Tragedy & Hope - Carroll Quigley (Contents / Intro / Preface)

In 1965 one of the nation's leading professors quietly finished the last draft of a 1311 page book on world history. He walked over to his typewriter and secured the last pages of the book and placed them into a small box and wrapped it for mailing. He then walked to the Post Office and mailed the final draft to his publisher in New York City. The editor was somewhat overwhelmed and perhaps even inhibited by the scholarly treatise. The last thing he wanted to do was to read the huge draft. He knew and trusted the professor. After all, he was one of the leading scholars in the western world. They had been acquaintances for several years. He had already signed an agreement to publish the book before it was finished. He had read several chapters of the early draft. They were boring, at least to him. He decided to give the book to a young editor who had just been promoted to his assistant. The young editor was also overwhelmed but happy to oblige the Senior Editor. The young editor was unaware of the importance of the manuscript and of the revelations which it contained. To the young editor this was just another textbook or so he thought.

Somehow one of the most revealing books ever published slipped through the editorial of offices of one of the major publishing houses in New York and found it way into the bookstores of America in 1966.

Five years later I was meandering through a used bookstore and stumbled upon this giant book. I picked up the book, blew the dust off and opened it to a page where the author stated that:

"...[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. this system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations....

"It must not be felt that these heads of the world's chief central banks were themselves substantive powers in world finance. They were not. Rather, they were the technicians and agents of the dominant investment bankers of their own countries, who had raised them up and were perfectly capable of throwing them down. The substantive financial powers of the world were in the hands of these investment bankers (also called 'international' or 'merchant' bankers) who remained largely behind the scenes in their own unincorporated private banks. These formed a system of international cooperation and national dominance which was more private, more powerful, and more secret than that of their agents in the central banks. this dominance of investment bankers was based on their control over the flows of credit and investment funds in their own countries and throughout the world. They could dominate the financial and industrial systems of their own countries by their influence over the flow of current funds though bank loans, the discount rate, and the re-discounting of commercial debts; they could dominate governments by their own control over current government loans and the play of the international exchanges. Almost all of this power was exercised by the personal influence and prestige of men who had demonstrated their ability in the past to bring off successful financial coupes, to keep their word, to remain cool in a crisis, and to share their winning opportunities with their associates."

I could hardly believe what I was reading. I sat in the bookstore and read until closing time. I then bought the book and went home where I read almost all night. For the next twenty-five years I traveled throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East following one lead after another to determine if the incredible words of the professor were really true. While serving as the Editor of a scholarly journal on international affairs, Director of the Center for Global Studies and foreign policy advisor for a key U. S. Senator in Washington, D. C., I conducted over 1000 interviews with influential world leaders, government officials, military generals, intelligence officers, scholars and businessmen, including corporate CEOs and prominent international bankers and investment bankers. I went through over 25,000 books and over 50,000 documents. I learned for myself that the professor was telling the truth.

There really is a "world system of financial control in private hands" that is "able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world." I call this system the World Trade Federation. It is an ultra-secret group of the most powerful men on the earth. They now control every major international institution, every major multinational and transnational corporation both public and private, every major domestic and international banking institution, every central bank, every nation - state on earth, the natural resources on every continent and the people around the world through complicated inter-locking networks that resemble giant spider webs. This group is comprised of the leading family dynasties of the Canada, United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and China. This self-perpetuating group has developed an elaborate system of control that enables them to manipulate government leaders, consumers and people throughout the world. They are in the last stages of developing a World Empire that will rival the ancient Roman Empire. However, this new Empire will rule the entire world, not just a goodly portion of it as Rome did long ago, from its ultra-secret world headquarters in Germany. This group is responsible for the death and suffering of over 180 million men, women and children. They were responsible for World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam, etc. They have created periods of inflation and deflation in order to confiscate and consolidate the wealth of the world. They were responsible for the enslavement of over two billion people in all communist nations -- Russia, China, Eastern Europe, etc., inasmuch as they were directly responsible for the creation of communism in these nations. They built up and sustain these evil totalitarian systems for private gain. They brought Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Roosevelt to power and guided their governments from behind the scenes to achieve a state of plunder unparalleled in world history. They make Attila the Hun look like a kindergarten child compared to their accomplishments. Six million Jews were tortured and killed in order to confiscate billions of dollars in assets, gold, silver, currency, diamonds and art work from the Tribe of Judah–a special group of people. The people in Eastern Europe suffered a similar fate as the armies of Hitler overran these countries, murdered, enslaved, robbed and plundered the unique people who resided there. For the last two and one half centuries wealth and power have been concentrating in the hands of fewer and fewer men and women. This wealth is now being used to construct and maintain the World Empire that is in the last stages of development. The World Empire is partly visible and partly invisible today.

The chief architects of this new World Empire are planning another war - World War III - to eliminate any vestiges of political, economic or religious freedom from the face of the earth. They will then completely control the earth. and its natural resources. The people will be completely enslaved just as the people were in the ancient Roman Empire. While the above may sound like fiction, I can assure you that it is true. I wish it was fiction, but it is not, it is reality.

The above recitation is quite blunt, perhaps more blunt than the professor would have liked, but he knows and I know that what I have just written is true. However, most people do not want to know that such a Machiavellian group of men, spread strategically throughout the world, really exists. They prefer to believe that all is well and that we are traveling down the road to world peace, global interdependence and economic prosperity. This is not true.

The above professor describes the network I have just described in elaborate detail-far too elaborate for most people. That is why I am truly surprised that it was ever published. The above fictional account of its publication may not be far from the truth. The contents of the above book will probably astound most people. Most people will undoubtedly not believe the professor. That will be a great mistake. Why? Because many of the tragedies of the future may be avoided with proper action.

If all our efforts resulted in saving just one life, wouldn't it be worth it? What if we could save 100 lives? What if we could save 1000 lives? What about 10,000 lives? What about 1,000,000 lives? What if we could free the billions of inhabitants of Tibet, China, Russia and other communist nations and ensure the survival of the people of Taiwan and Israel? Would not all our efforts be worth it? I believe so. The tragedies occurring today in Russia, China, Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Western Europe or the Middle East could be avoided.

The apathy and indifference of people in the Western World to the suffering, torture, misery, bondage and death of millions and millions of people around the world in the years ahead may be one of the greatest tragedies of the twenty first century.

The message of the above volume is that the last century was a tragedy that could have been avoided. The author argues that wars and depressions are man-made. The hope is that we may avoid similar tragedies in the future. That will not happen unless we give diligent heed to the warnings of the professor. Unless we carefully study his book and learn the secret history of the twentieth century and avoid allowing these same people, their heirs and associates - the rulers of various financial, corporate and governmental systems around the world - from ruining the twenty first century, his work and the work of countless others will have been in vain.

The above professor was named Carroll Quigley and the book he wrote was entitled, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time. It was published in 1966 and is clearly one of the most important books ever written. Professor Quigley was an extraordinarily gifted historian and geo-political analyst. The insights and information contained in his massive study open the door to a true understanding of world history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In fact, if the scholar, student, businessman, businesswoman, government official and general reader has not thoroughly studied Tragedy and Hope there is no way they can understand the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is a work of exceptional scholarship and is truly a classic. The author should have received a Nobel Prize for his work.

In 1961 Carroll Quigley published The Evolution of Civilizations. It was derived from a course he taught on world history at Georgetown University. One of Quigley’s closest friends was Harry J. Hogan. In the foreword to The Evolution of Civilizations he wrote:

"The Evolution of Civilizations expresses two dimensions of its author, Carroll Quigley, that most extraordinary historian, philosopher, and teacher. In the first place, its scope is wide-ranging, covering the whole of man's activities throughout time. Second, it is analytic, not merely descriptive. It attempts a categorization of man's activities in sequential fashion so as to provide a causal explanation of the stages of civilization.

"Quigley coupled enormous capacity for work with a peculiarly "scientific" approach. He believed that it should be possible to examine the data and draw conclusions. As a boy at the Boston Latin School, his academic interests were mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Yet during his senior year he was also associate editor of the Register, the oldest high school paper in the country. His articles were singled out for national awards by a national committee headed by George Gallup.

"At Harvard, biochemistry was to be his major. But Harvard, expressing then a belief regarding a well-rounded education to which it has now returned, required a core curriculum including a course in the humanities. Quigley chose a history course, "Europe Since the Fall of Rome." Always a contrary man, he was graded at the top of his class in physics and calculus and drew a C in the history course. But the development of ideas began to assert its fascination for him, so he elected to major in history. He graduated magna cum laude as the top history student in his class.

"Quigley was always impatient. He stood for his doctorate oral examination at the end of his second year of graduate studies. Charles Howard McIlwain, chairman of the examining board, was very impressed by Quigley's answer to his opening question; the answer included a long quotation in Latin from Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln in the thirteenth century. Professor McIlwain sent Quigley to Princeton University as a graduate student instructor.

"In the spring of 1937 I was a student in my senior year at Princeton. Quigley was my preceptor in medieval history. He was Boston Irish; I was New York Irish. Both of us, Catholics adventuring in a strangely Protestant establishment world, were fascinated by the Western intellectual tradition anchored in Augustine, Abelard, and Aquinas that seemed to have so much more richness and depth than contemporary liberalism. We became very close in a treasured friendship that was terminated only by his death.

"In the course of rereading The Evolution of Civilizations I was reminded of the intensity of our dialogue. In Quigley's view, which I shared, our age was one of irrationality. That spring we talked about what career decisions I should make. At his urging I applied to and was admitted by the Harvard Graduate School in History. But I had reservations about an academic career in the study of the history that I loved, on the ground that on Quigley’s own analysis the social decisions of importance in our lifetime would be made in ad hoc irrational fashion in the street. On that reasoning, finally I transferred to law school.

"In Princeton, Carroll Quigley met and married Lillian Fox. They spent their honeymoon in Paris and Italy on a fellowship to write his doctoral dissertation, a study of the public administration of the Kingdom of Italy, 1805-14. The development of the state in western Europe over the last thousand years always fascinated Quigley. He regarded the development of public administration in the Napoleonic states as a major step in the evolution of the modern state. It always frustrated him that each nation, including our own, regards its own history as unique and the history of other nations as irrelevant to it.

"In 1938-41, Quigley served a stint at Harvard, tutoring graduate students in ancient and medieval history. It offered little opportunity for the development of cosmic views and he was less than completely content there. It was, however, a happy experience for me. I had entered Harvard Law School. We began the practice of having breakfast together at Carroll and Lillian's apartment.

"In 1941 Quigley accepted a teaching appointment at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service. It was to engage his primary energies throughout the rest of his busy life. There he became an almost legendary teacher. He chose to teach a course, "The Development of Civilization," required of the incoming class, and that course ultimately provided the structure and substance for The Evolution of Civilizations. As a course in his hands, it was a vital intellectual experience for young students, a mind-opening adventure. Foreign Service School graduates, meeting years later in careers around the world, would establish rapport with each other by describing their experience in his class. It was an intellectual initiation with remembered impact that could be shared by people who had graduated years apart.

"The fortunes of life brought us together again. During World War II, I served as a very junior officer on Admiral King's staff in Washington. Carroll and I saw each other frequently. Twenty years later, after practicing law in Oregon, I came into the government with President Kennedy. Our eldest daughter became a student under Carroll at Georgetown University. We bought a house close by Carroll and Lillian. I had Sunday breakfast with them for years and renewed our discussions of the affairs of a disintegrating world.

"Superb teacher Quigley was, and could justify a lifetime of prodigious work on that success alone. But ultimately he was more. To me he was a figure - he would scoff at this - like Augustine, Abelard, and Aquinas, searching for the truth through examination of ultimate reality as it was revealed in history. Long ago, he left the church in the formal sense. Spiritually and intellectually he never left it. He never swerved from his search for the meaning of life. He never placed any goal in higher priority. If the God of the Western civilization that Quigley spent so many years studying does exist in the terms that he saw ascribed to him by our civilization, that God will now have welcomed Quigley as one who has pleased him." (Carroll Quigley, The Evolution of Civilizations. New York: Macmillan, 1961, pp. 13-16.)

Carroll Quigley was a professor of history at the Foreign Service School of Georgetown University. He taught at Princeton and at Harvard. He had done extensive research in the archives of France, Italy, and England. He was a member of the editorial board of Current History. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Anthropological Association and the American Economic Association. For many years he lectured on Russian history at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and on Africa at the Brookings Institution. He was also a frequent lecturer at the U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory, the Foreign Service Institute at the U. S. State Department, and the Naval College at Norfolk, Virginia. In 1958 he served as a consultant to the Congressional Select Committee which set up the National Space Agency. He was a historical advisor to the Smithsonian Institution and was involved with the establishment of the new Museum of History and Technology. In the summer of 1964 he was a consultant at the Navy Post-Graduate School, Monterey, California on Project Seabed. The project was created to visualize the status of future American weapons systems.

Tragedy and Hope will enlighten the mind of every sincere seeker of truth and will unveil the secret powers that have been carefully manipulating the Western Hemisphere, America, Europe, Asia, Russia, China and the Middle East for over 250 years.

In 1996 I published a 24 volume study entitled Global Governance in the Twenty First Century. The multi-volume work was the result of my extensive travels and research throughout the United States, Europe and Middle East. It fully collaborates the assertions and statements made by professor Carroll Quigley in Tragedy and Hope. It is my sincere hope the reader will take the time to carefully peruse and ponder the words of this rather remarkable book. And afterwards, I hope the reader will have a desire to thoroughly read and ponder the contents of Global Governance in the Twenty First Century.

Preface

The expression "contemporary history" is probably self-contradictory, because what is contemporary is not history, and what is history is not contemporary. Sensible historians usually refrain from writing accounts of very recent events because they realize that the source materials for such events, especially the indispensable official documents, are not available and that, even with the documentation which is available, it is very difficult for anyone to obtain the necessary perspective on the events of one's own mature life. But I must clearly not be a sensible or, at least, an ordinary historian, for, having covered, in an earlier book, the whole of human history in a mere 271 pages, I now use more than 1300 pages for the events of a single lifetime. There is a connection here. It will be evident to any attentive reader that I have devoted long years of study and much original research, even where adequate documentation is not available, but it should be equally evident that whatever value this present work has rests on its broad perspective. I have tried to remedy deficiencies of evidence by perspective, not only by projecting the patterns of past history into the present and the future but also by trying to place the events of the present in their total context by examining all the varied aspects of these events, not merely the political and economic, as is so frequently done, but by my efforts to bring into the picture the military, technological, social, and intellectual elements as well.

The result of all this, I hope, is an interpretation of the present as well as the immediate past and the near future, which is free from the accepted cliches, slogans, and self-justifications which mar so much of "contemporary history." Much of my adult life has been devoted to training undergraduates in techniques of historical analysis which will help them to free their understanding of history from the accepted categories and cognitive classifications of the society in which we live, since these, however necessary they may be for our processes of thought and for the concepts and symbols needed for us to communicate about reality, nevertheless do often serve as barriers which shield us from recognition of the underlying realities themselves. The present work is the result of such an attempt to look at the real situations which lie beneath the conceptual and verbal symbols. I feel that it does provide, as a consequence of this effort, a fresher, somewhat different, and (I hope) more satisfying explanation of how we arrived at the situation in which we now find ourselves.

More than twenty years have gone into the writing of this work. Although most of it is based on the usual accounts of these events, some portions are based on fairly intensive personal research (including research among manuscript materials). These portions include the following: the nature and techniques of financial capitalism, the economic structure of France under the Third Republic, the social history of the United States, and the membership and activities of the English Establishment. On other subjects, my reading has been as wide as I could make it, and I have tried consistently to view all subjects from as wide and as varied points of view as I am capable. Although I regard myself, for purposes of classification, as a historian, I did a great deal of study in political science at Harvard, have persisted in the private study of modern psychological theory for more than thirty years, and have been a member of the American Anthropological Association, the American Economic Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as the American Historical Association for many years.

Thus my chief justification for writing a lengthy work on contemporary history, despite the necessarily restricted nature of the documentation, must be based on my efforts to remedy this inevitable deficiency by using historical perspective to permit me to project the tendencies of the past into the present and even the future and my efforts to give this attempt a more solid basis by using all the evidence from a wide variety of academic disciplines.

As a consequence of these efforts to use this broad, and perhaps complex, method, this book is almost inexcusably lengthy. For this I must apologize, with the excuse that I did not have time to make it shorter and that an admittedly tentative and interpretative work must necessarily be longer than a more definite or more dogmatic presentation. To those who find the length excessive, I can only say that I omitted chapters, which were already written, on three topics: the agricultural history of Europe, the domestic history of France and Italy, and the intellectual history of the twentieth century in general. To do this I introduced enough on these subjects into other chapters.

Although I project the interpretation into the near future on a number of occasions, the historical narrative ceases in 1964, not because the date of writing caught up with the march of historical events but because the period 1862-1864 seems to me to mark the end of an era of historical development and a period of pause before a quite different era with quite different problems begins. This change is evident in a number of obvious events, such as the fact that the leaders of all the major countries (except Red China and France) and of many lesser ones (such as Canada, India, West Germany, the Vatican, Brazil, and Israel) were changed in this period. Much more important is the fact that the Cold War, which culminated in the Cuban crisis of October 1962, began to dwindle toward its end during the next two years, a process which w as evident in a number of events, such as the rapid replacement of the Cold War by "Competitive Coexistence"; the disintegration of the two super-blocs which had faced each other during the Cold War; the rise of neutralism, both within the super-blocs and in the buffer fringe of third-bloc powers between them; the swamping of the United Nations General Assembly under a flood of newly independent, sometimes microscopic, pseudo-powers; the growing parallelism of the Soviet Union and the United States; and the growing emphasis in all parts of the world on problems of living standards, of social maladjustments, and of mental health, replacing the previous emphasis on armaments, nuclear tensions, and heavy industrialization. At such a period, when one era seems to be ending and a different, if yet indistinct era appearing, it seemed to me as good a time as any to evaluate the past and to seek some explanation of how we arrived where we are.

In any preface such as this, it is customary to conclude with acknowledgment of personal obligations. My sense of these is so broad that I find it invidious to single out some and to omit others. But four must be mentioned. Much of this book was typed, in her usual faultless way, by my wife. This was done originally and in revised versions, in spite of the constant distractions of her domestic obligations, of her own professional career in a different university, and of her own writing and publication. For her cheerful assumption of this great burden, I am very grateful.

Similarly, I am grateful to the patience, enthusiasm, and amazingly wide knowledge of my editor at The Macmillan Company, Peter V. Ritner.

I wish to express my gratitude to the University Grants Committee of Georgetown University, which twice provided funds for summer research.

And, finally, I must say a word of thanks to my students over many years who forced me to keep up with the rapidly changing customs and outlook of our young people and sometimes also compelled me to recognize that my way of looking at the world is not necessarily the only way, or even the best way, to look at it. Many of these students, past, present, and future, are included in the dedication of this book.

Carroll Quigley

Washington, D. C.

March 8, 1965