Hanging with History

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionThis covers the 1807 Campaign in Poland and the eventual Treaty of Tilsit.  This is the true apex of Napoleon's glory and possibly the happiest time of his life.Also covers Junot's 1807 Campaign in Portugal.  This is notable for many reasons including the fact that Portugal did not resist, such was the power of Napoleon's reputation in 1807.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionAfter Austerlitz Napoleon keeps the Grand Armee together in Central Germany.This allows him to rip up the map of Germany and redraw it to suit himself.  But this attitude towards Germany leads to a number of steps including dangling Hanover in front of Charles Fox and the Johan Palm incident, which drive the Prussians to declare war, despite totally inadequate preparation.Meanwhile the Guerilla war in Calabria breaks out, but it is different from 1799, the British intervene briefly, leading to the battle of Maida, a small battle, but it shows the pattern of future French vs British land battles.Jena and Auerstadt lead to the total destruction of the Prussian army in the following 33 days.  Napoleon dominates Europe up to the Vistula.  All must serve him.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or question1805, Ulm and Austerlitz and the events that lead up to the War of the 3rd Coalition.  These are events that reveal genius in action.This means the Pichegru and Moreau plot.  The subsequent murder, or sorry, completely legal execution of the young prince of the house of Bourbon-Conde.  "It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder."  This all hastens the inevitable - the crowning of Napoleon as Emperor.It is as Emperor that Napoleon goes out to smash the armies of the Two emperors (Czarand Kaiser) at Austerlitz.  Though Napoleon has quite the assist from Franz Weyrother.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionWellington, Jarlsberg, battle of the Wooden Shoes, Norge.  Such excitement.The Danish Navy is simply too large in the world of 1807 to simply sit there, stored up in ordinary in København's harbor.And the Danish merchant fleet, providing a carry trade to the world, cannot be left outside of Napoleon's economic warfare with Britain.  Therefore, since the current situation is untenable, either France or Britain will have its way with Denmark.  The process is unpleasant, to say the least, but the Danish fleet and its naval stores end up in British hands.  But what about Norway? 

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionThe 2nd of the 3 episodes on Copenhagen.  This covers Nelson's attack on Copenhagen and the Danish defense.  The controversies about the battle are all explored in depth, the death of Tsar Paul, who was involved and who knew what when.  The signaling fiasco between Admiral Parker and Nelson, and Nelson's decision to reach a cease fire rather than continue with his annihilation victory.  There is a good deal of perspective from the Danish side as well.  

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionFirst episode of a 3-episode arc on the British attacks on Copenhagen.This covers Danish history and Copenhagen history through the long 18th century.  Conflict with Sweden, intervention and peace making by Britain.  the long neutrality, Denmark as a Russian client state.  "The League of Armed Neutrality will save us!"The Palmy Days and how Denmark octupled its trade, rose to the 2nd largest merchant fleet in the world, and then sailed too close to the wind.  The Danes benefit greatly from this situation the Royal Navy has established, driving the French, Dutch and Spanish off the high seas, but they refuse to play by the Royal Navy's rules.  The whole episode is a colossal misjudgment by Czar Paul and Denmark.  Czar Paul at least has the excuse of being insane.This makes heavy use of Gareth Glover's The Two battles of Copenhagen.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionThe defense of England is reviewed in terms of manpower, construction and engineering and advanced technology.We start off with the empirical philosophy of Smith and Hume, look at the WWI level of mobilization Britain was able to achieve, a level of mobilization 3-4 times that of France.  This was the real Levee En Masse.  We get some scale for Britain's financial intervention and subsidization of her allies.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionOne of the most important things that ever happened was this thing that never happened.  And that of course was Napoleon's invasion of Britain.French preparations for the invasion ad numerous consequences, one of which was the training and creation of the Grand Armee.  The weapon Napoleon used to dominate Europe from 1805-1807 was forged in the Camp of Boulogne.This is that story.It is also the story of Napoleon's invasion plans, the 1805 plan and the 1812 plan.  And what did Napoleon really know about what was needed to invade England and were there not times when Napoleon had doubts, such as when he witnessed the Boulogne Fiasco?

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionBritain begins the war and many of the French banks teeter on the edge of destruction as a consequence.  This episode covers the opening moves of the war, now the Napoleonic Wars, including the very controversial ones, the imprisonment of all Britons in France, even the tourists and the British seizure of the Spanish Treasure Fleet without declaring war.Most of the episode takes a look at the situation from the perspective of Austria, Prussia, Russia and Spain as well as France and Britain.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionWe take a look at how the Napoleonic Wars broke out.  Napoleon had a different understanding of the world situation than the Addington government and the British public.  We also examine the failure of Russia to mediate between the two powers.We go into both the understanding of the British for why restating the war was a good idea, and Napoleon's of keeping the peace.  In the end Napoleon would haver had to concede a commercial treaty, but he was convinced he needed to protect French industry from British competition.And so, 12 years of war ensue.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionNapoleon, from his bath, angrily threw a snuffbox at his brothers Joseph and Lucien.  Worse, a lot of the nice warm bathwater splashed out, right onto Joseph's shoes.....With the naval armistice of late 1801, Napoleon quickly put together a huge invasion force to retake Haiti.  American food and natural resources, rich exotic crops from Haiti and the Windward Islands, manufactures supplied by France.  This was his dream of increasing the 180 million francs a year in revenue for the French government that had been achieved in the 1790s.But it all came crashing down.  The Louisiana Purchase was the way out.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionA peace that leads to War?We look at the clash of realities from philosophical to practical questions of empire between France and Britain.From the beginning, key British decision makers like George 3 and Pitt the Younger, saw the peace as an experiment.  It wasn't likely to work, so much against it.   However, the war had run on too long.  The people were demanding peace, the mob both demanded peace and associated the decline in wheat prices with the naval armistice of the previous year.But what kind of peace was it?  What did the two sides give up, and what did they get in return?These questions illustrate a major flaw in this peace and Napoleon's many peaces generally.  Britain got so little from the peace that it was only lightly attached to it.Napoleon was unwilling to allow trade between Britain and France.  He feared to expose key constituents to British competition, which most expected to penetrate deeply into French markets for textiles, ores, metal and metalware.  In short, without being able to name it, Napoleon feared the miracle.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionWe are covering 1801.  The 3 key issues are: Pitt resigns over catholic emancipation.   He is replaced by his friend Addington.   Pitt is to Addington as London is to Paddington.  This strange interlude is illustrative that though Pitt may not be in office, Pittites commonly are for the rest of the 2nd Hundred Years War. Napoleon begins his peace offensive.  It starts with the end of the Quasi War with the United States.  but extends to the Concordat and ends up with France again in possession of Louisiana.Because it looks as if peace is inevitable; Britain must take Egypt.  The British conquest of Egypt foreshadows the return of the British infantry to an elite status and demonstrates the power of Napoleon's vision for the Orient (in reverse).  6,000 men are landed by Hope Popham on the Red Sea coast from India. 

You can send me a text if you have a comment or question"I was between the devil and the deep sea."The Royal Navy's nightmare was that a powerful French fleet would break out of blockade and fall upon inferior blockading squadrons down the coast, destroying Royal Navy squadrons while a combined Franco-Spanish fleet only gets larger and larger.Bruix almost pulled it off.  He arrived at Cadiz.  Admiral Lord Keith was blockading with 15 ships of the line.  Bruix had 25 ships of the line and there were 21 Spanish ships in Cadiz, ready to sail.  The French and English lines of battle parallel each other.  Keith determined to keep the French out of Cadiz.  The French have the weather gauge in a rising westerly gale.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionThis covers the year 1800.We get Napoleon's first year as First Consul, and the two campaigns that drive Austria out of the 2nd Coalition.  On the British side we get the Act of Union and the combination of the Irish and British Parliaments.  Naturally, we get Catholic Emancipation as a consequence.What? NO? we don't.  Oh, that's gonna be weird.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionA rapidly thrown together expedition to the Batavian Republic in expelled by the French.And yet, there were key successes and innovations that point the way to the future.  We'll focus on these as we cover the events of the invasion itself.The new Light Infantry doctrine of the British Army, that John Moore and the Duke of York push through the Army, over all their resistance to change, is part of the package that makes British infantry the best in the world by 1808.  Many of the lessons learned, were learned in this campaign.Also, there was the experience of relying on the reverse slope, where in the 2nd battle, the British infantry were able to inflict 2,000 Franco-Batavian casualties at the cost of only 37 dead.   Many more lessons learned and the end of the Dutch fleet as a threat were the major results.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionThis covers the 1799 campaigns in Italy and Switzerland and Suvorov's art of war.  The title is a play on Clausewitz's work on the topic, and Clausewitz is a major source.Massena, Moreau, Joubert and Jourdan try to fight campaigns dominated by the presence of Suvorov the greatest Russian commander of all times.Suvorov dominates Italy, defeating three French armies in 3 major battles.Archduke Charles begins the campaign in Switzerland, defeating Jourdan, eventually driving him into retirement.  But Massena is a more difficult opponent.The Aulic Council makes one of history's great unforced errors.  Leaving Rimsky-Korsakov (no, not him, his father though) to face Massena alone.  Scheherazade cannot save him.We end with some of Suvorov's writings on warfare, including excerpts from his: How to Win, an Address to Soldiers in their own Language.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionWe take a look at 1798, a year when Clausewitz defines 5 French outrages that would have led to a general European war.1. The occupation of the Papal States, followed by the kidnapping and death of the Pope.2. The conquest of Malta, from the Order of Saint John of the Hospital.  A clear violation of international law, as it stood at the time.  It drew Tsar Paul into the war.3.  The invasion of Switzerland and formation of the Helvetic Republic.  The eastern cantons asked for Austrian occupation.  This fundamentally upset the balance of power and the assumptions of strategic defense.4.  The invasion and conquest of Naples.  We actually spend a lot of time on Maria Carolina and explore the political situation there.  The usual criticisms of Austrian and British cynicism and exploitation are brought into a wider context.5. The annexation of the Piedmont and packing away the House of Savoy to Sardinia.For added joy, the French invasion of Egypt brought the Ottoman empire into the anti-French coalition.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionThe last invasion of Britain and Napoleon's Rivoli campaign along with his final drive towards Vienna obviously deserve to be in one single episode.  Not.It is merely the conceit of combining all the land warfare of 1797 into a single episode that allows this.  The Fishguard invasion is only rivalled for drama, action, and intensity by the Texas Chicken War of 1719.  The Rivoli campaign is truly a marvel of Napoleonic warfare.   Napoleon defeats a 50,000 man Austrian army and turns it into a mass of 13,000 refugees.  The Austrians raise another army, under their best general, Archduke Charles, only to see that one destroyed as well.  There is nothing between Napoleon and Vienna.  The Empire is forced to sign a one sided peace by Napoleon.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionNapoleon reveals to the world his multi faceted genius and Archduke Charles has a hell of a Rhine campaign, defeating 2 armies, both larger than his.Napoleon defeats 4 different armies, and creates, and uncreates republics in Italy.  He shakes down Pope Pius and Tuscany for millions in cash while doing it, and begins the whole process f looting Italy's great art treasures.   He accomplishes all this with his own underfunded, under equipped, 2nd priority theatre.  His talent for warfare, is rivalled only by his talent for propaganda, and Napoleon is soon one of the most highly respected and loved men in France.There are better podcasts covering the 1796 campaigns, for example the Age of Napoleon podcast is terrific on this subject; this is a mere summary focused on the theme of Napoleon breaking the rules, writing the rules with success as his ultimate justification.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionPichegru and Jourdan try taking the Austrians on the Rhine in a pinser move.  But Pichegru's march on Clerfayt's magazine in Heidelberg is a disaster witnessed by Davout.  Was it treachery?The French are driven back across the Rhine as Wurmser builds up a new army.The Spanish fronts see a collapse as the French break out of the Basque country into Navarre and Castille.  The Treaty of Basel ends the war on good terms for the Spanish.The Alpine front sees only one move by the French, for now Carnot is starving it of resources.And of course we follow the doings of The Little Corporal in Paris.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or question1794 from the Pyrenees fronts, with massacres of Basque villagers to the Battle of the Black Mountain.  The Italian front has Napoleon, as a mere artillery general, plan a maneuver to get the Piedmontese out of their Alpine fortifications, Massena executes it successfully.The Rhine front sees the French struggle with the river crossing and when they do cross the Austrians defeat them.This year reveals the way the Revolution destroyed the human capital of the Royal French Army, and how it improved subsequently.  The artillery lost the least, the infantry was getting better after the massive recruitment in the Levee En Masse, the cavalry though, still had a ways to go.

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionThe focus is on Nelson's great victory, but we also cover the Battle of the Pyramids, the Siege of Acre and the Battle of Mount Tabor.The strategic choice of Egypt as a way to defeat Britain, may sound crazy, but we go into French thinking.  This is Napoleon's and Tallyrand's best thinking on the subject.  It may not be that hopeful, whole lotta steps involved, but it's te best they got.  

You can send me a text if you have a comment or questionThis covers most of the colonial wars with the French and Dutch during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.  You get a cumulative effect of seemingly slow British progress, that in the end removes all French influence overseas by 1811.  Then, problems with the Americans predominate.There is a good deal of discussion about Elphinstone's campaign to take Capetown and the Battle at Saldana Bay.  

The 1797 mutinies went hand in hand with financial crisis.  This was the most dangerous period for Britain and the miracle during the French Revolutionary Wars.The Royal Navy spent most of 1797 convulsed and unable to sail.  Fortunately, the French were in no shape to come out after the events we covered in the last few episodes.  The Dutch were a different story..  They had a fleet at Texel, 16 ships of the line ready to set sail.  But the British squadron, based at Great Yarmouth, that was supposed to blockade Texel, joined the mutiny at the Nore instead!  Only the heroism and clever actions of Admiral Duncan kept the Dutch in port during the most dangerous period in June of 1797.  When the Dutch finally came out in October, the result was the Battle of Camperdown.The mutinies were very different from one another.  Spithead more like a labor action.  And everyone, from the Admiralty to the public and the government of Pitt, felt the sailors had a point.  They hadn't had a pay increase since 1658!  And they had other valid grievances. They would give the sailors what they wanted, only the slow workings of Parliament created the danger.  The Nore mutiny though, was a revolutionary beast.  It was a gift to those in power.  It could be used to utterly crush the Nore mutiny and discredit the idea of mutiny.

The new French and Spanish alliance is ascendant in the Mediterranean.   The strategic move the Spanish make is more dictated by the royal revenue requirements and political strategy rather than naval strategy.  The outcome is the Battle of Cape St Vincent, where Nelson makes an enduring reputation.  We then cover the remarkable career of Admiral Jervis, he is a hero of reform and an irresponsible villain who leaves France unprepared and vulnerable to Napoleon's planned invasion of 1804.and we finish with a discussion of resentment, of Thomas Cochrane's heroism, idiocy and lifelong resentment of Jervis.  Was it deserved?

We cover some of the heroic events that increased pride and self confidence of the Royal Navy:  Pellew's defeat of a 74 with 2 frigates and Cornwallis' Retreat.  We also have Richery's expedition which demonstrates the capabilities of the French.  They were not always incompetent.The 1795 Great Winter Campaign, the Battle of the Groix and the 1796 attempted invasion of Bantry Bay are the core events of this episode.

This looks at the Glorious First of June campaign, covering all the engagements with extra attention to the 1st of June  Was it a French strategic victory or was the Royal Navy the winner in this series of battles?We also do some comparing and contrasting the of the Marine National and the Royal Navy.It's all so very nautical.

1793 is a year of opportunities thrown away.  The allies dominate the poorly disciplined French army, but waste the summer in pointless sieges, even after the road to France is wide open.  All the allies are narrowly focused on selfish interests rather than interested in setting France to rights.  The siege of Dunkirk reveals the British are also not ready for war.The battle of Neerwinden and the other major actions of the war in Belgium.  There is also coverage of the Pyrenees Campaign and Toulon.We see early actions for Ney, Bernadotte, Mortier and Jourdan for the French.  Archduke Charles, Schwartzenberg, Mack, the Duke of York and Scharnhorst for the allies.  

This covers the first year of the War of the First Coalition, which ends with the "homicidal philanthropy of France."Brunswick's invasion, the battle of Valmy, the battle of Jemappes, Dumoriez's conquest of Belgium.  The creation of the Army of Italy, operations in the Rhineland and what life was like for those occupied by French Revolutionary armies.

The Priestly Riots, also known as the Birmingham Riots, were part of the Church and King riots, that were part of the disgust reaction against French inspired radicals in Britain.The four wars: The Russo Swedish War, the Theatre War, the Russo Turkish War and the Austro Turkish War, were all consequences of France dropping out of the concert of Europe, due it its weakness.Towards the end of 1792, the British were striving to avoid war, but the French seemed determined to suck them in, or at least those who triggered war with Britain, couldn't bring themselves to make the necessary compromises.A Raoul Sunset episode

The French Revolution was the most exciting thing to ever happen for some radical intellectuals.  But gradually the murderyness, the chaos, mob rule and savage cruelty began to turn people away from the Revolution.Church and King societies swept across Britain, and Church and King riots as well.  Thomas Paine was burned in effigy thousands of times across England.  Reflections on the Revolution in France, was a key text of the time laying out arguments against radicalism, arguing that reform had to happen within national idioms.

We close the French Revolution at the Thermidorean Reaction and the execution of Robespierre.  We treat the conspiracy to overthrow Robespierre as a self fulfilling prophecy.  Once you know Robespierre is against you, he will kill you, so you begin a conspiracy against him.But first we go into some of the cultural changes driven by the Revolution.  Sculpture, public exposure to art, the calendars and measurement systems, and fashion.  Then we go into the Cult of Reason and the Cult of the Supreme Being.  These are weird enough to be difficult to believe ever really happened.

Only 24% of French priests are willing to take the constitutional oath putting their allegiance to the state above that to Jesus and the Pope.  The Vendee is extra religious because of their relatively recent conversion from Calvinism. We have the the flight to Varrenes, Louis XVI's failed escape attempt, which leads to the Champ De Mars massacre.  We have the Pillnitz Declaration, leading to the war with Austria and Prussia, the Prussian invasion leads to the August 10 coup d'etat and the September massacres.  Then we have the Battle of Valmy and the French triumph over Austria at Jemappes and the consequent conquest of Belgium and push along the Rhine as far as Frankfurt.These successes contain the seeds of their own failure.  A broader war has begun, the Enraged have arisen.  The king is dead!  Long live the Republic!

Only 24% of French priests are willing to take the constitutional oath putting their allegiance to the state above that to Jesus and the Pope.  The Vendee is extra religious because of their relatively recent conversion from Calvinism. We have the the flight to Varrenes, Louis XVI's failed escape attempt, which leads to the Champ De Mars massacre.  We have the Pillnitz Declaration, leading to the war with Austria and Prussia, the Prussian invasion along with the Brunswick Manifesto (and some serious revolutionary plotting by Danton) leads to the August 10 coup d'etat and the September massacres.  Then we have the Battle of Valmy and the French triumph over Austria at Jemappes and the consequent conquest of Belgium and push along the Rhine as far as Frankfurt.These successes contain the seeds of their own failures.  A broader war has begun, the Enraged have arisen.  The king is dead!  Long live the Republic!

The first year of the French Revolution the way it is conventionally dated from the fall of the Bastille.  We have had bloody violence and sensible reforms, the loss of privileges for the first and 2nd estates were a really good idea.  The establishment of the departments, also sensible, a reform that has lasted to the present day.  But we've also got craziness, a captive king, who really can't do his job in any idea of a mixed constitution of shared power.  Growing radicalism in Paris.   And yet there is apparently great unity over the notion that the revolution had begun and so far it is doing good things.  That the whole country can get behind with hope to make the future brighter.  Except we know that the seeds of destruction have been sown with the requirement of the Civic Oath for the clergy and the placement of the national government within the physical reach of the Sans Culottes and their ever more radical leadership.

The Regency Crisis shines a light British Resiliency during the Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.  We end up in a situation where a spiritual testing of the king occurs in the most public way possible.  And the vast majority of the British public responds with joy, also in a very public way.  Everyone knows that everyone knows.  We explore the madness of George III, his recovery and the nation's reactions.  There are anecdotes followed by an analysis of 3 quantitative measures that tell us, that the British public was more concerned with and joyful of, the outcome of this illness, than of any other public event in a generation.And the timing of it was almost too perfect.  The spring of 1789 in Britain, just before the July 14 storming of the Bastille.  

The Nootka Sound Crisis of 1790 has a confrontation of 4 powers in the Pacific Northwest; Britain, Spain, Russia and America.  This is profoundly affected by the French Revolution, both in the diplomatic part of the crisis and its resolution in Britain's favor.  Later the Revolutionary Wars distract Britain from exploiting its victory here, to the great benefit of the infant United States.This features the two largest empires in the world, in geographic extent, Russia and Spain, tussling at the extreme limits of their influence, in a region still dominated by Native Americans, largely untouched by the Eurasian disease pool. We get a lot of Pacific Northwest history as background, including California history, but the is primarily a European diplomatic crisis settled by the seeming nullity of French power.  It' s France's inability to support her Bourbon ally Spain, that forces Spain to submit to a British ultimatum in October 1790.

The Dutch Crisis of 1787, was said by Napoleon to have caused the Revolution of 1789.  We cover Dutch history through the 1780's and its effects on the infant United States and three great powers; the United Kingdom, France and Prussia.  This crisis and the Nootka Sound Crisis are examples of how Europe functioned at the great power level when France was in too much disarray to be effectively involved.

Spycraft was one of Britain's advantages during the 2nd hundred years war.What were the other advantages Britain took into the end of the 2nd hundred years war?  Pitt hired a number of reformers who drove through unpopular reforms in communications, shipyard construction and efficiency.  There were a number of reforms that also foundered, such as trying to remove the dockyard workers' right of CHIPS.  We also cover the career of the naval captain/intelligence agent Phillippe D'Auvergne, who, despite his name, was a major intelligence asset for Britain.

William Pitt goes toe to toe against a large coalition led by Charles Fox and Lord North.  George 3 is on firmly on his side, all the power of the crown is bent to his support.  And yet this is not enough until public opinion finds a clear expression.  We cover the background to the rise of William Pitt, what was going in France at the time to weaken the French government, and Charles Fox and his gigantic overreach trying to take control of India.

A summary of the 1793-1815 period is provided along with brief descriptions of the themes we will be following.Intensity:WW1 level financial and human commitmentThere are many wars inside these warsModernizing in both administration and communicationsRepression vs FreedomContinuities in the 2nd hundred years warEconomic WarfareSmall country vs large countryGlobal impact is epically world changingFrance vs Britain is at the core, but often at crucial times, the great powers are distracted.The emergence of the naval hegemonThe evangelical Christian origins of the movement to end the African slave trade.The story arcs of the Royal Navy and army and the French army and navy.

Newtonian philosophy, and John Locke, along with Francis Bacon has an exciting empirical philosophical package that took Europe by storm in the 1740s, with the able assistance of Voltaire.  Locke offered an epistemology interesting to philosophers, but people like Montesquieu were more taken by his description of the interaction between political players, early public choice theory.  The excitement came from the Baconian program, backed by the vivid reality of real discoveries and solutions by Boyle and Newton.

The last universal genius.  There are minutes spent just lightly covering Leibniz's contributions to science and his place in history, they are so extensive.  He is put forward as the father of  modern computing and patron saint of cybernetics.  What you may not realize is that in philosophy he was also a detective and a spy.  Then we cover his biography from the time he is a young man in Paris, the employment at the court in Hanover, and the point in his life where he changed from being an amazing student of the knowledge of his time, into becoming the creator of a philosophy designed to combat Spinoza.  Leibniz believed in relative space and time, but he set out to defend absolute morality.  Building from the toy ideas Voltaire includes in Candide we go into what the Theodicy really is about.There are great similarities between Leibniz and Spinoza in terms of method and philosophical assumptions, that are quite different from Newton's.  We introduce Voltaire's role as a propagandist for Newtonianism (including Locke), but that will be developed more thoroughly next episode.

Spinoza's conflicts with contemporary scientists like Boyle and Huygens center on Spinoza's insistence on the primacy of philosophical reason over empirical experimentation and empirical reasoning.  Spinoza's argument against Boyle's experiments are presented.Jonathon Israel highlights the influence of Spinoza by showing that much of the Boyle's later work, on reconciling science with religion, is a reaction to Spinoza.  And Harald makes the argument that the mutual toleration of science and religion in Britain specifically, and the extension of the idea of flexibility out of the realm of technology and the economy and into philosophy may be a serious contender for a cause of the miracle. Then we cover Spinoza's unusual view of virtue and his politics through section 4 of Ethics and the Tracticus Politicus.  Harald paints this as the origin story for totalitarianism and mass murder in the 20th century style.

Spinoza's philosophical framework laid out, along with several points of disagreement with the moderate Enlightenment Newtonians and Leibnizians.  We get to some of Spinoza's specific arguments with other scientists.  With Steno, he had a non rational disagreement, with Huygens, he was accused of focusing too much on reason rather then experiment which inevitably leads to error, much to Spinoza's personal chagrin. 

We look at the tragedies of Spinoza's life.  The clique that forms around him.  The tragi comic end of his friend and mentor Van Den Enden.Primarily we cover Spinoza's views, and here we introduce the idea that we live in a fully mechanistic, fully determined world, where there is no room for free will or God's providence.

The first of a six episode arc on the Early Enlightenment.  We emphasize the clash of ideas, then the content of ideas, then biography.This episode lays out the 3 way battle for the dominant philosophy between the  Aristotelian Scholastics, the dominate group in 1600, the moderate Enlightenment (which itself consisted of 3 battling elements, Cartesians, Newtonians and Leibnizians) and the Radical Enlightenment whose chief philosophical source was Spinoza.We lay out key beliefs of the traditional Aristotelians, their method and then the beliefs of the Cartesians.  3 episodes on Spinoza will follow and one each on Leibniz and Newton to finish.

The Fiscal Military State concept is a valid tool for analyzing the role of government in this era, not to imply it's an ideal form of analysis.  British central government employees, well, 90% had a taxing or fund raising function.  And 90% of funds raised were spent on war and to pay debts from previous wars.And of course we summarize the context we gained in all 3 parts.

We finish up the crime issues, the bloody codes, private prosecution of crime, transportation to Australia, that we began last episode.  Then we move into the consequences of the Glorious Revolution, legitimacy and the changing role of Parliament, and Parliament as a meta institution.  We get a flavor of Joel Mokyr's coverage of intellectual property rights, with views expressed in favor of the patent system by Goethe, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, and valid complaints made by Charles Dickens and Charles Babbage.As usual with British institutions, we contrast them favorably with continental institutions, no matter how shambolic, the British institutions are so often better.

We take a close look at local government during the 1700-1850 period.  What work happened at the parish level?  The Poor Laws, a unique British institution, are examined for their possible contribution to the Industrial Revolution.  Also, the private provision of public goods.We also look at whether a more agentic population, free to act, because unlike on the continent, they don't need permission for everything, contributes to the miracle as well.