Chartbook Video #1: 150th anniversary of German unification - a talk.
The extraordinary contingency of 1871
A fateful anniversary: 2021 is the 150th anniversary of the first German unification under Prussian leadership in 1871.
For the occasion I did a talk for the Columbia alumni association - the circumstances were rather weird. I spoke to the group at well past midnight, from a hotel room in London.
Every talk like this is an artifice. This one came together well. Sometimes strange surroundings produce an effect of clarity.
If you are interested in doing some further reading on Bismarck, the essay I always recommend is Henry Kissinger’s “White Revolutionary” (published, I now see, in the summer of 1968!). The essay is available here direct from the Kissinger archives at Yale.
I get asked to do a lot of talks and podcasts. I try to keep an archive at my website: adamtooze.com. Check it out.
Going forward I am going to inaugurate a new Chartbook channel for this kind of content.
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