The Curious Parallels Between Trump and Kaiser Wilhelm II
The German leader might have been ‘bombastic and impetuous,’ but at least he didn’t have Twitter.
The other day, reading along in Ernst Pawel’s “The Labyrinth of Exile: A Life of Theodor Herzl,” I had a Plutarchian moment. I refer of course to Plutarch (45-120), the Greek who wrote a series of parallel lives of famous figures from Greek and Roman history.
In Pawel’s book, the year is 1898. Herzl is rounding up support for his idea of a return to the Jewish homeland, hoping to enlist the influence of Germany on the sultan of Turkey, who controls the land. To this end a meeting has been arranged with Bernhard von Bülow, foreign...