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To the Editor:
“The First Post-Reagan Presidency,” by Michelle Goldberg (column, Jan. 31), cites the work of a Yale political scientist, Stephen Skowronek, in which he says he has calculated that every 40 to 60 years there is a fresh transformative presidency in America.
My grandfather Arthur Schlesinger Sr. and my father, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., conceived of a similar theory proposing that cycles of American history alternate between public purpose and private interest, every 30 years or so. Like Professor Skowronek, they did not see their theory “as a skeleton key to history,” but, like Mr. Skowronek, really as a way of understanding how U.S. history evolves.
Both concepts suggest that we are now entering a new progressive era.
Stephen Schlesinger
New York
The writer is a fellow at the Century Foundation.
‘There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: …”
To the Editor:
Re “Let’s Become More Divided,” by Dwight Garner (Sunday Review, Jan. 31):
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who read collections of quotations like this one and those who don’t.
Louis Phillips
New York
To the Editor:
Dwight Garner left out the biggest one. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who believe that there are two kinds of people and those who don’t.
J. Victor Stern
Newton, Mass.
To the Editor:
Dwight Garner featured great quotes dividing the world in different halves, but didn’t include one of my favorites.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who think in binary terms and those who don’t.
Bob Mohl
Neuilly sur Seine, France
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