Stephen Kinzer Sold Quotations

Sultan Beyazid considered his father's art collection decadent and ordered it sold at auction.

The two largest oil-producing countries in Latin America, Mexico and Venezuela, sold petroleum to Nicaragua at concessional rates for several years beginning in 1980. The program was curtailed because Nicaragua could not make even reduced payments.

During the 19th century, Iranians lost vast territories in disastrous wars, and corrupt monarchs sold everything of value in the country to foreigners.

Weapons systems the U.S. sold to the Shah of Iran wound up in the hands of Islamic militants who seized power there in 1979; a comparable scenario in Saudi Arabia is hardly impossible.