and beer along with six dozen candles, twenty thousand biscuits, and twenty-nine sides of beef, he goes through the B...
In The Bloudy Tenent, Williams points out that Constantine did more to hurt Christ Jesus than the raging fury of the most bloody Neroes. at least under the Christian persecutor Nero, who was rumored t...
I talk about going to [George W. Bush's] Inauguration and cryingwhen he took the oath, 'cause I was so afraid he was going to