Sublime

would never keep. “He offered simple solutions to complex problems,” Sebestyen wrote in his biography of the Bolshevik leader. “He lied unashamedly. He identified a scapegoat he could later label ‘enemies of the people.’ He justified himself on the basis that winning meant everything: the ends justified the means.”

Alexandre Ledru-Rollin est un défenseur de la République et du suffrage universel, associant réforme politique et sociale. Après avoir été l’un des initiateurs de la campagne des banquets qui a fait tomber la monarchie de Juillet, il devient l’un des dirigeants de la IIe République, plaidant pour le droit à l’assistance et au travail.

The first transformed Europe from a region where legitimacy was derived from religious faith and dynastic inheritance to an order based on the sovereign equality of secular states and bent on spreading its precepts around the globe. Three centuries later, the Second Thirty Years’ War challenged the entire international system to overcome disillusio

the politics of eternity, the seduction by a mythicized past prevents us from thinking about possible futures. The habit of dwelling on victimhood dulls the impulse of self-correction.

But as the dream of inevitable progress by doing good failed to materialize in most of the world, the political tenor has decidedly shifted away from the 20th century heydays of liberalism, inclusive globalism, and cosmopolitan network culture toward a balkanization of the political and cultural map.