"Leader of The Free World"
The "Leader of the Free World" is a colloquialism, first used during the Cold War, to describe either the United States or the President of the United States. The term, when used in this context, suggests that the United States is the principal democratic superpower, and the U.S. President is, by extension, the leader of the world's democratic states, i.e. the "Free World". The phrase had its origin in the late 1940s, and has become more widely used since the early 1950s. It was heavily referenced in American foreign policy up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, and has since fallen out of use, in part due to its usage in anti-American rhetoric.
Read more about this topic: Free World (World War II)
Famous quotes containing the words leader of, leader, free and/or world:
“To be a leader of men one must turn one’s back on men.”
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939)
“A Republic! Look in the history of the Earth ... To be the first man—not the Dictator, not the Sylla, but the Washington or the Aristides, the leader in talent and truth—is next to the Divinity!”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Actually we are a vulgar, pushing mob whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues, newspaper men, religious quacks, agitators and such like. To call this a society of free peoples is blasphemous. What have we to offer the world besides the superabundant loot which we recklessly plunder from the earth under the maniacal delusion that this insane activity represents progress and enlightenment?”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a corner and cry “Heigh-ho for a husband!””
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)