Word: bulwarks
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...leaders -- to come and shake their fists at the Wall and call down imprecations against those who had conceived and built it. But the barrier also stood as a reminder of the limits of power in the nuclear age. Paradoxically, the Wall, despised though it was, acted as a bulwark for stability in Europe, ratifying two spheres of influence and thus maintaining the alternative of cold war to hot war. It was the most palpable evidence of a deep wound in European civilization -- and it is finally gone...
Houphouet-Boigny, who converted to Roman Catholicism as an orphaned teenager, views his basilica as a pilgrimage center for Africa's 73 million Catholics and a bulwark against Islam and animism in his own country, which counts about 1 million Christians in a population of 10 million. As many as 300,000 pilgrims would easily fit into the plaza...
...other big loser was the U.S., which has given its public support and $1.5 million a day in aid to Duarte since 1984, when his election inspired hope that the war might end. Washington desperately wanted to build the Christian Democrats into El Salvador's bulwark against the political extremes, both the Communist insurgents and ARENA, the paramilitary organization turned political party that has been closely linked to death squads responsible for thousands of political murders. But the well-intended Duarte failed either to negotiate a peace or restore his country's shattered economy; his government was widely despised...
That he was there at all was due to James Baker, whom he had met at Commerce. Though the new chief of staff, Baker was something of an alien. He needed loyal, experienced professionals as a bulwark against right-wing rivals. Darman filled that role eagerly. Eagerly, but not comfortably. The older Reaganauts sometimes suspected him of ideological subversion. He in turn took a grandiose view of himself as an all-purpose antidote to the amateurism of some of his elders. "Every single thing that moved," he says, "I felt responsible for." His influence rose steadily...
...oceans were to rise by 3 ft. to 5 ft. over the next century, as some scientists have predicted? One option would be to construct levees and dikes. The Netherlands, after all, has flourished more than 12 ft. below sea level for hundreds of years. Its newest bulwark is a 5.6-mile dam made up of 131-ft. steel locks that remain open during normal conditions, to preserve the tidal flow that feeds the rich local sea life, but can be closed when rough weather threatens. Venice is beginning to put into place a 1.2-mile flexible seawall that would...