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Alexander Mikaberidze

lines on the record: 84
first: 2022-07-13
most recent: 2022-07-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“To your success in really in any field of career that you pursue and certainly in politics and business and law. And so I encourage your listeners to pick up books like that, books written with the global history in mind and broaden their horizons.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I think this book represents a humble effort to showcase what history can do in modern context, and that is to move away from traditional boundaries, to adopt a more wider lens at looking events, more transnational, more comparative, that it's perfectly fine to do a national histories and to kind of look at the historical developments of a particular country, but to me it is far more rewarding to see how countries developed in relationship with each other, how events in one part of the world reverberates in another. Because in our days, we live in such an interconnected world that that transnational and comparative approach is absolutely same.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My students call me Dr. M, which makes me kind of a character from the James Bond movie, but it's easier for them to remember it.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's just my first name and last name, so they say it's pretty straightforward. If you can spell my last name, you'll find me.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“enlightenment writers, but alongside you will see Voltaire, you will see Rousseau or the less known ones like Holbach, who was an atheist who was writing critical works against the organized religion envisioning this technocratic utopias. So that is a unique circumstances that France was able to craft and cultivate that other countries were unable to replicate or were able to replicate to a lesser degree. I think they are the country that was successful in doing that. Of course, Britain, which had a very vibrant and rich intellectual life at this time.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In piece, you know, the all. That's a longer kind of structural historical process. We can go back to the 17th century and see the rise of France as a dominant, both political entity in Western Europe and the cultural entity in Europe as a whole. I think it's a creation of Louis XIV's era, the grandeur of the French monarchy, the opulentness, the luxury of it, the diversity and the richness of French offerings. And of course, this is where I think it gets really interesting in the sense that France is oftentimes envisioned as an absolutist monarchy with a kind of tight controls and everything. But on the other hand, in the 18th century, we see a diverse range of opinions expressed within France by the French writers on one hand.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Who is willing to take charge of artillery command in a town of Toulon, which is besieged by the army, he comes out with a plan that brings the city to its knees, and the rest is history. And all is done within this war environment. Who knows how things would have turned if there was no war and whether Napoleon would have been able to distinguish themselves or the other generals that went on to make great careers.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Corps. Many of them immigrated, left the army, some of them failed in the tasks that the revolutionary government set for them and were punished dearly so forth. We have several cases like General Kustan or General Bournet and others who failed to achieve the mission that the government set for them and they were recalled and condemned and executed for it. And so it certainly creates this environment in which you have to deliver, you have to be at your best. Or in an environment in which people who are willing to take the risk are pushed forward. And that's in many respects how Napoleon got his star, right? In 1793, he's a lowly nobody in the French army, and yet he's the one.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thought were justifiable. For example, suspension of habeas corpus, for example, arrest and persecution of their political opponents, but also instituting great government controls. Think about law of maximum, for example, of the Jacobins introduced during the terror. All that is in the context of that fear, of that anxiety, of that emergency situation that the war cultivates. That's where I see the impact of it. And of course, the war also creates conditions where bright, talented, however you want to, whatever adjective you want to put it, individuals have an opportunity to distinguish. Now, for example, kind of to go back to what you said about the war being this kind of great purger, it certainly had a role in weeding out many officers in the French.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Without the conflict, and let's start in 1792, France would have, it's my argument, would have continued on the path of a gradual reform movement towards the constitutional limited monarchy rather than rush towards a radical republicanism, terror and violence, which then beget more violence, more cycles of political instability, and ultimately led to military dictatorship. That's where the war is.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Any No, I think that's a challenging question to deal with in a sense that in the late 19th century, social Darwinists, for example, argued that war was a great purger of societies that rejuvenates it. And I'm not sure that we want to kind of go back to that argument. The war I mean, the sheer nature of the war is that it makes things possible that in peacetime would be unthinkable. It is a great, it has a great homogenizing effect. It suppresses some of the sharper edges, or in some areas it actually makes those sharper edges even more pronounced. And certainly when we talk about the French Revolution, for example, without the war, the revolution would not have radicalized as rapidly or to the extent that it did.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wouldn't say would you consider, for example, Soviet state as that? Because it is a statist approach that is ushering in rapid transformation of society. I think it evolved. It's changed its nature. Singapore is a unique case in that it was both kind of liberal but also authoritarian in that sense, right? It kind of controlled liberal environment. But Soviet system was authoritarian but more radical in its transformations. So I think it's a part of evolutionary process of what's happening. So not necessarily that it's withered away and disappeared. You certainly can, for example, make a case for some of the Latin American examples. Where this enlightened, you know, kind of enlightened reform movements led spearheaded by an individual might be still relevant.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Historical stage, even though we are not talking about the enlightened despotism as such, but the core of it still is there. It's the government trying to bring about changes, government bring about standardization, bring about efficiency. Now, it is not done as overtly or as acutely, as Napoleon did. But that's because circumstances kind of changed and evolved. But we still see, for example, Prussian development in 1820s and 30s that are part of that, what I would say is part of that enlightened rational reform movement. And even later on in post-Crimean period, Alexander II, the Russian emperor's great reforms can be perceived to be as part of that steady, gradual introduction of change that Will modernize the state. So I think you can make an argument connecting those dots.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In that his system survived. And the reason why he's most successful in Frederick, Joseph, is because of revolution. Now Napoleon did not support the radicalism of revolution. And we see that throughout his life, that even as a young man, when he witnessed revolutionary events in Paris, that he consistently came out against or expressed opinion against the radicalism of the crowd. And that to me is an element in his mindset that tells that he is not a revolution on horseback as such, but enlightened despotism. Once he passed away, right, once he's off the history.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, in my own research, and certainly in this book, I'm making an argument, not necessarily an original argument, but I certainly am a big proponent of it, that Napoleon is not necessarily the child of revolution. Now, he's a product of the revolutionary circumstances, but he does not necessarily represent revolution as such. To me, as I mentioned in the book, he's the last of the enlightened despots. Because much of what he tried to establish, much of what he tried to introduce in equality, but also order and efficiency, these are not necessarily the revolutionary ideals, but these are ideas that other enlightened despots, including Frederick the Great, including Joseph II of Austria, tried also to a various degree of success implementing in their countries. But Napoleon, I think, is the last of them and probably the most successful.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Through his talent and merit, and rise to the top. That's what matters. And that is what is missing, I think, in many other areas of Europe at this time, in Spain, in southern Italy, in Austria, in Russia. There is a far less opportunity for a commoner to rise to the top. But Napoleon makes sure that by the time he's gone, that the system is already entrenched. that yes, monarchy will be restored, bourbones will be back, but even bourbon will have to accept the charter, this constitutional arrangement, one of the principles of which will be equality before the law, will be this acceptance of career is open to merit.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The No, not necessarily. Revolution was bloody, but not bloody. No, there is a. The revolution was about opening careers to talent. And I think that's one of the great legacies of revolution and Napoleon in that they created a system that valued merit. Yes, connection still played a role. I mean, if there is one constant inconstancy of human nature, and that is that the nepotism and corruption stays with us. But to a far greater degree, merit played a role. And so that you see that in the people Napoleon promoted and surrounded himself with were, again, his cabinet is quite capable and he stays so throughout the empire. And not just in military, as I said, but in finance and administration, in science, it's the ability to, for a person from a humble Background to go to school, to distinguish himself through his”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Friday, as an expression of public sentiment. So no, he had all the conditions for it. And kind of the last point. He loved technology and he supported technology. He supported, for example, he was the one who set up prizes for technological improvements that benefited French military. It's a famous story of him setting award for developing new ways of preserving food, which led to conservation, the kind of jars that we are now consuming actually come from Napoleonic era. Or it is Napoleon who, for example, conducted or supported experiments on developing submarine technology. In fact, in the middle of Paris on the Sand River, they tested submarines and it didn't work out and the submarines were leaking, so he didn't adopt it. But nonetheless, it shows his willingness to embrace it, this technological development. He tried to stay abreast of it also.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He actually noticed that a small battalion was sent on the wrong road in the countryside in central Italy. Who does that kind of thing, right? They're kind of keeping that level of detail. Or as an emperor, he actually supervised what we can say, I think, a modern police state, the extent of the police surveillance of the French population is stunning. And as part of it, what is interesting is that he required weekly reports on what people, average people, kind of common people would say in the streets and police agents would compile these reports from all across France and he would receive digests. So on top of everything else that he would be doing, he would sit down and kind of going through and learning what Alex said on Thursday and what work said on Thursday.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Napoleon would have been that. And the worst thing is that I don't know how good Elon's memory is. Napoleon's is brilliant. And he would be kind of on a page this call, you know, footnote that, you found, there was a fascinating moment when he's in Moscow.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From Spain to Poland and from Denmark to Croatia, right? And he deals with minutia of these details. So he would have been, in that sense, a micromanaging CEO. Again, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing because it has its pros and cons. But he was a microman.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He does have a mindset for that. Napoleon has ability, well, first of all, let me put it. By nature, he was very gifted. Man with the almost photographic memory. So he retained minutiae of detail, and I've spent better part of quarter century examining his documents and going through the archives and kind of dealing with the paperwork that he left behind and it's prodigious. We just finished a collective effort of publishing kind of compilation of his personal letters and we had to stop at 44,000. And that doesn't account for government decision and government paperwork that he reviewed and then signed on. In my books on 1812, you kind of see him deep in Russia. He's governing empire that stretches.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then before he can return to France his double dies and he's buried with all the honors and then real Napoleon finds himself caught in this kind of conundrum of trying to prove himself and what he does he starts a business in Paris of selling bread and using his military genius strategy. comes to dominate the baking industry business in Paris. So Napoleon, yes, somebody already envisioned him as a startup guy.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The long hour. I love the vision of Napoleon as Elon Musk, right? There's a fascinating movie. It's a kind of light comedy called Emperor's Nikolae that envisions Napoleon escaping from San Helena Island in disguise, leaving a double.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Far as I'm concerned, essentially bankroll Napoleon for my trophies reign and most crucially insured rapid French reconstruction in the post-Napoleonic era. So it's dealing with these individual agencies that also makes this period fascinating because you find the characters that are simply amazing.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Napoleon does play an important role because of his sheer brilliance on the battlefield. I mean, it's hard to imagine France going on a rampage as it did in 1805 to 1809 period without Napoleon because he brings so much to the table. Wellington, I think, has that famous statement that Napoleon was equal to 40,000 men on the battlefield, that he brought so much to the table. And the interesting thing is that Napoleon is not necessarily the only one that France had. In fact, that revolutionary decade produced a number of brilliant military commanders. It produced a number of talented men in bureaucracy and finance. In fact, one of the books. That I want to write in that part of that kind of economic side of the history is a brilliant financial wizard that”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is also a conflict in which the old regime has to respond, has to kind of tweak itself. Napoleon then, as a kind of to move away from structural issues to more individual issues, Napoleon, whether you like him or not, even his greatest critics admit that he was a brilliant individual, very capable workaholic, an individual who could multitask, unlike anyone you really can encounter in pages of history books, his ability to control at the height of the empire a virtual continent, an entire continent before the time of phones and internet and mask and instant communication is just staggering.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it is very difficult to defeat an entity like this. And France shows that as a nation that can mobilize greater manpower, that can put greater government controls on economy, and armed with an ideology that it can overrun what we will call the old regime forces. It doesn't mean that the old regime armies were inherently weaker or inherently kind of destined to lose. Not at all. The fact that it took a decade for the revolution to prevail over the old regime until 1802 when the Revolutionary Wars are formally over testifies to the resilience of the old regime. But it is a...”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Society as a whole, right? So you have much smaller forces, the conflicts for the obvious, clear, dynastic or political goals. Now, the French Revolution is different in that it mobilized far greater percentage of the population. If you read the text of the Levantmas decree, it talks about young men registering and serving, children being participating, participating in helping production and manufacturing, women supporting the home front and even the elderly providing that moral boost and kind of inspiration and leadership for the population. It's more encompassing vision of nation at war.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think, again, there are multiple threads that come together in this period. So one of them, for example, is the Francis ability to mass mobilize. And that is particularly clear in 1793-95 period, in response to being confronted by the European coalition, France begins a system that we refer to as L ⁇ v ⁇ en masse, which involves mass mobilization of manpower, that involves development of a home front to support war effort. In the military history, we oftentimes grapple with this kind of concept of limited war. And I think limited in the sense that conflict before the French Revolution were kind of isolated affairs that didn't affect this.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“United States that is keen on keeping its presence in Europe. Same applies for Russia in 1919 is imploding, while in 1945 it is quite strong, or at least it will be on its way to recovering from the war. And it certainly has the military capacity to carve out a zone of occupation in eastern Germany.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, well, partly because I think we have to bear in mind that unlike World War II, the war didn't directly reach Germany, right? It was mostly fought in northern France and in Belgium and kind of the Rhineland area, but Germany itself remained intact for much of it. And certainly by the end of the war, the sheer exhaustion of France and Britain and the collapse of Russia, the collapse of Austria and other powers certainly create a reality that was very different from 1945 when you have a grand alliance and that grand alliance is determined to carve out the zones of occupation. Think about kind of United States in 1919 with its self-imposed isolation is a very different entity from the 1940s.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And kind of to draw parallel to World War I or World War II, one of the things that we oftentimes forget that it is Napoleonic wars that pioneered new mechanism of dealing with the defeated power, and that is includes occupational regimes, that includes development schedules of reparation payments. Yes, defeated powers before had to pay war indemnities, but post-Napoleonic erasoa, a very different mechanism that involved occupation, that involved extraction of resources, that is formalized and that is a kind of part of the coalition, which is very similar to what, for example, was done in post-World War II period. In 1815, for example, France divided in the zones of occupation in European powers have occupational troops that occupying specific Regions as a way of”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, the interesting thing is the immediate post-Napoleonic era saw the creation of a new international security system. Absolutely remarkable. And there, my dear colleagues, like Professor Beatrice de Graaf from the University of Utrecht, has written fascinating studies. And we talk about just last two years or so, exploring the impact of Napoleonic wars on crafting this new international system. And the hallmarks of this system was indeed the balance of power, where these great powers sought to maintain certain parity. The goal of this was international cooperation to prevent political instability in Europe. So hence we see, for example, the great power cooperation, the issues of suppression of revolutionary cycles in 1820.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To figure out whether we want to be a Western nation, whether our ideals are more attuned to Europe, or whether we would like to seek closer relationship with Russia. We should not be punished by an outside power for seeking a course that disagrees with its vision. Same applies for Ukraine, right? To me, that's the war in Ukraine is about the agency of the Ukrainian people.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Under her leadership, Russia partitioned Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, coincidentally the very territory that involves the war today, right? Ukraine, the Baltic states. So that's where I see the kind of connections. And to me, it is absolutely paramount to contain this imperial impulses and to ensure that the people have agency, that people have the ability to self-determine their fate. I mean, that's, you know, kind of to go back to your earlier question about my own experiences. I lived through the 90s. I lived through the National Liberation Movement. I lived through the Civil War. I lived through our own Georgian efforts to figure out who we are and what we want to be. But that's exactly the issue. It should be our decision as a group of people.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Statements by President Putin or his ministers, they all have the echoes of the nineteenth century great power politics, which as far as I'm concerned, should state part of history rather than the reality. As you pointed out, in the post-World War II period, we went to great length to fashion an international system to prevent the very imperial politics that dominated the global development in the later half of the 19th century. Because look at effectively what Putin's grand strategy is, is to carve out spheres of influence, which would be not unlike what Catherine the Great, for example, did in the late 18th century when...”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, if we look at the conflict in Ukraine, and that's the conflict that has a direct relevance to me because it's part and parcel of the Russian imperial project. In many respects, this conflict doesn't start in February of 2022 or in 2014 when Russia took over Crimea and in the eastern provinces of Ukraine. But to me, it starts in 2008 when we had a war between Russia and Georgia for that very reason of the countries, of the group of people seeking a course of development that is different from the one that the Russian government has envisioned for them. So that's where I see if you look at the rhetoric that comes from Moscow.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Stagnation in many parts of Europe, not to mention the civil strife that revolution Napoleon unleashed in many parts of Europe. So I think, for example, just if nothing else, I would oftentimes tell students that living through the 90s in Georgia was grappling with basic necessities such as standing in line for bread for two or three days, kind of waiting for a piece of loaf of bread. And when I talk about the French experiencing, for example, during revolution this hardship and trying to really find sustenance and seek out like me pieces of bread in various bakeries, I could on some level could relate to their misery, right? Could relate to their frustration.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Character, my personality was being forged in 90s and I lived through the debris of the so-called Soviet era with these economic devastation, with its civil strife, with its economic collapse. So in that sense, in many respects, I can relate to that generation that lived through Napoleonic era, saw the collapse of the empires, and then lived through the post-imperial kind of post-Napoleonic era, which was a period of economic turbine.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think, of course, it has a direct impact because I was born and raised in Soviet Union, and my father was a critic of the Soviet system, and I remember him as a young man like in the early 80s kind of listening to, secretly listening to the broadcasts of Voice of America, BBC, which were kind of muffed, but he would still listen. And this is some of my early memories as a child when my father would sneak out and kind of secretly listen to a radio receiver that he fashioned. And I think that kind of imperial, that experience within imperial entity, it did have an impact on me. And certainly shaped me because Soviet Union collapsed when I was becoming Mike.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My kids, I have two kids, two boys, and the oldest one is already reaching that age when he's studying this modern history. And one of the other day he kind of came to realization that I was born and raised in the evil empire, so he was quizzing me about what it was like, father, to be on the other side. I'm like, oh, thank you, son.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Subsidized system where people could register and drew sustenance from the state. And it is this time when we see the concept of right to work into the public discussion. So that's how I look at it. And then again, we can look at the gender equality. We can look at the issues, for example, of slavery that is at its simplest about the equality of human beings.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“1860s and 1880s, it is also part of that quest for greater political equality. Same, then if we're going to expand our view, what about then social economic equality? What about the treating our fellow citizens in more equitably when it comes to wages, when it comes to working conditions, when it comes to what we now call the welfare or kind of social welfare system? Because these are the ideas The revolutionaries we're grappling with Napoleon was grappling with and of course in post-Napoleonic period they all were trying to find a way to answer these challenges so in 1848 for example French socialists tried to find a solution to the existing problem of the socio-economic inequality by setting up what they refer to as national workshops effectively a state”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are well off that cannot be influenced. So, therefore, we're going to institute property qualification and let only affluent vote. Well, what about those who are below the threshold, right? And so you see then that struggle during Revolution Napoleonic era leading to, for example, Napoleon proclaiming universal male suffrage. After Napoleon is overthrown, that system is reversed to a much stricter property qualification. You will see again universal male suffrage coming back in 1848 and staying part of French political narrative. And the same kind of quest for political equality can be then traced in many of these other European powers that were affected by Napoleon or even in Britain. I mean, think about the British electoral reforms of 1832, the Great Reform Bill, or”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of this equality, we know that revolution produces remarkable documents in August of 1789 with Declaration of Rights of Men and a Citizen proclaiming in its very first article that men born and remained free and equal in their rights. That's a very aspirational, very idealistic kind of statement, but it's also a problematic statement because it's so vague. What does it mean equal in their rights? And what does it mean to be men, right? In French, the term is own, but even though it was used in the context of men, can be interpreted as being as human beings. And so here then the story of revolution in Napoleon is the story of the struggle of various groups for the political equality because revolution after the Declaration of Rights of Man interpreted this provision as saying, well, it's equality of those men who are self-reliant.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think I look at it discuss it with my students is that I look at what revolution promised and at its simplest revolution was about quest for equality. And that quest can be then kind of interpreted in variety of ways. It can be a political equality with the suffrage, voting, and all. It can be economic equality, social equality, gender equality, all this, right? And so to me, the revolution in Napoleon and then, of course, the post-Napoleonic period is not necessarily this left-wing, right-wing, or liberal conservative. We can use whatever terminology you would like to, but to me, it's the quest for these evolving notions of equality. So, for example, when we talk about the politics, right, the political side.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Represented such a major blow to the old regime that it simply couldn't stay the way it was. It had to reinvent itself and reinvent it did in the post-Napoleonic era. And here I do want to point out that oftentimes we think about this post-Napoleon reconstruction as this conservative reaction, this art conservatism, reactionaries. But we have to bear in mind that majority of these conservatives were not against the change. Even Metternich, who is usually perceived as this arch conservative villain, he is not averse to change. He's averse to revolutionary pace of the change. And so here in the post-Napoleonic era, these great powers were willing to accept reforms and changes that came at a gradual In a controlled environment. And that's essentially what we”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Others. So, for example, we know that in places like in Poland or in southern Italy or in Spain, the Napoleonic impact in terms of the changes of the old regime was far less pronounced than in the core areas of Europe. And so, but overall, I think you're right in that Napoleon”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In Italy where his United Kingdom of Italy is abolished and pre-Napoleonic arrangements are restored, even though we see restoration of the ruling dynasties that he overthrown, we cannot reverse the clock. We cannot simply go back to pre-Napoleonic era and pretend that it didn't happen. So you have to accept the changes that he introduced. Now the question is to what degree you will accept. And here again we can look at the kind of gradation and there are some areas like in southern and western Germany where Napoleon and certainly in Netherlands and in Belgium and in northern Italy where the impact was so pronounced that it stays that it will be simply impossible to turn the clock back. But in other areas it was easier to accept some changes and then reverse many others.”
2022-07-13 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source