"History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again." — George R.R. Martin
But what if the wheel has turned against its maker?
I. Europe’s Zenith: The Colonial Machine
For centuries, Europe positioned itself as the engine of human progress, the birthplace of philosophy, science, and enlightened governance. Yet beneath this veneer of civilization churned a ruthless machine fueled by extraction and subjugation. The Scramble for Africa (1880–1900) epitomized this duality: while European salons debated Kant and Voltaire, their governments carved a continent into fiefdoms with the cold precision of butchers .