Peter Padfield Quotes

• La riqueza procedente del comercio fue el principal motor del avance material de Occidente; los agentes visibles del cambio fueron las grandes armas. Éstas alcanzaron su madurez en Europa en el siglo XV. En tierra, su potencia para reducir las murallas de los castillos favoreció al poder central frente al local, ya que en general sólo los monarcas podían permitirse trenes de asedio; así, las naciones-estado se consolidaron y extendieron hasta convertirse en grandes imperios territoriales. En el mar, los cañones transformaron los veleros en castillos móviles prácticamente inexpugnables para los adversarios que carecían de artillería igualmente poderosa. Con los buques de guerra artillados, Europa occidental comenzó a extenderse por todo el mundo.

  Peter Padfield

  Wall, Powerful, Ocean

  4 Copiar cita

• Our faith in democracy, personal freedoms and human 'rights', and the other comforting prescriptions of the humanist liberal credo stem from the supremacy of maritime over territorial power. Pragmatists may deplore this as crude determinism, as another vain attempt to construct a general theory of history. They should reflect on the sort of political philosophy and structures we might now adhere to had the Habsburgs, Bourbons, Bonaparte, Hitler, Stalin or his heirs prevailed in the titanic world struggles of the past four centuries.

  Peter Padfield

  Philosophy, Struggle, Past

  Peter Padfield (2000). “Maritime Supremacy & the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World”, Overlook Books

  6 Copiar cita

• The reason territorial monarchs failed time after time against maritime powers was not that absolutist, non-consensual governments were incapable of building great fleets in peace - quite the reverse - but that they were unable to fund them in the crises of war. Mainly this was because they were forced to divert resources from the fleet to their armies, to fight territorial rivals frequently financed by their maritime enemy from the profits of sea trade.

  Peter Padfield

  Guerra, Ejército, Lucha

  4 Copiar cita

• Philip could not have wanted to annex England militarily, since this would have opened another costly occupation struggle, and brought France in against him. He might, however, neutralize Elizabth by supporting her internal Catholic enemies, even provoking civil war.

  Peter Padfield

  War, Struggle, Catholic

  Peter Padfield (2000). “Maritime Supremacy & the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World”, Overlook Books

  4 Copiar cita

• It is clear that the flame of True Freedom had passed with naval supremacy and constitutional, consultative government from the United Provinces to Great Britain, where it was regarded with quite as much national pride.

  Peter Padfield

  Pride, Government, Flames

  Peter Padfield (2000). “Maritime Supremacy & the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World”, Overlook Books

  4 Copiar cita

También te puede gustar:

Rudolf Hess

C.J. Sansom

John D. MacDonald

Karl Donitz

Edward Klein

John Sandford

Paul Kengor

Paul Kengor