41 Greg Grandin Quotes for You to Enjoy

Greg Grandin

American Historian

Born: 1962

After America Been Clinton Nation War

Related authors: Carter G. Woodson Daniel J. Boorstin David McCullough Henry Adams James Truslow Adams Robert Fogel Tara Westover Will Durant

The CIA's always-useful World Fact book says that a staggering 6.3 million Colombians have been internally displaced (IDP) since 1985, with 'about 300,000 new IDPs each year since 2000,' the year Bill Clinton enacted Plan Colombia. Added up, that's 2.4 million people during Clinton's eight-year presidency. Greg Grandin

CIA Book People World Year Added Presidency Says About Colombia Fact Since New Been Clinton Up Staggering Plan Bill Bill Clinton Displaced Each Each Year Million Million People

On April 14, 1986, when the Reagan administration launched an airstrike on Libya in clear violation of international law, Kissinger did the rounds on news shows to justify the bombing. The day after the bombing, Kissinger appeared on ABC's 'Good Morning America' to voice his 'total support.' Attacking Libya, he said, was 'correct' and 'necessary.' Greg Grandin

Good Day News Morning Law Correct April Good Morning Libya ABC Administration Total Kissinger Voice Attacking He Clear Support Said Reagan His America Did After Justify International Shows Appeared International Law Rounds Bombing Necessary Violation

Is Donald Trump a fascist? It's an interesting question that has generated insightful commentary over the past few months, with the best answers situating Trumpian illiberalism within America's long history of racial oppression, slavery, Jim Crow apartheid, and the ongoing backlash to the loss of white privilege. Greg Grandin

Best History Oppression Long Past Few White Jim Jim Crow Months Backlash Insightful Ongoing Crow Long History Over Within Answers Loss Question Trump Commentary Privilege America Donald Donald Trump Apartheid Interesting Racial Fascist Slavery

Beyond institutional amnesia, a rejection of causal analysis is the existential rock on which American Exceptionalism sits. The United States unique sense of itself depends on an ambiguous relationship to the past. History is affirmed, since it is America's unprecedented historical success that justifies the exceptionalism. Greg Grandin

Success Relationship History Past Sense Rejection Analysis States Unprecedented Since Institutional Beyond Rock Causal Existential Historical Past History Ambiguous Itself America American Depends Which Justifies Unique United Amnesia United States

As first lady, Hillary Clinton spent the early months of her husband's administration drafting healthcare-reform legislation, only to see it put on the back burner by the North American Free Trade Agreement. Greg Grandin

Free Husband First First Lady Back Months Spent Administration See Only Free Trade Put Hillary Hillary Clinton Trade Clinton North North American American Legislation Lady Burner Agreement Her Early Drafting

Migrants don't come to the United States because, as Ambassador Aponte argued in her press conference, of 'lies' told by smugglers that, once here, you can't get deported. They come because their countries have been destroyed by U.S. policy. Greg Grandin

It is a job requirement of U.S. envoys to El Salvador to be skilled in the art of the threat. And Aponte, named ambassador in 2010, is a pro. In particular, she's been tasked with making sure the former insurgent FMLN, which first won the presidency in 2009 and was reelected in 2014, reconciles itself to neoliberal reality. Greg Grandin

Art Reality Job First Presidency Threat Named Particular She Sure Making Insurgent Been Ambassador Won Itself Salvador Pro Which El Salvador Former Skilled Requirement

The removal of the British after the American Revolution opened the floodgates of paramilitary ranger power. For instance, in 1786, ranger units, including one that included Daniel Boone, attacked a number of friendly Shawnee towns along the Mad River. Greg Grandin

Hillary Clinton became secretary of state under Barack Obama. It's hard to convey just how stunningly cynical she has been on Colombia: In 2008, running against Obama, she opposed, in unambiguous terms, a free-trade deal with Colombia. Greg Grandin

Cynical State Secretary Has-Been Obama Running Colombia Hillary Terms Hillary Clinton She Became Deal How Opposed Been Clinton Just Against Barack Barack Obama Convey Hard

Defenders of Wilson are correct to beg for context when considering his legacy. But it is they who ignore the context: the role Wilson played in using war, including Haiti's racist counterinsurgency, to nationalize white supremacy, militarism, and Christian evangelism. Greg Grandin

A new book by 'New York Times' reporter Charlie Savage, 'Power Wars,' suggests that there has been little substantive difference between George W. Bush's administration and Obama's when it comes to national-security policies or the legal justifications used to pursue regime change in the Greater Middle East. Greg Grandin

Savage Change Legal Book Power East Has-Been Obama Administration Charlie Pursue Between New New Book Policies Greater George Been George W Times Reporter York New York Difference Middle Substantive New York Times Middle East Regime Little Bush Used Wars

Within days of Richard Nixon's inauguration in January 1969, national-security adviser Kissinger asked the Pentagon to lay out his bombing options in Indochina. The previous president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had suspended his own bombing campaign against North Vietnam in hopes of negotiating a broader cease-fire. Greg Grandin

Own Lyndon President Negotiating Broader Nixon Out Hopes Pentagon Kissinger Lay Johnson Previous Had Days Adviser Within His Campaign North Options North Vietnam Suspended Against January Richard Asked Inauguration Vietnam Bombing

Most students of Kissinger find it hard to say anything about Kissinger that isn't about the man himself. He is such an outsize figure that he eclipses his own context, leading his many biographers, critics, and admirers to focus nearly exclusively on the quirks of his personality or his moral failings. Greg Grandin

Man Personality Focus Own Say Moral Find Critics Admirers About Kissinger Students He Leading Failings Most Himself Context His Anything Hard Figure Many Nearly

In particular, Kissinger was a key player during a transformative period of the imperial presidency, in the 1960s and '70s, when the Vietnam War undermined the traditional foundations on which it had stood since the early years of the Cold War: elite planning, bipartisan consensus, and public support. Greg Grandin

War Key Cold Early Years Cold War Presidency Kissinger Imperial Had Support Since Particular Period Undermined Traditional Years Stood Transformative Which Public Vietnam Vietnam War Planning Public Support Foundations Player Early Elite Consensus Bipartisan

Even before the expansion of slave labor in the South and into the West, slavery was already an important source of northern profit, as was the already exploding slave trade in the Caribbean and South America. Banks capitalized the slave trade, and insurance companies underwrote it. Greg Grandin

Starting in the early 1800s, Southerners in the United States began to defend slavery as their 'peculiar institution,' and northerners didn't mind, since the phrase suggested that chattel bondage was quarantined from the rest of the nation: that it was, or soon would be, a relic of its past and would not define its future. Greg Grandin

Future Mind Rest Nation Past Define States Relic Would Would-Be Phrase Soon Since Institution Began Southerners United United States Early Suggested Bondage Slavery Defend Starting Peculiar

Harriet Washington, in 'Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present,' documents the smallpox experiments Thomas Jefferson performed on his Monticello slaves. In fact, much of what we now think of as public health emerged from the slave system. Greg Grandin

Health History Dark Black Think Thomas Thomas Jefferson Harriet System Black Americans Emerged Colonial Fact Smallpox Performed Documents His Times American In Fact Experimentation Experiments Apartheid Public Much Public Health Jefferson Washington Now Medical Present Slave Slaves

President George H. W. Bush soon launched Operation Desert Shield, sending an enormous contingent of troops to Saudi Arabia. But once there, what exactly were they to do? Contain Iraq? Attack and liberate Kuwait? Drive on to Baghdad and depose Saddam? There was no clear consensus among foreign policy advisers or analysts. Greg Grandin

Liberate Drive Enormous President Analyst Once Arabia Exactly Troops Attack Clear Contain Saddam Soon Baghdad Policy Operation Adviser Foreign Contingent Foreign Policy George Shield Were Iraq Kuwait Sending Bush Desert Among Saudi Consensus Saudi Arabia

The question of causality is complex. For some philosophers and physicists, time might not exist. And since cause-and-effect reasoning needs the concept of time - of one thing preceding another - the effort to establish causality is a mug's game, an infinite regression of increasingly unanswerable questions. Greg Grandin

Time Needs Game Increasingly Philosophers Complex One Thing Some Physicists Since Concept Another Causality Exist Question Questions Effort Infinite Establish Might Regression Mug Reasoning Thing

At issue when professional sports teams take the name of Native Americans is the problem of mimicry: having appropriated the land and wealth of America's vanquished peoples, settler culture then appropriates the supposed values and spirit of the vanquished as well. Greg Grandin

Sports Culture People Problem Wealth Values Vanquished Spirit Having Take Name Supposed Well Issue America American Native Native Americans Land Then Professional Teams Professional Sports

Wilson won re-election in 1916, his campaign running on the slogan, 'He kept us out of war.' But he could then betray his anti-war supporters knowing that a rising political coalition - made up, in part, of men looking to redeem a lost war by finding new wars to fight - had his back. Greg Grandin

War Fight Political Made Men Looking Lost Back Out Slogan Running Wilson Finding Betray Rising Could Had He Part Supporters New Re-Election Knowing Redeem His Campaign Anti-War Up Won Then Us Coalition Wars Kept

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