Vae Victis or Woe to the Negotiators! Your Treaty or Our “Interpretation” of it?

Extract

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive; But to be young was very heaven!

Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book 11.

Where Alph, the sacred river ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.

Coleridge, Kubla Khan.

The length of time which has unfortunately (owing entirely to the procrastinations and backslidings of this reviewer) elapsed since the date when this (by any standards) most original and arresting work was first published in April, 1967, makes it scarcely necessary to supply that systematic description of its contents which, up to a point, any well-ordered review ought to seek to do,—for by this time all those who are interested in its subject matter will have read or at least looked through it. We shall therefore concentrate on those salient aspects of it which, even after the familiarity of three years has softened their outlines, still seem to stand out with special prominence.