Introduction

16th October 2019

This Introduction is now outdated. See this post to know why.

8th July 2018

Welcome to my Blog about History, Postcards and Stamps! I started this project in July 2015 and actually just wanted to write some history posts from time to time about the postcards and stamps I get, but already soon after I started the blog this seemed to be not enough. I began to write a few larger posts where I took together some collectibles to tell a larger story. Also in this time the idea arose to write a "complete" World's History with postcards and stamps and I began to make lists with posts I would have to write to close the "gaps". Due to a lack of time this unfortunately remained a vague idea for a long time and I just continued to write some larger and smaller posts when I found time, but recently I resumed my plans and began to read historic material about many countries. Doing so I discovered that there are so many stories to tell in a "complete" World's history, of which many did not really interest me, that the plan seemed to be unrealisable and I almost decided to return to the small posts if I would not find a good frame which would be big enough to include everything that interests me and small enough to exclude everything that does not interests me and that would just be too difficult to read up on it. Luckily I found this frame on a recent trip to France's capital Paris: I want to write a European History from around the World. At first I decided to rename my blog to "European History around the World" and changed the background colour to blue. Furthermore I also started to build up (and still do so) an "Index and Vision", where I list all the themes about which I want to write posts and which will hopefully be just an index one day when the vision is fulfilled. But until then it is still a very long way and I really hope that you as reader will accompany me, because writing a blog without readers can be very boring from time to time (although I would also continue without readers, as it is still much fun).

While thinking about what has to be part of an European History, I also looked at what I already got on this blog and realised that I definitely do not have much. Many of the post I had written in the last three years were just too regional (or Germany-centred), some were clearly non-European, others just do not fit in the frame anymore and many more were just small parts of big stories. So most of the posts that I already wrote on this blog will be deleted or heavily edited in the next time, but if you are quick you can still read them in their original form. To make the new posts always I bit more "fitting" I will often write them when there is a good time for them or an interesting reason. And what could be better for this than Jubilees? Thus I will always publish a list of them at the beginning of a year. Sometimes this will also lead to the creation of a post series (like currently the one about World War I).

To make it easier to navigate through the blog I will add labels to each post, which will usually include centuries and countries. Please note in this context that the country label will always be for the collectibles in the post and not really for the countries that they are about (but is there actually a difference ?!). So for example if I write about a battle in France, but only got a stamp or postcard about it from Germany, the post would get the label "Germany" if there is no other French item within the post. To make it easier for me I will also include the labels "Europa" and "World". "Europa" is for posts with so many items from so many different countries that Blogger would not allow me to list all of them as label (there is a limit of the combined length of the labels). "World" on the other side will be mainly of posts which include stamps from the UNPA (United Nations Postal Administration), which I think can be best listed as "World".

As reader you are also very welcome to become active. If you look at my "Vision" and think that something misses or if you read a post and discover a mistake you are really more than welcome to write a comment. I would be very happy to discuss. But for now stay tuned for the next posts and see in what I will turn this blog!

Best Regards and welcome to the World of the European History
A history student from Northern Germany


Literature and Sources
For all the posts I write I use so many different sources that it would be too difficult to list all of them. They mainly include own knowledge, my old school books, university protocols, Internet sites like Wikipedia (I know, shame on me) or specialist books. But here is a small list of historic material (much of it is in German) that I looked through to create my "Vision":

The UNESCO World Heritage List
The List of the European Heritage Label Sites
Die Europa-Saga, a history documentation on ZDF
Maissen, Thomas: Geschichte der frühen Neuzeit, Munich 2013.
Matz, Klaus-Jürgen: Die 1000 wichtigsten Daten der Weltgeschichte, Munich 2006.
Schwanitz, Dietrich: Die Geschichte Europas, Frankfurt am Main 2000.
Tietz, Jürgen: Monument Europa, wie Baukultur europäische Identität stiftet, Zurich 2017.