Eric Trager in the Forward on fleeing the city he is studying in:
But there is something deeply disturbing about the swiftness with which a bustling, exciting city of the night — a mecca for tourists going back more than 1,000 years — can be so completely overtaken by lawlessness and fear.
Now I’m old and more sophisticated, I would say it’s really ahistorical. Has he read about Cuba or Russia or Boston, any other revolutionary city? Also there is this Bismarck quote I read on Steve Walt’s blog: “The statesman’s task is to hear God’s footsteps marching through history, and to try and catch on to His coattails as He marches past.”
