In Modern Society, Where Most People Live

Bulls Don't Read. Bears Read Financial History. As Markets Fall To Bits, The Bears Dust Off The Dutch Tulip Mania Of 1637, The Banque Royale Of 1719-20, The Railway Speculation Of The 1840s, The Great Crash Of 1929.

There Are About 15 Million Muslims In The Eu. They Face Ignorance, Insult And Even Persecution. They Cannot Be Wished Away. To Impose Enlightenment Freedoms Is Self-defeating. Anyway, The Muslims Have Their Own Enlightenment.

Governments Of Rich Countries Spend Some $6bn Of Tax Money A Year On Disaster Relief And Development Aid Overseas, While Each New Earthquake, Famine Or Tidal Wave Can Attract 1,000 Aid Organisations, From The United Nations Children's Fund And Oxfam To The 'jesus Brigades' Of The American South And Other Charitable Adventurers.

When William The Conqueror Commissioned A Great Survey Of His English Realm At Gloucester In 1085, The Result Was A Work So Thorough, Fair, Dispassionate, And Wide-ranging That It Seemed To The Succeeding Generations To Have Come From Another World.

For All Their Current Prestige, Osama Bin Laden And The Suicide Bombers Are Still Regarded In All But The Most Desperate Districts Of Gaza Or Peshawar As Romantics With Little Chance Of More Than Symbolic Victories, However Bloody And Brutal. That Gives Both The Middle East And The West A Small And Distant Hope Of Security.