“The English are rapidly expanding their conquests in Afghanistan [ca. 1840]”

“Modern English is the Wal-Mart of languages: convenient, huge, hard toavoid, superficially friendly, and devouring all rivals in its eagernessto expand.”

“A Girl from Afghanistan”

“Assyria soon discovered a painful truth: empires are like Ponzi schemes: financial frauds in which previous investors are paid returns out of new investors' deposits. The costs of holding imperial territory can only be underwritten by loot and tribute extracted by constant new conquests; empires must continue to expand if they are not to collapse.”

“An age of expansion really did begin, but the phenomenon was of an expanding world, not, as some historians say, of European expansion. The world did not simply wait passively for European outreach to transform it as if touched by a magic wand. Other societies were already working magic of their own, turning states into empires and cultures into civilizations. Some of the most dynamic and rapidly expanding societies of the fifteenth century were in the Americas, southwest and northern Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.”

“Afghanistan—where empires go to die. ”