What I am calling “the apartment plot” are narratives in which the apartment figures as a central device. This means that the apartment is not only setting, but motivates or shapes the narrative in some key way.

Pamela Robertson Wojcik,
Interview of November 8, 2010

The two world wars of the twentieth century were a product of the dislocations brought about of modernization in an environment where great power competition and the drive for hegemony were conducted primarily by violent means. Now that this era has passed in Europe and is receding in much of the Pacific rim, and hegemony achieved by force is no longer considered a legitimate ambition, the security requirements and fears of great powers should decline.

Richard Ned Lebow,
Interview of October 4, 2010