Best 13 quotes of Charles Emmerson on MyQuotes

Apparently, a week Japan was laughable; but a strong Japan was immediately transformed into the prime example of a "Yellow Peril". Might Japan forever be stuck in a kind of no man's land between East and West, not allowed to assimilate into the international order of the Western nations as an equal, forever grouped with the countries of the East among which she felt herself superior, and respected fully by neither group?

As anywhere else, political instability provided an opportunity for local scores to be settled, for personal grievances to be aired, for heroes to be acclaimed and discarded, giving full reign to the fickle fortunes of war.

A temporary coalition of anger against the old regime was no basis for a stable government.

Circumstances could change quickly at the outer edges of the world, bound as they were to the global economy, yet distant from its heart.

His Majesty has done absolutely nothing but waste his time darling around eating sweets, contributing to the boy's adolescent chubiness, and to the sense of the country's political drift. Rather than being encouraged to govern, the Shah's courtiers preferred to encourage him in his idleness.

It (urban peacekeeping) was quite a task, requiring a permanent balancing act between communities, each with their own interests, festivals, traditions and historical rivalries imported from the wide-open spaces of the countryside into close quarters.

Nationalist (forces around the world) could now more readily communicate and share their grievances, viewing themselves as similar groups, engaged in a common struggle for greater autonomy against control exerted from London or Paris.

Newspapers provided a common culture of aspiration.

New York presented a paradox. While foreigners thought of New York has the symbol of America, many Americans viewed the city with some suspicion as the country's most foreign.

The city (of Vienna) had an unerring tradition of celebrating some of it's greatest composers after it had around them to die in poverty.

The long-term integrity of the empire would not be assured by warm words alone. Britain"s own position in the empire had changed. Once, the country been the engine room of empire, the productive heart of the beast. But with Britain becoming more like a boardroom, investing money, taking decisions, but essentially living off the labor of others, and off the earnings of the past? At some point in the future, might even this role wither away, and might Britain become little more than a repository of British tradition, a common idealized land into which Britons abroad – in Australia, Canada, New Zealand or South Africa – could retreat, a collective memory of Greenfields and swooping glens?

The mantle of a great power (was) inescapable. Was it better to extend diplomatic recognition to an unattractive regime and thereby hope to achieve a measure of political stability – or to refuse to recognize the regime on principle, thus emboldening its opponents and running the risk of losing both American investors' money and the lives of American investment in the widening civil war which might follow? Was it preferable to intervene militarily to protect American interests and bring stability and freedom – or rather to maintain the purity of neutrality and avoid a potential quagmire, but run the risk of appearing weak, and leave the outcome to be determined by forces beyond one's control?

The overall result was drift punctuated by protest.