Michael's blog about science, culture, and everything in between. He exposes the lies in nationalist narratives, the madness of feudal rulers, and the crazy coincidences that make unfortunate events happen. Incidentally, these very same deluded mini-monarchies also provided suitable because protestant and coming without major power political strings attached marriage partners to British royalty for centuries.
Go figure. The fates of these mini states varied wildly. In the wars before the foundation of the Empire, some rulers placed their bets against Prussia and lost, including the kingdom of Hannover.
This was lucky for my grandmother in nearby Minden, because she got the opportunity to study at the conservatoire which the duke of Schaumburg Lippe had founded in in a last firework of cultural exuberance.
Karl Marx and Prince Albert moving to London at around the same time. One tiny, unreferenced remark about composers Mahler and Strauss meeting in a Strasbourg piano shop led me to a journey of discovery which I have already reported here. An immaculate sense of place provides many ideas of towns and cities that one should really visit. The only serious blind spot I noticed is Wuppertal β it is mentioned only once, and then anachronistically, in the 19th century page when its position was still held by the separate, rapidly industrialised cities of Barmen and Elberfeld.
I will look out for these. Posted by Michael at PM 0 comments Labels: bookreview , germany Monday, August 23, followers of fishes I'm not a scuba-diving kind of person, but from my armchair studies of marine biology I recall seeing many photos of larger fish species apparently being followed by smaller ones.
