Excerpt from The North American Review, Vol. 241: Founded 1815 As a matter of fact, the handout system of government never confers lasting power and glory upon its authors because the opposition can always make more grandiose promises the history of Rome during the panem et circenses period was a succession of falling heads. No sooner had an emperor distributed largess to the ih satiable populace than an aspirant (why anyone wanted the job even Gibbon fails to explain) out-promised him and the emperor's head adorned a pole. In contrast, Cromwell, Napoleon, Washington, Lenin, Hitler and Mussolini gave their people meatless weeks and breadless Sundays: it must be that the people do not really want to live by bread alone, nor even by bread and circuses. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.