1913 Quotes

“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.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“External powers, rather than providing a helping hand, preferred to wield the carving knife.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“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?”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“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.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“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.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“Circumstances could change quickly at the outer edges of the world, bound as they were to the global economy, yet distant from its heart.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“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.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“A temporary coalition of anger against the old regime was no basis for a stable government.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“Among Europe’s Great Powers only Austria-Hungary remained without a colonial empire.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“a world fair celebrated the progress of the nations of the world. It did not investigate its underpinnings.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“Constantinople had been changing for sometime before the Young Turks got hold of it. It would continue to change long after they had gone.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“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?”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“The Shah "had traveled to Europe and had been fascinated by the march of progress he observed there. But, once back in Terhan, this fascination had not been translated into sustained Persian modernization, but rather dissipated in the Shah's intense but short-lived passion for the latest novelties. "He is continually taking up and pushing some new scheme or invention which, when the caprice has been gratified, is neglected or allowed to expire".”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“The overall result was drift punctuated by protest.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“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.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“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.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“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?”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“Newspapers provided a common culture of aspiration.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“The key ‘subtle influences’ were enumerated as: the rise of the city over the countryside, the loss of Britons’ maritime skills, the growth of refinement and luxury, the absence of literary taste, the decline of the physical form of Britons, the decay of the country’s religious life, excessive taxation, false systems of education and, finally, the inability of the British to defend their empire.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“value of monarchy as a conciliatory, if waning, force in European politics.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War