Jon Meacham Quotes
If generations past could get things so badly wrong, then we are forever vulnerable as well.
Jon Meacham "Our Populist Prologue" Time Magazine, December 19, 2016
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The best example of this is the role that distant history has in the current Balkans and Arab countries where terrible current judgment about society or foreign affairs is totally driven by an exquisitely detailed memory of a particular version of distant history.
When issues are complicated, trusting your instincts and intuition is very dangerous. There are so many variables that interact that you really have to analyze and think through all the possible options to avoid problematical unintended consequences and interactions.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio
He fought in Algeria and other counterinsurgencies and then studied them. He wrote the classic book on counterinsurgency warfare. After all the mistakes the U. S. made after the successful invasion of Iraq, his book and doctrine were very influential in the change in strategy and tactics that turned the Iraq War in our favor.
Yet so many nations and cultures carry the baggage of historical deeds or misdeeds do their detriment, while others take great pride in accomplishments which they themselves have had nothing to do with. The middle ground is to understand and appreciate (or condemn if warranted) the historical contibution to the present of ancenstors and avvoid hubris for others actions and avoid the need to be defensive and justify or deny other ancensoral behavior.
Jon Ellis Meacham is an American writer, reviewer, historian and presidential biographer. A former Executive Editor and Executive Vice President at Random House, he is a contributing writer to The New York Times Book Review, a contributing editor to Time magazine, and a former Editor-in-Chief of Newsweek. He is the author of several books. He won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. He holds the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Endowed Chair in American Presidency at Vanderbilt University.
