Sublime

In their eyes, reform was entirely enlightened policy, and in advocating it, they repeatedly invoked the rhetoric of "freedom," "modernity," and "liberty."

the liberal story learned from communism to expand the circle of empathy and to value equality alongside liberty.

This vast realm of geographical ignorance reduced European activity in the Outer World to an archipelago of settlements, mines and trading depots connected by a skein of pathways kept open only by constant effort.

cold-blooded need for control.

Smuts,

But the crucial fact of the equilibrium age was that no power in Europe was strong enough to dominate the others completely, or to embark upon a career of overseas conquest safe from the challenge of its European rivals.