“At the same time the cholera epidemic sweeping through Europe struck Paris, bringing not only suffering and death, but also social unrest. As often happens, people began to blame the authorities and supposed carriers of the disease, and there were instances of group violence which sometimes ended in murder, as well as a surge in petty crime. The year 1833 saw strikes and riots in Lyon, Saint-Étienne, Nantes, Avignon and Paris, but they were almost entirely concerned with working conditions and food.8”
― Phantom Terror: Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789-1848
― Phantom Terror: Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789-1848
“Am I then more of an American than those who drew their first breath on American ground? Or what is it that thus torments me at a circumstance so calmly viewed by almost everybody else? Am I a fool, a romantic Quixote, or is there a constitutional defect in the American mind? Were it not for yourself and a few others, I…would say…there is something in our climate which belittles every animal, human or brute…. I disclose to you without reserve the state of my mind. It is discontented and gloomy in the extreme. I consider the cause of good government as having been put to an issue and the verdict against it.”
― Alexander Hamilton
― Alexander Hamilton
“The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people,” he told Morris. “In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.”
― Alexander Hamilton
― Alexander Hamilton
“They ticked the boxes of a certain kind of enlightened, educated middle-classness, the love of dresses that were more interesting than pretty, the love of the eclectic, the love of what they were supposed to love. Ifemelu imagined them when they traveled: they would collect unusual things and fill their homes with them, unpolished evidence of their polish.”
― Americanah
― Americanah
“the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace.”
― Alexander Hamilton
― Alexander Hamilton
Ellen’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ellen’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by Ellen
Lists liked by Ellen















