Mussolini would be a powerful example of how the events of 1917 shaped the future — and of the unexpected product of a failed and increasingly bankru… - Arthur Herman

It was not the last time a well-meaning American Progressive would express the view that if only we made our good intentions plain, the opposition of our foes would melt away.

Mandates were largely a fiction, of course. The distinction between "mandate" and "colony," especially in highly colonized Africa, was meaningless. But the idea provided a fig leaf for Wilson's insistence that the Paris conference not become the tool of European imperialism. France and Britain accepted Wilson's phony compromise.

Democracy makes a stable civic life impossible. As Nietzsche's Zarathustra says, "I turned my back on those who rule when I saw what they call ruling: higgling and haggling for power with the rabble."