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Since classical antiquity, historians have tended to think that empires, like individual organisms, evince a discernible rhythm. They come into being, mature, and then, soon or late, decay and decline. What Edward Gibbon did for historical literature in performing this kind of imperial autopsy on Rome, Thomas Cole did for the world of art. In The Course of Empire, a series of five elegant paintings that hang in the New-York Historical Society museum, Cole captured this imperial life cycle in painstaking brushstrokes.

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