This year’s Henry R. Heyburn ’39 Speaker, Jim Cullen told students their “inheritance” is today’s America of prosperity and political stability, true since the end of World War II. Mr. Cullen, chair of the history department at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City, yet warned that this “overstretched empire is starting to contract.” Mr. Cullen earned his B.A. in English from Tufts University, and his A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in American civilization from Brown University. He is the author of many books, including The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation, which was on Milton’s summer reading list this year.
“Listen actively, and give people—teachers, little sisters, supermarket clerks—a chance to have their say. Ask them questions. Then ask yourself: Are their dreams or circumstances much different than mine? The answer may not be obvious, but the payoff will be that, now or later, some memory of those answers will buck you up, or give you hope. That is what history is: it’s the hope business.”