Posted on 11/29/2007 5:55:53 AM PST by rellimpank
In the last few years, it has become popular to say that history is determined largely by sweeping inanimate forces of technology, the environment, gender, class, or race. We play down the role of individuals — as if the notion that one person can shape history is old-fashioned. But that’s hardly the case.
Take Nicolas Sarkozy, the new president of France. For 60 years, the power of the state in France had steadily increased. Government workers were handed lavish entitlements and retirement packages while French competitiveness diminished in a new globalized world. Abroad, traditional French foreign policy cynically tried to have it both ways: staying within the protection of the Western democratic alliance but at the same time opportunistically backbiting the United States to gain special commercial and diplomatic favor with authoritarian governments in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
But this spring, a reformer arrived on the scene with visions of France as a world diplomatic player that would be known for its principled behavior and defense of Western values.
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
—ping-
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