The difference between a stable society and an unstable one is that the restraints in an unstable one are external. In a stable society government ultimately becomes unnecessary; the restraints on people's actions are internal, they're self-disciplined.

When the business interests... pushed through the first installment of civil service reform in 1883, they expected that they would be able to control both political parties equally.

Hitler's economic revolution in Germany had reduced financial considerations to a point where they played no role in economic or political decisions

A civilization is complicated, in the first place, because it is dynamic; that is, it is constantly changing in the passage of time, until it has perished.

To this day the Arab influence is evident in southern Italy, northern Africa and, above all, in Spain.

On this basis, which was originally financial and goes back to George Peabody, there grew up in the twentieth century a power structure between London and New York which penetrated deeply into university life, the press, and the practice of foreign policy.

When we approach history, we are dealing with a conglomeration of irrational continua. Those who deal with history by nonrational processes are the ones who make history, the actors in it.