When you get right down to it, pretty much every war is about money in one shape or form.Quote:
Originally Posted by steve_spackman
Printable View
When you get right down to it, pretty much every war is about money in one shape or form.Quote:
Originally Posted by steve_spackman
Yes indeed, then it leads to other things too..Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
Chuck34..Im glad to see you agreeing with me LOL ;)
Credit where credit is due. I don't disagree just to disagree. If someone is right about something, even if I don't always agree with other stuff, I can't disagree.Quote:
Originally Posted by steve_spackman
As for the US Revolution directly sparking the French Revolution, well that seems an awfully Americo-centric view and presumes that millions of peasants, maybe 70% illiterate, were aware of and conversant in the details of the American war of 10-15 years before and that somehow was more motivating than the centuries of political exclusion, financial serfdom in which they lived, the lack of any kind of justice, and that they rose up nationwide in their MILLIONS because they were all hot under the collar About the American Revolution.Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
Seems hard to swallow when we reflect that even today very few people here in USA can answer with any detail or place events into a context the details of our Revolution.
Jan, your record has a scratch in it, and is skipping. Just thought you'd like to know. :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by janvanvurpa
Lets see political exclusion, financial serfdom, lack of justice. Where have I heard that before? Hmm, a real head scratcher.
Oh no, they were maybe 70% illiterate!??! That must mean that they hadn't ever heard of the Amerian Revolution and the main points about it, you know overthrowing a monarchy. You've blown my whole point right out of the water.
Do you honestly believe that the French had never heard of the American Revolution? Or that it didn't give them inspiration that "We the People" could topple a monarchy? Litterate or not, details or not?
Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
Landscape Architecture!!! :p :
I majored in Landscape Architecture in college and we always used to joke that Landscape Architecture caused the French Revolution. We said it as a joke, but there's some truth to it.
France's finance minister was embezzling funds from the treasury and using it to build his estate Vaux-le-Vicomte. When he was finished, he hosted a party to show off his new works. Of course Louis XIV was there. After King Louis saw it he promptly had the finance minister arrested and hired his Landscape Architect, Le Notre, to design and build even more extensive gardens, which became Versailles, and in doing so bankrupted the French government. :)
No, it just seems you're deaf, or have a memory as long as a fly.Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck34
American Peasants today know virtually nothing of the American Revolution except the last Mel Gibson movie maybe, soQuote:
Lets see political exclusion, financial serfdom, lack of justice. Where have I heard that before? Hmm, a real head scratcher.
Oh no, they were maybe 70% illiterate!??! That must mean that they hadn't ever heard of the Amerian Revolution and the main points about it, you know overthrowing a monarchy. You've blown my whole point right out of the water.
Do you honestly believe that the French had never heard of the American Revolution? Or that it didn't give them inspiration that "We the People" could topple a monarchy? Litterate or not, details or not?
sure yes I am fairly certain that the millions of illiterate peasants knew nothing of importance of the American Revolution.
But I knew that there was a core of junior Army officers who had seen one thing that led to many siding with the People when the Revolution finally came
and that thing was MERIT, an unknown concept in Absolutist regimes.
So while you're ranting and raving and redefining the words "SELF Reliance" to me "If I choose to get help from anybody I choose then I'm still being SELF reliant cause I choose them", you ignore the lasting trait of American society (until we had our own Aristocracy (based solely on money not land) which many Junior Officers in the French Army got to see first hand.
You assertion that millions of peasants were conversant with the details of the American Revolution and that it was prominent in the minds of French peasants, and was in their minds as encouragement is beyond absurd, that assertion verges on inanity.
Shirley, you jest.
Yes if you want the patriotic angle of the American revolution stick to them films thats shows the Americans as stout hearted, freedom loving and heroic :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by janvanvurpa
the truth is a bit more messy.
Anyway im through with this thread.... :wave:
When have I ever said that the French people needed to know all the details of the American Revolution? Never. They only needed to know the main point. That there is this country, called the US or "America", that was once ruled by a King. The people rose up and cast him off. That really isn't that hard to believe. The fact that you think people in the 18th century were so dumb as not not know the main jist of the American Revolution, is beyond absurd. And to think that the leaders of the French Revolution didn't know about the US and what happened here, is even more absurd than that!Quote:
Originally Posted by janvanvurpa
People now, in this day and age, not knowing the details of the Revolution is not the point here what-so-ever. But I do think that most Americans today know at least as much about the Revolution as "illiterate French Peasents" did in the 1780s-90s. And that is a lot more than you are willing to give them credit for. Stop watching "Jay-walking". Those idiots they find are not a representative sample of the public.
And don't call me Shirley. :-)