But let me tell you this gender thing is history. You're looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues.

The subject matter is very tricky. It's about the Munich massacre and what Mossad did afterwards with the assassination squads. I think it's a turning point in history especially for the Palestinians.

With the perspective afforded by the passage of time where does 9/11 rank as a turning point in our national history? For the victims and their families innocents going about their lives suddenly and brutally murdered no other day can ever matter as much.

Part of what I loved - and love - about being around older people is the tangible sense of history they embody. I'm interested in military history for instance because both my grandfathers fought in World War II. I'm interested in writing because one of those grandfathers wrote books.

I don't think that there's been one example in history where somebody has openly talked about their personal life and it's done them any good.

If I were beginning my career today I don't think I would take the same direction. Television is at a crossroads at the moment. And although I am not up to date technologically I suspect that somewhere out there people are conveying things about natural history by means other than television and I think if I were beginning today I'd be there.

Natural history is not about producing fables.

The truth is of course that history is not completed in modern commerce any more than philosophy is perfected in political economy. In other words there is nothing timeless or God-given about filling stations and penicillin and plastic bags.

There's a lot of revisionist history that goes on these days about Iraq.

Part of the problem is voters know relatively little about Romney. And some of what they know about him complicates his task: Romney has a history of flip-flopping on issues he's extraordinarily wealthy and he can be tone-deaf about what moves voters. He just doesn't seem comfortable in his skin.

Yes they broke the law but we can't deport them. Let's get over this pointing fingers and do something about that whether it - they have to pay a fine learn to speak English the history you can do that. And then you have to give visas for the skills we need.

Young women today often have very little appreciation for the real battles that took place to get women where they are today in this country. I don't know how much history young women today know about those battles.

I learned more from my mother than from all the art historians and curators who have informed me about technical aspects of art history and art appreciation over the years.

What people forget is that the most radical thing about Obama is that he was the first black man in history to imagine that he could become president who was able to make other Americans believe it as well. Other than that he is a centrist just like I try to be. He's been bridging divisions his whole life.

America is the greatest nation ever founded. The ideals are the greatest ever espoused in human history and we just need the country to live up to them. But what I worry about are the 1 million black men in the prison system.

Our liberal New York/Washington-based media would never in a million years put Liberal Godfather Ted Kennedy on the spot about his clan's bad behavior to whose lurid history he himself has contributed so much.

But when one believes that you've been appointed by God for a particular mission in history you have to be very careful about that how you speak about that. Where is the self-reflection in that? Where is the humility in that?