10-28-2019, 02:42 AM
The Crisis Era of the middle 19th century included the unification of Germany (including the wars of Prussia against in turn Denmark (for Schleswig-Holstein), Austria (for dominion over southern Germany; I am surprised that Bavaria did not join Austria... which would have some interesting consequences), and the Franco-Prussian War, the unification of Italy, a failed uprising in Poland that allowed the Tsar of Russia to consolidate the further subjection of Poland, and the Paris Commune. Also contemporary were the American Civil War, the French intervention in Mexico, the disastrous war of the Lopez dictatorship in Paraguay, Canadian independence, and (outside the West) the Sepoy rebellion in India, the Taiping Rebellion in China, and the replacement of the Japanese shogunate with the Japanese Empire. The Crimean War may have been the start. These events preceded the Crisis of 1940 by anything from 65 to 85 years.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
