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Article: More Bosnias? National and ethnic tensions in the post-communist world.
- Article from:
- East European Quarterly
- Article date:
- September 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 East European Quarterly. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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DETACHMENT AND INVOLVEMENT: A PERSONAL NOTE
I never aspired to become a politician: for a convinced democrat living in a Communist-dominated country such an idea could not occur - it was not easy even to become a historian of academic standing. But since my childhood I used to wonder why the very first sentence of my Latin textbook, Historia est magistra vitae (which I was instinctively in agreement with), did not enable mankind to avoid so many fallacies and tragedies. I was impressed when later I came across a more sophisticated version of that Latin sententia made by the Earl of Bolingbroke: History is a philosophy which teaches through examples. My ...