This was a profound book to read, but one of the most difficult I have ever read. I've been working on getting this 1300+ page monstrosity under my belt since March of this year. This is not due to the difficulty of the subject material covered or being a weak reader. Heck, I was able to blaze through and grok Human Action within a two day read when I first picked it up. My inability to read this book quickly is due to the Tragedy playing out within Quigley's mindset. This man is a perfect example of what Mises correctly recognized as what went wrong with Western civilization as a whole - the irony of which cannot be lost on a reader enlightened by Misesian insights. It was difficult to bring myself to continue to reading when the fundamental flaws in Quigley's worldview became evident at certain points in the book.

This is not to say that Quigley is just another unintelligent propagandist for the regime, though I suspect in many ways this will be his unintended legacy. This is a passionate, reasoned piece of "revisionist" history written by an obvious scholar. Where Quigley, as most modern day "liberals" go wrong is with a misunderstanding of Economics, specifically the suitibility of the means selected to achieve societal ends. What makes it tragic is that Quigley obviously was smart enough to have grasped this insight fully himself, if only he could see it. Indeed, his evaluation of the provocations of the Round Table types that led to the Boer War is that, even though he saw their ends as agreeable ultimately, their means (violent agression that would rightly be called terrorism today) prevented them from ever achieving anything other than alienating both the native population and the nearby Dutch colony. As usual, the "Do-Gooders" made the mistake that most make, namely that forcing the issue (whatever it may be) will somehow produce something other than animosity and privation for all concerned.

Otherwise, this book is valuable if only for some of the inside dope on the "Anglo American Establishment" (a topic Quigley seemed infatuated with - I suspect it was his stumbling block to gaining real awareness). Moreso for the exposition of how the elite of today view the world. This history definitely sounds like just the pretext our more sociopathic elites would need to justify their own actions. This also would work for some of the lower level or non-crazed commisars, as it provides a compelling arguement for those not used to questioning the axioms they base their reasoning on. They really just need to stop drinking their own Kool-Ade.