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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carroll Quigley (November 9, 1910 – January 3, 1977) was a noted historian, polymath, and theorist of the evolution of civilizations.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Influence on Bill Clinton 3 Quigley and secret societies 3.1 Quigley’s claims about the Milner Group 3.2 Citations of Quigley by conspiracy theorists 4 Bibliography 4.1 Books written by Quigley 4.2 Articles about Quigley 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Biography

Quigley was born in Boston, and attended Harvard University, where he studied history and earned B.A, M.A., and Ph.D. degrees. He taught at Princeton University, and then at Harvard, and then at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University from 1941 to 1976.^[1]

From 1941 until 1969, he taught a two-semester course at Georgetown on the development of civilizations. According to the obituary in the Washington Star, many alumni of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service asserted that this was "the most influential course in their undergraduate careers".^[2]

In addition to his academic work, Quigley served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, the Smithsonian Institution, and the House Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration in the 1950s.^[3] Quigley served as a book reviewer for the Washington Star and was a contributor and editorial board member of Current History.^[4] His work emphasized "inclusive diversity" as a value of Western Civilization long before diversity became commonplace, and he denounced Platonic doctrines as an especially pernicious deviation from this ideal, preferring the pluralism of Thomas Aquinas.^{[citation needed]} Quigley said of himself that he was a conservative defending the liberal tradition of the West. He was an early and fierce critic of the Vietnam War,^{[citation needed]} and he was against the activities of the military-industrial complex which he saw as the future downfall of the country.^{[citation needed]}

Quigley retired from Georgetown in June, 1976, and died the following year.^[5]

[edit] Influence on Bill Clinton

In his freshman year in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, future U.S. President Bill Clinton took Quigley's course, receiving a 'B' as his final grade in both semesters.^[6]

Clinton named Quigley as an important influence on his aspirations and political philosophy in 1991, when launching his presidential campaign in a speech at Georgetown.^[7] He also mentioned Quigley again during his acceptance speech to the 1992 Democratic National Convention, as follows:

As a teenager, I heard John Kennedy’s summons to citizenship. And then, as a student at Georgetown, I heard that call clarified by a professor named Carroll Quigley, who said to us that America was the greatest Nation in history because our people had always believed in two things–that tomorrow can be better than today and that every one of us has a personal moral responsibility to make it so.^[8]

[edit] Quigley and secret societies

One distinctive feature of Quigley’s historical writings was his assertion that secret societies have played a significant role in recent world history. Although this topic was not the primary focus of most of Quigley’s works, his writing on this topic has made Quigley famous among many who believe in conspiracy theories.^[9] Quigley’s views are particularly notable because the majority of reputable academic historians are skeptical about conspiracy theories.^[10]

[edit] Quigley’s claims about the Milner Group

In his book The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden, written in 1949 but published posthumously in 1981, Quigley purports to trace the history of a secret society founded in 1891 by Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Milner. The society consisted of an inner circle (“The Society of the Elect”) and an outer circle (“The Association of Helpers”).^[11] The society as a whole does not have a fixed name:

This society has been known at various times as Milner's Kindergarten, as the Round Table Group, as the Rhodes crowd, as The Times crowd, as the All Souls group, and as the Cliveden set. ... I have chosen to call it the Milner group. Those persons who have used the other terms, or heard them used, have not generally been aware that all these various terms referred to the same Group. It is not easy for an outsider to write the history of a secret group of this kind, but, since no insider is going to do it, an outsider must attempt it. It should be done, for this Group is, as I shall show, one of the most important historical facts of the twentieth century.^[12]

Quigley assigns this group primary or exclusive credit for several historical events: the Jameson Raid, the Second Boer War, the founding of the Union of South Africa, the replacement of the British Empire with the Commonwealth of Nations, and a number of Britain’s foreign policy decisions in the twentieth century.^[13]

In 1966, Quigley published a one-volume history of the twentieth century entitled Tragedy and Hope. At several points in this book, the history of the Milner group is discussed. Moreover, Quigley states that he has recently been in direct contact with this organization, whose nature he contrasts to certain right-wing conspiracy theories:

This radical Right fairy tale, which is now an accepted folk myth in many groups in America, pictured the recent history of the United States, in regard to domestic reform and in foreign affairs, as a well-organized plot by extreme Left-wing elements.... This myth, like all fables, does in fact have a modicum of truth. There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the Radical right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other group, and frequently does so. I know of the operation of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960’s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies... but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.^[14]

According to Quigley, the leaders of this group were Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Milner from 1891 until Rhodes’ death in 1902, Milner alone until his own death in 1925, Lionel Curtis from 1925 to 1955, Robert H. (Baron) Brand from 1955 to 1963, and Adam D. Marris from 1963 until the time Quigley wrote his book. This organization also functioned through certain loosely affiliated “front groups”, including the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Institute of Pacific Relations, and the Council on Foreign Relations. After 1963 the organization’s activities were “greatly reduced.”^[15]

In addition, other secret societies are briefly discussed in Tragedy and Hope, including a consortium of the leaders of the central banks of several countries, who formed the Bank for International Settlements with the intent to “create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.”^[16]

[edit] Citations of Quigley by conspiracy theorists

Soon after its publication, Tragedy and Hope caught the attention of authors interested in conspiracies. They proceeded to publicize Quigley's claims, disseminating them to a much larger audience than his original readership.^[17]

This began in 1970, when W. Cleon Skousen published The Naked Capitalist: A Review and Commentary on Dr. Carroll Quigley’s Book “Tragedy and Hope”. The first third of this book consists of extensive excerpts from Tragedy and Hope, interspersed with commentary by Skousen. Skousen quotes Quigley’s description of the activities of several groups: the Milner Group, a cartel of international bankers, the Communist Party, the Institute of Pacific Relations, and the Council on Foreign Relations. According to Skousen’s interpretation of Quigley’s book, each of these is a facet of one large conspiracy.^[18]

In 1971, Gary Allen, a spokesman for the John Birch Society, published None Dare Call It Conspiracy, which became a bestseller. Allen cited Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope as an authoritative source on conspiracies throughout his book. Like Skousen, Allen understood the various conspiracies in Quigley’s book to be branches of one large conspiracy, and also connected them to the Bilderbergers and to Richard Nixon.^[19] The John Birch Society continues to cite Quigley as a primary source for their view of history.^[20]

Quigley is also cited by several other authors who assert the existence of powerful conspiracies. Jim Marrs, whose work was used as a source by Oliver Stone in his film JFK, cites Quigley in his book Rule By Secrecy, which describes a conspiracy linking the Milner Group, Skull and Bones, the Trilateral Commission, the Bavarian Illuminati, the Knights Templar, and aliens who posed as the Sumerian gods thousands of years ago.^[21] Pat Robertson’s book The New World Order cites Quigley as an authority on a powerful conspiracy.^[22] And conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly has asserted that Bill Clinton’s political success was due to his pursuit of the “world government” agenda he learned from Quigley.^[23]

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Books written by Quigley

• The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis. First edition, 1961, New York: Macmillan, 281 pp.
  • Translated into Spanish as La Evolucion de las Civilizaciones. Mexico City: Hermes, 1963.
  • Translated into Portuguese as A Evolucao das Civilazacoes. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fundo de Cultura, 1963.
  • Second edition, 1979, Indianapolis: LibertyPress / Liberty Fund, 444 pages, ISBN 0913966568 (hardcover), ISBN 0913966576 (paperback). Full text.

• Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time. 1966, New York: Macmillan, 1348 pages. Reprinted by Rancho Palos Verdes: GSG & Associates, 1975, ISBN 0913022144 and ISBN 094500110X. Full text.
  • The World Since 1939: A History. (A reprint of the second half of Tragedy and Hope.) 1968, New York: Collier Books, 676 pp.

• The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden. 1981, New York: Books in Focus, 354 pages, ISBN 0916728501 (hardcover and paperback). Reprinted by Rancho Palos Verdes: GSG & Associates, date unknown, ISBN 0945001010 (paperback). Full text.

• Weapons Systems and Political Stability: A History. 1983, Washingon DC: University Press of America, 1064 pages, ISBN 081912947X.

[edit] Articles about Quigley

• Obituary. The Washington Star, January 6, 1977, p. B-4. Scan.

• Scott McLemee. "The Quigley Cult." George Magazine (Dec. 1996), vol. 1, no. 10, pp. 94-98.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Washington Star — Obituary for Professor Carroll Quigley
• Carroll Quigley: Theorist of Civilizations
• Paranoia interview with Robert Eringer [1]