Category Archives: war
Castile vs. Portugal in the Canaries
From Imperial Spain: 1469-1716, by J. H. Elliott (Penguin, 2002), 2nd ed., Kindle Loc. 981-1014: The traditional hostility of Castile and Portugal, exacerbated by Portuguese intervention in the question of the Castilian succession, provided an added incentive to Castile to … Continue reading
Medieval antecedents of Imperial Spain
From Imperial Spain: 1469-1716, by J. H. Elliott (Penguin, 2002), 2nd ed., Kindle Loc. 955-980: Medieval Castile had built up a military, crusading tradition which was to win for it in the sixteenth century an overseas empire. But it had … Continue reading
The Financial Ascent of the Dutch VOC
From: The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, by Niall Ferguson (Penguin, 2008), Kindle Loc. 1780-1831: The campaign for a reform of what would now be called the VOC’s corporate governance duly bore fruit. In December 1622, … Continue reading
Prussian Patriotism during the Napoleonic Wars
From: Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, by Christopher Clark (Penguin, 2007), pp. 374-376, 379, 386 (Kindle Locs. 7131-7182, 7231-7238, 7364-7376): The military reformers aimed above all to harness the war effort to the patriotic enthusiasm of … Continue reading
Filed under Germany, military, nationalism, war
Prussian Reactions to the French Revolution
From: Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, by Christopher Clark (Penguin, 2007), p. 285 (Kindle Loc. 5546-5584): Tensions between the two German rivals had risen steadily during the 1780s. In 1785, Frederick II had taken charge of … Continue reading
Che’s African Farce, 1965
From Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America, by Alma Guillermoprieto (Vintage, 2001), pp. 81-82: Che was unable to deal with his disapproval of the course that Fidel was taking and his simultaneous love for the man; with his disillusionment … Continue reading
Competitive Victimology in the Bloodlands
From Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, by Timothy Snyder (Basic Books, 2010), Kindle Loc. 7393-7441 (pp. 402-403): Without history, the memories become private, which today means national; and the numbers become public, which is to say an instrument in … Continue reading
Rosa’s Route to Apostasy
From Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America, by Alma Guillermoprieto (Vintage, 2001), pp. 33-35: [Rosa's] family was well off by the standards of the provincial backwater she was brought up in, but her father, a devout Catholic, had strong … Continue reading
Soviet Contributions to the Holocaust
From Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, by Timothy Snyder (Basic Books, 2010), Kindle Loc. 6313-6365 (pp. 343-345): During the war, the Soviets and their allies had been in general agreement that the war was not to be understood as … Continue reading
Half the People of Belarus Killed or Deported in WW2
From Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, by Timothy Snyder (Basic Books, 2010), Kindle Loc. 4671-4686 (p. 250): Of the nine million people who were on the territory of Soviet Belarus in 1941, some 1.6 million were killed by the … Continue reading
