"A common error, however, is to regard the civilizing process and the humanizing process as synonymous. A correlation between the two has yet to be demonstrated. (The first glance was enough to let you see the flabby devil was running that show.)"
Mark Slade in Mosaic magazine (re Conrad’s Heart of Darkness), quoted in Marshall McLuhan “Man and Media” in McLuhan Understanding Me 295.
"No theory, no history."
Werner Sombart, quoted in Theodore Von Laue The World Revolution of Westernization
"Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened."
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his 1983 Templeton Address re the disastrous history of Russia in the 20th century, quoted in Philip Yancey Soul Survivor
In my latest National Post column I say it's time to leave Afghanistan and keep our powder dry and our morale up for the next challenge.
"I grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, as part of a generation who were taught the minutiae of 'social history.' There was no wider context to put it in, no framework, no sense of a larger, grander picture. It was plodding and confusing and mind-numbingly dull. It was after I left school that I became interested in history as it is meant to be taught – as a story, as conflict and character, as cause and effect. My approach comes from my own 're-discovery' of Canadian history."
Will Ferguson in a Q&A in The Beaver October-November 2005