Victorian England ruled a quarter of the globe, an unprecedented empire, thanks to unprecedented progress in science and technology. Yet the carnage of the Great War wrecked all Europe, clearing the path for the US to rise to prominence, achieved after the even worse Second World War. Karl Marx lead a measly life, but his writings changed world history in a way he himself hoped never would happen. The Soviet Union, with Stalinist terror on Hitlerian scale, became America's challenger in the Cold War, the end of which came as a blissful surprise, freedom having become the stake. Communist party rule survives in China, albeit in a virtually capitalist form.
—KGF Vissers