Stijn De Waele’s Reviews > The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914 > Status Update

"In 1912, unlike in 2012, America was in tune with the kind of interventionist liberalism that prevailed in much of Europe. Much of the progressivism of early twentieth-century America may be regarded just as populist rhetoric, yet it was a sign that one had to be somewhat hostile to business to do well in elections."

"Democracy would have revealed the deep splits in Russian society at a time when the throne of the Tsars was tottering. It is possible to build an industrial society in an authoritarian manner, as Stalin proved decades later, but to do so required a far stronger state than that run by the Tsars."

"It is becoming ever more apparent that the economic condition of individual nations is determined by their dependence on all other nations, to which they are connected by countless ties. Today the course of trade in general is being decided outside the continental boudaries of Europe; it is being decided on one side far west, beyond the Atlantic Ocean, and on the other side in the far east." (Neumann-Spallart, 1887)