“If physical mobility is an essential condition of freedom, the bicycle has probably been the greatest single device for achieving what Marx called the full realization of the possibilities of being human invented since Gutenberg, and the only one without obvious drawbacks.”
― Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life
― Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life
“Most young men and women (...) grow up in a sort of permanent present lacking any organic relation to the public past of the times they live in. This makes historians, whose business it is to remember what others forgot, more essential (...) than ever before.”
― The Age of Extremes, 1914-1991
― The Age of Extremes, 1914-1991
“As a means of alleviating poverty, Christian charity was worse than useless, as could be seen in the Papal states, which abounded in it. But it was popular not only among the traditionalist rich, who cherished it as a safeguard against the evil of equal rights... but also among the traditionalist poor, who were profoundly convinced that they had a right to crumbs from the rich man's table.”
― The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848
― The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848
“In brief, the main shape of French and all subsequent bourgeois-revolutionary politics were by now clearly visible. This dramatic dialectical dance was to dominate the future generations. Time and again we shall see moderate middle class reformers mobilizing the masses against die-hard resistance or counter-revolution. We shall see the masses pushing beyond the moderates’ aims to their own social revolutions, and the moderates in turn splitting into a conservative group henceforth making common cause with the reactionaries, and a left wing group determined to pursue the rest of the as yet unachieved moderate aims with the help of the masses, even at the risk of losing control over them.”
― The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848
― The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848
Sunil’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Sunil’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Sunil
Lists liked by Sunil











