Quotes by H. W. Brands - Page 2

In revering the Founders, we undervalue ourselves and sabotage our own efforts to make improvements - necessary improvements - in the republican experiment they began.
H. W. Brands /
Founders
Sabotage
Efforts
Experiment
Undervalue
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I'm trying to tell the story of the evolution of America. Each biography is a life in time, and I can see there's a particular task for each generation that I write about.
H. W. Brands /
Evolution
Particular
Biography
Each Generation
Generation
Task
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President Obama ran a campaign in 2008 that was entirely expected from a non-incumbent. You promise, and you imply that if you elect me, everything good is going to happen.
H. W. Brands /
President Obama
Promise
Ran
Good Me Everything
Campaign
Elect
Entirely
Imply
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When you look at the development of the American presidency, you see that the presidents who have had the greatest impact are the ones who fit their times most successfully.
H. W. Brands /
Presidency
Successfully
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It's hard to get in the head of somebody. The closest we can get is through the words they've left behind, either their contemporary correspondence or after-the-fact memoirs.
H. W. Brands /
Closest
Contemporary
Correspondence
Memoirs
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A president can start a war under relatively specious circumstances, and once American soldiers are under fire, Americans will support the soldiers and support the president.
H. W. Brands /
Circumstances
Support
American Soldiers
Relatively
Soldiers
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I was raised in, and presumably to, the cutlery business. I really didn't think that that's what I wanted to do for a career. But I felt a certain obligation to give it a try.
H. W. Brands /
Obligation
Presumably
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The Catalonian movement is quite serious; I don't think it's simply symbolic. I think that they believe that Catalonia can be more successful on its own than as part of Spain.
H. W. Brands /
Spain
Symbolic
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Presidents have to decide what their popularity is for. Lyndon Johnson probably understood best that political popularity is a wasting asset. You had to use it when you had it.
H. W. Brands /
Johnson
Popularity
Asset
Lyndon
Lyndon Johnson
Presidents
Wasting
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Theodore Roosevelt, when he was out of office, he would do things to draw attention. But when you are president, you don't need to shout. When you are in office, you are the story.
H. W. Brands /
Theodore
Roosevelt
Shout
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The president was not the most important political player in the 19th century. Besides Jefferson at the beginning, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, the center of politics was Congress.
H. W. Brands /
Abraham
Andrew
Congress
Politics Political Important
Besides
Center
Jackson
Jefferson
Lincoln
The Most Important
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With my first few books, I was aiming at an academic audience, basically, to get tenure. You can presuppose a certain amount of knowledge; you can expect that there is this common background.
H. W. Brands /
Academic
Tenure
Aiming
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Everything that happens today is like something in the past, but it's also unlike things in the past. We never know until an event happens if it's the similarities or differences that matter more.
H. W. Brands /
Differences
Event
Unlike
In The Past
Similarities
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Reagan is the subject of ongoing political debate, and a lot of liberals don't want to take Reagan any more seriously than they did when he was president. I understand why they don't, but they should.
H. W. Brands /
Debate
Ongoing
Liberals
Political Debate
Seriously
Subject
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I had this grand plan for writing the history of the United States in six volumes. This was in the mid-1990s; I was fairly young and very ambitious. I pitched it to a publisher, who just laughed at me.
H. W. Brands /
Ambitious
Laughed
Six
Fairly
Grand
Plan
Publisher
Volumes
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Every work of history is a combination of argument and narrative. The longer I write, the more I emphasize the narrative, the story, and the less attention I give to the argument. Arguments come and go.
H. W. Brands /
Combination
Narrative
Come And Go
Emphasize
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He used humor more effectively than any president since Abraham Lincoln. Reagan was not an especially warm person, but he appeared to be. Many people disliked his policies, but almost no one disliked him.
H. W. Brands /
Abraham
Warm
Appeared
Disliked
Effectively
Lincoln
Policies
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Reagan refused to demonize his foes. Instead he charmed them, with a few exceptions, including Tip O'Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House and the embodiment of the liberalism Reagan sought to reverse.
H. W. Brands /
Charmed
Embodiment
Liberalism
Demonize
Exceptions
Foes
Speaker
Refused
Sought
Tip
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A lot of people were ambivalent about Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson in 1964 positioned himself as the peace candidate. Once Johnson sent large amounts of troops into battle in 1965, most Americans were behind the war.
H. W. Brands /
Ambivalent
Battle
Johnson
Troops
Vietnam
War Peace People
Candidate
Large Amounts
Lyndon
Lyndon Johnson
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I had long known the story of Aaron Burr, but when I heard about his remarkable daughter, Theodosia, about the relationship between the two and about her tragic disappearance, I knew I wanted to tell their story.
H. W. Brands /
Disappearance
Remarkable
Tragic
Aaron
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In the business arena, the standard rules of morality don't apply. What we're really looking for is efficiency. It doesn't do anyone any good to be nice to the weak. In a certain sense, competition is inefficient.
H. W. Brands /
Arena
Certain
Competition
Morality
Weak
Rules
Anyone
Apply
Be Nice
Inefficient
Standard
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With my students, I always have to sell my subject because I know when you're 19, 20 years old, you've got other things on your mind besides American history. What I have to do is make this as compelling as possible.
H. W. Brands /
American History
Compelling
Besides
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President Trump is doing what he can to act decisively. And if there's one thing most people have in mind in distinguishing the business world from the political world is that the CEO of a business can act decisively.
H. W. Brands /
Business World
Ceo
One Thing
President
Trump
Act
Distinguishing
Political World
President Trump
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I've probably written some books - I know I've written some books that were more interesting to me than to a large audience, but that was mostly when I was first getting started in academia and writing for a narrow audience.
H. W. Brands /
Academia
Getting Started
Me More Know
Me Know More
Large
Large Audience
Mostly
Narrow
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I'm more inclined to say the presidency has changed Trump rather than Trump changed the presidency. He has moderated or reversed himself on most of the positions he took as a candidate. Reality has set in, as it does with every new president.
H. W. Brands /
Presidency
Candidate
Inclined
Positions
Reversed
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You can always find people, ordinary people, who will support your particular view, so it becomes a politics of personality, especially at the presidential level. People often go for somebody that they like or somebody that they can identify with.
H. W. Brands /
Ordinary
Ordinary People
Presidential
Identify
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In the early days of the republic, the secretary of state was the heir apparent to the president. Presidents could easily hand-pick their party's next candidate. The party caucuses formally selected the candidates, but presidents guided the process.
H. W. Brands /
Republic
Secretary
Selected
Apparent
Heir
Candidate
Early Days
Guided
Presidents
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There is a certain kind of sobering, civilizing effect that being president imposes on people. There is a certain kind of dignity with which you comport yourself. As an observer of the presidency, I have to wonder if Trump would follow that pattern.
H. W. Brands /
Dignity
Presidency
Observer
Pattern
Sobering
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The more of my readers I encounter who say, often apologetically, that they are actually listeners, the more I write for the ear rather than the eye. Small things like identifying speakers in dialogue rather than relying on paragraphing to mark the shifts.
H. W. Brands /
Dialogue
Eye
Identifying
Listeners
Mark
Small Things
Speakers
Actually
Ear
Encounter
Small
Rather
Readers
Relying
Shifts
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You might say presidents are drafting the first chapter of their memoirs in these seventh-year State of the Union addresses. They're trying to get the public and the media to think about their presidencies in the way that they would like to have them thought of.
H. W. Brands /
Drafting
Address
Chapter
Memoirs
Presidents
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Every year, I have my graduate students read the great works of history, from classical times to the present. They gamely tackle Tacitus, ponder Plutarch, plow through Gibbon. Then they get to Thomas Carlyle and feel like Dorothy when she touched down in Technicolor Oz.
H. W. Brands /
Graduate Students
Touched
Works
Classical
Read
Dorothy
Graduate
Present
Oz
Plow
Ponder
Tackle
Thomas
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People who teach American history survey classes have a lot of ground to cover and tend to focus on landmarks. You get through the Civil War and Reconstruction, and you have to get to the beginning of the 20th century fast. It's pretty easy to go lightly on the Gilded Age.
H. W. Brands /
American History
Civil War
Focus
Gilded
Landmarks
Reconstruction
Teach
Beginning
Civil
Cover
Fast
Lightly
Survey
Tend
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Politics is not something most people have to do every day. Their daily lives are much more influenced by job opportunities, whether the country is in a recession or a boom period. If you really want to understand what drives American history, look at the economic... side.
H. W. Brands /
American History
Boom
Daily Lives
Drives
Influenced
Recession
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Previous candidates who get elected are almost always sobered by the office and the responsibility they take on. Donald Trump shows no evidence of that. He's the same Trump that he was when he was host of his reality TV show. He's the same Trump that he was when he was a candidate.
H. W. Brands /
Host
Reality Tv
Candidate
Donald
Donald Trump
Previous
Tv Show
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The president is the one person who potentially could be the unifying figure in the country. And if the president or a presidential candidate basically writes off 40 states, then how in the world do the people in those 40 states feel like they have a stake in that person or that election?
H. W. Brands /
Election
Presidential
Unifying
World People Feel
Basically
Candidate
Figure
Potentially
Stake
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There has always been interest in certain phases and aspects of history - military history is a perennial bestseller, the Civil War, that sort of thing. But I think that there is a lot of interest in historical biography and what's generally called narrative history: history as story-telling.
H. W. Brands /
History
War
Certain
Civil War
Historical
Military
Narrative
Phases
War History Always
Aspects
Bestseller
Biography
Civil
Generally
Perennial
Story-Telling
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In the academic world, biographies of these great figures of the past fell out of favor in the 1960s, when there was a turn toward social history, which meant the history of the voiceless and faceless. But the public at large never embraced the idea that these dead white guys should be abandoned.
H. W. Brands /
Abandoned
Academic
Biographies
Faceless
Figures
Voiceless
History Great World
History Great Past
Meant
Dead
Embraced
Favor
Fell
Large
Toward
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The president of the United States from the 1940s until 2017 was considered the leader of the free world - probably the most powerful person in the world - not simply in terms of America's military might but in terms of the moral authority of the president. Donald Trump has largely abdicated that.
H. W. Brands /
Authority
Free World
Moral Authority
World Free America
Donald
Donald Trump
Largely
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Harry Truman's decision to fire Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War in April 1951 shocked the American political system and astonished the world. Much of the world didn't realize the president had the power to fire a five-star general; much of America didn't realize Truman had the nerve.
H. W. Brands /
April
Decision
Fire
Height
President
Shocked
Truman
War Power Decision
Astonished
General
Douglas
Harry
Nerve
Political System
Realize
System
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Some years ago, I read Thomas Carlyle's history of the French Revolution, and I was very taken by the way he told the story, and it seemed as though I was right in the middle of things. And it took me a while to figure out how he achieved that effect, and one of the ways was to write it in the present tense.
H. W. Brands /
French Revolution
Present Tense
Revolution
Tense
Achieved
History Me Way
Thomas
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Reagan gave essentially the same speech from the beginning to the end of his political career, which was always, 'The American people are great, the government always screws things up, let's get the government out of the way.' On the foreign policy side it was, 'Communism is bad, and we're going to defeat it.'
H. W. Brands /
Communism
Defeat
Foreign Policy
American People
Essentially
Political Career
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Reagan's enduring value as a conservative icon stems from his resolute preaching of the conservative gospel, in words that still warm the hearts of the most zealous conservatives. Yet Reagan's value as a conservative model must begin with recognition of his flexibility in the pursuit of his conservative goals.
H. W. Brands /
Flexibility
Preaching
Pursuit
Recognition
Resolute
Warm
Zealous
Gospel
Conservatives
Enduring
Hearts
Icon
Reagan
Stems
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I've been writing American history for a long time, and I've had a hard time finding strong, interesting female characters. There are women, of course, in American history, but they're hard to write about because they don't leave much of a historical trace, and they're not usually involved in high-profile public events.
H. W. Brands /
American History
Female Characters
High Profile
Time History Women
Hard Time
Trace
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When the Constitution was written in 1787, there was this supposition that American politics would be above party. The people who would staff the positions in government would have the interests of the country, or at least their states and congressional districts, at heart, and so they wouldn't form permanent political parties.
H. W. Brands /
American Politics
Permanent
Political Parties
Staff
Supposition
Above
Congressional
Districts
Interests
Parties
Positions
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To me, the puzzle of Ronald Reagan is how a comparatively ordinary man, someone with not extraordinary talent, accomplished such extraordinary results. At the age of 50, no one expected that this was going to be the guy who would become, at least in my interpretation, one of the two most important presidents of the 20th century.
H. W. Brands /
Age
Accomplished
Extraordinary
Guy
Interpretation
Ordinary
Ordinary Man
Results
Talent
Man Me Important
Age Man Me
Comparatively
Least
Presidents
Puzzle
Reagan
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When you tell a story, there are imperatives of structure, of style, of pacing and all of this, that are there simply because you want to make it a good story. When do you introduce your characters? When do you put them onstage, when do you take them off the stage? How do you weave the different threads of the narrative together?
H. W. Brands /
Good Story
Narrative
Pacing
Structure
Imperative
Introduce
Onstage
Threads
Weave
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H. W. Brands Quotes - Page 2

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