I expressed skepticism, in the first chapter, about the utility of time machines in historical research. I especially advised against graduate students relying on them, because of the limited perspective you tend to get from being plunked down in some… — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
“It’s not a very nice solution,” Kennedy acknowledged, “but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.”54 The president could not resist observing, though, when he himself visited the Berlin Wall in June, 1963, that “we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us.” The… — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share
The United States came out of the 1990s, if anything, in an even greater position of hegemony and preeminence than it was at the… — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
I don't think there is necessarily a contradiction between being a hegemonic power on the one hand and functioning multilaterally on the other. — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
George W. Bush has much to evaluate: he has presided over the most sweeping redesign of U.S. grand strategy since the presidency of Franklin… — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
“Stalin’s first move, uncharacteristically, was to apologize to the Chinese comrades for having underestimated them: “Our opinions are not always correct,” he told a… — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
I think the way to think about the impact of Hiroshima is to think about it as a sudden shift in the balance of… — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
“Thanks to an ingenious constitution, their geographical isolation from potential rivals, and a magnificent endowment of natural resources, the Americans managed to build an… — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
Second terms in the White House open the way for second thoughts. — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
“I can’t take communism nor can you, but to cross this bridge I would hold hands with the Devil.” — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
“From 1957 through 1961, Khrushchev openly, repeatedly, and bloodcurdlingly threatened the West with nuclear annihilation. Soviet missile capabilities were so far superior to those… — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
“Historical consciousness therefore leaves you, as does maturity itself, with a simultaneous sense of your own significance and insignificance. Like Friedrich's wanderer, you dominate… — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
“His months of teaching experience were now a lost age of youth and innocence. He could no longer sit in his office at Fort… — John Lewis Gaddis Copy Share Image
