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3a8a72a
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virtue without power," as a speaker had said at the Council of Basle half a century earlier, "will only be mocked, and that the Roman Pope without the patrimony of the Church would be a mere slave of Kings and princes,"
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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c7571c3
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The war, like all wars, was proving more expensive for the Bourbons than planned. Since the alliance, France had advanced to the Americans over 100 million livres, about $25 million, in loans, supplies and gifts, and before it was over the cost of the American war for France would amount, by some estimates, to 1.5 billion livres, a historic sum that was virtually to bankrupt the French national budget and require the summoning of the Estate..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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bcac47e
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the Regents' dislike of the social "leveling" they sensed in the Revolution was stronger."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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d8a1c5e
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Present-day anthropologists defend the thesis that the American Indians were in fact originally Mongolians who crossed over by the Bering Strait.)
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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0ceb3af
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Each day he grew older and learned something new." Strong"
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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13d483e
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Pessimism is a primary source of passivity. As
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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9340f9d
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Individual admirals and captains made their fortunes from their share of prize money, which was divided according to prize law of an extreme complexity that testified to its importance in the system. Ships' captains of a victorious squadron divided 3/8 of the total value of captured ships and cargoes, depending on whether the squadron was under the orders of an admiral, with 1/8 reserved for a captain who was a flag officer if one was on bo..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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36e31a5
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forces on taking sugar islands in the West Indies or besieging Gibraltar or collecting an assault force for the invasion of Britain, because the place to defeat the English was in America. Pleas from the Continental Congress to the same purpose were having effect. From George Washington himself came a letter to La Luzerne, French Minister to the United States, stressing the need of naval superiority and asking for a French fleet to come to ..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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d53494b
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But to "settle" the Eastern Question was beyond even Disraeli's power--beyond, it seems, any human power, for it still haunts the world today."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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10a7516
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He said that whatever the outcome in America, he would always regard it as a glory and honor to have upheld the cause which he regarded as that of all humankind.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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6d3bd07
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the Archimedean point where the lever can be applied." At"
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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5e7f41e
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What the Ambassador was witnessing--in idea, if not yet in fact--was the transfer of power from its arbitrary exercise by nobles and monarchs to power stationed in a constitution and in representation of the people. The period of the transfer, coinciding with his own career, from 1767 to 1797,
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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1372308
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This suggests that Palestine already had begun to suffer the soil erosion that during the centuries of Arab cultivation reduced it from the one-time land of milk and honey to a stony goat pasture. Saewulf
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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bbe7bec
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A minister's (cabinet member's) function was not to DO the work but to see that it got done.
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stewardship
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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450487d
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Cornwallis was a man who could have thrust his hand in a flame if necessary, but not a man to organize the logistics and arrangements of a large campaign with a likely risk of failure. The smooth face in the Gainsborough portrait with no lines of thought or of frowns or of laughter--with no lines at all--tells as much. It is a face composed by a life of comfort and satisfaction without any need of desperate attempts. As
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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a8ff5e7
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As guardians of a continuity of religious and racial tradition" the Zionists were, Balfour decided, "a great conservative force in world politics." Immediately"
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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3734a50
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Heeding Clausewitz's warning that military plans which leave no room for the unexpected can lead to disaster, the Germans with infinite care had attempted to provide for every contingency. Their staff officers, trained at maneuvers and at war-college desks to supply the correct solution for any given set of circumstances, were expected to cope with the unexpected. Against that elusive, that mocking and perilous quantity, every precaution ha..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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aaea6b1
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It is necessary to salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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0be7143
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In the search for meaning we must not forget that the gods (or God, for that matter) are a concept of the human mind; they are the creatures of man, not vice versa. They are needed and invented to give meaning and purpose to the puzzle that is life on earth, to explain strange and irregular phenomena of nature, haphazard events and, above all, irrational human conduct. They exist to bear the burden of all things that cannot be comprehended ..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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3772f45
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government, in the words of one of the group, J. K. Galbraith, was rarely more than a choice between "the disastrous and the unpalatable."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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265e633
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As a young cavalry officer out of St-Cyr, de Mun first became acquainted with the lives and problems of the poor through the charitable work of the Society of St-Vincent de Paul in his garrison town. During the Commune, as an aide to General Galliffet, who commanded the battalion that fired on the insurgent Communards, he saw a dying man brought in on a litter. The guard said he was an "insurgent," whereupon the man, raising himself up, cri..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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918d4b1
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the fief of Coucy from the Church; it was now held directly of the King, and its seigneur paid homage only to the King's person.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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45bc941
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The hypothetical has its charm, but actual government is history.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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e54ad72
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in the case of a Gascon seigneur of the 14th century who left 100 livres to "those whom I deflowered, if they can be found."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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77e6e60
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Impunity in such affairs was no longer a matter of course, for the King was Louis IX, a sovereign whose sense of rulership was equal to his piety.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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56abc6e
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Belgium's declared intention to fight was, the Germans believed, no more than the "rage of dreaming sheep"--in the words a Prussian statesman once applied to his domestic opponents."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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2b57309
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Monocled and effete in appearance, cold and distant in manner, he concentrated with such single-mindedness on his profession that when an aide, at the end of an all-night staff ride in East Prussia, pointed out to him the beauty of the river Pregel sparkling in the rising sun, the General gave a brief, hard look and replied, "An unimportant obstacle."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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acc5a96
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there was no dissent, no strike, no protest, no hesitation to shoulder a rifle against fellow workers of another land. When the call came, the worker, whom Marx declared to have no Fatherland identified himself with country, not class. He turned out to be a member of the national family like anyone else. The force of his antagonism which was supposed to topple capitalism found a better target in the foreigner. The working class went to war ..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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9028459
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When he smelled battle afar off, Winston Churchill resembled the war horse in Job who turned not back from the sword, but 'paweth in the valley and saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha.' He was the only British minister to have a perfectly clear conviction of what Britain should do and to act upon it without hesitation.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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820a4b7
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Oversimplified perhaps, this in essence is the problem known to nineteenth-century diplomacy as the Eastern Question.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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1dc49f0
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Kitchener up to London, but could not yet nerve himself
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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0b817bc
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reproaches himself for recoiling from the stench of the poor and the sick,
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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d8c31f1
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Two firing squads marched to the center of the square, faced either way and fired till no more of the targets stood upright. Six hundred and twelve bodies were identified and buried, including Felix Fivet, aged three weeks.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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ca2944a
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finished their compulsory training under universal service and were between the ages of twenty-three and thirty-four were classed as reserves. Upon mobilization the youngest classes filled out the regular army units to war strength; the others were formed into reserve regiments,
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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2f19fac
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He had been present in their minds not as a man but as an idea.
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idealism
intimacy-with-god
prayer
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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b0e3d38
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In the Hundred Years' War that dragged France and England through the 14th century, both sides would have liked to quit but could not, for fear of losing power and status; hate and mistrust fed by the war prevented them from talking. In the ghastly toll and futility of 1914-18, no end could be negotiated short of victory for one side or the other, because each felt it must bring home to its people some compensating gain in the form of terri..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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dd6596f
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Every repetition of the choice only hardened the issue.
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objectivity
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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0427e96
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One English nobleman and statesman read and reread a particular work of literature because it was "the only book which allowed him to forget politics."
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perspective
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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aed188a
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Moltke closed upon that rigid phrase, the basis for every major German mistake, the phrase that launched the invasion of Belgium and the submarine war against the United States, the inevitable phrase when military plans dictate policy--"and once settled it cannot be altered."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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0c498a7
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He believed that rank without power was a sham.
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responsibility
statesmanship
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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794f830
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Chronicling future appeasing Prime Minister Joseph Chamberlain's rise to Parliament from first-generation commercial interests rather than the aristocracy, the author diagnoses even then that he had no center outside himself.
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heritage
materialism
perspective
popularity
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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0d60f3b
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What other country has had the privilege of making the world's heart beat faster?
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inspiration
leadership
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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716e57f
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executions were meant as an exercise in frightfulness according to the theory developed by the Emperor Caligula: "Oderint dum metuant" (Let them hate us as long as they fear us)."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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6f7101a
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House speaker Thomas read could see the trend, but he could not have changed himself.
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discernment
integrity
leadership
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Barbara W. Tuchman |