No. Napoleon was not a revolutionary no compromise republican that would only be satisfied by the destruction of all thrones. His actions are proof of that: he declared himself emperor (meaning the most important monarchical ruler in Europe, above kings in status), he made France into a hereditary monarchy again, he created his own nobility and invited back the old French nobility that went into exile during the Revolution.

So no, he wasn't against monarchy. He wanted France to be a monarchy among other monarchies in Europe... but then, why:

>It sort of feels as though Napoleon was vilified by the Royal families revising history after his defeat.

Because while he wanted to make France into a monarchy again, he wanted to realize the dream of a lot of French monarchs before him: make France the sole superpower in Europe.

That's why he created new kingdoms (Italy, Holland) and usurped old kingdoms (Spain, Naples) and put his brothers and brothers in law on those throne: because his family should rule the largest part of Europe possible.

He also conquered a lot of territories. That's France around 1799 (when Napoleon takes power in a coup). That's France a decade later. He annexed the whole of the Benelux, western Germany, Rome, Northern Italy... and usurped a lot of kingdoms around him.

That's why he was hated. Not because he was going to hang all the monarchs... but because he wanted to take their lands and title away. And put all of Europe under France direct or indirect control.

If you like Japan the “history of Japan podcast” by Isaac Meyer is great. More than 400 episodes on every topic from religion to culture to war. The first 40 or so are a chronological history of Japan. Then there are great series that deep dives on topics like the Meiji revolution, the bombs, Hirohito, the Sengoku Jidai, democracy in Japan, so on.

It goes from antiquity to the extremely current (like a four episode biography of former prime minister Abe Shinzo)

>I thought a bastard could inherit if the king had no issues or siblings or close relatives (uncles, 1st/2nd cousins)

Not in France. Now, if they couldn't find any heir (which would be impossible by the late middle ages, everyone noble in Europe was related to everyone) mayyyybe but as I said when you get past the 11th century everyone is more or less related to everyone and can reliably prove it.

>i have read somewhere that Henry VIII didn't have any legitimate son until...well...Edward VI popped out and before that he was planning to designate Henry FitzRoy (his bastard through Elizabeth Blount) as his heir.

Is this somewhat true?

As my example may suggest I studied French history (specifically the 17th century), I know nothing about English royal history, sorry.

I could point to the fact that France was in a civil war and that he was very close to the future Henry IV who was a very powerful war leader, or the fact that he was 16 when his uncle died...

But there would still be a problem. That would be entertaining the idea that he could inherit the throne. Despite what is often said the Kings of France did not have unlimited power. There is a set of "fundamental laws" that even they had to respect. Those included the fact that only males could inherit and transfer right to the throne, that the king could not choose his successor (it was always his closest male relative, often his eldest child)... but also the fact that the King had to have a legitimate claim.

He is not a legitimate son (even if he is recognized and was given land) and so he cannot get the throne. Ever.

Despite what Game of Thrones and Hollywood may say (although the Last Duel shows this quite well) the Middle Ages/Modern Era was very legalist. Laws were essential. Charles d'Angoulême (later Duke of Angoulême) has no claim. He cannot be the King of France no more than he can be the Pope or the Emperor of China.

If we imagine an alternate universe were Angouleme was the most powerful and popular noble around (which... he was not), who somehow raised an army and took the throne.. he wouldn't be legitimate. He would have to act as a conqueror who took it by force and the whole of Europe would probably gang up on him to install whatever distant relative to the throne they had as a "legitimate" puppet king. Even William the Conqueror who took over England had to pretend that he had a claim (the previous king "apparently" promised it to him).

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Of course in real life if that had happened, he would have found a justification. But the truth is that as a bastard he was forever a B tier noble without a claim.

To add to this and go forward to Early Modern France, if the child was the son of a noblewoman they were usually treated well. Basically they were in a "in between" status: they had royal blood but absolutely no claim to the throne. So they were respected but always as high ranking nobles, not official member of the royal family.

The Duc d'Angoulême (bastard son of the French King Charles IX) was even more in a peculiar situation: his father was part of the Valois dynasty, but after 1589 (death of the last Valois king)... there were no longer any (legitimate) Valois. The crown went to their distant cousins the Bourbons (from which we get Henry IV, Louis XIV and so on). But he remained, like a remnant of that family. For example he was chosen as ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire in 1620, him being of the Valois blood made him suitable as a symbolic representative of the crown.

So yeah, legitimized bastard had a high status (none of this game of throne non sense)... but always on the side. A rank below the "proper" family.

>"why aren't they hating each other?"

French and German relations are way more interesting and surprising from this point of view. From Napoleon (who humiliated Prussia) to 1870 to WW1 and WW2... France and Germany went from extremely bitter rivals, for generations (way more than the UK and US ever was let's be honest) to close allies in a few decades after WW2.

Hell, Franco-English relations are also surprising in a similar way (although it took more time).

>was under both the Japanese and America at the same time??

Kinda? Although that's semantic, because that can be said for all occupied territory (by that logic Poland was under both German and Polish government in exile control).

Exact same thing, I just translated it into English.

Yeah I figure, I wanted to be sure. You could also look at how the Showa emperor (Hirohito) was used as a pubic figure after the war. From god like leader of a nation to a nice old man in a suit who liked marine biology when he opened the Tokyo Olympic Games of 1964.

For an easy source to use the podcast History of Japan has a lot of episodes/series on the emperor, the US occupation, Nanking, specific politicians, so on. Pretty solid and well research stuff. Easy to use.

From the 16th century onward, in France they had a specific status. The younger son (or daughter) of a king would be a "Son/Daughter of France", their child would be a "Grandson/daughter of France" and their descendant "Prince/Princess of the Blood". (note this only applies to legitimate descendants). This meant that they were indeed treated as superior to other nobles. They were considered "Pairs de France" (Peers of France) a specific status which meant they had the highest status in court after the direct royal family.

So, just to be clear, you may come at this from the wrong angle. What I mean is that if you're looking for a book that will show that Japan exported an "anime and high tech" image specifically in order to cover up war crimes... you won't. Because this didn't happen. They didn't invent Hello Kitty to cover up Nankin. This happened in the late 70s, three decades after the end of the war. It is unrelated.

But, that doesn't mean there isn't a nugget of truth there. You'll have more success by searching how Japan became a democracy... without changing its political class. Kishi Nobusuke, who exploited Machuria in the 30s and was a minister when Japan declared war on the US... was also prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. He said after the war "Strange isn’t it? We are all democrats now.". By the way, he is the grandfather of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.

Embracing Defeat is great for that, it covers some major events of that turn: the Tokyo War trials (and how they found a few scapegoat) and the US occupation which swept the role of the emperor in the war under the rug because the cold war was more important and they wanted a friendly Japan.

Do not look at specific war crimes or 80s pop culture, more at the immediate extremely gray aftermath in the late 40s early 50s.

Actually yes there is. The wall didn't go down in a day, so between November 9 1989 (when the border opened) and when the wall was demolished (early 90s) artists started to paint on the Eastern side. It's still there, it's called the "East Side Gallery" and some of the most famous Berlin Wall art is actually there, like this very famous one.

If you mean graffiti before 1989... then no. There weren't. Because the wall wasn't just "heavily guarded" as you said. There was a litteral death strip where the guard shoot on sight.

It's the same architectural style called "chateauesque" that imitates French renaissance architecture, popular in the late 19th century. Here's a building in Winnipeg and here's one in Quebec.

Unification of Germany ? You can start with Napoleon’s confederation of the Rhine and end in the 1880s with a unified Germany. You’ve got lot to talk about in between.

Or the idea of republic in France. It took 90 years, three republics, three monarchies and two empire (and like 6 uprisings and two civil wars) to get a stable republican government in the 1870s… but that may be a bit too much.

One theory is that in the early to mid 20th century California had two factors going for it: lots of rich people (that's where Hollywood is) and a relatively weak presence of organized religion, so you could more easily find rich spiritual people who do not already frequent a church/religious organization.

Another factor is that it's a self fulfilling prophecy, if all cults expect California to be a good starting ground... they're all going to go to California.

It is sometimes difficult to tell if some artworks were decorative, religious or both. I'm really not an art historian, but I can offer some guide lines.

A fresco in a Roman villa is probably decorative. But when you see statues? It becomes hard to tell. We don't always know. And I said that it could be both, because it may have been. Roman religion is not an organized religion like Christianity. There are temple sure, when we find fragments from altars we know it's for religious purposes. But when a rich man orders the crafting of a statue... is it purely aesthetics? Or is he a devout follower that want to honor the goddess? We do not know.

It's also important to understand that since it wasn't an organized religion, different people had different interpretation of what the goddess meant. Sometimes she was Venus the goddess of physical love (there's a reason why we call aphrodisiacs aphrodisiacs...), but at times she was also Venus Genitrix, Venus the mother (this one is thought to be a religious statue of her), Venus Felix the goddess of luck. In Pompei she is often represented in full dress and with jewels.

But my point is... if she is presented nude (like the many many nude Venus you can find)... it doesn't mean it's lewd art for the male gaze. She is a goddess (nudity is associated in antiquity with gods), she is also a goddess of sex. Her beauty doesn't imply that it's lesser. Those statues aren't the ancient equivalent of Playboy.

For the mirror thing it’s because she is a goddess of beauty and a mirror is often in art a code for beauty or people concerned by their beauty (looking at yourself in a mirror to make sure you’re beautiful/admire your beauty).

For the other, we have a lot of ancient art depicting her that was made for ritual purposes. What is the issue exactly?

For more info you will need to track down books, podcasts or videos. I'm sorry but I don't have anything specific to recommend on England.

Why did a lot of people invade England? Actually England is nothing special. Before the year 1000 the history of Europe is the history of massive invasions. For example France: Celts took over the local people (we don't know anything about them) in 700 BC (and the local people probably took over other people before), the Romans came around 50 BC, then a small number of Germans (called the Franks) took it over around 500... Europe before the year 1000 had a lot of migrations and Invasions. It was just part of the local scene. Why it stopped is complicated but a theory is that when countries became stronger it became a lot more difficult to take over a place and so vast migrations stopped. Also those migrations/invasions were often due to a lack of resources which can be prevented by stronger trade network: if you can buy food elsewhere you don't need to leave your country. And this wasn't true just for Europe: in America, Africa, Asia, you see vast migrations throughout the ages.

For what remains of theses culture... depends where you are. In Wales Celtic culture (in the form of the Welsh language, spoken by 18% of the population of Wales) is still very present. In other places? Not really. Outside of places names it's very difficult to see. This video is interesting on that subject (also it's funny). Those cultures haven't been relevant in a thousand years, so outside of the occasional town name, there isn't really anything.

>Am I understanding you right, 800 Scandinavias (thanks for the correction about Vikins!) people were enough to attack and settle down?

My bad! I meant that in the year 800 several thousands of Scandinavians took over eastern England. They still weren't a lot of them, they exploited rivalries between Anglo-Saxons to succeed.

So. Here is a very simplified timeline of Britain:
-Before 43 AD Britain is made up of a lot of Celtic tribes, not that dissimilar from Gaul.

-In 43 AD the Romans invade and conquer what is today more or less England and Wales. This is an unruly province (it's isolated and far away, that plays a role) so they put a lot of soldier on it and build Hadrian's wall (under emperor Hadrian) to keep the picts (in what is today Scotland) out.

-Roman culture is present in cities but is still very much limited.

-In 410 Rome is falling apart and Rome leaves. The island is now made up of small Celtic kingdoms/tribes more or less Romanized. From this time up to the 800 or so there isn't a lot of written sources, so it's very very difficult to be sure of the details.

-From the 500s onward Germans start to migrate to the Island and takes over the eastern part. Those Germans are Angles and Saxons (from which we get England and Anglo-Saxon). They rule over and integrate the local Celts and basically rule over what isn't mountains (so not Wales and not Scotland..... so England). That's where the Wales (Celtic) and England divides comes from. England is not united but made up of several kingdoms, around the 700 there are seven small Anglo-Saxons kingdoms.

-Around 800 Scandinavian raiders (what we call Vikings, which isn't a culture, it's a job basically, it means to leave for an expedition) start attacking Western Europe, Britain included. Around 860 Scandinavians start to migrate in large number in order to settle in Britain. That's not the first time this happened (the Angles and Saxons did it, and it's not the only place the Scandinavians settle, they do it in France, in Russia, so on).

-From the 870s to the 1030s Norse/Scandinavians from Denmark control Eastern England. In 1042 finding it too difficult to maintain the Danes leave. An Anglo-Saxon king now controls all of England for the first time.

-In 1066 Normans (from the French region of Normandy, descendants of Scandinavians and local French people) led by William the Conqueror invade England (at the same time the Norwegian also try to take it over, in what is the last Norse invasion of England, it fails). They conquer it and that's where the modern England we know come from : an Anglo-Saxon people (with Norse influence and a dash of Celts) ruled by a French nobility which as centuries progress becomes more and more English (but it explains why the English language doesn't looks like Germans but uses a lot of French words).

England only becomes the UK in 1707 when England and Scotland (ruled by the same kings since 1603) merge into a single country.

Just like there is no real beginning to the idea of kings (one man has authority is not a complex idea) being a dick to people around you isn’t an “idea”, it’s just an expression of having relationships. If relationships exist, some are bad. It may even predate us being Homo Sapiens.

This. The late medieval crisis could maybe be compared to the late antiquity early medieval crises : fall of the Roman Empire in the west, Justinian plague, Arab conquests of the near east and Persia.

Because they are linked.

Is Japan's war in China related to Germany's wars? Not at all. But Japan's war with the Wester Allies definitely is. Japan only attacked because they thought the Germans were going to win in Russia (it's just a few months after Barbarossa), Germany declared war on the US just after Pearl Harbor.

To be clear, it's not a side front of Germany's wars, it's its own thing. If you see WW2 as only the Third Reich's War then yes it's completely distinct. But it's under the same umbrella because it is also linked to it. The participants are basically the same on the Allied side and Japan and Germany are allies... so it makes no sense to treat it as something wholly distinct. It's basically the same as the Eastern Front of WW2, it's clearly different from the Western Front, but still part of the same global thing.

Tons. It wasn't a secret at all. We have communications between the Soviet and the Allies and the Americans especially had asked Stalin for a long time to attack Japan in order to lessen the burden of the Pacific front. The answer was always "yes, when we're done with Germany". And so when they were done with Germany in may, they put a lot of troops in the east and attacked.

It wasn't a secret it was a military plan coordinated with the rest of the Allies.

As for their plans for Japan specifically it's a bit harder to determine, true. But they still got Korea and tried to took the whole peninsula in 1950 (Korean war and all that).

A Japan Soviet war wasn't a hypothetical. The USSR did declare war on Japan in August of 45. Ad no, Japan didn't think Russia would invade, because they had a non aggression pact that was supposed to last up until april 1946. That's why the soviet border was basically not defended and the soviet took Manchuria in ten days when they declared war in August.

And yes, the idea that Japan surrendered to the Americans not so much because of the bombs (although, that is a factor to consider) but because they were afraid of what the Soviet may do (especially to the Emperor) is a theory supported by historians.

We can't be sure, since the Japanese burned a lot of records in August, but it's a theory that can and is argued for.

What "new information"?