No, no, no. I was talking about the treaty with Michael Collins in 1921

Adams and McGuinness came into Downing Street. They came down the long corridor that takes you to the cabinet room at the end of the building. And I brought them into the room and took them round to the far side of the table with the windows behind them. And in an attempt to break the ice, Martin McGuinness put his hands on the back of the chair and said, “So this is where the damage was done, then?” I was horrified. I said, “Yes. The IRA mortars landed in the garden behind you. The windows blew in. My brother, who was with John Major at the time, dragged him under the table to get him away from the falling glass.” And he looked horrified and said, “No, no, no. I was talking about the treaty with Michael Collins in 1921.” It was a completely different sense of history on the two sides. You had to break through this to have any chance of getting an understanding.

C. Blattman, Why we fight (2022), loc. 4078

Genocide is a tactic of the temporarily powerful

Instinctively, most of us think of such acts as the products of hatred and paranoia. Rwanda had both, to be sure. But this emphasis on psychological forces once again underestimates the cold strategic calculus behind mass killings and cleansings. Genocide is a tactic of the temporarily powerful. The logic should sound familiar by now: today’s majority can share a slice of the pie with the minority group for eternity, or they can pay a cost now and avoid having to bargain and share in the future. When the minority is expected to remain small and weak, it doesn’t make sense for the majority to pay the price of eliminating them. But if the minority is growing quickly in number, military might, or wealth, then the majority is faced with a diabolical decision akin to that of a Germany facing a rising Russia.

C. Blattman, Why we fight (2022), loc. 2230

For every gang war that ever was in Medellín, a thousand others have been averted through negotiation and trade

For every gang war that ever was in Medellín, a thousand others have been averted through negotiation and trade. Even though the valley is filled to its green peaks with hotheaded armed gang members, the combos of Medellín seldom go to war. They despise one another. They maneuver for drug plazas and prison hallways. They occasionally skirmish. But the region’s homicide rate is lower than that of many big American cities

C. Blattman, Why we fight (2022), loc. 670

The camel has his virtues—so much at least must be admitted; but they do not lie upon the surface

The camel has his virtues—so much at least must be admitted; but they do not lie upon the surface. My Buffon tells me, for instance, that he carries a fresh-water cistern in his stomach; which is meritorious. But the cistern ameliorates neither his gait nor his temper—which are abominable. Irreproachable as a beast of burden, he is open to many objections as a steed. It is unpleasant, in the first place, to ride an animal which not only objects to being ridden, but cherishes a strong personal antipathy to his rider. Such, however, is his amiable peculiarity. You know that he hates you, from the moment you first walk round him, wondering where and how to begin the ascent of his hump. He does not, in fact, hesitate to tell you so in the roundest terms. He swears freely while you are taking your seat; snarls if you but move in the saddle; and stares you angrily in the face, if you attempt to turn his head in any direction save that which he himself prefers. Should you persevere, he tries to bite your feet. If biting your feet does not answer, he lies down.

A. Edwards, A Thousand Miles Up The Nile (1877), 126

The pursuit of a procession is surely one of the most wearisome

Of all the things that people do by way of pleasure, the pursuit of a procession is surely one of the most wearisome. They generally go a long way to see it; they wait a weary time; it is always late; and when at length it does come, it is over in a few minutes.

A. Edwards, A Thousand Miles Up The Nile (1877), 21

It shuts out the sky and the horizon

The first glimpse that most travellers now get of the Pyramids is from the window of the railway carriage as they come from Alexandria; and it is not impressive. It does not take one's breath away, for instance, like a first sight of the Alps from the high level of the Neufchâtel line, or the outline of the Acropolis at Athens as one first recognises it from the sea. The well-known triangular forms look small and shadowy, and are too familiar to be in any way startling. And the same, I think, is true of every distant view of them,—that is, of every view which is too distant to afford the means of scaling them against other objects. It is only in approaching them, and observing how they grow with every foot of the road, that one begins to feel they are not so familiar after all. But when at last the edge of the desert is reached, and the long sand-slope climbed, and the rocky platform gained, and the Great Pyramid in all its unexpected bulk and majesty towers close above one's head, the effect is as sudden as it is overwhelming. It shuts out the sky and the horizon. It shuts out all the other Pyramids. It shuts out everything but the sense of awe and wonder.

A. Edwards, A Thousand Miles Up The Nile (1877), 14

A donkey-ride and a boating-trip interspersed with ruins

“Un voyage en égypte, c'est une partie d'ânes et une promenade en bateau entremêlées de ruines.” —Ampère.

Ampère has put Egypt in an epigram. “A donkey-ride and a boating-trip interspersed with ruins” does, in fact, sum up in a single line the whole experience of the Nile traveller. Apropos of these three things—the donkeys, the boat, and the ruins—it may be said that a good English saddle and a comfortable dahabeeyah add very considerably to the pleasure of the journey; and that the more one knows about the past history of the country, the more one enjoys the ruins. Of the comparative merits of wooden boats, iron boats, and steamers, I am not qualified to speak.

A. Edwards, A Thousand Miles Up The Nile (1877), 2