Prussia

Austria is allied with France.

England changes its allies then to Prussia and Austria to France.

The reason for this is George II, the King of England is also the elector of Hanover, a German Prince.

He's elderly, but he takes his position as elector seriously as a ruler of Hanover, and so he is going to side with their traditional allies.

He wouldn't focus at all on Europe.

In fact, all he would do is put up defenses of England so that the French or their allies cannot invade the island proper.

But they would then use the Prussians to keep the French army occupied in Europe, keep them busy.

This allowed them to use the British army and military forces and navy to focus on capturing French colonies.

Indeed, oh dear, what's the man's name? There's a German-American academic at UPenn who's written on the extent to which the SPD was still in its majority strongly anti-imperialist down to 1914.

And also that the SPD leadership in summer 1914 was engaged in planning a general strike to force the Prussian suffrage question.

These plans were overtaken by the war.

And then conversely, so it's Gents, Uwe, Guttel, G-U-E-T-T-E-L.

Um, people think that Britain was this one huge factory.

No, it, it was, it was still a rural society, just like the US was, just like Prussia was.

So, um, yeah, I think I, I think I misread that, but that's what's, that's what's happening here.

And, um, I can't, I don't know how...

The quaint town of Thorn on the Vistula was more than two centuries old when Copernicus was born there on the nineteenth of February, 1743.

The situation of this town on the frontier between Prussia and Poland, with the commodious waterway offered by the river, made it a place of considerable trade.

A view of the town, as it was at the time of the birth of Copernicus, is here given.

The walls, with their watchtowers, will be noted.

In reading of these invitations we cannot but be struck at the extraordinary respect which was then paid to scientific distinction.

It must be remembered that the discoveries of such men as d'Alembert were utterly incapable of being appreciated except by those who possessed a high degree of mathematical culture.

We nevertheless find the potentates of Russia and Prussia entreating and, as it happens, vainly entreating the most distinguished mathematician in France to accept the positions that they were proud to offer him.

It was to d'Alembert, the profound mathematician, that young Laplace, the son of the country farmer, presented his letters of introduction.

So we don't want them to know that there's so many of them and so few of us.

And even our education system is the Prussian education model.

Prussia was old school, modern day Germany.

US saw that and they're like, okay, we have farm workers right now and like military agriculture, right? We need obedient people to do and switch to the manufacturing that the US was switching into.

So they imported the Prussian education system and think about it since we all went to school.

Figure of authority tells us what to do.

A bell rings.

And we, so the ancient, ancient literature, and again, they would see even a, certainly a Herodotus, but even a Thucydides would see more commonality between what they were doing and say Homer than a contemporary American historian would likely see between history and literature of the time.

And while there's a lot to be said for the kind of essentially Prussian model of historical inquiry coming down out of the 19th century, there's a lot that has been gained by it, and I think more every day.

We still do need the Greeks.

Well, you know, one of the things that, you know, this podcast, we've been encountering some of the great works of American historiography, most of which predate 1970.

1865, he was a great Germanic Rav.

He was the Rav of Konigsberg, which was then part of Prussia for many, many decades.

He says a fascinating idea.

He says the contrast between the house of Avram, where he treated everybody with such respect, even though he was post-surgery, And these three travelers, when they appear to him, they appear to him like Arab travelers, not anybody who was wealthy or successful or prominent, just three regular Arab travelers.

Um, people think that Britain was this one huge factory.

No, it, it was, it was still a rural society, just like the US was, just like Prussia was.

So, um, yeah, I think I, I think I misread that, but that's what's, that's what's happening here.

And, um, I can't-- I don't know how...