All empires have depended on local legitimacy and local collaboration; they are not based primarily on coercion. An imperial rule that relies wholly on coercion can't endure. It's too expensive.

It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out.

The law of unintended consequences is the only real law of history.

A historian is battling all the time to remember as much as possible.

When bond prices fall, interest rates soar, with painful consequences for all borrowers.

The Armenian genocide showed what could happen when empires were beaten into nations.

To make a living space, there first had to be a killing space.