Dwarkesh Podcast - Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

Alexander Mikaberidze is Professor of History at Louisiana State University and the author of The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History.He explains the global ramifications of the Napoleonic Wars - from India to Egypt to America. He also talks about how Napoleon was the last of the enlightened despots, whether he would have made a good startup founder, how the Napoleonic Wars accelerated the industrial revolution, the roots of the war in Ukraine, and much more!Watch on YouTube, or listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other podcast platform.Episode website + Transcript here. Follow Professor Mikaberidze on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.Subscribe to find out about future episodes!Timestamps:(0:00:00) Alexander Mikaberidze - Professor of history and author of “The Napoleonic Wars”(0:01:19) - The allure of Napoleon(0:13:48) - The advantages of multiple colonies(0:27:33) - The Continental System and the industrial revolution(0:34:49) - Napoleon’s legacy.(0:50:38) - The impact of Napoleonic Wars(1:01:23) - Napoleon as a startup founder(1:14:02) The advantages of war and how it shaped international government and to some extent, political structures.Please share if you enjoyed this episode! Helps out a ton! Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe

All right, today I have the pleasure of interviewing Professor Alexander Mika Beretsa, who is a professor of history and the Ruth Herring-Knoll-endowed chair at Louisiana State University. And he's the author of the Napoleonic Wars, A Global History. This is an absolutely fascinating book. It was unlike any other history book I've read in the sense that it was just global in a scope. And you're covering such an interesting period in history. So first of all, can you give my audience a little bit of background on yourself and on the Napoleonic course? Yes. Thank you so much for having me. It's a delight to be here. I'm originally from a country of Georgia, and they usually tell people that, no, it's not the state of Georgia, right? The country or Georgia in Eastern Europe, a small state sandwiched between Russia and Turkey, with a rather complex and

diverse and turbulent history. But as most small nations, it is oftentimes lost on the pages of history. And of course, when I embarked on this career to become a professional historian, I've always wanted to see where my people kind of fit in the largest scheme of things. And I was oftentimes frustrated, especially working on the revolutionary in the Polyani era that the huge transformations that this period witnessed in caucuses were not properly addressed. And so the immediate cause and kind of spark

to write this book was desire to kind of wrong, to correct the wrong. But it also kind of then grew from there to get a better understanding of the field because Napoleonic era is one of the most written historical periods. There are thousands and thousands of volumes, in fact, Napoleon is probably the most written about historical figure period. The last estimate was that at least three, maybe 400,000 volumes have been written just about him. So there has to be a really good reason to write

another book about this topic. And my gradually, My realization was that almost everything that has been written about this period is written from the French and British points of view and focused on the great transformations taking place inside Europe. And that is perfectly worthwhile enterprise, but I thought that it offers a very narrow snapshot of the period because revolutionary napoleonic period is the moment when we see the modernity setting. and not just in Europe, but gradually extending to various parts of the world.

It changes the trajectory that many of these world regions followed. And I thought in fresher study, it was needed to flesh that art. And what I appreciated as like an American of Indian origin is that you had almost a chapter in the book that was just dedicated to how the Napoleonic Wars impacted, you know, the expansion of British rule in India. and also about, obviously, the impact on the Americas from the Louisiana purchase onwards. I'm curious, by the way, how it's possible that so many volumes about Napoleon have been written. I think Andrew Roberts said that there's been one, on average, one new book by Napoleon a day since he died. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

How are there possibly that many Napoleonic scholars? Well, it's a very enticing field. I compare Napoleon and you told me that video will be recorded, right? So you see the wall behind me, which has parts of the British propaganda, part of the French propaganda, and of course the gift from my students' Napoleon's cutout. But oftentimes compared Napoleon to a siren. And because for those who first approach the shores of Napoleonic history, they are drawn by the lure of that sweet song of Napoleonic legend, right? The vision of a romantic kind of tightened the

Prometheus whose thought to bring about change and was ultimately defeated an exile to a rock in the middle of nowhere. And I think Napoleonic legend exercised such a lure that there is always enough people interested in it to write about it. But it has a downfall or kind of side effect and that is. Most of what is written is written on Europe for linguistic reasons, for

linguistic reasons, for example, to write the books of global nature, a global historical narrative, you need to have diversity of language skills. That includes not just the French and British, which by now is taken for granted, but Spanish and German

and Russian. And if you expand your narrative, even further to the east, then you have to involve the Ottoman and in Iranian historical traditions as well, right? And of course, that is a colossal challenge, and I think that is oftentimes pushes people away from such a narrative. And also that the events in Europe itself, in the period, are such colossal scale, right? So we talk about the battles that involve, for example at Borodino there are a quarter million troops at Leipzig there are well over half a million troops fighting for the for the future of Europe that by comparison you know let's say

dealing with events in in Russo-Iranian war where you have on average 10 to 15,000 men engaged it kind of not sexy now right not not big enough so I think that also plays a role and the charisma of these great personalities that were engaged also can excuse it towards Eurocentric narrative. And that's exactly the point that I was trying to make in the book is that that should not be the reason to avoid our discussion elsewhere. And as you pointed out, for India, this is the moment of tremendous importance

and not to include the developments in India under the leadership of British East India Company led by Richard Wellesley from 1798 to 1805. These seven years of crucial importance because in many respects, the foundation for what will be the Raj is late exactly at this time. And same applies to, let's say, extending our narrative to North America or South America where, you know, this period saw the collapse of the Spanish imperial rule and the emergence of a new political reality that will continue to reverberate and kind of affect us to the present day, right? The fact that we have such a political reality of independent nation-states

from Mexico down to Argentina, all are the, you know, part of the legacy of the Napoleon. period. Can you talk more about the impact of the Napoleonic wars on India? Why was it so crucial for the British East India Company? Now, of course, the English presence in India predates revolutionary period. By the start of revolutionary wars, and I remind the listeners, the French Revolutional War started in April of 1992, and Britain joined the war in 1793. So by then, British East India Company had already established presence in India, especially in the northeastern part of it in Bengal. And of course, India, oftentimes people forget just how huge and how diverse and how

populace this subcontinent is. And notice that I use the term subcontinent, not region, because again, it's enormous in scale. In fact, we can, you know, the estimates usually point that India at this time has a population well over 120 million people. So, and this would have been a huge area for, or huge area for the British as market for their goods, but also as a source of the goods for their own commerce. And we know that in the four revolutionary wars, there was a vibrant trade going on, that in many respects sustained the nascent industrial revolution in Britain. So from the British point of view, India is a crucial asset, at least the presence in India is a crucial asset.

But it is an asset that from the British point of view is constantly under threat from other powers, both local, such as, for example, Mughal Empire, until it experienced the decline in the mid-18th century. century and then the Maratha Confederation, and external threats, most notably the French who have been kind of nibbling at their hills all through the 18th century. And so to me, the interesting aspect of this is not necessarily the actual threat that existed, but it's the perceptions of threat that Britain saw, the British officials. Not all of them. For example, when we look at 1798-199 period, you have some British officials, such as Granville, who was a foreign secretary, arguing that the threat, direct threat to British presence in India is over, is exaggerated and kind of embellished, and that Britain should focus its efforts

on confronting France in Europe. And then you have colonial officials, of course, the the British East India Company officials steadfastly arguing that the threat is real, that French are coming. And in fact, if you read the letters of Richard Wellesley, who is appointed as the Governor General of British East India Company in 1798, he speaks constantly of this French threat as if it is real, as if it is imminent, even though we know that France was not. in a position to directly threaten the positions, the British positions in India at this time. The French hands are tied in Europe. But nonetheless, the perception is important because it is under this pretense of confronting the French threat that Wellesley then embarks on empire building.

And in the book, I refer to Wellesley as probably the most Napoleonic of this British statesman of this period because his vision is true. is that of an empire in India, which can be built within the context of confronting of this alleged friend threat. And so we see the wars, the campaigns that Wellesley waged against the local Indian states that refused to trot the British line. So I remind you the war between the British and the Mysore, right, the infamous storm. of Seringabad and the killing of its ruler of Tipu Sultan, or the subjugation of Nizam of Hyderabad, who is forced to accept this subsidiary relationship with the British, or the confrontation ultimately between the British forces and the Maratha Confederation during which, in 1803, for example,

you have that famous Battle of Assay, where Arthur Wellesley, the Richards younger brother and future greatest British military commander of the age, Duke Wellington, distinguished himself. And so these policies of using the French scare to impose the British kind of interest on the local states are extremely successful in that by 1805, much of southern and eastern Indian subcontinent is under British rule. Now, different shades of it, you know, direct or indirect role, but nonetheless, it's under the British influence. And that process will only continue in the subsequent years so that by 1819, you see the extension of the British authority in the north to areas like Ood in northern parts of the subcontinent. And, of course, the encroachment

on the Maratha territory, which will be ultimately. right, consumed by 18, 19, 18, in early 20s. And hence, we see the establishment of the British rule in India. Is having your, you know, like a global empire, a bunch of colonies, is that helpful when you're engaged in a war with another power? I mean, in some sense, maybe you're like, I don't know, more diversified. But in another, you had to, as you just said, you had the British had to divert resources and attention to defending their stakeholder in India.

and even World War II, Churchill has to worry about that Singapore is taken over by the Japanese. So when you're fighting a war, is it good to have a lot of colonies or is it bad for you? No, of course. Having colonies means having access to resources, resources both in terms of manpower but also resources in terms of commodities, natural resources that sustain your economy, your war effort. I mean, to kind of deviate from maybe Napoleonic era, you know, when we talk about that other great war, because Napoleonic wars for much of the 19th century was the great war only to be superseded by World War I. But think about the British imperial involvement in World War I.

When we talk about Britain at war, we really mean the empire, and it needs to be pointed out that more Indian troops served in that war than the actual British troops, and certainly the expeditions to, for example, Iraq involved thousands of Indian forces. So that, you know, having an empire certainly helps in conducting the war. And that is true in the Napoleonic period because the trade that Britain conducted both with India and with China was extremely lucrative. And there are, you know, excellent studies done on the extent of this trade and on the value of the volume and value of the commerce that was conducted with Asia, which is one of the crucial parts of the British economic endurance kind of resilience.

Because in 18, you know, once Napoleon consolidated his control of the continent, we know that in 1806, embarks on the system that we refer to as continental blockade, which was designed to isolate the British or cut them from the continent in terms of their ability to sell goods. one of the reasons why Britain was able to survive this economic war was precisely because it could rely on its colonial presence, rely on markets elsewhere, and of course have the ability, the naval capacity to ensure that its commercial roots, its lifelines, continue to sustain its war effort. And the reverse is true for France. And that is one of the crucial stories of the Revolutionary Napoleon era is the collapse of what we call first French Empire. France loses virtually every possession it has outside Europe that is in India, that is broadly in Indian Ocean, certainly the Caribbean.

And of course, you referred to the loss of Louisiana. in 1803, 1804, right? So that means that by comparison, France finds itself in a much weaker position in the years to come. And that later on will kind of sustain this narrative of restoration of the national grandeur, which will justify, for example, colonial enterprise or colonial projects that France will unleash in Alger in 1830 and then sub-Saharan Africa in, in, later periods, right?

As a part of that, the reconstruction of the imperial construct. Did the continental system contribute to Britain having the Industrial Revolution first? There's a book by this developmental economist Joseph Studwell called How Asia Works, and he makes a case that these Asian tigers in the late 20th century, they imposed a bunch of tariffs whose main purpose was to enforce export discipline so that it would help their nascent industries, I guess car making in Korea, for example. It would give them a leg up so that they could build a know-how within the country to manufacture these things, and then they can work with the tariffs. Did this kind of just artificially happen with the continental system?

I mean, to what extent of the Napoleonic wars and the Industrial Revolution linked? So in the book, I devote an entire chapter to what I call war through other means, and that is the economic side of the war. In fact, I wish to... I had more space to devote to it. In fact, that's one of the topics I'm working on today, or nowadays, and that is to explore the economic dimensions of the war, which usually is ignored, even though it's absolutely instrumental to it. And there are a couple of things to kind of address right away. And one is that industrialization began in Britain before the war. We know that the elements of the industrial development are already present in Britain in

in 1660s, 70s, certainly by 1780s Britain is far more industrialized than the continental powers. The second point is that France had prerequisites for industrialization and there is a fascinating new study on why the Industrial Revolution didn't take place in France in 1760s. 60, 70s, 70s, and 80s like it did in Britain, and that's a separate kind of topic. However, once the Industrial Revolution took off in Britain, it gave the British enormous advantage in terms of their economic parity, in terms of their economic or financial relations with the continent.

And it left, therefore, the continental powers in this position where the only one, you way they really can respond to the British threat or economic threat is by, as you pointed out, creating barriers, terrorists. Napoleon understood that opening up market, that letting the British goods flow will be absolutely catastrophic to French interests, not to mention to the industrial, the nascent in industries in the territories that he controlled, which is why he comes up with this continental system. And I want to, and that's what kind of my pet peeve, and that I am very adamant about distinguishing between continental blockade,

which was a policy designed to deal with the British commerce, and a continental system, which was a far more encompassing policy that Napoleon pursued towards creating a new reality, political economic reality in Europe. Later on, on San Elena Island, when he's exiled, he does talk about his desire to create United States of Europe, effectively an early version of European Union. But we have to bear in mind that Napoleon's vision of European Union was an imperial construct where France was supreme. But within that European Union, so to speak, right? Napoleon did want to use the terrorists, the protective barriers, as a way of promoting industrial growth.

And that's where Napoleonic wars is interesting because on one hand, the fighting the military devastation that takes place in places like Spain, like Germany, like Russia, does affect the local manufacturing does affect local industries. But on the other hand, Napoleon, by creating this kind of vacuum or the bubble, not vacuum, but bubble around certain areas of Europe, try to promote industries within the safety so that the British couldn't compete with them directly. And we see the kind of haphazard impact of his policies. There are some areas where it worked and in the post-war period, places like Belgium, Netherlands, Southern Germany, Northern France, Northern Italy, the industrial development took off. But also, but on the other hand, there are all areas where the war had a far greater impact and the contental system with its restrictions actually delayed the industrial development rather than promote it. I was just looking at this paper from the economist Darren Asim Oklu, I think it's called the consequences of radical reform. And in it, he was making the case that if you look at the places that Napoleon conquered and, you know, reform within the Planoian codes, his claim is that after 1850, all of them, they all experienced more economic growth in the places that he didn't conquer.

And I think he says in the paper that there were no cases where there was a data could identify any negative effects from this. I wonder if you agree or was this just an unlawful. good. I think I think it's a general is a it's a it's a generalized kind of statement and if you dig deeper I think you'll see a more complex reality. One thing is that many of the of the areas that this the author was referring to as having the economic growth and all right they had the preconditions for economic prosperity for industrialization before Napoleon showed up.

So usually the case studies for that are low countries, right? Belgium, Dutch Republic, the Rhineland, the northern Italy areas around Turin and Milan. But those were already urbanized, developed regions that were on the way to industrialization. In fact, in those areas, you can argue to do. and many of my colleagues have done, the Napoleonic wars actually hampered the industrial growth because of the direct effect of the war, the fighting and the destruction,

but also because of the taxes, requisitioning, occupational costs that the war brought on these regions. However, if you look beyond this kind of... And that's where in the book I, what I'm arguing is that the impact of Napoleon and needs to be quant qualified, you know, kind of, you know, you have to approach it very carefully because it depends on particular region and on the duration of the French presence. So the areas that I just mentioned stayed under French control for much longer.

For example, you know, in Belgian case, we talk about from 1794 until 1814, right? There's a much longer duration in time. Compare that, for example, to Calabria and southern. Italy where the French arrive in 1806, they face vociferous resistance from the local population, and they really can't overcome it until 18 or 10, and then in 1814 they are gone. So how much can you accomplish in four years? Or think about Poland, let's say, or in Spain, right? So there is far short a duration of the Napoleonic impact, and there is only so much you can accomplish in that few years.

And so that's where I would argue is that, yes, Napoleon, the introduction of Napoleonic reforms, in many cases, were helpful in changing this system. Now, what I mean by Napoleonic reforms, this is usually centralization of authority. This is professionalization of administration. This is enforcement of new administrative. institutions, and of course, as you mentioned, the new legal framework. Napoleonic Code was, you know, this transformation, this revolutionary change through a legal code. But how long did they stay?

That's the question, right? What's the actual impact on the ground? And that's where you see, once you scratch the surface, that the impact is not as uniform and much, much dependent on the willingness. of the local population to accept this change. And then, you know, in a previous life, you were a lawyer. I'm wondering how that experience or how that background has shaped your understanding of the impact of these reforms and these codes. And I, especially to the question of there's like a perennial debate about whether institutions and laws that have been shaped kind of naturally through tradition and through history or better or ones that are,

what ones that are more technocratic based on more rational principles, whether that's preferable? I wonder what kinds of lessons you draw on questions like that. So that's a, it's a complex question, but it's an interesting question to ponder. And in my own courses, when I teach students, I usually ask to look at what Napoleon try to implement, right? On the legal side of it, with Napoleonic code, go through the provisions of Napoleonic code. And there is a lot that can be qualified as progressive for this period. If we set aside important issues on which Napoleon was not as progressive, for example,

on the issue of the equality of the women or the issue of the property, you know, kind of property rights of certain, you know, children born out of wedlock and all that. But if we look at some of the core elements of the Napoleonic reforms, they are quite progressive. However, is progress always a good thing? That's I usually kind of pose the question to students. And usually the answer is, oh yeah, of course, progress is a good thing. But what if the progress comes in intrusive manner? And it changes the way of life that you are used to, you're comfortable,

with. Then the question becomes whether the progress is actually a good thing. And what I mean by that is that in places like Spain or Italy or in Poland, Napoleonic reforms, as progressives who might argue, right, they were, they threatened to bring about more centralized, therefore, more intrusive power of the state. It threatened to bring about more effective tax collection. more effective administration. It effectively threatened to create a system that held citizens more accountable. Now, today we all like to complain about taxes and about the government overritch, right? So why are we kind of surprised that people in early 1800s would have been complaining about this?

In some of it, some of it might strike as quite, you know, unusually. but in a weird way of ways that, for example, one of the great legacies on Napoleon is the vaccination program. I think that's especially irrelevant in the last two years, right? The government's effort to vaccinate, to boost and all this. And even today, we know that people were resisting it. Right. Now, Napoleon promoted a great vaccination program for smallpox. And he started with his own child, he vaccinated his troops, and then kind of rolled this. program to the territories that he occupied. But in many areas, the people resisted vaccination because it represented government overreach, because it represented the government kind of

telling people you got to vaccinate. And there were parts of Europe where people suspected that vaccination was part of the government's kind of secret plan to control them, which will strike us as a very modern thing. Right. The conspiracy. theories today are not that original. Today there's like a big discrepancy between how Americans and Europeans see the role of the state. Europeans are much more comfortable with it. Is the origin of that that they did have a figure like Napoleon centuries ago who instilled

more centralized and I guess more administrative form of government? Partly. Of course, we have to bear in mind that unlike United States, let's say, all, to a great degree of Britain, continental European history centers around strong authoritarian monarchical rule. Here we see kind of dichotomy of, for example, of the French absolutism with the British parliamentarian limited monarchical development. Or further east we go, right, in Prussia, for example, we see the development of, again, absolutist tendencies in the Camerless system

or further to the east. In Russia, of course, the autocratic monarchical government that predates, of course, Napoleon. So there is a long history of a strong, stateist approach to it. Now, what Napoleon tried to do is he tried to make the state efficient. And in that, he was, I mean, that's actually one of the most fascinating things about him,

is increasing the centralization, the efficiency, the enforcement of the state. In France, we, for example, see that after the turbulent years of revolution, Napoleonic centralization and the enforcement completely changed the relationship between the people and the state. And that includes, for example, in areas like tax. of payments, tax collection, which increased exponentially as Napoleon actually set up the system that held people accountable for it. And that made, I think, the continental power, so the continental

societies are far more willing to accept the role of the state. Now, there is another kind of fold to this, in this. And that goes that after the Napoleonic period, right, once the war is over, And now we're at a period of peace and will last several decades until 1850s with the Crimean War and then with the bigger conflicts of 60s and 70s. But nonetheless, we have about four decades of peace. Well, we have to deal with this kind of gorilla, 800-pound gorilla in the room, and that is the British industrial might. And one of the ways we can deal with that is by maintaining the protective barriers of terrorism. and by increasing the role of the state in the economic development. And here, your listeners can read up on, for example, the economic theories that Friedrich Liszt was the great proponent of,

which indeed championed the role of the state in promoting economic prosperity, in promoting industrialization. And many European states followed exactly that model. Another theory about how the economics here proceeded is maybe the public choice theory model from, like, Mancer Olson, where, you know, he observed that, for example, after what were to economic growth rates in Germany and Japan were increased by a lot. And the theory is just that you got rid of these old institutions and old institutions and these built-in incentives that the old system had. And then maybe similarly in continental Europe, Napoleon gets sort of these guilds. He gets rid of these titles of nobility and these arcane systems. to what extent is public choice theory also a good model of what was happening at the time?

Yes. And that's, I think, yeah, I would agree with that to a great deal in that ultimately, you know, usually end my lectures in my Napoleonic history courses by saying that ultimately Napoleon is a loser in that he lost the war, he lost the empire, he ended life on that Godfors second place. in Atlantic. But the impact that he left stays with that in that in the post-Napolianic period the European powers have to grapple with his legacy.

Even though his changes, for example, are reversed in Italy where his United Kingdom of Italy is abolished and pre-Napoleon Arrangeance are restored, even though we see restoration of the ruling dynasty that he overthrothel, we cannot reverse the clock. We cannot simply go back to pre-Napolianic era and pretend that it didn't happen, right? 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. 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. But overall, I think you're right, that Napoleon represented such a major blow to the old regime that it simply couldn't stayed the way it was. It had to reinvent itself and reinvent it did, right? And in this

post-Napolianic era. And here I do want to point out that oftentimes we think about this post-Napolian reconstruction as this conservative, you know, a reaction, is this arch conservatives and, you know, the reactionaries. But we have to bear in mind that majority of this conservative is we're 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-Napolian era, these great powers were willing to accept reforms and changes that came gradually in a controlled environment. And that's essentially what we see taking place in the decades of the Napoleon is gone. That's very interesting because, you know,

Robert Conquest has these set of laws, and his second law is that any institution that is not explicitly right wing will eventually become left wing. And I don't know, it seems like the course of Europe after Napoleon's similar. Like you have a bloody revolution. You have this person who causes a massive amount of death and war. And then, at least if you're trying to make the monarchical case, right, you'd say, oh, this is a result of these revolution ideals. Obviously, monarchy is better. We should go back to the old ways. you like maybe intellectually you think that that view would get vindicated at least at the time

but it seems like no even even given the immediate consequences of the French Revolution and Napoleon eventually kind of the system he he and the revolution created endured and caught on the rest of Europe do you have any comments on like this this move in history where things maybe left wing is not the right word but and in modern is almost a tautology but maybe you see what I mean. Yes, I think the way I look at it is, and the way I kind of discuss it with my students is that I look at what the revolution promised and at its simplest, right? The revolution was about quest for equality. And that quest can be then kind of, you know, interpret it in a 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 and Napoleon and then of course the post-Napolianic period is not necessarily this, you know, left-wing, right-wing, or liberal, conservative, you know, 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 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 his very first article that men are 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? In French, the term is om, but om, even though it was used in its 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 the revolution, after the Declaration of Rights of Men,

interpreted this provision as saying, well, it's equality of those men who are self-reliant, who 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. And then you will see, again, universal male suffrage coming back in 1848 and staying part 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 1860s and 1880s. It is also part of that quest for greater political equality. Same then, you know, 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, kind of social welfare system? Because these are the ideas the revolutionaries were grappling with, Napoleon was grappling with, and of course in post-Napolianic period, they all were trying to find a way to answer these challenges. So in 1848, for example, French socialists try 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 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 come to come, you know, come 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 quality of human beings. And how is your, how did growing up in the former Soviet Union, how does that shape your views about, sort of idealistic, you know, revolution for equality and then deferring to a sort of enlightened despot. How has that shaped your views here? Well, my kids, I have two kids, of 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, well, thank you, son. 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 in the early 80s, kind of listening to, secretly listening to the broadcasts of voice of America, or 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, you know, that experience within an imperial entity, it does,

it did have an impact on me. And certainly shaped me because Soviet Union collapsed when I was becoming, you know, my character, my personality was being forged in the 90s. And I lived through the debris of the post-Soviet era with this 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 post-Napoleonic era, which was a period of economic turbulence, economic stagnation in

many parts of Europe, not to mention the civil strife that revolution Napoleon unleashed in many parts of Europe. So I think, you know, for example, you know, just if nothing else, I would, you know, oftentimes tell students that, you know, 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, a loaf of bread. And, you know, when I talk about the French experiencing, for example, during revolution, this hardship and trying to. really finds a 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. I guess another aspect of this conflict is, so, you know, I know very little about history,

which is why it was very fun to read this book and to, I guess, venture forth. and learn more about your epistory through the podcast. But one of the things that's interesting to me is that it seems that there's like these punctuated equilibrium in international relations. And, you know, you have these long periods of peace, and then you have these periods where there's massive wars, massive death, borders get reshuffled. I guess from the seven years war to the Napoleonic Wars and then from there to World War I, And then, you know, maybe we can draw that line to today where since World War II we've had peace in Europe and then now we have the conflict in Ukraine.

Is this a pattern you see? And if you do, what is the explanation? 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 that, you know, 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, right, of the countries, of the group of people seeking a course of development that is different from the one that the Russian government has invalienable. for them. So that's where I see, and I mean, it kind of, if you look at the rhetoric that comes from Moscow and then statements by President Putin or his ministers, they all have the echoes of the 19th century great power politics, which as far as I'm concerned should stay part

of history rather than the reality. As you pointed out, in the post-war II period, we went to great length to fashion an international system to prevent the very imperial, so the very kind of great power of 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 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 kind of, to go back to your earlier question about my own experiences. I live through the 90s. I live through the National Liberation Movement. I live through the Civil War. I lived through this 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, you know, as a group of people, to figure out whether we want to be a Western nation,

whether our ideals are more attuned to European 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. And same applies for Ukraine, right? To me, that's the war in Ukraine is about the agency of the Ukrainian people. What changed between before World War II and afterwards? So that didn't change after the Napoleonic Wars. You'd think that after the Napoleonic Wars, that if the international norms could change, they would have changed at that time to be like, okay, no more great conquest.

But, you know, maybe it took to World War II. And then what has caused, what has caused this idea that you can have, you know, these kinds of, you can expand into what you perceive to be your zone of influence? So how do you explain these two different changes of norms? Actually, the interesting thing is the immediate post-Napoleonic era saw the creation of a new international security system, absolutely remarkable. And there are my dear colleagues like Professor Beatrice de Graf from the University of Utrecht has written fascinating studies.

And we talk about just the 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, in 1830s.

And kind of to draw parallel to War I or 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 includes occupational regimes, that includes development schedules of reparation payments. Yes, defeated powers before, right, had to pay war indemnities. but post-Napoleonic era saw 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-war II period.

In 1815, for example, France is divided in the zones of occupation in European powers have occupational troops that are occupying specific regions as a way of de-year. de bonapartize France, just like in the post-war War II, we have Germany dividing the zones of occupation with the policy of denazification. Why was this not implemented after World War I, the occupational part? Was that just a massive oversight? 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 mustily 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 the reality that was very different from in the war, from 1945 when you have a Grand Alliance, and that grand alliance is determined to carve out the zones of occupation, right? I mean, think about United States in 1990, with its self-imposed isolation, is a very different entity from the 1945 United States that is keen on keeping its presence in Europe. Same applies for Russia in 1990 is imploding, while in 1940. 45, 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.

So another question of the Napoleonic wars is it seems that, so, you know, in the seven years war in 1756, you know, France loses. It's not that long before the Napoleonic wars happen. and you know when France is fighting the Napoleonic wars it's like gone through a bloody revolution it's a completely new regime so in many ways it should be in a weaker position it seems just from the politics of what's happening in France and obviously France absolutely dominates for like a decade afterwards so what you know like I mean maybe in like financial terms you can think of like in business there's like private equity where if a firm has good potential but It has a lot of assets under management, but I don't know, it just says bad leadership.

You can have another one that buys it out and then runs it better. So is that the story here? Like, why about it to the French military and government just seemed to get so much more effective between these two wars? Yes, I think there are multiple threats that come together in this period. So one of them, for example, is the France's ability to mass mobilize. And that is particularly clear in 1793-95 period when in response to being confronted by the European coalition, France begins a system that we refer to as Levei Ann Muss, 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 isolated

affairs that didn't affect the society as a whole, right? So you have much smaller forces, you know, the conflicts for the kind of 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 a Levinas decree, it talks about young men registering and serving, children participating in helping in production, in manufacturing, women supporting the home front and even the, elderly, kind of providing that moral boost and kind of inspiration and leadership for the population.

It's a more encompassing vision of nation at war. And it's very difficult to defeat an entity like this. And France shows that, you know, with this, that they are as a nation that can mobilize greater manpower, that can put greater government controls on the economy and armed with an ideology that it can overrun what we will, you know, can they call the old regime forces. It doesn't mean that the old regime armies were inherently weaker or inherently kind of in the 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 or testifies to resilience of the old regime.

But it is also a conflict in which the old regime has to respond, has to kind of tweak itself. Napoleon then, 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, brilliant individual, very capable, workaholic, an individual who could multitask like, unlike anyone you really can, you know, encountering in pages of history books.

He's ability to control at the height of the empire, a virtual continent, an entire continent before the time of phones and internet and mask, right, instant communication, is just staggering. And Napoleon does play an important role because of his sheer brilliance on the battlefield. I mean, it's hard to imagine kind of France going on the 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, right? 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, and that's part of it. that kind of economic side of the history is a brilliant financial wizard that, as far as I'm concerned, essentially bankrolled Napoleon for much of his reign and most crucially insured rapid French reconstruction in the post-Nopolionic era. So it's dealing with this individual agency that also makes this period fascinating because you find the characters that are simply amazing. I wonder what you think of this, but it seems to me, you know, I'm in, I'm in tech circles.

And it seems to me that if Napoleon was alive today, he'd be a founder, as you mentioned. I love that. The long hours, the ability to micromanage and to multitask, the, obviously, the leadership and the ability to inspire. And then also, most importantly, maybe the, the sort of the risk, the risk taking there, right? if you see something, well, I mean, a startup founder has to, they're probably going to fail, so they're just trying to maximize the expected value, like increase the odds that you have a true dollar company, not necessarily that you have, make any money, not necessarily increase the odds you make some money. So, yeah, just the risk-taking, especially, it seems to me that,

what do you think about this? Would Napoleon, I don't know, V.C. I don't know, V.C. I'll have a decision of Napoleon as Elon Musk, right? There is a fascinating movie. It's a kind of light comedy called Emperor's New Clod that envisions Napoleon escaping from San Helena Island in disguise, leaving a double. 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, he comes to dominate the baking business in Paris. So, Napoleon, yes, somebody already envisioned him as the startup guy. Emperor's new clothes. He's a wonderful Yan home reprising the role of Napoleon, and he's quite good at it.

So he does have a mindset for that. Napoleon has ability, well, first of all, let me put it. By nature, he was very gifted men with the almost photographic memory. So he retained minutiae of detail. And I've spent better part of quarter of century examining his documents and going through the archives and dealing with the paperwork that he left behind. And it's prodigious. We just finished a collective effort of publishing kind of compilation of. of his personal letters, and we had to stop at 44,000. And that doesn't account for the government decision and government paperwork that he reviewed and then signed on. And, you know, in when, in my books on 1812, you kind of see him, you know, deep in Russia. He's governing empire that stretches 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 micromanic. I mean, have you seen the videos? Yeah. Have you seen the videos of Elon Musk going through the minutia of these. That's what I'm saying. And then also like the raft rate. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Napoleon would have been that. And the worst thing is that I don't know how Elon's memory is, Napoleon's is brilliant. and he would be kind of, oh, on a page, this, call, you know, footnote that, you found, you found, there is a fascinating moment when he's in Moscow, 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, in 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 in learning what Alex said on Thursday and what Warfare said on Friday, right? And there's an expression of public sentiment.

So, no, he had all the preconditions for it. And kind of at the last point, he loved technology. And he supported technology. He'd support, 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 awards for developing new weights of preserving food, which led to conservation. You know, the kind of jars that we are now consuming, right, actually come from Napoleon, Icar. Or it is Napoleon who, for example, conducted or supported experiments on developing submarines. technology. In fact, in the middle of Paris on the Sand River, they tested submarines.

Now, 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. Yeah, it's similar with, I think, many other important leaders in history. I think Churchill was a big, he was a big aviator, and I think he crashed at least once. And also he he saw the importance of tanks early on, I think, while he was in India or something. So, yeah, that's very interesting. Now, you mentioned earlier that this era in history in France brought forth a lot of great young leaders and a lot of young talent.

Was it just that the old people got killed during the revolution? Was there something else going on? No, not necessarily good. No, revolution was bloody, but not 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, you know, still play the role I mean, it's a You know, if there is one constant in the inconstancy of human nature And that is that, you know, the nepotism and corruption stays with us But to a far greater degree, merit played a role. And so you see that in the people Napoleon promoted and surrounding himself with, where, again, his cabinet is quite capable.

And he stays so throughout the empire. And not just in military, as I said, but it's in finance and administration, in science. It's the ability for a person from a humble background to go to a school, to distinguish himself through his, and at this time, it's largely his, right? The women were not given the equality through his talent and merit and rise to the top. That's what matters. And that's what is missing, I think, in many other areas of Europe at this time in parts, like in Spain, in southern Italy, in Austria, 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. Bourbonne will be back. But even Bourbonne 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 careers open to merit. to this model of the sort of enlightened death spot, it seems that that's more less common today. Maybe the most recent one would have been somebody like Lee Huang Yu, who is a similar model to Napoleon. But what happened to figures like this in our government? 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... the product of the revolutionary circumstances, but he does not necessarily represent revolution as I mentioned in the book, he's the last of the enlightened despots. Because much of what he tried to establish, much what he tried to introduce inequality, but also order and efficiency, these are not necessarily the revolutionary ideal, but these are ideas that other enlightened despots, including Frederick the Great, including Joseph II of Austria, right, tried also to various degree of success implementing in their countries. Napoleon, I think, is the last of them and probably the most successful in that his system

survived. And the reason why he's most successful in Frederick or 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 the revolutionary events in Paris, that he consistently came out against or expressed opinion against the radicalism of the crowd. And that, to me, is kind of an element in his mindset that tells that he is not a rule. know, revolution on horseback as such, but enlightened despotism. Once he passed away, right, once he's off the 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, acutely, as Napoleon did it. But that's because circumstances have 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-Kramian 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, you know, I think you can make an argument connecting those dots. And then what happened to that, that form of government?

It seems that other than, yeah, other than Singapore, it's kind of a lost... No, I mean, I wouldn't say... Would you consider, for example, Soviet state as that? Because it is a statist approach that is ushering. 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 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. And then this is the question of mental. to ask you earlier, which is when we were talking about how this was a unique time in terms of giving these talented young people access to positions based on their merit. Is that possibly one of the advantages of war, which is that you have to, if the weak perish, then the nations have a very strong incentive to make sure their systems and their government are as efficient as possible. If you look at, let's say the U.S., it's still a meritocracy, maybe in like private markets,

but there's the average age of congressmen and president seems to keep increasing. And maybe that has something to do with, it's not like titles and nobility anymore, but it is a greater at greater levels of their accreditation. Is this one of the defenses of war, which is that it forces countries to become more efficient that they need to win? No, I think that's a challenging question to deal with. in the sense because, you know, in the late 19th century, you know, social Darwinists, for example,

argued that war was a great perjure of societies that rejuvenates it. And I'm not sure that we want to kind of go back to that argument. You know, the war, I mean, the sheer nature of the war is that that it makes things possible that in peacetime would be unthinkable. it has a great homogenizing effects. It suppresses some of the sharper edges or in some areas actually makes those sharper edges even more pronounced. And certainly when we talk about it with French Revolution, for example, without the war, the revolution would not have radicalized as rapidly or to the extent that it did.

Without the conflict that starts 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 the 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 crucial. And certainly within that context, right, in the context of war, there are a lot of things that revolutionaries 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 maximums, for example, that Jacobins introduced during the terror. All that is in the context of that fear, of that anxiety, of that emergence situation that war cultivates. That's where I see the, 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, to go back to what you said about the war being this

kind of great perjure, it certainly had a role in weeding out many officers in the French Corps. Many of them immigrated, left the army. Some of them failed in the tasks that the revolution of government set for them and were punished dearly so forth. We have several cases like General Kustan or General Borne or 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 any respect how Napoleon got his start, right? In 1793, he's a lowly nobody in the French army, and yet

he's the one 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, right? And all is done within this war environment. Who knows how things would have turned if there was no war and Napoleon would have been able to distinguish himself or the other generals that went on to make great careers? It seems that one of the reasons that the the revolutionary and the philonic ideas spread a lot was that also at the time that france was the seat of of intellectual discourse at the time why was that you know maybe today uh america has that sort of cultural influence that france had at the time when you read like war and peace you know that all

the elites and russia are talking in french um what what gave france its cultural dominance of That's a longer kind of structural historical process. We can go back to 17th century and see the rise of France as a dominant, both political entity in Western Europe and the cultural kind of entity in Europe as a whole. I think it's a creation of Louis 14th era, the grandeur of the French monarchy, the opaleness, the luxury of it, the diversity and the richness of French offerings. And of course, you know, this is where I think it gets really interesting in the sense that France is oftentimes envisioned as an absolutist monarchy with the 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, you can find anti-enlightment writers. But alongside you will see Voltaire, you will see Rousse. so or the less known ones like Holbach, who was an atheist who was writing critical works against the organized religion and 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 the other country that was successful in doing it, of course, Britain, but which had a very vibrant and rich intellectual life at this time.

I want to be respectful for your time. So is there the book is the Napoleonic Wars of global history? And yeah, if you want to mention your Twitter handle. It's just, yeah, my first name and last name. So it's pretty straightforward. If you can spell my last name, Mika Bates, you'll find me. You know, when I was doing research for the book, there were many times when I had to look up your, I was like, maybe trying to look up older interviews or something.

And every time I had to go to Amazon and then like make sure I copy the name right. My students call me Dr. Amps, which make me kind of character from the James Bond movie, but it's easier for them to record to remember it. Sure. Yeah, and then, yeah, any other, I don't know if there's like a some final note or some final point that you want to close on, something that stuck out from the conversation? I think, you know, this book represents kind of 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 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 the more, you know, in our day, nowadays,

we live in such an interconnected world that transnational and comparative approach is absolutely essential to your success in really in any field of career that you pursue. And certainly in politics, in 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. From the little history I have read, usually it's like a biography or something. And you really do miss the global implications of the decisions that are being made and the changes that they're happening. So it was super interesting to get that total perspective.

So yeah, it's a super fascinating book. And this is a super fun conversation. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for the opportunity. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you did, and we want to help support it, the most helpful,

you can do is share it on social media and with your friends. Other than that, please like and comment on YouTube and leave good reviews on podcast platforms. Cheers and thanks for watching.