Earlier this week, I was sitting in a coffee shop reading a book. I found a paragraph which nagged at me a bit, since it seemed to hint at what was happening in the world today. I’ve copied it below.

“Since then, new tyrannies and new wars have shaken Europe, and we find ourselves the uneasy heirs of the first romantics, still committed to their ideal of refashioning the world, though more soberly in view of bitter experience. Their central problem – the discrepancy between human aspiration and human weakness – is still ours, manifest in Europe’s powerlessness to fulfil boundless potentialities for progress, owing to the diversion of human energy into preparations for a possible war of annihilation.”

So here’s the quiz question: can you suggest in which decade this sentiment was expressed – out of, say, the last 150 years? No googling, mind! It’s an honour thing…