Matthew

“History isn’t only a subject; it’s also a method. My method is, generally, to let the dead speak for themselves. I’ve pressed their words between these pages, like flowers, for their beauty, or like insects, for their hideousness. The work of the historian is not the work of the critic or of the moralist; it is the work of the sleuth and the storyteller, the philosopher and the scientist, the keeper of tales, the sayer of sooth, the teller of truth.”
― Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States

“That the revival of Christianity coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration, an anniversary made all the more mystical when the news spread that both Jefferson and Adams had died that very day, July 4, 1826, as if by the hand of God, meant that the Declaration itself took on a religious cast. The self-evident, secular truths of the Declaration of Independence became, to evangelical Americans, the truths of revealed religion.”
― Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States

“What conveys a right, and why should humans, alone on all the planet, have them?”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“It is a horrible atmosphere for planners interested in social reproduction, let alone social transformation. Planners are allowed to do little that won't raise property values. Often they do so directly and intentionally, by initiating rezonings, targeting tax breaks or gutting protective regulations in order to stimulate development. Just as often, however, increased property values are the result of genuine, socially beneficial land improvements. Public improvements become private investment opportunities as those who own the land reap the benefits of beautiful urban design and improved infrastructure. Those who cannot afford the resulting rising rents (or, in the case of homeowners, rising property assessments) are expelled: priced out, foreclosed, evicted, made homeless, or, in the best case scenario, granted a one-time buyout that will not afford them a new home in the neighborhood, or even the city.”
― Samuel Stein, Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State