Sublime

Nothing is clearer in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed.

Gradually we sought American hegemony over Mexico, the Philippines, much of the Caribbean basin, and, indirectly, over other nations.

hard-bitten

Under Wilson, the United States intervened in Latin America more often than at any other time in our history. We landed troops in Mexico in 1914, Haiti in 1915, the Dominican Republic in 1916, Mexico again in 1916 (and nine more times before the end of Wilson’s presidency), Cuba in 1917, and Panama in 1918.

After the war Washington was a far more voracious reader than generally recognized. Though hardly a Renaissance man on a par with Jefferson and Franklin, he pursued a broad range of interests throughout his life. Long an attentive reader of agricultural treatises and other books of practical knowledge, he also read the important literature of his t

“I never let my men take prisoners,” he explained, “but shoot them at once.”37 He was also notorious for the pleasure he took in the kill. “A beautiful swordsman, he never failed to kill his man,” wrote one of his officers. “The way he used to play with the most brave and furious of these rebels was perfect. I fancy I see him now, smiling, laughing

whereupon he was to engraft his own descendants.… We give it to the world under the firmest belief that such a refutation

Never again, he swore, would he send young troops into “open ground against their superiors both in number and discipline.”36 This strategy was neither glamorous nor particularly congenial to Washington’s personality, but it might prove sure and effective.37

because of the man who wrote its history, Thucydides the Athenian.