the thirty years war

This is my favorite era of European history, I can't get enough of it. I bought 'Europa Universalis 3' a computer grand strategy game that covers this era with many excellent player created mods that enhance gameplay and it has eaten an embarrassing amount of my time. I like to pick some statelet on the periphery of the Holy Roman Empire like The Palatinate and try to assert an independent national autonomy in the face of imperialism and the clusterfuck of the reformation.

I feel that in a few weeks, I will be cursing you for bringing this game's existence to my attention.

thank ta-nehisi coates, who convinced me to pick this up at 40% off at borders

haha i also read this a couple months ago because of tnc

no axel oxenstierna no cred tho

The Hundred Years' War, 1336-1453

heres a nice thing about wedgwood and the way she works both sides of "great man" vs "slaves of history"

http://slawkenbergius.blogspot.com/2011/10/fatal-flaws.html

i can't really get with this.

- wedgwood often focuses on the weaknesses and failures of decision-making as being the drivers of change - of history - which is a totally fascinating way to look at things, but that's squarely within the "great men" tradition. whether it's their weaknesses or their strengths, we're still focusing on conventional leaders, men of power and prestige.

- the main critiques of "great men" thinking say you should look at economics, at cultural exchanges that produce bottom-up societal effects, that "great men" often have their hands forced by larger tides beyond any individual's control. personally while i love wedgwood's book it would be illuminating to learn more about the economics and culture of the time. for instance, the first part of benedict anderson's "imagined communities" is specifically about... german coffee house culture in the 17th century as the cradle of "print democracy", a development which basically gives birth to the entire concept of the public sphere. how does that connect with emergent religious ideas, nationalistic ideas?

- "we're somehow always being encouraged to 'leave room for agency,' an admonition that is current only as long as that agency involves otherwise powerless brown people ... in the contemporary view, people have agency, and that agency is important, as long as nobody is actually accomplishing anything"

i mean ...

the whole point of great tranches of non-great-men histories is specifically to show that repressed, devalued, or otherwise overlooked populations actually DID accomplish things (even if in the end they were defeated on key issues) - to rediscover the conflict beneath the veneer of victor-written consensus

while wedgwood is simply outside any sort of tradition or training that would allow her to "go there" or to benedict anderson's world, there are all kinds of enticing hints at to the swirl of a public starting to be aware of its own existence, both in the broad sense of religious radicalism and its deep connection with emergent ideas of nationalism (the "german liberties"; the bohemian "letter of majesty"; though it's questionable how much either of these were any sort of humanistic guarantee as opposed to simply a way to bribe the right princes)

all that said, the approach needs to be suited to the subject matter. and it's arguable that of any time and place, 17th century europe is most amenable to a "great man" view. there was extremely low literacy. there were very few outlets for expressions of public sentiment. princes, kings, etc really did have enormous power to act on their whims and instincts.

- "It's a bit like Jackson Pollock. There must be people out there who think Jackson Pollock is a good artist for excellent reasons. I suspect, however, that there are more people like me: people who secretly have no idea why anyone thinks Jackson Pollock is a good artist but, for social and cultural-capital kinds of reasons, don't want to discuss their qualms with anyone"

courageous challops my friend!

thats not challops! hes not saying jackson pollock is BAD, just that he doesnt know why jackson pollock is GOOD, which is a pretty okay thing to say, id think?

i mean unless "thinking jackson pollock is good" is a quality were all supposed to be born with

anyway im not sure what youre arguing--that wedgwood lies firmly on the "great man" side?

wedgwood totally cops to writing about The Thirty Years War from a 'great man' perspective in the introduction iirc.

dunno if there is enough data to go b anderson style on the thirty years war period

people who secretly have no idea why anyone thinks Jackson Pollock is a good artist but, for social and cultural-capital kinds of reasons, don't want to discuss their qualms with anyone

= "i am a gigantic wuss"

though it's true, this is a good analogy for how baffled he is by history that attempts to look at the agency of the oppressed: he doesn't get it, but he's too embarrassed to ask (because the PC BRIGADE ARE A BUNCH OF MEANIES)

yeah i dont mean to argue that wedgwood doesnt believe in the great man theory, at least in the context of 30yw, i mean its right there in her writing, i just like the way she works the other side, too--shes very clear about the socio-politico-cultural factors that led to the war, and to the war lasting that long. "economics" maybe less so.

ha that poor guy cant win with you! if he says "i dont think jackson pollock is good" its a challop, if he doesnt say it, hes a wuss!

because the CIA WILL TAKE YOUR GRANTS AWAY

no it's more like he's trying to have it both ways - "i may be just a poor unfrozen caveman, but i don't understand how a bunch of drippy paint constitutes good art... and i don't think i'm alone... not saying it's bad though, i just don't know!"

this is a side issue though to the guy's shocking condescension re: non-great-man history - he's like a step and a half away from asking why we don't have white history month

german coffee house culture in the 17th century as the cradle of "print democracy", a development which basically gives birth to the entire concept of the public sphere.

Does he basically get this from Habermas? If so, i think emergent public sphere stuff is later than the war, but yeah, I would be interested in seeing what the equivalent to the thomason tracts would be for them - assume there was an explosion of broadsheets, pamphlets etc.

xp, i didn't get that from him, but maybe i interpreted generously

if it's true that people have vast differences in power and resources available to them, with the many having little of x, and a few having lots of x, then it makes sense that the agency and flaws of the few have greater weight on what happens to all. i can't decide which town to raze next with my armies but some people have made that decision.

in a way you can square the circle of "great man"ism and oppression that way. they're the same thing.

goole i agree totally! i can't think of anybody would disagree actually

the first ever western newspaper (a weekly) was published in strasbourg in 1605, had a network of correspondents, and quickly appealed to the local prince for protection against others duplicating the stories under their own names

it's been a long time since i read imagined communities but my memory is that coffee houses specifically in the hapsburg empire were a kind of novel, hip thing, and became the place people would come to swap stories (in lieu of twitter obv)

i'd love to know the class makeup of those coffee houses though..

bunch of bohemians probably

hipsters

yeah, my coffee-house history is kind of anglocentric but they're big for the Habermas's 'emergence of the bourgeois public sphere' thing (in which England is the exemplary case) & for any more general social/cultural history here - a place where you can get the latest newssheets (esp as they develop into more critical/essayistic forms) & have conversations with a range of classes.

but those people didn't hold real power, didn't crush entire hamlets with their cavalries PFFFFFT

on the class thing - by 1700 certainly diff shops for diff factions & trades in England, but I get the impression there's some reach across classes - the literary ones certainly have connections upwards, & across land/trade squirearchy/gentry/city merchant gaps.

they held some power

xp

the power to spurn dreary lutheran robusto for a full-bodied calvinist arabica

or is it the other way around?

great momus theory

i ordered this book btw, wallenstein is mentioned in the book on weber i just read

Fwiw coffee shop world is after 30yw. Only getting underway in the 50s iirc.

hipsters make some sense in late c17th/early 18th. Younger sons of Norfolk squires who have written a play and know someone who knows Addison.

mad jack mytton, regency rake -- he's a bit late, but i will pass up no opportunity to acquaint the world with his works

oh man that guy is a hero

Worth looking up Radio 4, Misha Glenny series "The invention of Germany", which begins, appropriately enough, in the 30 years war. Some interesting tidbits:

In memory of Gustavus Aldophus German children are still chastised with the threat of the Swedes. eg. "If you don't go to sleep the Swedes will get you"

Fredrick I of Prussia was more Polish than German, Prussian nationalism's affinity for germany was, in part a move to distance Prussia from feudal obligations to Polish Kings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016btb4

Berlin gets its name from a slavic word for lake.

Fwiw coffee shop world is after 30yw. Only getting underway in the 50s iirc.

DAMMIT

totally want the relatable everyman character in the HBO series to be a fledgling reporter

or barista, obv

he should be a courier obv

and a potman

He can invent the exposé - just a thuringian broadsheet-writer-for-hire who's meant to be covering the birth of a two-headed lamb, but uncovers a Bavarian secret treaty with France.

when i get back to the smiley project, i should add in a bit about the writer smiley is doing a monograph on, who seems to be a german diplomatic envoy, from around this time, who writes up his travels (i'm on a train at the moment so can't look it up) (or even move, the student beside me is lolling in his sleep)

lolling or lol-ing?

the copy i'm reading is a 1961 penguin (v.early pelican imprint): it has a callot collage on the cover, in blue and pink, and the pages are nice and old and furry-feeling

it is very funny

The Death of Wallenstein, by Fredrich Schiller -

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6787

The Piccolomini

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6786

I think I voted already: Frederick V - he thought he could win, with magic.

SPOILERS

just reached the bit where one of the many christians* gets thrown from a horse 80 feet down from the battlements and another dies aged 28, his "vitals gnawed by a giant worm"

END SPOILERS

*name not denomination

"If one considers the expense on this occasion and wants to reduce it so that it can be afforded for a long time, it should be replied that great emergencies have no rule; that it is not a question of an expense that will last for many years; but that if, in order to remedy the present evil, one fails to make an extraordinary expenditure now, it will be necessary to make one in the future -- though it would not then produce any result, nor prevent our ruin."

-- Cardinal Richelieu to Louis XIII, Sept 6 1634

voted john george

John George... has been known to sit at table gorging homely foods and swilling native beer for seven hours on end, his sole approach at conversation to box his dwarf's ears, or pour the dregs of a tankard over a servant's head as a signal for more.