Friday, July 16, 2010

Continental imperialism

“Pan-Germans and Pan-Slavs agreed that, living in ‘continental states’ and being ‘continental peoples’, they had to look for colonies on the continent, ‘to expand in geographic continuity from a center of power,’ that against ‘the idea of England . . . expressed by the words: I want to rule the sea, [stands] the idea of Russia [expressed] by the words: I want to rule the land,’ and that eventually the ‘tremendous superiority of the land to the sea . . . , the superior significance of land power to sea power . . .’, would become apparent.”

-Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1958 edition, p. 223.

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