HEGEMONY OR BALANCE OF POWER? WHAT THE WARS OF ANCIENT CHINA TEACH US
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AT A GLANCE
The historian A.J.P. Taylor wrote one of the most powerful openings of any book.
“In the state of nature which Hobbes imagined, violence was the only law, and life was ‘nasty brutish and short’,” he wrote in The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918. “Though individuals never lived in this state of nature, the Great Powers of Europe have always done so. Sovereign states have distinguished European civilisation, at any rate since the end of the fifteenth century.
DETAILS FROM THE AVAILABLE COVERAGE: These attributed excerpts expand the brief so readers can take more information from the story without opening a second summary section.
- News - South China Morning Post: Taylor wrote one of the most powerful openings of any book.
- News - South China Morning Post: “In the state of nature which Hobbes imagined, violence was the only law, and life was ‘nasty brutish and short’,” he wrote in The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918.
- News - South China Morning Post: “Though individuals never lived in this state of nature, the Great Powers of Europe have always done so.
- News - South China Morning Post: Sovereign states have distinguished European civilisation, at any rate since the end of the fifteenth century.
KEY FACTS
- Topic: CHINA — the feed headline centres on HEGEMONY, BALANCE, POWER, WHAT, WARS.
- Original feed: News - South China Morning Post.
- Published: 18 Jul 2026, 02:30 UK.
- Coverage checked: 1 distinct source and 0 closely matched related stories.
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- 18/07/2026, 02:30 PRIMARY FEED HEGEMONY OR BALANCE OF POWER? WHAT THE WARS OF ANCIENT CHINA TEACH US (News - South China Morning Post • 2 hrs ago) [Story Intel]
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