When you take the History 5 lectures in the pairs that are delivered each week, you may run into subjects that possibly at face value have little in common. Such may be the case with those two in March, one about Romanticism and one about Bismarck. Romanticism and The Search for Wholeness (audio, video) and Bismarck and the Re-Configuration of Europe (audio, video).I think however, one may find on many levels that these two subjects are very much related. With Romanticism a very dominant style of thinking appears on the European scene and even a Realpolitiker such as Bismarck was affected by it, not to mention that the mere idea of a one German identity which served him to forge and force the German unity has strong roots in Romantic thought.
At this point History 5 becomes even more compelling. As of these two lectures, the world takes on a completely recognizable shape and we can identify most easily with the history. I wonder how much we are still romanticists in this postmodern age...
More History 5:
Capitalism and Socialism,
Enlightenment and French Revolution,
Absolutism and Science,
Witches, plague, war and Hobbes,
Reformation,
