Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
I'm a historian. The act of predicting the future discomfits me, in any event - and the bigger the prediction, the more… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
I'm reverent toward my sources. History is a team sport, and references are how you support your teammates. — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
In American religious history, theological qualms tend to get pushed aside when politics intervenes. — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Personally, speaking as a historian and a storyteller, when it comes to inaccuracy in historical fictioneering, I follow the Shakespeare principle: I'm… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
I look to historians for their power to illuminate not just the invisible lineaments of the present, but also that which is… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Here's an irony of the history of conservatism's relationship with business and business's relationship with conservatism: 'Wall Street' used to be the… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Look at liberty's greatest historic advances: ending slavery. Giving women the vote. Outlawing legal segregation. Each and every time, the people at… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
I don't read many popular histories like the ones I write. The building blocks for my research are scholarly monographs, and the… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
History does not repeat itself. Nor does it unfold in cycles. The real future is contingent, rich beyond imagining, a perennial gobsmack,… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Conservatives are time-biders. And they understand, as Corey Robin explains in his indispensable book 'The Reactionary Mind,' that the direction of human… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
My big subject as a historian is how Americans divide themselves. What are the divisions that structure our political lives. Richard Nixon… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
The history of American higher education over the twentieth century is an extraordinary one, the story of the creation of a powerhouse… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
I love trade magazines - any trade's magazine: by entering into what is taken for granted in a world not your own, you better… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
When the 2008 victory of Barack Obama and the defeat of grumpy old John McCain began looking, um, inevitable, I started fielding inquiries about… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
Watergate got us to think of leaders as mere mortals. America began to think of itself in a very different way - I would… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
Part of the fantasy certain pro-reform Republicans like to broadcast about Hispanics, family-oriented, churchgoing traditionalists, is that they are somehow natural conservatives, just waiting… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
The history of American higher education over the twentieth century is an extraordinary one, the story of the creation of a powerhouse set of… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
The only times during my religious instruction I remember hearing God's name invoked with any sincere conviction at all was in the oft-repeated and… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
As a general rule of thumb, Democrats do better in national elections when the year's defining issue is economic fairness, and Republicans do better… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
Empirical debunking cannot reach the deepest fear of the reactionary mind, which is that the state - that devouring leviathan - will soon swallow… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
I think that all politicians who aspire to the presidency are a little nuts, but for different reasons. What kind of person aspires to… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
Chicago's privatization mania began during Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration, which ran from 1989 to 2011. Under his successor, Rahm Emanuel, the trend has… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
One thing Republicans understand: In American elections, you have to choose from among only two people - not between the perfect and the good. — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
Social conservatism, business conservatism: the one side constitutes the other, like some infernal Mobius strip. — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
Sometimes I like to think that the responsibility of every new generation of Democrats is to devise a program that mints new Democrats for… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share
