jay_walk

I'd much rather be looking Into magic right now, but here's the essence of a ten to fifteen minute talk I am to give my german class tomorrow about society 1790 to 1815, during which time romanticism was happening in Germany. Which is the exact same stuff we're doing in history, so it's rather pointless, but anyway.

because even though I will not like talking about this for four school hours in a row with elaborate literature analysis, I do actually enjoy having written down a short list of what happened when, just for the information. (I am so sick of school and how long everyone takes to say anything right now).

1790 Germany (or rather german Länder) were not modernising much due to the fragmentedness of the different jurisdictions limiting the economy and due to the old feudal social hierarchy.
then the French Revolution happened and Napoleon invaded, making various monarchs realise they needed to reform to prevent revolution. they centralised and reorganised administrations (and took land from the clergy).
prussian Reforms, In 1807, in response to Jena and Auerstedt, which I ought also be writing history homework about right now too.
Abolished serfdom, guilds, instituted education, military conscription, which all leads to less importance of class.
And industrialisation because of farmers being freed up.
after 1815- population growth which the economy could not keep up with. And it ought to be mentioned a German Confederation was established at the Congress of Vienna. (the Holy Roman Empire ended 06).
by 1835 it started industrialising though, especially in mining, metal, and machinery.

there, now I just need to elaborate for 10 minutes.

It is summer vacation, by brain is on standby. So here's some more opinion on stuff I read/watched recently.

Master and Commander: good book. A bit slow getting started but once the characters, themes, etc. get established, the time in between battles gets quite entertaining too. (My first thought on the whole thing is "nice, but it's missing dragons". Temeraire is actually very different in tone (easier too), and so much fun. Really, How does one come up with an idea like "this war totally needs more dragons in it", and why am I not having awesome ideas like that?)
And those are some well-written naval battles. I only understand enough to get the general idea of what's happening, but all the same it is riveting. I suppose I'll have to learn something more about ships, and about their artillery. (I presently only know about sailing small boats, which is enough to know what the wind is doing but not to know how 3 masts worth of sails work or how big these different things are).
Then there'S the characters, their relationships, the politics of the time, and odd bits of philosophizing thrown in. Stuff about music I don't understand or particularly care for. I feel like I, as the reader, am not being patronized and the author is not deliberately helping me keep up or understand anything. Which is great. Better too many opportunities for thinking than absolutely no thinking at all. I am regaining faith in entertainment literature.
And there's the science. Stephen Maturin is a naturalist and a surgeon. He is extremely competent, and then he does stuff like bloodletting. I love outdated science and the way things that seem rather ridiculous now were accepted reality sometime too (and mostly worked well enough).
And of course I learn stuff from this. I rather like knowing exactly how that war went. (My history class. Just as we were getting to Napoleon we go on a class trip. A few years ago, just as we were getting to Napoleon the teacher leaves for half a year. So frustrating.)

And there's about 20 of these books. I feel like I'll never run out of something to read ever again.

The movie: Great, but in a different way. Awesome like a movie about british people on a ship in 1800 in a war is awesome. It has all the expected omissions: Aubrey isn't fat, Maturin isn't starved-looking (at least that's how I imagine him), a few of everyone's personal problems understandably omitted in favor of combat...

Stephen Maturin is one of my favorite characters ever. Book version, that is. Movie version is cool too, he also gets really enthusiastic about the local fauna. Not at all the same character though.