Some people have all the historical luck

Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins on the European rediscovery of the Greeks that led to the Renaissance:

What else can one say about it, except that some people have all the historical luck? When Europeans invent their traditions -- with the Turks at the gates -- it is a genuine cultural rebirth, the beginnings of a progressive future. When other peoples do it, it is a sign of cultural decadence, a factitious recuperation, which can only bring forth the simulacra of a dead past.

From Waiting for Foucault, Still [PDF].