Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue. – James Buchan
Suicidal violence is not the exclusive property of the Muslim world. Suicide bombings were a tactic of nationalist struggles in 19th-century Europe and Russia, the far east during the second world war and the Vietnam war, and in modern Sri Lanka. – James Buchan
The truth is, of course, that history is not completed in modern commerce any more than philosophy is perfected in political economy. In other words, there is nothing timeless or God-given about filling stations and penicillin and plastic bags. – James Buchan
Up until the Depression, recession had a moral character: it was supposed to purge the body economic of the greed and excess that attends a business expansion. – James Buchan