{"product_id":"2940013703292","title":"The Mystery of Khufu's Tomb","description":"We Americans are ostriches. We stick well meaning heads into the\u003cbr\u003epolitical sands of these United States, swear--probably correctly--they\u003cbr\u003eare better than all other sands, and accordingly declare ourselves free\u003cbr\u003efor ever from entangling alliances. \"Struthio camelus,\" whose plumes are\u003cbr\u003eplucked for market while his head, stowed snugly in a stocking, \"sees no\u003cbr\u003eevil, hears no evil, speaks no evil,\" and who then struts about asserting\u003cbr\u003ethat a plucked and smarting rump is fashionable, ought to be our national\u003cbr\u003ebird, not the all-seeing eagle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut this isn't an effort to reform the United States. We're the finest\u003cbr\u003ethere is or ever was, only rather more entangled with the old world than\u003cbr\u003ewe think.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Great Pyramid of Gizeh is older than the Declaration of Independence,\u003cbr\u003eand its claims continue to have precedence, our elected statesmen\u003cbr\u003enotwithstanding. Statesmen understand not much beyond the drift of\u003cbr\u003epopular opinion; but conspirators have always understood that the safest\u003cbr\u003eplace to conspire in is the centre of the establishment they aim at.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe men whose lives are spent mainly in the open are the widest awake. To\u003cbr\u003eassert the contrary is only another phase of the ostrich habit. If a man\u003cbr\u003ewipes his knife on the seat of his trousers and knows where the cinnamon\u003cbr\u003ebear will be rooting at six a.m., he's not necessarily less enlightened\u003cbr\u003ethan the fellow who thinks he knows what the editorials in the morning\u003cbr\u003epaper really mean. That partly explains why the best policemen come from\u003cbr\u003ethe plough-tail and the woods, and cities don't often produce Abe\u003cbr\u003eLincolns.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll this sounds rather far from Egypt and the Pyramid of Gizeh, but is\u003cbr\u003enot. Few people know or knew why the Great Pyramid was built. Hundreds of\u003cbr\u003ethousands toiled at the making of it, most of whom thought they knew,\u003cbr\u003ejust as most of the people who take the subway in the morning think they\u003cbr\u003eknow why, and are deluded. They believed what they were told. They were\u003cbr\u003etold what was considered good for them to think. The men who told them\u003cbr\u003eknew hardly any more but were getting a profit, and hard cash always did\u003cbr\u003elook like Euclid's Q.E.D. But the men who really did know why the Pyramid\u003cbr\u003ewas building held their tongues and toiled elsewhere, also for cash,\u003cbr\u003eexcept Khufu himself, who was the arch-type of perfect profiteers.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47073827848432,"sku":"2940013703292","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013703292_p0.jpg?v=1763584211","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013703292","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}