Presentation drawing of “The Statue of Liberty Illuminating the World,” by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, 1875. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harry G. Sperling Fund, 2014.

Democracy

Volume XIII, Number 4 | fall 2020

Miscellany

Paul Biya has been president of Cameroon for forty-four years—the second-longest tenure for a nonroyal elected leader. Biya won his seventh term in 2018, with 71 percent of the vote. Since taking power in November 1982, he has placed his country 148th in the world in terms of economic output per capita and 163rd in the World Bank’s Doing Business rankings. The longest-serving leader is Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, president of Equatorial Guinea since 1979.

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

—George Eliot, 1866

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The Colosseum, attributed to Robert Eaton, c. 1855.
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DÉjÀ Vu

Monumental Mistakes

2023:

Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.

c. 1850:

Thompson of Sunderland makes his mark on Pompey’s pillar.

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