{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "What countries besides the USA and Japan do you have a good grasp on the history of, for someone who only reads the two relevant...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/179244039108/", "html": "<div class=\"question\"><strong>Anonymous</strong> asked: What countries besides the USA and Japan do you have a good grasp on the history of, for someone who only reads the two relevant languages? Has the list changed in the last ten years? Will it in the next ten?</div>\n<p>In the last decade I\u2019ve gotten better at understanding the emergence of \u201cFrance\u201d and \u201cEngland\u201d and how those wacky kids kept up with things; about the use of canals as pre-motorized internal routes; about how the Dutch independence from the Habsburgs worked with local elites summoning a nationalism against empire, and how the \u201ccompact\u201d idiom coming out of that influenced the Pilgrims and later republicans</p><p>And I kinda expect things to progress that way decade by decade, I might never nuts-to-soup master a Westphalian state again but who says that\u2019ll still matter when we admit the UN failed</p>"}