[zzeeman]

Interesting... to say the least! Although definitely not the way I had held out some level of hope for, that is until Gov. Palin decided not to run. (I may have been misguided in any number of ways, but I truly thought that she could at least begin the kind of reform needed. I also believed that her candidacy alone would be able to generate the level of grassroots enthusiasm (both $$$ & GOTV) that would be necessary for a GOP candidate to at least come close to defeating the unprecedented ruthless ("no holds barred, scorched earth") re-election campaign that we are about to see unfold.)

I have been very discouraged by her decision (although I think that I understand her reasons) and cannot muster an ounce of support for any of the statist monsters that are likely to emerge from the primary process (one of the main reasons that I've been scarce around here for a few months!). Bleech.

But to the point, I went back and found that section in T & H and re-read it. About half way through it became familiar and I remembered that I was hung up on the physical geographic implications of a "Pakistani" - "Peruvian" Axis when I first read through that section (in some ways I suppose that I still am a bit). Re-reading definitely helped me to process it and I also remembered that it struck some chords in my own memory of having mused over the rather striking sociological & cultural similarities between LA & Arabic societies. While I can't recall specifically what roused those thoughts in my mind many years ago, I do recall dismissing it as nothing more than sheer coincidental & anecdotal comparisons at the time. For certain I didn't have the vast command of history & sociology of Professor Quigley (nor the outsized ego!) to ever consider it past the point of dreamy musings.

I continued reading on and was left wondering why he didn't draw out more of the influence of the Asiatic Despotism, his focus seemed almost exclusively on the Arabic Outlook. Perhaps I was hoping to see a bit more about the Asiatic Despotism since I recently read a very illuminating book on China, Decker & Triplett's: Bowing to Beijing: How Barack Obama is Hastening America's Decline and Ushering A Century of Chinese Domination. I recommend it to anyone that wants to get a very up to date, fact-filled, objective report on what is really going on between the US and the Middle Kingdom today.

I would suggest that Quigley could have drawn out a bit more depth on the Asiatic Despotism if he spent the time, but it almost seemed to me a a reader many decades removed that he got caught up in the Arabic Outlook aspect and may have simply forgot!

Your Slavic-Teutonic Axis is certainly intriguing and I look forward to seeing it fleshed out soon! Help me out here, am I somehow getting too hung up on the physical geography of these "Axes?" Should I view them more from a purely sociological (rather than geographic) basis?

[Noumenon]

Yes, I think that Quigley was using the geographical endpoints of his axes as metaphorical bookends, a way of encompassing a great deal of the world that lay in between them. Like you, I would have wished for more of an exposition of his definition of Asiatic despotism, but remember that Qugley rather assumed that in coming to his works or his classes, you had already absorbed the finer points of a classical education. He probaly felt that our understanding of that notion was a given, which is why it appears to get short shrift in T&H.

Yeah, I'm with you, brother. It's a sad, sorry gaggle of statist clowns, grifters, ruling class elitists and opportunists on offer as our 'choice'. "Death or chi-chi?" as the old joke goes. So Palin's my write-in - praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

I'll definitely add the book you reference to my reading list. Thanks for that!