As you may recall Truman was extremely unpopular when he finally left Washington in 1953 thanks largely to the Korean War. Today however he is thought to have been a solidly good president a 'Near Great' even in the terminology of those surveys of historians they do every now and then.

As a historian what I trust is my ability to take a mass of information and tell a story shaped around it.

The only protection as a historian is to institute a process of research and writing that minimizes the possibility of error. And that I have tried to do aided by modern technology which enables me having long since moved beyond longhand to use a computer for both organizing and taking notes.

The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy like that of the historian must be unbounded and untainted by sect or party.

Historians and archaeologists will one day discover that the ads of our time are the richest and most faithful reflections that any society ever made of its entire range of activities.

Although some people think I am a romantic novelist I have always thought of myself as a rather gritty radical historian.

A good historian is timeless although he is a patriot he will never flatter his country in any respect.

Study men not historians.

You'd have to have one hell of an imagination to completely make up a story but historians are very anal about what they think should be portrayed on screen. Thankfully they don't make movies we do.

What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences because it's not profitable and now Newt as the highest-paid historian in American history may be an encouragement to people to study history.