The study of history is the beginning of political wisdom.

I'm actually reading 'World War Z' again! It's incredibly realistic and it's written as an oral history through interviews with different characters. Max Brooks wrote this book in so many different voices. There are about forty or so. It's incredible. When I finish 'World War Z' I'm going to go back and start again on the 'Game of Thrones' series.

We are all tourists in history and irony is what we win in wars.

When I began writing that I was able and did travel and met some fascinating people and also uncovered some history which has not been discovered before.

I read everything: fiction history science mathematics biography travel.

I love the simplicity the ingredients the culture the history and the seasonality of Italian cuisine. In Italy people do not travel. They cook the way grandma did using fresh ingredients and what is available in season.

There was once a time when art history and film were basically the same medium but art history is frozen in late-19th-century technology that has survived into the early 21st century.

I have taught history on the high school and college levels and am or have been a lecturer at the Smithsonian The National Institutes of Health and numerous colleges and universities mostly on science fiction and technology subjects.

The history of the music industry is inevitably also the story of the development of technology. From the player piano to the vinyl disc from reel-to-reel tape to the cassette from the CD to the digital download these formats and devices changed not only the way music was consumed but the very way artists created it.

Developments in information technology and globalised media mean that the most powerful military in the history of the world can lose a war not on the battlefield of dust and blood but on the battlefield of world opinion.