Quote of the Day (Jill Lepore, Differentiating Patriotism From Nationalism)

“Patriotism is animated by love, nationalism by hatred.”— Harvard Univ. history professor Jill Lepore, This America: The Case for the Nation (2019)

Quote of the Day (Jill Lepore, on Epidemics and Their Coverage)

“Epidemics follow patterns because diseases follow patterns. Viruses spread; they reproduce; they die. Epidemiologists study patterns in order to combat infection. Stories about epidemics follow patterns, too. Stories aren’t often deadly but they can be virulent: spreading fast, weakening resistance, wreaking havoc.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jill Lepore, “It’s Spreading: Outbreaks, Media Scares, and the Parrot Panic of 1930,” The New Yorker, June 1, 2009

Quote of the Day (Jill Lepore, on ‘A Nation Founded on Revolution and Universal Rights’)

“At the close of the Cold War, some commentators concluded that the American experiment had ended in triumph, that the United States had become all the world. But the American experiment had not in fact ended. A nation founded on revolution and universal rights will forever struggle against chaos and the forces of particularism. A nation born in contradiction will forever fight over the meaning of its history. But that doesn’t mean history is meaningless, or that anyone can afford to sit out the fight.”—Jill Lepore, “A New Americanism: Why a Nation Needs a National Story,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2019 Issue