Any bull market covers a multitude of sins, so there may be all sorts of problems with the current system that we won't see until the bear market comes.
Ron ChernowRead
Strange as it may seem, George Washington's life has now been so minutely documented that we know far more about him than did his own friends, family, and contemporaries.
Interpretation
George Washington's life is extensively documented, revealing more about him than what his closest associates knew.
This quote emphasizes the idea that the detailed records and studies of George Washington's life have surpassed the knowledge and understanding of even those who were closest to him during his lifetime. It illustrates how time allows for a deeper insight into historical figures through research and documentation, highlighting the contrast between contemporary understanding and what can later be discovered.
In practice
In a lecture on historical figures, one could use this quote to illustrate the importance of documentation.
Any bull market covers a multitude of sins, so there may be all sorts of problems with the current system that we won't see until the bear market comes.
The story of Alexander Hamilton lends itself to hip-hop treatment. Hamilton's personality is driven and unrelenting, and the music has that same quality. The music and the man mirror each other.
Reconstruction is the great black hole that remains to be filled. Even experts on the Civil War don't really understand its full significance.
When you're a biographer, you want to explore the very things that your subject didn't care to talk about.
When the market is just going up, up, and up, we all tend to be blind to the holes in the market. They're all papered over by the rise.
I find that when I come upon something that I think is a historical revelation, I have the sort of adrenaline rush that I imagine a gambler gets in Las Vegas when he hits the jackpot. It's still tremendously exciting to me, and I think all of my peers in the business feel the same way.
Never to forget the Holocaust was not only against Jews. It was mostly against Jews but it was also against homosexuals, gypsies and, let's not forget, people with disability.
Empire in the past was always a far harsher and much more accident-prone business than conventional history books imply. And the costs of these overseas invasions were borne not just by those on the receiving end but - frequently - by ordinary, vulnerable people among or associated with the invaders.
Blacks have experienced a history of victimization in America, beginning obviously in slavery and then another 100 years of segregation. I grew up in segregation. I know very well what it was about and all of the difficulties it placed on black life, and how we were truly held down before the civil-rights movement.
Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.
The people and the cultures of what is known as Africa are older than the word 'Africa.' According to most records, old and new, Africans are the oldest people on the face of the earth. The people now called Africans not only influenced the Greeks and the Romans, they influenced the early world before there was a place called Europe.
Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
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