by Elvis » Mon Dec 06, 2010 3:36 am
I've read most it; in the early '90s I had a copy for a few months on interlibrary loan. It's well worth reading, in my opinion. And Quigley is no run-of-the-mill professor; a lot of foreign service people took his classes at Georgetown. (Along with Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi was one of his students.) I've told friends that if they read only one history book, "T & H" might be the one.
I had to give it back before I could read it all, but I photocopied large chunks. I've been meaning to get my own copy ever since, so thanks for the .pdf idea; last time I looked for it free online I could only find abridged versions where someone had snipped out parts that seemed to serve some one-issue "confirmation bias." I still want to get a physical copy so I can laze in bed with it (ain't got no fancy e-readers or laptops).
I'd say Quigley pulls few punches, and covers a lot of stuff that just isn't found in the usual academic history books. After all, he says he was privy to the insiders' "network" and "studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years in the early 1960s to examine its papers and secret records." His conclusions at the end might be a little nutty ('we need to return to 15th century mores'? wtf?) but the history itself seems solid.
And yes, 'conspiracy nuts' (usually far-right JBS sorts) often cite a couple of interesting passages. I first heard of it in another book, Gary Allen's "None Dare Call It Conspiracy," a fascinating but stinky book which I might write about here someday.
Thing is, there really is a long-term conspiracy and Quigley lays it out pretty explicitly. The "Round Table group" is a thread running through much of the book, and he spells out how the American two-party sham was planned long ago. Apparently his "insider network" friends weren't happy about his spilling the beans, but he says he objected to their secrecy about their aims.
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson