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We had trouble connecting for the the first 15 minutes of this remote class today. Nina eventually sent me a message through Teams that said, "Hi Mrs Bari!! Are you still available for our class? I am so sorry I had to emergency call my college counselor because I needed help with something." Of course I was still available and happy to see Nina! We spent the time we had reviewing some of the structure and past content on the AP Comparative Government & Politics Exam.

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In this lesson we learned about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a group of influential and well-known antisemitic texts, whereby a gathering of Jews in a nocturnal meeting in a cemetery plan the conquest of the world. We also learned about their origins in the works of Hermann Goedsche and the Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, a satirical French novel attacking the monarchy. The text is structured according to 24 protocols with three fundamental themes: A criticism of liberalism, An analysis of the methods that the Jews will use to conquer the world and,The description of the new world order the Jews want to establish. The definitive form first appearing in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1902. Proof of the false nature of the text include the absence of expressions related to the Hebrew culture and the presence of Christian expressions as well as plagiarized content. The texts were widely used by the Nazis to justify antisemitism and some people still consider them to be authentic.

A war of succession is a type of intrastate war concerning struggle for power: a conflict about supreme power in a monarchy. It may become an interstate war if foreign powers intervene. A succession war may arise after (or sometimes even before) a universally recognised ruler over a certain territory dies (sometimes without leaving behind any (legal) offspring), or is declared insane or otherwise incapable to govern, and is deposed. Quite often such succession disputes can lead to long-lasting wars. Some wars of succession are about women's right to inherit (as we see in our current book). Often a ruler who has no sons, but does have one or more daughters, will try to change the succession laws so that a daughter can succeed him. Such amendments will then be declared invalid by opponents, invoking the local tradition.

Prior to the 16th century, feudalism dominated European Europe. Noble lords ruled over the serfs or tenants who worked the lands of their large estates. The nobles, in turn, paid tribute and swore oaths of loyalty to the monarchs who granted them their manors or fiefs. Loyalties tended to be individual rather than national. Furthermore, some people dreamed of the united Europe, in which the Church and secular rulers would work together to peacefully preserve, teach, and spread the Christian faith. The Holy Roman Empire came close to fulfilling this dream, which was shattered by the Protestant Reformation, the Thirty Years' War, and the Treaty of Westphalia. These developments encouraged the rise of the nation-state and of dominant monarchs who centralized their governments, established national bureaucracies, made laws that applied on a national level, consolidated military power, regularized taxes and the economy, and took over powers previously held by nobles. Soon, many people began to identify themselves as loyal citizens of their particular nation-states, including England, France, Prussia, and Sweden.

In this session, we discussed the conclusion of the novel, "Fire & Blood." How do monarchical nation states develop...and how may they fall?

Today we explored the definition and implications of sovereignty and how a sovereign state can become a failed state. Sovereignty is a status conferred on a state that means it is an independent actor in the world, has complete control over its internal affairs and answers to no one else. In reality, complete and absolute sovereignty is a fiction for most, if not all states, as outside pressure from a stronger state, a group of states or international organizations can apply pressure on a sovereign state to alter its internal affairs to conform to international standards of conduct. A failed state is a state that is unable to maintain its sovereignty by projecting authority over its population and protecting its own territorial integrity.