When the ruler or rulers failed to act in the people's interest, Buchanan wrote, then each and every citizen, even "the lowest and meanest of men," h… - Arthur Herman

If there is any single lesson to be drawn from this book, it is that utopian dreamers in power tend to breed disaster. But not always, and not forever.

Everyone hates war, the senator stated at the start, and therefore it was time to lay aside the argument that if men differed over how to prevent one, then the other side must necessarily be against peace.

Please do not misunderstand me," he once told Wilson. "We too came into the world with the noble instincts and the lofty aspirations which you express so often and so eloquently. We have become what we are because we have been shaped by the rough hand of the world in which we have to live and we have survived only because we are a tough bunch.