Claude M. Lightfoot: The Lessons of History
“In this regard American policy makers obsessed and possessed by some theory of their superiority have learned nothing from the lessons of history. Nations have risen or fallen as a result of their position towards the revolutions and wars of their time. The latest and most classic example is the position of Great Britain in today’s world.
“At the beginning of the century it was the greatest power on earth. School children were awed by its power as they learned that ‘the sun never sets on the British Empire’. Largely as the result of having to carry the brunt of two world wars, as a result of revolutions these wars helped to unleash, Great Britain is now a fourth or fifth rate power with as yet no capacity for independence, and it becomes more and more a ‘vassal of the United States’.
“The irony of history is that at one point Great Britain had grown, prospered, become the leading world power as a result of wars on the European continent. In the seventeenth century, Holland was the leading capitalist power. A century later its position was taken over by Great Britain mainly for the same reasons that Britain in this first half of the century was superseded by the United States.”
– Claude M. Lightfoot –(19 January 1910 – 17 July 1991)
Source:Claude M. Lightfoot, “Negro Oppression and U.S. Foreign Policy”, The African Communist, No. 25, Second Quarter 1966.
Castro KhwelaGood morning fellow
