Linda Colley Quotes
A fundamental reason why Britain was not torn apart by civil war after 1688 was that its inhabitants' aggression was channelled so regularly and so remorsely into war and imperial expansion abroad.
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837. Yale University Press, 1992, p. 11.
This famous quotation, from this important address, at such a critical time in history has been admired for years. Despite his great oratory, the next months were to see almost 2 million Indians of all faiths killed in what was probably the worst internecine violence in human history. Ironically, the politically motivated terrorism had stopped since all the decisions had been made. The motivation for the frightful atrocities that took place from then on was vengeance and fear of more vengeance." 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Commenting on the hostilities between the Baltic states and the Russian government:
He was contrasting this with the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore, where by 5 to 4, the Supreme Court made George W. Bush President. Bryer wrote a dissent and the majority of Americans wanted Gore. Yet, the people of America accepted the unpopular decision with which the majority disagreed. The alternative is settling such disputes in the streets with violence. So Bryer strongly advocates the upholding of Supreme Court decisions, even if unpopular and even if wrong as he felt Bush v. Gore was.
That was an ironic statement. Shortly thereafter we invaded Mexico, occupied the country, pressured it into “selling us much of what is now the Southwest of the United States, and finally left.
From the 1787 Philadelphia discussions on the Constitution right up to the Civil War there was compromise after compromise on the slavery issue. Many political issues are amenable to compromise like tax rates or election modalities. Others like freedom of religion and speech and slavery are not. With the latter, compromise just delays the inevitable and often makes the final resolution more contentious and often violent.
Theis was the phrase he used to describe the collapse of the Soviet Union. This and other statements he made about the breakup of the Russian empire, together with his actons reagading foreign affairs, led many Western observers to think that Putin was trying to build up Russia to be amajor World Power as it was relatively recently. This annual address to the Duma has the importance of the United States' President with the State of the Nation Address. Every phrase and sentence is very carefully crafted. Also see Quotation 644184 under Related Quotes foir a more explicit statement,
Linda Colley, CBE, FBA, FRSL, FRHistS is an expert on British, imperial and global history from 1700. She is currently Shelby M. C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University and a Long Term Fellow in History at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala. She previously held chairs at Yale University and at the London School of Economics. Her work frequently approaches the past from inter-disciplinary perspectives.
