“The creation of the United States of America is the central event of the past four hundred years.”

“America's civilization perturbs the trajectories of all other civilizations just by existing.”

“Washington, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, and Jefferson had imagined the American experiment coming to all sorts of bad ends. They never imagined the Federal City overrun by frontiersmen who cared nothing for history and loved only cheap land and credit, whiskey, tobacco, guns, fast women, fast horses, and Jesus. Not necessarily in that order.”

“The creation of the United States of America is the central event of the past four hundred years.”