Questions from the audience #1

To give this blog some more structure, not only physical but also in my mind.
To play with my statistics, that I adore so much.
To have fun.
To loosen this blog's iron rule.

What I will do is try and give straight-forward answers on queries that people have entered in Google. By complete chance my weblog has been chosen by this people and being able to view the queries I know my blog could not provide answers. And in the end Google is about answers.

A good friend of mine, Niek, has told me he considered blogs to be "internet-pollution". My answer to him was: Does it take up so much space that internet is unusable. He said: No, but people can't even see this space because of weblogs...

So here goes:

29th August 2005 03:19:52
From: New Jersey, Cherry Hill, United States
Query: how did the Italian city-states contribute to modern diplomacy?

Well, they did contribute many of the important rituals, they contributed most of the terms and language. They contributed this because of their supposedly cultural superiority that was discovered by the French and the Spanish government once diplomacy became more and more complicated. It had become more complicated because Europe's competition started getting more and more players with more and different interests.
Then again, the Italian-city states had engaged in difficult, complex and ritualistic diplomacy when they began trading intensely with Mamluk Egypt and in the Ottoman Empire. They also has lots of diplomatic experience because of the many conflicts that arose between themselves. For they were Europe's window on the world.
I guess this makes "modern diplomacy" hard to define. Well. Good. It is a strange concept to call something modern before the industrial revolution and the consciousness of this revolution had entered Europe.


Here is diplomacy's most beloved experiment: