Ferdinand Galliani Quotes
Empires being neither up nor down do not fall. They change their appearance.
Abbe Ferdinand Galliani, 1728-1787, Italian Cleric, Neapolitan Ambassador to France, 1744
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
There are many who disagree with Say’s claim that the ancient system of colonization produced more friends then the system was at the beginning f the 19th century. Alexander the Great may have been the only large conqueror in world history where the conquered people thought they were better off than before. Certainly the Romans did not make friends, and the French Normans who conquered England were never considered “friends” by the Saxons.
At the time, the major European countries were in a competitive scramble for colonies in Africa—so much so that there were very few independent territories left. The maps and borders of Africa were really decided by the Europeans.
This statement was made after he had led the Muslim Ottoman Turkish Army to success in capturing Constantinople—Byzantium, Istanbul—bringing the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) to an end. He had his sights set on the Western Roman Empire next which was the remainder of what they knew of as the world then.
He unfortunately turned out to be right as Germany started WWII to get back the territory that they lost at the Treaty of Versailles for starting WWI.
Hong Kong was not always a successful city or colony. In 1844 the British were thinking of swapping it for a better colony. However, in a rare combination of synergistic development of a colony, the great strengths of the Chinese and that of the English combined to make Hong Kong one of the best and well developed cities in the world. Few imperial colonies turned out as well.
De Gaulle tended to see world affairs in terms of extreme, simplistic, and dramatic alternatives when reality is much more complex the truth was turned out to be for England a much more favorable outcome without either of these extremes.
“Ancien regime” is a French political term for the regime that was in power before the revolution.
Over the years, despite many efforts to unify workers of the world, most were much more focused on their own country. In this sense, Mussolini who was so wrong about most political things, may have been right in this instance.
