Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time

This book should be read by High Schools across the nation. This will probably never happen, because the truth hurts and the truth will set you free, the facts are harsh and eye opening. But if you want to know how history shaped our surrounding now then this is a great book. It cannot be read in one sitting but its an interesting book, a great read!

Since this book was written by a socialist leaning educator it makes the book very important, since the author is sharing historical truth that the regular media debunks. I needed this book for my research and I am very happy with the people who sold the book to me on the store. They gave me excellent service.

After hearing so much about this book and also reading many other related works I felt the need to comment. I've read on this "Establishment" or Conspiratorial perception of history from the "Right"; Skousen's "Naked Capitalist", McManus' "None Dare Call it Conspiracy" and many others including John Coleman's totally unsubstantiated and undocumented piece of rubbish work "The Committee of 300" with thesis predicated on HIS mistranslation of a quote by Walther Rathenau. [...].

Sadly, many of the similar observations and reservations can also be applied to Quigley's "Tragedy and Hope" from my reading 500+ pages, of this 1348 tome, I suddenly noticed that Dr. Quigley affords his readers no footnotes and no bibliography; something totally foreign to any Academic work or work produced by, or for, Academics.

Given the facts, that Quigley's constantly asserting and discussing this is the academic form of 'getting away with murder.' Much of what Quigley wrote about, not all, in the 1920s and '30s was documented in many history books, albeit with a different perspective. But the sloppiness of Quigley's approach, it's similar in "the Anglo-American Establishment" allows people to say, 'how do you know?' or 'who said that?' If you're tenured at a joint like Georgetown, this proves that one can get away with 'murder.' The only way, from an true Academic view, to get away without footnotes or any bibliography is....a well presented work but perhaps of more comparable to a novel, which is perhaps why no plagiarism questions or charges have yet been claimed against Quigley or this work?

"Tragedy and Hope" is a sprawling history of the world during approximately the period 1890-1960. If one is looking for the details of some half-forgotten international incident during this period, he is likely to find them somewhere in this book. Reading "Tragedy and Hope" is a good refresher course for anyone wishing to understand twentieth-century history, especially the two World Wars, the events leading up to them, and their consequences. Unfortunately the index is sketchy and not always helpful in this process. Furthermore, footnotes and a bibliography are entirely lacking. Although the author, Carroll Quigley, was an eminent academic, this is not an academic textbook, and it is hard to tell just what was its intended audience.
The archetype of "Tragedy and Hope" is the work of Procopius, a courtier in the time of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, whose official history, the " De Aedificiis," celebrated the accomplishments of his monarch - but who supplemented it with a secret history, the "Anecdota," in which he spilled the dirt on the emperor and his wife Theodora. Much of the interest in Quigley's book centers around his dirt-spilling account of the machinations of international bankers and of the organizations they formed to exert influence behind-the-scenes on political and diplomatic activity, such as the Round Table, the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations. While his discussion of these matters occupies a fairly small number of the book's 1300-odd pages, it has drawn the attention of so-called "conspiracy theorists," mostly on the political right (e.g. the John Birch Society) but also some on the left, such as the sociologist G. William Domhoff, who pursue much the same theme - that the domestic and international policy of the United States (and other countries) are manipulated by a "power élite" in a way that makes their supposed democracy largely a sham.
Quigley falls neither into the right- or left-wing camps, and was in fact a liberal internationalist who held views essentially sympathetic to those of the supposed conspirators. He did, however, object to the secretiveness with which they pursued their goals. His book went out of print after its first run despite popular demand. He attributed this to an attempt to suppress it by the forces he "exposed," which have been paranoia on his part, or evidence of an easily bruised academic ego - but certainly encouraged the conspiratorial view among others. Bill Clinton's public acknowledgment of Carroll Quigley as his mentor touched off renewed conspiratorial theorizing.
A broad view of human societies can do nothing but confirm the truth that élites are and have always been an inevitable feature of them all. That there has been an élite in western Europe and North America, made up of a mixture of financiers, industrialists, high-ranking government officials, and the social upper crust; and that this élite has exerted an influence disproportionate to its numbers, should hardly come as a surprise. If all these people were to have been eliminated in one fell swoop, they would simply have been replaced by another élite, differently constituted and differently motivated. What Quigley makes clear is that the élite he describes acted with a curious blend of altruism, self-interest, and often, naïveté. Their best-laid plans many times were based on misinformation and came disastrously a-cropper. The impression one gets is more often one of bumbling rather than of sinister genius.
Two points emerge from Quigley's presentation of this history. First is that he believes in the rule of experts - that people with proper knowledge and understanding (like his) would not have committed the errors he describes. Academics and professionally-trained managers are to be preferred to members of the big business haute-bourgeoisie and the decaying landed aristocracy. This book first appeared in the era of "the best and the brightest," and Quigley shows himself to be a creature of its zeitgeist. How ironic that managerial bureaucrats of the Robert McNamara type proceeded to steer us into the Vietnam quagmire and "stagflation"!
Second, one of Quigley's repeated strictures on the old Eastern establishment is that it was "Anglophile." It is important to understand what this meant at the time the establishment described by Quigley was in its ascendancy. Then the sun never set on the British empire, and London was the world's financial center. New York was the American satellite of that sun, and exerted a degree of financial dominance over the rest of the United States we have not experienced in many years. There was, in the great American heartland, a strong suspicion of this arrangement, as expressed by such conservative figures as Sen. Robert Taft and Col. Robert R. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. This view is most superfically and inadequately dismissed as "isolationism." Much of the history Quigley recounts suggests that the United States entered World War I as a result of the Anglophilia of the Eastern establishment, and the conclusion to which that war came as a consequence of American intervention set the stage for World War II. Although this in many ways confirms the suspicions of the "isolationists," Quigley cannot bring himself to say anything good about such unspeakable Midwestern yokels and hayseeds. Yet he does not approve of the "Anglophilia" of the Eastern establishment.
How much of Quigley's point of view was determined not by his academic studies but by something much closer to the heart - his identity as an Irish Catholic? From his office on the Georgetown campus he looked to the west and saw hordes of unwashed Methodists and Baptists, disgusting to his Roman Catholic sensibilities; Norman Rockwell America, but with Klan robes in its closet. Looking to his east he saw the hated Sassenach, hereditary enemy of the Irish, allied to an "Anglophile" and Protestant - mainly Episcopalian - eastern-seaboard American establishment that aped English manners and tastes. He could not stomach either group, and so he wrote this book.

This book arguably is THE most important descriptive and analytical account of modern history. In some utopian society built on principles of integrity and truth, it may be taught in schools, but in the Western world for obvious reasons it is unlikely to ever go mainstream.

Professor's Quigleys seminal work was written in the mid-1960s and will easily dwarf everything you may have read collectively over the previous decade! It is packed with hundreds of historical observations and insights you most likely never heard about - a book can be authored just to the key points of Tragedy & Hope.

The list of Quigley's observations is endless. From connecting the problems of Africa with their syntactic and cultural inability to conceptualize about future, to the Pakistani-Peruvian axis, to a massive human refuse business in China and their reliance on pigs, to Russian nihilism, to on how close we got to the nuclear Holocaust in China (yes, not in Cuba) - the story is rich and overwhelming and the author's scholarship shines from any vintage point. After finishing the book, what strikes me the most is the penetrating depth of his synthetic analysis and ability to come up with socio-economic insights from across all modern human civilizations.

The narrative is non-partisan and almost non-ideological, which cuts through propaganda of distorted mainstream history obviously written by the victors. You can only understand what is happening in the world by reading about actual facts and this book is a great starting point on many topical subjects.

My only complain is that Tragedy & Hope was slightly thin on Japan - you can see see Quigley's lack of depth on that account. But don't let that chapter spoil your journey.

Enjoy it, this is one heck of experience, I loved it. Hope you will too!

Political insider Quigley taught at Georgetown and Harvard. Clinton took his course. The book,Tragedy and Hope was a best seller in the late 60's. It's a long book and the meat of it starts somewhere around page 800. Quigley fell out of favor with his elite friends after publishing this book. The original plates were destroyed in 1968 without the foreknowledge or permission of Quigley. Some say there are changes between the 60's version and this one. Get the original book, before 68, if you can. It's expensive.

Carroll Quigley's TRAGEDY AND HOPE is the book that made him a touchstone for the conspiracy
culture; he is, along with Ayn Rand and a very few others, one of the few people who is admired
equally by liberals and conservatives. He was almost like a moderate socialist--certainly more
old-fashioned than the Richard Belzer paranoid types, but definitely not as right-wing as our
modern Glenn Becks, either. Whether you agree with Quigley's viewpoint or conclusions, this
monumental, staggering work, 20 years in the making, is one of the most brilliant things you
could ever come across. Compared to Quigley, 99% of all political commentators look like fruit
flies, buzzing around ineffectually. Carroll Quigley, an eagle in a world full of pigeons. And a
book which separates the eagles from the pigeons, too.

Some of the sections of Tragedy and Hope are quite dense and if you are not a student of history, you may find yourself feeling like you are drowning in quicksand. Particularly the section on Germany before WW I when Quigley goes into the eight major political parties and how they fought for dominance. There are so many names and titles thrown at you, you might need to make a graph of some sort to keep track. Also, if you are not a student of economics, you will also come up against many sections that will test your mettle as well. Quigley goes into detail about the major banking influences behind the scenes in world history, and much of this info may be beyond your complete comprehension.

But make the effort anyway; you will still understand our present day situation much better in any case, and that kind of knowledge is powerful. The book is now available on line at a website that bears its title, so you don't even have to pay if you don't want to. Some better college libraries stock it as well if you're not into reading off of a monitor. Good luck.

A very long & involved scholarly work. If you like reading history, you may find something of interest in this. Some sections I will have to go back & re-read just to digest it fully. It is like reading multiple books all in one, like several volumes of an encyclopedia, but the amount of material is mindboggling--I wonder if he called it 'Tragedy & Hope' to emulate 'War & Peace'? Both are similar in length. It is like an expansion of your generic history textbook. I set the auto-reader on my Kindle & just let it read this whole thing to me. My e-book copy had some typo errors in a few places. You can find it elsewhere on the Net as a free download.

Something else about 'Tragedy & Hope' mentioned in the book 'Brotherhood of Darkness': Unlike other historians who simply record past events, he [Quigley] wanted to know why things happened. In an effort to understand the tragic events of the 20th century, he spent 20 years researching the men who ruled England & the U.S. between 1870 & 1960. He wrote about them in 'Tragedy & Hope'. The Macmillan Co. published his book, but shortly after it was released another publisher bought Macmillan & promptly destroyed the plates to the first half of Prof. Quigley's book. Thousands of people had ordered copies, but the new publisher refused to reprint it. If you find that difficult to believe, I offer skeptics a copy of an interview with Prof. Quigley in which he discusses the suppression of his book. I am personally indebted to him for his research because without the information he amassed I would never have discovered the Brotherhood of Darkness. ... Prof. Quigley noted that during the first half of the 20th century J.P. Morgan & his associates financed the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, conservative groups, liberal organizations, communist groups, & anti-communist organizations. Thus we should not be surprised to learn that someone purchased Prof. Quigley's publisher & destroyed the plates to the first half of his book so it couldn't be reprinted.

Quigley's Tragedy and Hope is a very important historical work describing the intrigues of powerful financial and industrial interests aiming to dominate the world. His description of world-changing historical facts and events is without doubt one of his many strong points.

Among weak points are some important lacunae, e.g., the extensive chapter on international Socialism fails to investigate the links between the latter and the financial interests described earlier.

Another point is Quigley's personal interpretation of historical events, e.g., he attempts to explain social and political developments like the rise of German nationalism in terms of an alleged "German thirst for the coziness of a totalitarian way of life" that of course ignores the fact that nationalism - on the ascendance in most European countries at the time - was largely a reaction to internationalist movements like Socialism threatening the sovereignty and identity of all European nations. I found that some of these points are helpfully addressed in The Milner-Fabian Conspiracy by Ioan Ratiu.

Despite its length (1300+ pages), this is a well-written and persuasive book. Quigley's argument that powers with the most centralized and concentrated military capacity tend to become the despots of the world seems borne out by history--and is a process that contributes to the present globalization process.
My only real reservation is the absence of citations and bibliography for such an extended text. Although one could probably recognize the sources of the arguments and examples he incorporate in the text, and I do not think he is misrepresenting the sources he uses, I find his failure to cite them both curious and disturbing.
There is always the danger of becoming a true believer from reading the book, and this is where a scientific outlook is critical. Do check--extensively--other sources and cases before accepting the conspiratorial interpretation of history and social science that Quigley seems to espouse.

The fact that this title (in its unabridged form) is still considered "restricted" reading by some public libraries in the U.S. automatically makes it one of the "essentials" for any avid reader, even in an abridged version. Case on point: an unabridged original binding at the Dallas Public Library must be "specially" requested from the archivist of the "restricted" stacks--a special area apart from the mundane "reference" section--and the details of your inquiry, and why you wish to read it, will be dutifully recorded by the librarian in charge. Why? That would be a tale conspiracy theorists might want to tackle in the future, if they haven't already.

Perhaps the DPL restricts access to the unabridged version in their possession merely because their archivist considers it to be in danger of being destroyed or defaced by operatives of the Bilderbergs who wish to squelch all copies that missed the original ban. Perhaps access is restricted only because of the controversial content. In either event--this version is essential reading, even if it is abridged.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in how our world really operates on an economic level for the enrichment of the elite, and damn the rest of us. THEY must remain rich, at all costs.

Someday, I hope someone can scan the unabridged version for us all to read for any reason, if only for idle curiosity about how and why this book was banned. Information--especially Dr. Quigley's--should be available to all, in its unabridged form, and never squelched.

Although this book was written many years ago Quigley's predictions have proved true.The book is about things that are so basic to the way the world works and the human condition that it is as relevant today as the day it was written If you wish really wish to understand money and and and power and how it is used this is the only book you'll ever have to read on the history of the world.

The author, Carroll Quigley, has the highest credentials. He taught former President Bill Clinton and many other notables. What he has to say about the federal bankers control of governments, the press and media, institutions from the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Trust to Harvard and Princeton (universities where he taught) is worldview shattering. It explains how the US & Europe became what they are, as well as why the politics and economy are the way they are.

It is a detailed college text, use the index if it's too much for you.

If you read this book - you will never be the same again. Beware...

Very important book to understand globalism and the new transnational forms of government, its origins, its rational, its implementation.
Everyone who wishes to grasp how the transnational post-democratic mind works and perceives the world should read this book. Quigley is very honest as he state the new regimen as inevitable and already in fast implementation and although very apologetic of it, he is displeased by the fact that all those changes are been made disingenously and in secret.

This book is the bible of globalism, read it if you want to understand it, and to understand how the world works nowadays...Quigley wrote it mostly because he thought people should have the option to choose and participate in all those changes openly...and not merely acept them passively and deceptively.

The length might be intimidating (that's what she said) but the information is priceless. Nevertheless, taking your time and really contemplating the picture of history the author creates is amazing. I am an English major with interests in just about every other subject and this book is inspiring in all or most of those fields of study.

Might not be material for a college test, but it paints a overall picture that you'll definitely want.

Awesome book.
Im planning to get the original edition,
Can anyone tell me if there is any difference between the macmillan 1974 2nd printing and the macmillan 1966 1st printing (which is the most expensive)?
I read everywhere that the book got banned short after its first release and then reprinted later in an abridged version but I see both 1974 and 1966 hardcover editions have 1348 pages so I'm confused.
How is the 1974 2nd printing abridged if there is the same number of pages?
Are 1974 and 1966 editions identical?
Thanks for answering!
Best regards

Quigley has done an immense job writing the history of the world from the elitist point of view. The winner, the powerful, and the wealthy usually write the history. Biased or not, based on evidence or not, they write the history or pay someone to do it for them, either way, they make it reality and a basis for the future of the world. As a reader, you must understand the history and the context in which it was written, in order for you to comprehend the dangers of the present and to predict the urgency of the future.
The tragedy in this book is in the Narcissism of Quigley and his oligarchy, and the vanishing hope is in the faith and the hands of the determined and decent people............

This 1300 page tome is an intriguing look into the mind of Carroll Quigley, the man who Bill Clinton named--along with JFK--as being of particular influence in his life during a 1992 speech at the Democratic National Convention. Clinton states that under Quigley's mentorship at Georgetown he "heard clarified" a "call to citizenship" that not only instilled in him the belief that "tomorrow can be better than today," but also that he had a "moral responsibility to make it so." Quigley penned this book and a more terse one, "The Anglo-American Establishment," long before he took Clinton under his wing at Georgetown, and both offer a curious perspective on the man who was so influential in the life of a former president of the United States. After reading this massive macro-history of the world from roughly 1890-1960, I can't help but think: "Why, oh why, didn't I take the BLUE pill?"

You'd think it would take several chapters to get to the heart of the matter - think again - I was stunned at Quigley's take on economic influence as a driving factor in world affairs. To those who say this is too long a read, weighed down with superfluous anecdotes - they are wrong. Tragedy & Hope should be the default text for 20th Century World History.

A must have for everyone's library, more relevant to the modern state of affairs than any of the modern pundits drivel.

The late Prof. Carroll Quigley,of Georgetown University taught former President Bill Clinton ALL he knows-or so said Clinton at the 1992 Democratic convention.I've had this book for 30 years and its contents NEVER fail to amaze me.If yiu want to know the truth about the Cecil RHOADS sociey,Clinton was a member,or the anglophile Council on Foreign Relations(CFR),Bill was a menber of it too,READ THIS BOOK.Prof Quigley,who died in 1978,was an insiders' insider,he also had an influence on the late Sen. Joe McCarthy.The author of this review is very much a leftists.

This book does not need a lengthy review - it simply needs to be read.

What it is NOT - a conspiracy theory book.

What it IS - a book that gives a logical perspective on the development of our current society (worldwide) and the reasons for some of the events we are experiencing today.

You WILL read it more than once, as many Presidents and other world leaders have.

Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time

I read Quigley seven years ago while living in London. The book blew my mind. At first glance, the book appears to be yet another boring, matter of fact history textbook. In reality, it is probably the most revealing history of the 20th century ever written (by a true "insider" who broke ranks with his plutocratic/socialist cohorts). It reveals what all of us seem to sense intuitively -- that history is to some extent controlled by a wealthy elite whose interests are not necessarily aligned with the public interest. I STRONGLY recommend this book! Read page 950!

Quigleys' Tragedy and Hope is perhaps one of the most revealing of books on what appears to be a conspiracy but I suggest to all that the conspiracy is not one of mans makings. I have read many conspiracy books and find that they all have one thing in common,
What rules the world is the true nature of man. I find I must agree with Quigleys thought that if the present sitting order of leadership were displaced that another would quickly (or immediately) take the positions.
If the reader is to be honest, we all are actually unaware of our own true action when put in the place of power and money. Greed and power have a way of both tantilizing and seducing even the strongest of characters.
Though the conspiracy is deep within the realm of the supernatural, the predominant conspiracy is non-factual simply because of the tremendous amount of interaction of dates,times and events. It doesn't seem feasible that any one,two or however many groups could correlate all events into one plan. In fact the more groups involved the larger the chance of failure...

After having read W. Cleon Skousen's review of this book (The Naked Capitalist), I have decided to make this book one of my next reading projects (so long as it is the original 1300 page version).

Given the current state of affairs in the middle east and the inability of our national security apparatus to convince our policy makers of the gravity of the situation in a timely manner (although said policy makers deny ever being warned in advance) and the historical similarities to events in our planet's past, one has to wonder, who really is pulling the strings?

Line up some free time for this tome of dangerous ideas. Carroll Quigley is undeniably one of the greatest mind expanding double agents ever. As soon as you're finished with this one proceed directly to 'Weapons Systems and Political Stability', Quigley's final writings in a loose collection. Packed with many a memorable line.

I'm not exactly sure. Professor Quigley apparently spent about 3 centuries writing this doorstep, and after spending about half a century reading it and going through my very own "Tragedy & Hope" in the process I really did wonder "what exactly was the point of all that?" at the end of it. The tragedy lay in the fact that I read beyond the first third, about up until the point the author stopped telling the truth; from then on I just hoped there would come a point when he would deviate from the "party line" to stop me falling asleep - I didn't want this thing falling on the floor. In a book of this size, which purports to tell the real truth about recent history, you'd expect a fairly extensive bibliography and oodles of chapter or footnotes. But you'd be disappointed. There aren't any.

The overall theme of Tragedy & Hope is a sweeping overview of the last couple of centuries of world history, examining not only what happened but why it happened and what factors led to the development of nations and situations up to certain crucial points in time. The author was, supposedly, at least a semi-insider (he was apparently a tutor of Bill Clinton, don'tcha know?!) and because of that Tragedy & Hope has often been referred to by "conspiracy" authors, as well as mainstream authors who want to be seen to be open-minded. However, after a fairly accurate if sterile recounting of the financial and political history of the first half of the 18th century, including a fairly detailed synopsis of the rise of the House of Rothschild (the most common subject referenced by other works) and the author's acknowledgement that they were without doubt the world's pre-eminent financial power, he eventually arrives at a point at which J.P. Morgan has become the world's richest man. Professor Quigley was obviously ignorant of the fact that at the reading of J.P. Morgan's will it was discovered that he (J.P. Morgan) owned only 19% of J.P. Morgan stock. The rest was owned by, well, you can work it out. Oddly enough Professor Quigley had earlier recounted how the Morgans/Peabodys were originally Rothschild agents/affiliates. Did he forget this?

Professor Quigley also ignores the now well-established ties between Wall Street and Bolshevism, Nazism, and various other flavours of socialism (including Rooseveltian New Deal socialism which the good professor should surely know a lot more about). As modern history has shown us all too clearly, there is nothing new in warring factions and "rogue states" being supplied with weapons by most of the major "advanced" western nations, in the well-documented ties between "statesmen" and "terrorists" (George Bush/Bin Laden family is an obvious modern example), and in state intervention and the imposition of mostly-unpopular puppet regimes all over the less-developed world. These practises are the norm, rather than the exception, and have been for a long time. Yet the author ignores some of the more (ok, most of the) significant interventions by the money power in recent history. Instead of the unvarnished truth which I was expecting, especially from a supposed insider, the "analysis" was essentially a rehash of orthodox history with a peppering of hints at nefarious dealings here and there to wake the reader up every three weeks or so. I have a rule whereby I must finish a book once started; after having heard so much about Tragedy & Hope in the past I decided to take the plunge. What a Tragedy!

The lack of footnotes and references make Tragedy & Hope useless as a reference work; the content makes it useless as a work of historical truth. Save yourself half a century and give it a miss...!

Is this the original version or the abridged version? According to John Taylor Gatto there is a difference... the abridged version removed some of the most breathtaking horrors, for example, that the two world wars were both staged.

Quigley was a Georgetown professor who was permitted access for two years in the early 1960's to the private archives of the Committee on Foreign Relations, a Rockefeller internationalist organization that compliments the work of the Trilateral Commission and the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

It is difficult to determine what the author is trying to communicate. There is no continuity to the book; nothing ties together Quigley's version of the past and of the future. It's like reading about the solar system and finding out that the conclusion of the matter is that the sun will expand and burn everything up. You are left wondering, what is the point?

We are left with the suggestion that the elite should continue to guide us in the same direction that we are traveling, but avoiding some of the monumental blunders that they have made in the past.

Quigley's version of history consists mostly of unquestioning repetition of propaganda. Quigley did a superficial job of analyzing history, and he is even worse at sociology. He touts Inclusive Diversity as our great strength and greatest gift. Perhaps he should have considered the aphorism, "Divide and conquer." The West, or any other empire, can only flourish when it concentrates on matters of common concern, not divisivness

Quigley does slightly better with economics and foreign policy, which are more in his area of expertise. He correctly observes that British and American "victories" in WWI and WWII resulted in the almost total destruction of international law. Quigley is in favor of the idea of continental blocs replacing national states. As globalization unfolds, Quigley exposes some of the hypocrisy and bungling, yet he inexplicably remains committed to the overall plan.

So, what is the point of all of this costly meddling? Quigley predicts success...and then failure. "We shall undoubtedly get a Universal Empire in which the U.S. will rule most of Western Civilization. This will be followed by a period of decay and ultimately by invasions and the total destruction of Western culture." Couldn't we save ourselves the trouble and just mind our own business?

Minding our own business is a concept based on the idea that the electorate is in control of the government, and that we have a choice. However, Quigley admits that international financiers influence and control governments. Quigley says that the internationalists, who prefer to remain in the background, should be known for their "valuable" contributions. What these contributions amount to is that they want world government, and they intend to cram it down everyone's throats.

As we slouch toward financial, industrial, and government monopoly the author reminds us of some of the casualties. "As economic enterprises have become larger and more tightly integrated into one another, the freedom, individualism, and initiative traditionally associated with the modern economy have to be sacrificed." Quigley acknowledges that in our future, "In general, there will be a very considerable modification of the areas and objectives of freedom in all societies of the world, with gradual reduction of numerous personal freedoms of the past."

To add to this loss of freedom, Quigley bemoans our loss of a spiritual mooring and suggests a return to the values of Christianity! His version of Christianity, of course. Still full of contradictions, Quigley cleaves to relativism rather than absolutes, approximations rather than final answers-not realizing that the adoption of these mindsets are what weakened the appeal of Christianity.

Finally, as we follow our present course, Quigley predicts an age of conflict characterized by class struggle, war, irrationality, and declining progress. Obviously, we're there now.

Rather than attack his sponsors, who are bringing us this New World Order, Quigley vents his frustration on the middle class. Quigley touts the moral superiority of both the rich and poor, but he asserts that the middle class consists of poorly-informed, neurotic, bourgeois, radical-right Republicans. Worst of all, they have Puritanical attitudes toward sex.

The many internal contradictions in this book indicate a confused mind or a shallow thinker. The author's history is mostly stale propaganda, spiced up with occasional pro-government cheerleading or tales of government boondoggles.

Maybe if Quigley had broken this monstrosity into several different books, he would have had something coherent to say. In this book, Quigley's conclusion is almost totally divorced from the rest of the book. This effort spanned 20 years, and possibly senility was sneaking up on the author.

After reading the wiki summary of this book it appears the man know nothing about Orthodox Christianity (which is the only true Christianity). There never has been a hatred or loathing for the body as a belief or a practice. Nor is/has Orthodox Christianity ever mixed with Zoroastrianism. If the wiki article is true in its summation of this work with references to the above then this is a false presentation of history at least with reference to Orthodox Christianity.

Quigley is obviously a stooge of the establishment which is merely reciting his catechism to keep the whole matter or modern history between the capitalism and the marxism doctrines' opposition, both doctrines being the two faces of the same coins.
The book is extending to basically 1300 pages of stuff you will find in most history books covering the covered periods.
Quigley offers absolutely no foot notes, no references and conclude such arrogant verbiage at time with a mere 2 and half pages conclusion.
Take his word for everything he writes as he doesn't offer any references whatsoever to justify his views.
He manages, for exemple, in his pathetic attempt to "resume" the Spanish revolution of 1936-39, to mention the anarchists only once in a whole chapter, between brackets and next to the word "trotkyist". Was he an historian is the real question ?
Quigley is totally missing the points in a lot of instances but his purpose is in fact to keep the "line of his party".
This book is the most overrated book I have seen in the field for a long time and is not worth the paper it is written on.
Don't waste your time and money... Read Zinn and Sutton instead if you wish to understand what is (was) really going on...

This book lays everything on the line. Quite an erudite read, though to the authors benefit, he dissects political socio economic ideads as a scientist would. This gives the book more credence in a genre that generally lacks credibility.