Quotes from Timothy Brook

Orozco's despair was not just in finding himself poor, but in discovering that effort, honest intentions, and gentlemanly status had nothing to do with sucess in a commercial economy.

Religious belief does not do away with either natural or human law from which sovereignty is derived.

We see a seventeenth-century goblet and think: That is what a seventeenth-century goblet looks like, and isn't it remarkably like/unlike (choose one) goblets today? We tend not to think: What is a goblet doing there? Who made it? Where did it come from? Why did the artist choose to include it instead of something else, a teacup, say, or a glass jar?

Even though Europe and China sustained roughly similar populations (about 120 million people in 1600) and were spread over roughly the same area (10 million square kilometres), Europe remained a patchwork of small sovereignties whereas China found itself over and over again reunified as a single state.

Zhang was scathing toward authors who write history by simply repeating ancient facts and dismissing recent developments. Such people perpetuate ignorance rather than produce knowledge.