Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore
Jill Leporeis an American historian. She is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University. and a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she has contributed since 2005. She writes about American history, law, literature, and politics...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
CountryUnited States of America
break crack difficult history stir
Democracy is difficult and demanding. So is history. It can crack your voice; it can stir your soul; it can break your heart.
damning piece
Damning taxes is a piece of cake. It's defending them that's hard.
history people single
No nation has a single history, no people a single song.
bridges business common doctors domestic general homes insure laid nursing pay promote property protect provide roads schools taxes
Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine.
civilized pay society wealthy
Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity, and for prosperity. The wealthy pay more because they have benefitted more.
hall room school wax
When I was a kid, my father would go to our school in the summer to sweep, mop, and wax the floors, room by room, hall by hall, week after week.
employees moved offices periods throughout
Throughout the nineteen-seventies and eighties, especially during periods of recession, employees were moved from offices to cubicles.
deliver papers screen
When I was a kid, I used to deliver the newspaper all over town, cramming papers between screen doors and into mailboxes and under doormats.
broke good history matched means rich
Americans like to get rich fast. That this means we go broke fast, too, is something that we have become very good at forgetting. Our ignorance of history is matched only by our unfailing optimism; it's actually part of our optimism.
among people
Americans, among the marryingest people in the world, are also the divorcingest.
assembly assigned lead less likely piece single smaller work
As with the factory, so with the office: in an assembly line, the smaller the piece of work assigned to any single individual, the less skill it requires, and the less likely the possibility that doing it well will lead to doing something more interesting and better paid.
academic accepting conduct federal government inquiry money national places research
Accepting money from the federal government to conduct research places academic inquiry in the service of national interests.
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As many as two out of every three Europeans who came to the colonies were debtors on arrival: they paid for their passage by becoming indentured servants.
leads sentiments stirring voters
A problem with a president who leads by stirring the moral sentiments of voters is that he has got to keep stirring them.