If America resembles the fall of Rome, spectacular and vulgar, then Europe is reliving the slow death of Venice. One empire collapses in flames, the other sinks in silence. One is consumed by fire, the other lost in fog.
Today the whole of Europe risks turning into one big Venice. A beautiful open-air museum, a great destination for Chinese and American tourists, a place to admire what was once the centre of the world. (Rutger Bregman, 2025 Reith Lectures, Episode 1, A Time of Monsters)
I last visited Rome in 2025, a quarter of a century into the 21st Century.
The once great Rome
2026 as a year when the veritable tsumami of
2026 will be a year of global readjustment, of adapting for the sake of survival. The world is realigning. The new rules of the game are clear. ... 2026 will test the guardrails and tools for dealing with the brutality in geopolitics. (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, 2025)
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