Frederick the Great and Other 18th-C Characters, Discussion Post 31

[cahn]

And in this post:

-luzula is going to tell us about the Jacobites and the '45!

-I'm going to finish reading Nancy Goldstone's book about Maria Theresia and (some of) her children Maria Christina, Maria Carolina, and Marie Antoinette, In the Shadow of the Empress, and selenak is going to tell us all the things wrong with the last four chapters (spoiler: in the first twenty chapters there have been many, MANY things wrong)!

-mildred_of_midgard is going to tell us about Charles XII of Sweden and the Great Northern War

(seriously, how did I get so lucky to have all these people Telling Me Things, this is AWESOME)

-oh, and also there will be Yuletide signups :D

Comments

Re: The Backstory for the '45

[mildred_of_midgard]

BTW, the whole basic idea of these posts is that I know basically zero about history (it's really rather embarrassing)

But super useful, because cahn asks questions and waxes enthusiastic about the answers, and so we keep telling her stuff!

It's also worth pointing out that Selena and I went from "telling Cahn things we already knew" to "telling Cahn and each other about things we had just learned" to "original research that might be publishable if I have the self-discipline to write it all up along with the citations." :D

We started with Frederick the Great, who is still kind of the centerpiece (hence the titles of the post having his name), but I've been asking for other things too as they come up

At this point, my goal is "learn about the major political, military, and diplomatic developments of each decade in 18th century Europe."

So, um, if you would like (or anyone else who is reading this :D ) I would love to hear about De Saxe!

I would love to hear about De Saxe too! I know *of* him, but very little *about* him. I remember reading (a possibly excerpted version of) his military treatise 20 years ago, but it's not his life story.