Summary of Bruno Macaes's History Has Begun

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#1 The American landscape painter Thomas Cole completed an ambitious five-canvas historical allegory titled The Course of Empire in 1836. It is graphic, spectacular, and pungent, and it carries a simple political message. Nations go through stages similar to an individual life, and they are born, they grow, but inevitably they decay.

#2 The American Republic was based on the Roman Republic, and its dissolution appeared to the first few generations of Americans as the fate against which they had to guard themselves. The classical world was also the source for a certain way of looking at history: where nations are caught in an incessant cycle of rise and fall.

#3 The Greek historian Polybius believed that when a nation departs from its founding principles, catastrophe is near. He believed that the first political system to arise is monarchy, which is followed by kingship, and then tyranny.

#4 The Roman Republic was not the first state to experience the natural course of decay. Every republic starts out with a given capital of vitality, which it uses to overcome the crises that are a necessary part of political life. But over time, that capital will be depleted.

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Rafbók: 5 maj 2022