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	<title>Historical &#38; Literary Lessons</title>
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	<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com</link>
	<description>Political lessons from histories and historical fiction.</description>
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		<title>Historical &#38; Literary Lessons</title>
		<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com</link>
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			<item>
		<title>The U.S. As Obstacle to Human Progress</title>
		<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/the-u-s-as-obstacle-to-human-progress/</link>
		<comments>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/the-u-s-as-obstacle-to-human-progress/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:55:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>William deB. Mills</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wmills.wordpress.com/?p=41</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[[19th century abolitionist William Lloyd] Garrison, like Simon Bolivar or Thomas Paine, was a patriot with cosmopolitan aspirations&#8230;he always understood emancipation as a &#8216;universal&#8217; ideal. That he happened to work in the most obdurate slaveholding country in the Americas did not blind him to the progress of abolition elsewhere&#8230;.only in the United States would the [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wmills.wordpress.com&blog=702922&post=41&subd=wmills&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
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		<title>Jihadis, Then and Now</title>
		<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/jihadis-then-and-now/</link>
		<comments>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/jihadis-then-and-now/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:07:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>William deB. Mills</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wmills.wordpress.com/?p=38</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[England had become the milch cow of the Third Crusade. Every pennyt which could be taxed out of the pockets of the unfotunate people, or tithed or extracted by threat or promise, was being accumulated for one purpose only, to provide Richard Coeur de Lion with the most powerful and best equipped army which had [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wmills.wordpress.com&blog=702922&post=38&subd=wmills&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
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		<title>Relationship Between International Law &amp; Morality</title>
		<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/relationship-between-international-law-morality/</link>
		<comments>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/relationship-between-international-law-morality/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:24:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>William deB. Mills</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ancient history]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[historical texts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Zuo Zhuan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wmills.wordpress.com/?p=35</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In the Zuo Zhuan, China&#8217;s earliest surviving historical text, one can see the emergence of Chinese cultural consciousness about how to organize an &#8220;international political system,&#8221; in this case the system that existed in the feudal (Confucian) era of warring states.
信不由中，質無益也，明恕而行，要之以禮，雖無有質，誰能間之
Without trust, the exchange of hostages is of no use;
If rules are followed, even without [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wmills.wordpress.com&blog=702922&post=35&subd=wmills&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
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		<title>Self-Inflicted Wounds</title>
		<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/self-inflicted-wounds/</link>
		<comments>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/self-inflicted-wounds/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:20:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>William deB. Mills</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Rome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ancient history]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[historical texts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lessons of history]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wmills.wordpress.com/?p=33</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After vanquishing its external foes, the late Roman republic had every reason to be satisfied with its global position; domestically, too, the basic facts were highly favorable: relatively strong economy, unified society, and high esteem for the rule of law had laid the foundation for a political organization that would have passed for a fairly [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wmills.wordpress.com&blog=702922&post=33&subd=wmills&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	
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		<title>Institutional Defense of Democracy</title>
		<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/institutional-defense-of-democracy/</link>
		<comments>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/institutional-defense-of-democracy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:53:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>William deB. Mills</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Rome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ancient history]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lessons of history]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wmills.wordpress.com/?p=29</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Describing the collapse of Roman freedoms in the years leading up to Julius Caesar, Appian noted:
&#8220;&#8230;neither freedom, nor democracy, nor law, nor reputation, nor office, were of any help any longer to anybody when the holders of the tribunate, which had come into existence for the prevention of injustice and the protection of ordinary people, [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wmills.wordpress.com&blog=702922&post=29&subd=wmills&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
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		<title>Friendship or Subjugation</title>
		<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/friendship-or-subjugation/</link>
		<comments>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/friendship-or-subjugation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:48:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>William deB. Mills</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wmills.wordpress.com/?p=27</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Trying to make peace with the North African enemy King Bocchus, Roman officer Lucius Sulla told the king:
&#8220;&#8230;no friendship is more advantageous than ours: in the first place, because the distance between us will minimize occasions of quarrel, while not diminishing the effectiveness of our support; secondly, because we already have plenty of subjects, whereas [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wmills.wordpress.com&blog=702922&post=27&subd=wmills&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
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		<title>Violence Begets Violence</title>
		<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/violence-begets-violence/</link>
		<comments>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/violence-begets-violence/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:58:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>William deB. Mills</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wmills.wordpress.com/?p=25</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Roman historian Appian had a nice sense of the dynamics by which a cycle of intensifying violence can lead to the destruction of social order. Perhaps our modern advocates of bombing the enemy into submission should take a look at the old histories&#8230;
In this way the episodes of civil strife escalated from rivalry and contentiousness [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wmills.wordpress.com&blog=702922&post=25&subd=wmills&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
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		<title>Cultural Richness</title>
		<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/cultural-richness/</link>
		<comments>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/cultural-richness/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:48:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>William deB. Mills</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wmills.wordpress.com/?p=23</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In the &#8220;neat phrases from literature&#8221; category, I just found this one amusing:
es un oficio bastante malo
An aging and not too health army officer in love with a 19-year-old beauty who also loved him, said this to his beauty in sympathy for her predicament. [Ernest Hemingway, Across the River and Into the Trees, ch 9.]
Like the [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wmills.wordpress.com&blog=702922&post=23&subd=wmills&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
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		<title>Trusting Lackeys</title>
		<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/trusting-lackeys/</link>
		<comments>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/trusting-lackeys/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:11:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>William deB. Mills</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Rome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ancient history]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[historical texts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[history]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lessons of history]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wmills.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/trusting-lackeys/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At one point during Julius Caesar&#8217;s Gallic campaign, when the Aeduan tribe was allied with Rome, the question of whether or not to break the alliance and join Vercingetorix&#8217;s &#8220;rebellion&#8221;&#8211;what today might be called Gaul&#8217;s &#8220;national liberation movement.&#8221; The Aeduan leader had recently been confirmed in his position through the personal intervention of Caesar, who had [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wmills.wordpress.com&blog=702922&post=22&subd=wmills&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
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		<title>Peace, Freedom&#8230;&amp; Responsibility</title>
		<link>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2007/10/07/peace-freedom-responsibility/</link>
		<comments>http://wmills.wordpress.com/2007/10/07/peace-freedom-responsibility/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 06 Oct 2007 21:12:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>William deB. Mills</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Rome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ancient history]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[historical texts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lessons of history]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wmills.wordpress.com/2007/10/07/peace-freedom-responsibility/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Down to the destruction of Carthage, the people and Senate shared the government peaceably and with due restraint, and the citizens did not compete for glory or power; fear of its enemies preserved the good morals of the state. But when the people were relieved of this fear, the favourite vices of prosperity – licence [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=wmills.wordpress.com&blog=702922&post=21&subd=wmills&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
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