text:
Talk:Postmodernism

Section on "Origin of Term" Is Inaccurate
The statement that Chapman used the term "postmodern" in 1870 is unfounded. See Oxford English Dictionary for documented early uses of "postmodern" and related terms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.36.7.1 (talk) 03:19, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

structural issues
Hey all,

I'm looking at doing some edits to the top of this article (i.e., above Manifestations section) with stronger sourcing to academic works by actual subject-matter experts. There are also, however, some structural issues I wanted to check in on before beginning.

Is there a reason for treating Origin and History separately? I haven't yet worked through the material in detail, but I would default to combining these into one section, probably entitled Etymology, to precede Definition (or perhaps, as with the work I've been doing on Irony, something more along the lines of The Challenge of Definition).

The Theories and Derivatives section is confusing to me. Structuralism and post-structuralism are precursors to postmodernism that were after-the-fact co-opted under that umbrella term. This should be clear in the article. Post-postmodernism seems like it ought to belong to a Legacy section that does not exist (and so maybe should just be its own section after Manifestations until it does?).

I don't love that the header Manifestations suggests there is some one thing called postmodernism that has been theoretically articulated and appears under various guises in different media. My objection is not that this is contrary to postmodern theory, but just that it is a dubious claim that should not be presented as fact without strong sourcing. Lastly, shouldn't Philosophy, to the extent that it has not already been covered incidentally by Etymology and Definition, fall under this header (whatever the best term may be), rather than as its own section above what are currently presented as "manifestations"?

Any input appreciated!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:11, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

 * I have not abandoned this. The structure now makes sense to me except for the question of where to put the precursor movements of (post-)structuralism and deconstruction. The next thing on my agenda, which is arguably the main thing, is the section currently titled Definition. I might incorporate them there—although this would probably require condensing them a bit, which I haven't worked through, but don't love.
 * Right now, the Definition section is sourced primarily to Britannica, which is not a good source on philosophical topics, and to notes from an old PBS series with no authorship attribution. A few look good, but lack page numbers. I haven't checked all of them, but Bryant, Ian; Johnston, Rennie; Usher, Robin (2004), at least, does not support the claim for which it is cited. My plan is to start fresh, but incorporate as much of what is there as is verifiably and due. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:06, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I finally got a draft into good enough shape to post to the mainspace. There is obviously a great deal that could (and should!) be added, but I think that it is nevertheless an improvement over the previous version—particularly with respect to sourcing.
 * I plan to give it a few days in case anyone has serious objections. Then I will rewrite the lead to summarize the current version of the article.
 * In the future, I also hope also to flesh out the philosophical part of the article as much as is appropriate when there is a child article, postmodern philosophy. I might also fiddle with the later parts of the article, but I have no plans to rewrite that material.
 * Cheers, Patrick (talk) 21:45, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Items for further improvement:
 * "In various arts" should have a section devoted to film.
 * The "In theory" section should be rewritten to focus on the influence of Derrida in the 1970s and Foucault in the 1980s. Probably coverage of Lyotard should be expanded beyond what is included in "Usage/Later developments". Baudrillard needs to be covered, and (per multiple sources) Richard Rorty. Barthes and Lacan would also be justified by the literature, but appear secondary. Anything more than this is probably best left to the postmodern philosophy child article.
 * "In theory" should also have a subsection on postmodern theology.
 * The "In society" section should have a subsection on the deployment of the term in non-academic political/cultural/popular discourse. It's remarkable that such a messy academic term should attain such currency outside of the academy. Suggestions for sourcing on this would be most welcome. I'm not even sure where best to look.
 * Per overview sources, "Criticisms" should give a paragraph each to both Jürgen Habermas and Fredric Jameson. More detailed discussion is best reserved for criticism of postmodernism.
 * I'm not going to do all of this, but I welcome comments on the above or, as always, other suggestions. Even just establishing a good TOC enables and encourages productive edits.
 * Cheers, Patrick (talk) 20:14, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Intellectual vs. Anti-Intellectual
made the following two edits: , changing the first line from:

 * Postmodernism is an intellectual...

to:

 * Postmodernism is an anti-intellectual...

I explained on the the editors' talk page that we require sources, and eventually the editor provided this as a source:

I know enough about Postmodernism to know that the above source is not representing Postmodernism correctly; however, I am not familiar with the WP:RS in this article. I am hoping someone else who is more familiar with topic and the sourcing can explain the issues with the above source and why it would not be sufficient to make such a drastic change to the WP:LEDE. I also don't know enough about the publication to know if that source is reliable.

My assumption is that the author Marcel Kuntz is not an expert in an appropriate field, e.g. Philosophy, Semiotics, Critical theory, Literary criticism or Postmodernism. His expertise is in biotech. GMO is mostly what the article is actually about. The author seems to have no familiarity with the major issues with Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy) that go back to the Ancient Greeks and probably before them. Although Nietzsche's work was the first thing we read in my Postmodernism class, anyone with knowledge of Ancient philosophy and Modern philosophy knows the problems of subjectivity, Metaphysics, and what can be known (Epistemology) with certainty. These issues have been with us a long time. Descartes pondered this. David Hume had a scathing attack on the use of inductive reasoning in Empiricism in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. And Kant came up with a fantastic response in Critique of Pure Reason where he posits the Thing-in-itself. All this long before Nietzsche's scathing criticism of Western morality in works like On the Genealogy of Morality, which caused Analytical Philosophers like Bertrand Russell to attack him and his works. Based on my knowledge and the sources I have read, Kuntz does not seem to be familiar with any of this (or inexplicably omits it). What I also find so puzzling in Kuntz's writing is that he makes no mention of Uncertainty principle or the subjectivity inherent in the Theory of relativity. --David Tornheim (talk) 04:49, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

 * Author goes on about deconstruction at length, fails to mention Derrida once. Simonm223 (talk) 17:21, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

flagging weak entry
This description of postmodernism is poor: relies too much on thin accounts of postmodernism. Why isn't Fredric Jameson cited? I always ck wikipedia when writing lectures as some students will get info here. This account is misleading and unclear. 2600:1700:6237:D400:1885:E491:ACAC:E8E8 (talk) 16:57, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

 * Great suggestion for improvement. Do you have some proposed text to bring Jameson in? He's definitely an appropriate source. Simonm223 (talk) 17:02, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree that the article needs a lot of work, some of which I have been doing—at an admittedly plodding pace (see above). Jameson does appear in Criticism_of_postmodernism, but I agree he is important enough to merit mention as a critic in this article, perhaps also to be cited in a rewritten Definition(s) section. Left to my own devices, he probably will crop up somewhere. But if either of you have any specific language you want to see, please consider adding it yourself or sharing it here.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 17:16, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This section from the start of his postmodernism book is a good place to start shaping something probably.
 * Thus, abstract expressionism in painting, existentialism in philosophy, the final forms of representation in the novel, the films of the great auteurs, or the modernist school of poetry (as institutionalized and canonized in the works of Wallace Stevens): all these are now seen as the final, extraordinary flowering of a high modernist impulse which is spent and exhausted with them. The enumeration of what follows then at once becomes empirical, chaotic, and heterogeneous
 * But it's rather too long to use as a quote. Simonm223 (talk) 17:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Later we have every position on postmodernism in culture— whether apologia or stigmatization—is also at one and the same time, and necessarily, an implicitly or explicitly political stance on the nature of multinational capitalism today. - which is an excellent turn of phrase. Simonm223 (talk) 17:28, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

still to do
Since I take the structural issues discussed above to be mostly resolved, I'm starting a new thread. Mostly what I'm interested in here is other improvements to the article could be made without too much research in a way that might encourage and facilitate contributions from those with more subject-matter expertise. Here's my current list:

 * "In various arts" needs a section lead to provide even just a superficial explanation of why all these different things are grouped together as specifically postmodern.
 * It also needs a film section and a dance section. Even if these are very short, they can Wikilink out to their respective pages.
 * There are some mostly unsourced lists that need to be trimmed back or removed.
 * "In theory" needs to be rewritten in view of the "Theoretical development" section above. It might go back to "In philosophy" since the article can now dispense with most of the material on poststructuralism already covered. There are a few other names that show up in the literature that should be at least mentioned: D&G, Rorty, Habermas (again), Jameson (again), and Baudrillard (again) and possibly a few others who appear in some surveys (but are completely ignored in others). But since the article has a child page and some of this has been partially covered above, I expect it to be shorter when I am finished.
 * The "Criticisms" section is at least 80% criticisms of a specifically philosophical position (that, incidentally, very few people actually hold). I will probably move much of this to postmodern philosophy and see if there is anything at criticism of postmodernism that ought to be restored here to help keep this an appropriately general article.
 * I removed the the rather useless sidebar from its place at the top of the article. Trying to put it at the bottom, however, I learned that to do this requires it be reproduced according to a different template. If I can cut-and-paste my way through most of that, I'll do it. Otherwise, it's on someone else.
 * I'm pretty sure that postmodern theology is enough of a thing to merit inclusion somewhere.
 * The article lead needs to be rewritten to properly summarize the article for a general audience. Once that is done, I believe the maintenance banner can be safely removed.

Is there anything obvious I am missing?

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 22:45, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

 * I addressed "Criticisms" as per above. Probably even the remaining material should be integrated into sections above where applicable. It's difficult to meaningfully criticize such diverse phenomena in a general way. (And the problems with using "postmodern" as a general term are already highlighted near the top of the article.) Patrick (talk) 19:17, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

new article lead
I've drafted a new lead for the article. It's an imperfect summary of a far from perfect article. Please share ideas for improvement!

Keep in mind that the lead is just a plain-language overview of the content of the article. Anything that is conspicuously missing or wrong in the lead needs to be added to the body of the article with supporting sources before changing anything non-egregiously wrong at the top. For the same reason, per WP:CITELEAD, the body of the article is the source of the lead; individual citations are not recommended except to prevent interventions by editors not aware of this policy. (Probably that will prove to be the case here, but I suggest we wait and respond just to issues that actually emerge.)

Here's the draft that, absent objections, I will soon publish to the article:

Postmodernism is a term used to refer to a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break with modernism. What they have in common is the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of representing reality. Still, there is disagreement among experts about its more precise meaning even within narrowly defined contexts.

The term began to acquire its current range of meanings in literary criticism and architectural theory during the 1950s–1960s. Building upon poststructural theory, postmodern thought defined itself by the rejection of any single, foundational historical narrative. This called into question the legitimacy of the Enlightenment account of progress and rationality.

In opposition to modernism's alleged self-seriousness, postmodernism is characterized by its playful use of irony and pastiche, among other features. Critics claim that it supplants moral, political, and aesthetic ideals with mere style and spectacle.

In the 1990s, "postmodernism" came to denote a general – and, in general, celebratory – response to cultural pluralism. Proponents align themselves with feminism, multiculturalism, and post-colonialism. Critics, however, allege that its premises lead to a nihilistic form of relativism. In this sense, it has become a term of abuse in popular culture.

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 00:47, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Postmodernism


text:
User:Magnus Manske/Old Contributions

This will some day become a list of articles I made (major) contributions to:

Biochemistry:
 * G protein-coupled receptor -- GTPase -- adenylate cyclase -- transmembrane receptor -- signal transduction -- synapse -- enzyme -- Citric acid cycle -- phospholipid -- denaturation -- Insulin-like growth factor -- Human Growth Hormone -- trypsin -- chymotrypsin

Genetics:
 * lambda phage -- Human Genome Project -- chromosome walking -- shotgun sequencing -- PCR -- chromosome -- gel electrophoresis -- agarose gel electrophoresis -- Mendelian inheritance -- transposon

General biology:
 * mitochondrion -- endoplasmic reticulum -- Golgi apparatus -- ribosome -- endomembrane system -- nucleus -- nucleolus -- nuclear pore -- nuclear envelope -- peroxisome -- vacuole -- vesicle -- Pilus -- Antibiotic resistance -- Phage -- Cystic Fibrosis -- Mycoplasma Genitalium -- Bacillus thuringiensis -- beta-Lactam -- tetracycline -- chloramphenicol -- ampicillin -- adaptive radiation -- mitochondria -- capsid -- apoptosis

Biographies:
 * Charles Darwin -- Gregor Mendel -- Albertus Magnus -- Vladimir Vasilevich Markovnikov -- Justus von Liebig -- Lise Meitner -- Antoine Laurent Lavoisier -- Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck -- Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev -- Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch -- Robert Wilhelm Bunsen -- Niels Bohr -- Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe

Other:
 * Cologne -- Salicylic acid -- Oxygen -- Phlogiston theory

Not including countless stub articles here ;)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Magnus Manske/Old Contributions


text:
Talk:Reverse transcriptase

Rewrite tag
I am not entirely sure, but as far as I remember RTase added dTs opposite As in the RNA. I am not sure dUs even exist in cells. The ASCII diagram urgently needs to be replaced, IMO. The sectioning makes the article difficult to read. Most sections should either be significant expanded or merged into other sections or introduction. There are several factual errors as well. For example, RNA viruses are definitely not synonymous with retroviruses. True RNA viruses, such as picornaviruses (eg. Polio)), unlike retroviruses never go through a DNA stage and use an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase rather than a reverse transcriptase. In light of all this I am replacing the cleanup tag with a rewrite tag. Peter Znamenskiy 20:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed, this article is woefully organised and badly in need of some error fixing. Two subheadings called examples! Crikey. It's going on my to-do list --  Serephine   ♠   talk   - 05:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup
Cleanup done, citations replaced. Things still need to be done include: --  Serephine   ♠   talk   - 09:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * a diagram for the process of reverse transcription
 * a diagram of the structure of a RT
 * More information on the structure of RT

 * Brilliant work! I will try to expand the stucture section when I get fulltext access to e-journals. Peter Z.Talk 16:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Avogadro23 (talk) 19:53, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I see that the diagram has been added for the process, but it shows 8 steps. The text description under section "Retroviral Reverse Transcription" gives 8. There seems to be a discrepancy here. Also: I have only used RT in vitro, so perhaps I'm not understanding the viral process, but I think there are some issues with the description. How can the primer jump to the first strand (step 7) if it has already been degraded (Step 5)?

double stranded DNA?
I'm not sure that the "double stranded DNA" part should be included in the RT definition. After all some RTs synthesise only one strand of DNA - cDNA. But maybe I'm biased as a person who uses it only for reverse transcription in vitro. Independovirus (talk) 11:52, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Merge
I think Reverse transcriptase and Reverse transcription may be merged, because they basically tell the same thing, the same phenomenon. Better have them together to get the whole thing. Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:59, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

 * Anyhow, it's done now. Mikael Häggström (talk) 07:32, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Reverse Transcriptases will synthesize both strands, they are true DNA polymerases (in addition to being RNA Dependent DNA polymerases, they are indeed DNA dependent DNA polymerases similar to the ones replicating cellular genomes while you wrote your comments), assuming they have an available annealed oligonucleotide primer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ekennedt (talk • contribs) 23:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

RT is not specific to retroviruses or other "viruses"
RT is present in all cells, healthy and unhealthy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:540:C400:8C80:A8B2:DA0B:FF02:7105 (talk) 01:34, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Reverse transcriptase


text:
George I of Great Britain

George I (George Louis; Georg Ludwig; 28 May 1660 – 11 June 1727) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 and ruler of the Electorate of Hanover within the Holy Roman Empire from 23 January 1698 until his death in 1727. He was the first British monarch of the House of Hanover.

Born in Hanover to Ernest Augustus and Sophia of Hanover, George inherited the titles and lands of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg from his father and uncles. In 1682, he married his cousin Sophia Dorothea of Celle, with whom he had two children; he also had three daughters with his mistress Melusine von der Schulenburg. George and Sophia Dorothea divorced in 1694. A succession of European wars expanded George's German domains during his lifetime; he was ratified as prince-elector of Hanover in 1708.

As the senior Protestant descendant of James VI and I, George's great-grandfather, he inherited the British throne following the deaths in 1714 of his mother, Sophia, and his second cousin Anne, Queen of Great Britain. Jacobites attempted, but failed, to depose George and replace him with James Francis Edward Stuart, Anne's Catholic half-brother. During George's reign the powers of the monarchy diminished, and Britain began a transition to the modern system of cabinet government led by a prime minister. Towards the end of his reign, actual political power was held by Robert Walpole, now recognised as Britain's first de facto prime minister. George died of a stroke on a journey to his native Hanover, where he was buried. He is the most recent British monarch to be buried outside the United Kingdom.

Early life
George was born on 28 May 1660 in the city of Hanover in the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire. He was the eldest son of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and his wife, Sophia of the Palatinate. Sophia was the granddaughter of King James I of England, through her mother, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia.

For the first year of his life George was the only heir to the German territories of his father and three childless uncles. George's brother, Frederick Augustus, was born in 1661, and the two boys (known respectively by the family as "Görgen" and "Gustchen") were brought up together. In 1662 the family moved to Osnabrück when Ernest Augustus was appointed ruler of the Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück, while his older brother George William ruled in Hanover. They lived at Iburg Castle outside the city until 1673 when they moved to the newly completed Schloss Osnabrück. The parents were absent for almost a year (1664–1665) during a long convalescent holiday in Italy but Sophia corresponded regularly with her sons' governess and took a great interest in their upbringing, even more so upon her return. Sophia bore Ernest Augustus another four sons and a daughter. In her letters Sophia describes George as a responsible, conscientious child who set an example to his younger brothers and sisters.

By 1675 George's eldest uncle had died without issue, but his remaining two uncles had married, putting George's inheritance in jeopardy, for his uncles' estates might pass to their own sons, were they to have any, instead of to George. George's father took him hunting and riding and introduced him to military matters; mindful of his uncertain future, Ernest Augustus took the fifteen-year-old George on campaign in the Franco-Dutch War with the deliberate purpose of testing and training his son in battle.

In 1679 another uncle died unexpectedly without sons, and Ernest Augustus became reigning Duke of Calenberg-Göttingen, with his capital at Hanover. George's surviving uncle, George William of Celle, had married his mistress in order to legitimise his only daughter, Sophia Dorothea, but looked unlikely to have any further children. Under Salic law, where inheritance of territory was restricted to the male line, the succession of George and his brothers to the territories of their father and uncle now seemed secure. In 1682 the family agreed to adopt the principle of primogeniture, meaning George would inherit all the territory and not have to share it with his brothers.

Marriage
In 1682, George married Sophia Dorothea of Celle, the daughter of his uncle George William, thereby securing additional incomes that would have been outside Salic laws. This marriage of state was arranged primarily to ensure a healthy annual income, and assisted the eventual unification of Hanover and Celle. His mother at first opposed the marriage because she looked down on Sophia Dorothea's mother, Eleonore (who came from lower French nobility), and because she was concerned by Sophia Dorothea's legitimated status. She was eventually won over by the advantages inherent in the marriage.

In 1683, George and his brother Frederick Augustus served in the Great Turkish War at the Battle of Vienna, and Sophia Dorothea bore George a son, George Augustus. The following year, Frederick Augustus was informed of the adoption of primogeniture, meaning he would no longer receive part of his father's territory as he had expected. This led to a breach between Frederick Augustus and his father, and between the brothers, that lasted until his death in battle in 1690. With the imminent formation of a single Hanoverian state, and the Hanoverians' continuing contributions to the Empire's wars, Ernest Augustus was made an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire in 1692. George's prospects were now better than ever as the sole heir to his father's electorate and his uncle's duchy.

Sophia Dorothea had a second child, a daughter named after her, in 1687, but there were no other pregnancies. The couple became estranged—George preferred the company of his mistress, Melusine von der Schulenburg, and Sophia Dorothea had her own romance with the Swedish Count Philip Christoph von Königsmarck. Threatened with the scandal of an elopement, the Hanoverian court, including George's brothers and mother, urged the lovers to desist, but to no avail. According to diplomatic sources from Hanover's enemies, in July 1694, the Swedish count was killed, possibly with George's connivance, and his body thrown into the river Leine weighted with stones. The murder was claimed to have been committed by four of Ernest Augustus's courtiers, one of whom, Don Nicolò Montalbano, was paid the enormous sum of 150,000 thalers, about one hundred times the annual salary of the highest-paid minister. Later rumours supposed that Königsmarck was hacked to pieces and buried beneath the Hanover palace floorboards. However, sources in Hanover itself, including Sophia, denied any knowledge of Königsmarck's whereabouts.

George's marriage to Sophia Dorothea was dissolved, not on the grounds that either of them had committed adultery, but on the grounds that Sophia Dorothea had abandoned her husband. With her father's agreement, George had Sophia Dorothea imprisoned in Ahlden House in her native Celle, where she stayed until she died more than thirty years later. She was denied access to her children and father, forbidden to remarry and only allowed to walk unaccompanied within the mansion courtyard. She was, however, endowed with an income, establishment, and servants, and allowed to ride in a carriage outside her castle under supervision. Melusine von der Schulenburg acted as George's hostess openly from 1698 until his death, and they had three daughters together, born in 1692, 1693 and 1701.

Electoral reign
Ernest Augustus died on 23 January 1698, leaving all of his territories to George with the exception of the Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück, an office he had held since 1661. George thus became Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (also known as Hanover, after its capital) as well as Archbannerbearer and a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire. His court in Hanover was graced by many cultural icons such as the mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz and the composers George Frideric Händel and Agostino Steffani.

Shortly after George's accession to his paternal duchy, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, who was second-in-line to the English and Scottish thrones, died. By the terms of the English Act of Settlement 1701, George's mother, Sophia, was designated as the heir to the English throne if the then reigning monarch, William III, and his sister-in-law, Anne, died without surviving issue. The succession was so designed because Sophia was the closest Protestant relative of the British royal family. Fifty-six Catholics with superior hereditary claims were bypassed. The likelihood of any of them converting to Protestantism for the sake of the succession was remote; some had already refused.

In August 1701, George was invested with the Order of the Garter and, within six weeks, the nearest Catholic claimant to the thrones, the former king James II, died. William III died the following March and was succeeded by Anne. Sophia became heiress presumptive to the new Queen of England. Sophia was in her seventy-first year, thirty-five years older than Anne, but she was very fit and healthy and invested time and energy in securing the succession either for herself or for her son. However, it was George who understood the complexities of English politics and constitutional law, which required further acts in 1705 to naturalise Sophia and her heirs as English subjects, and to detail arrangements for the transfer of power through a Regency Council. In the same year, George's surviving uncle died and he inherited further German dominions: the Principality of Lüneburg-Grubenhagen, centred at Celle.

Shortly after George's accession in Hanover, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) broke out. At issue was the right of Philip, the grandson of King Louis XIV of France, to succeed to the Spanish throne under the terms of King Charles II of Spain's will. The Holy Roman Empire, the United Dutch Provinces, England, Hanover and many other German states opposed Philip's right to succeed because they feared that the French House of Bourbon would become too powerful if it also controlled Spain. As part of the war effort, George invaded his neighbouring state, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, which was pro-French, writing out some of the battle orders himself. The invasion succeeded with few lives lost. As a reward, the prior Hanoverian annexation of the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg by George's uncle was recognised by the British and Dutch.

In 1706, the Elector of Bavaria was deprived of his offices and titles for siding with Louis against the Empire. The following year, George was invested as an Imperial Field Marshal with command of the imperial army stationed along the Rhine. His tenure was not altogether successful, partly because he was deceived by his ally, the Duke of Marlborough, into a diversionary attack, and partly because Emperor Joseph I appropriated the funds necessary for George's campaign for his own use. Despite this, the German princes thought he had acquitted himself well. In 1708, they formally confirmed George's position as a Prince-Elector in recognition of, or because of, his service. George did not hold Marlborough's actions against him; he understood they were part of a plan to lure French forces away from the main attack.

In 1709, George resigned as field marshal, never to go on active service again. In 1710, he was granted the dignity of Arch-Treasurer of the Empire, an office formerly held by the Elector Palatine; the absence of the Elector of Bavaria allowed a reshuffling of offices. The emperor's death in 1711 threatened to destroy the balance of power in the opposite direction, so the war ended in 1713 with the ratification of the Treaty of Utrecht. Philip was allowed to succeed to the Spanish throne but removed from the French line of succession, and the Elector of Bavaria was restored.

Accession in Great Britain and Ireland
Though both England and Scotland recognised Anne as their queen, only the Parliament of England had settled on Sophia, Electress of Hanover, as the heir presumptive. The Parliament of Scotland (the Estates) had not formally settled the succession question for the Scottish throne. In 1703, the Estates passed a bill declaring that their selection for Queen Anne's successor would not be the same individual as the successor to the English throne, unless England granted full freedom of trade to Scottish merchants in England and its colonies. At first Royal Assent was withheld, but the following year Anne capitulated to the wishes of the Estates and assent was granted to the bill, which became the Act of Security 1704. In response the English Parliament passed the Alien Act 1705, which threatened to restrict Anglo-Scottish trade and cripple the Scottish economy if the Estates did not agree to the Hanoverian succession. Eventually, in 1707, both Parliaments agreed on a Treaty of Union, which united England and Scotland into a single political entity, the Kingdom of Great Britain, and established the rules of succession as laid down by the Act of Settlement 1701. The union created the largest free trade area in 18th-century Europe.

Whig politicians believed Parliament had the right to determine the succession, and to bestow it on the nearest Protestant relative of the Queen, while many Tories were more inclined to believe in the hereditary right of the Catholic Stuarts, who were nearer relations. In 1710, George announced that he would succeed in Britain by hereditary right, as the right had been removed from the Stuarts, and he retained it. "This declaration was meant to scotch any Whig interpretation that parliament had given him the kingdom [and] ... convince the Tories that he was no usurper."

George's mother, the Electress Sophia, died on 28 May 1714 at the age of 83. She had collapsed in the gardens at Herrenhausen after rushing to shelter from a shower of rain. George was now Queen Anne's heir presumptive. He swiftly revised the membership of the Regency Council that would take power after Anne's death, as it was known that Anne's health was failing and politicians in Britain were jostling for power. She suffered a stroke, which left her unable to speak, and died on 1 August 1714. The list of regents was opened, the members sworn in, and George was proclaimed King of Great Britain and King of Ireland. Partly due to contrary winds, which kept him in The Hague awaiting passage, he did not arrive in Britain until 18 September. George was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 20 October. His coronation was accompanied by rioting in over twenty towns in England.

George mainly lived in Great Britain after 1714, though he visited his home in Hanover in 1716, 1719, 1720, 1723 and 1725. In total, George spent about one fifth of his reign as king in Germany. A clause in the Act of Settlement that forbade the British monarch from leaving the country without Parliament's permission was unanimously repealed in 1716. During all but the first of the King's absences, power was vested in a Regency Council rather than in his son, George Augustus, Prince of Wales.

Wars and rebellions
Within a year of George's accession the Whigs won an overwhelming victory in the general election of 1715. Several members of the defeated Tory Party sympathised with the Jacobites, who sought to replace George with Anne's Catholic half-brother, James Francis Edward Stuart (called "James III and VIII" by his supporters and "the Pretender" by his opponents). Some disgruntled Tories sided with a Jacobite rebellion, which became known as "The Fifteen". James's supporters, led by Lord Mar, an embittered Scottish nobleman who had previously served as a secretary of state, instigated rebellion in Scotland where support for Jacobitism was stronger than in England. "The Fifteen", however, was a dismal failure; Lord Mar's battle plans were poor, and James arrived late with too little money and too few arms. By the end of the year the rebellion had all but collapsed. In February 1716, facing defeat, James and Lord Mar fled to France. After the rebellion was defeated, although there were some executions and forfeitures, George acted to moderate the Government's response, showed leniency, and spent the income from the forfeited estates on schools for Scotland and paying off part of the national debt.

George's distrust of the Tories aided the passing of power to the Whigs. Whig dominance grew to be so great under George that the Tories did not return to power for another half-century. After the election, the Whig-dominated Parliament passed the Septennial Act 1715, which extended the maximum duration of Parliament to seven years (although it could be dissolved earlier by the Sovereign). Thus Whigs already in power could remain in such a position for a greater period of time.

After his accession in Great Britain, George's relationship with his son (which had always been poor) worsened. Prince George Augustus encouraged opposition to his father's policies, including measures designed to increase religious freedom in Britain and expand Hanover's German territories at Sweden's expense. In 1717, the birth of a grandson led to a major quarrel between George and the Prince of Wales. The King, supposedly following custom, appointed the Lord Chamberlain (Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle) as one of the baptismal sponsors of the child. The King was angered when the Prince of Wales, disliking Newcastle, verbally insulted the Duke at the christening, which the Duke misunderstood as a challenge to a duel. The Prince was told to leave the royal residence, St. James's Palace. The Prince's new home, Leicester House, became a meeting place for the King's political opponents. The King and his son were later reconciled at the insistence of Robert Walpole and the desire of the Princess of Wales, who had moved out with her husband but missed her children, who had been left in the King's care. Nevertheless, father and son were never again on cordial terms.

George was active in directing British foreign policy during his early reign. In 1717, he contributed to the creation of the Triple Alliance, an anti-Spanish league composed of Great Britain, France and the Dutch Republic. In 1718, the Holy Roman Empire was added to the body, which became known as the Quadruple Alliance. The subsequent War of the Quadruple Alliance involved the same issue as the War of the Spanish Succession. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht had recognised the grandson of Louis XIV of France, Philip V, as king of Spain on the condition that he gave up his rights to succeed to the French throne. But upon Louis XIV's 1715 death, Philip sought to overturn the treaty.

Spain supported a Jacobite-led invasion of Scotland in 1719, but stormy seas allowed only about three hundred Spanish troops to reach Scotland. A base was established at Eilean Donan Castle on the west Scottish coast in April, only to be destroyed by British ships a month later. Jacobite attempts to recruit Scottish clansmen yielded a fighting force of only about a thousand men. The Jacobites were poorly equipped and were easily defeated by British artillery at the Battle of Glen Shiel. The clansmen dispersed into the Highlands, and the Spaniards surrendered. The invasion never posed any serious threat to George's government. With the French now fighting against him, Philip's armies fared poorly. As a result, the Spanish and French thrones remained separate. Simultaneously, Hanover gained from the resolution of the Great Northern War, which had been caused by rivalry between Sweden and Russia for control of the Baltic. The Swedish territories of Bremen and Verden were ceded to Hanover in 1719, with Hanover paying Sweden monetary compensation for the loss of territory.

Ministries

In Hanover, the King was an absolute monarch. All government expenditure above 50 thalers (between 12 and 13 British pounds), and the appointment of all army officers, all ministers, and even government officials above the level of copyist, was in his personal control. By contrast in Great Britain, George had to govern through Parliament.

In 1715 when the Whigs came to power, George's chief ministers included Robert Walpole, Lord Townshend (Walpole's brother-in-law), Lord Stanhope and Lord Sunderland. In 1717 Townshend was dismissed, and Walpole resigned from the Cabinet over disagreements with their colleagues; Stanhope became supreme in foreign affairs, and Sunderland the same in domestic matters.

Lord Sunderland's power began to wane in 1719. He introduced a Peerage Bill that attempted to limit the size of the House of Lords by restricting new creations. The measure would have solidified Sunderland's control of the House by preventing the creation of opposition peers, but it was defeated after Walpole led the opposition to the bill by delivering what was considered "the most brilliant speech of his career". Walpole and Townshend were reappointed as ministers the following year and a new, supposedly unified, Whig government formed.

Greater problems arose over financial speculation and the management of the national debt. Certain government bonds could not be redeemed without the consent of the bondholder and had been issued when interest rates were high; consequently each bond represented a long-term drain on public finances, as bonds were hardly ever redeemed. In 1719, the South Sea Company proposed to take over £31 million (three fifths) of the British national debt by exchanging government securities for stock in the company. The Company bribed Lord Sunderland, George's mistress Melusine von der Schulenburg, and Lord Stanhope's cousin, Secretary of the Treasury Charles Stanhope, to support their plan. The Company enticed bondholders to convert their high-interest, irredeemable bonds to low-interest, easily tradeable stocks by offering apparently preferential financial gains. Company prices rose rapidly; the shares had cost £128 on 1 January 1720, but were valued at £500 when the conversion scheme opened in May. On 24 June the price reached a peak of £1,050. The company's success led to the speculative flotation of other companies, some of a bogus nature, and the Government, in an attempt to suppress these schemes and with the support of the company, passed the Bubble Act. With the rise in the market now halted, uncontrolled selling began in August, which caused the stock to plummet to £150 by the end of September. Many individuals—including aristocrats—lost vast sums and some were completely ruined. George, who had been in Hanover since June, returned to London in November—sooner than he wanted or was usual—at the request of the ministry.

The economic crisis, known as the South Sea Bubble, made George and his ministers extremely unpopular. In 1721, Lord Stanhope, though personally innocent, collapsed and died after a stressful debate in the House of Lords, and Lord Sunderland resigned from public office.

Sunderland, however, retained a degree of personal influence with George until his sudden death in 1722 allowed the rise of Robert Walpole. Walpole became de facto Prime Minister, although the title was not formally applied to him (officially, he was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer). His management of the South Sea crisis, by rescheduling the debts and arranging some compensation, helped the return to financial stability. Through Walpole's skilful management of Parliament, George managed to avoid direct implication in the company's fraudulent actions. Claims that George had received free stock as a bribe are not supported by evidence; indeed receipts in the Royal Archives show that he paid for his subscriptions and that he lost money in the crash.

Later years
As requested by Walpole, George revived the Order of the Bath in 1725, which enabled Walpole to reward or gain political supporters by offering them the honour. Walpole became extremely powerful and was largely able to appoint ministers of his own choosing. Unlike his predecessor, Queen Anne, George rarely attended meetings of the cabinet; most of his communications were in private, and he only exercised substantial influence with respect to British foreign policy. With the aid of Lord Townshend, he arranged for the ratification by Great Britain, France and Prussia of the Treaty of Hanover, which was designed to counterbalance the Austro-Spanish Treaty of Vienna and protect British trade.

George, although increasingly reliant on Walpole, could still have replaced his ministers at will. Walpole was actually afraid of being removed from office towards the end of George I's reign, but such fears were put to an end when George died during his sixth trip to his native Hanover since his accession as king. He suffered a stroke on the road between Delden and Nordhorn on 9 June 1727, and was taken by carriage about 55 miles to the east, to the palace of his younger brother, Ernest Augustus, Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück, where he died two days after arrival in the early hours before dawn on 11 June 1727. George I was buried in the chapel of Leine Palace in Hanover, but his remains were moved to the chapel at Herrenhausen Gardens after World War II. Leine Palace was entirely burnt out as a result of Allied air raids and the King's remains, along with his parents', were moved to the 19th-century mausoleum of King Ernest Augustus in the Berggarten. George was succeeded by his son, George Augustus, who took the throne as George II. It was widely assumed, even by Walpole for a time, that George II planned to remove Walpole from office but was dissuaded from doing so by his wife, Caroline of Ansbach. However, Walpole commanded a substantial majority in Parliament and George II had little choice but to retain him or risk ministerial instability.

Legacy
George was ridiculed by his British subjects; some of his contemporaries, such as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, thought him unintelligent on the grounds that he was wooden in public. Though he was unpopular in Great Britain due to his supposed inability to speak English, such an inability may not have existed later in his reign as documents from that time show that he understood, spoke and wrote English. He certainly spoke fluent German and French, good Latin, and some Italian and Dutch. His treatment of his wife, Sophia Dorothea, became something of a scandal. His Lutheran faith, his overseeing both the Lutheran churches in Hanover and the Church of England, and the presence of Lutheran preachers in his court caused some consternation among his Anglican subjects.

The British perceived George as too German, and in the opinion of historian Ragnhild Hatton, wrongly assumed that he had a succession of German mistresses. However, in mainland Europe, he was seen as a progressive ruler supportive of the Enlightenment who permitted his critics to publish without risk of severe censorship, and provided sanctuary to Voltaire when the philosopher was exiled from Paris in 1726. European and British sources agree that George was reserved, temperate and financially prudent; he disliked being in the public light at social events, avoided the royal box at the opera and often travelled incognito to the homes of friends to play cards. Despite some unpopularity, the Protestant George I was seen by most of his subjects as a better alternative to the Roman Catholic pretender James. William Makepeace Thackeray indicates such ambivalent feelings as he wrote: "His heart was in Hanover ... He was more than fifty years of age when he came amongst us: we took him because we wanted him, because he served our turn; we laughed at his uncouth German ways, and sneered at him. He took our loyalty for what it was worth; laid hands on what money he could; kept us assuredly from Popery ... I, for one, would have been on his side in those days. Cynical and selfish, as he was, he was better than a king out of St. Germains [James, the Stuart Pretender] with the French king's orders in his pocket, and a swarm of Jesuits in his train."

Writers of the nineteenth century, such as Thackeray, Walter Scott and Lord Mahon, were reliant on biased first-hand accounts published in the previous century such as Lord Hervey's memoirs, and looked back on the Jacobite cause with romantic, even sympathetic, eyes. They in turn, influenced British authors of the first half of the twentieth century such as G. K. Chesterton, who introduced further anti-German and anti-Protestant bias into the interpretation of George's reign. However, in the wake of World War II continental European archives were opened to historians of the later twentieth century and nationalistic anti-German feeling subsided. George's life and reign were re-explored by scholars such as Beattie and Hatton, and his character, abilities and motives re-assessed in a more generous light. John H. Plumb noted that: "Some historians have exaggerated the king's indifference to English affairs and made his ignorance of the English language seem more important than it was. He had little difficulty in communicating with his ministers in French, and his interest in all matters affecting both foreign policy and the court was profound."

Yet the character of George I remains elusive; he was in turn genial and affectionate in private letters to his daughter, and then dull and awkward in public. Perhaps his own mother summed him up when "explaining to those who regarded him as cold and overserious that he could be jolly, that he took things to heart, that he felt deeply and sincerely and was more sensitive than he cared to show." Whatever his true character, he ascended a precarious throne, and either by political wisdom and guile, or through accident and indifference, he left it secure in the hands of the Hanoverians and of Parliament.

Arms
As King his arms were: Quarterly, I, Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England) impaling Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); II, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France); III, Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland); IV, tierced per pale and per chevron (for Hanover), I Gules two lions passant guardant Or (for Brunswick), II Or a semy of hearts Gules a lion rampant Azure (for Lüneburg), III Gules a horse courant Argent (for Westphalia), overall an escutcheon Gules charged with the crown of Charlemagne Or (for the dignity of Archtreasurer of the Holy Roman Empire).

Mistresses
In addition to Melusine von der Schulenburg, three other women were said to be George's mistresses:

 * 1) Leonora von Meyseburg-Züschen, widow of a Chamberlain at the court of Hanover, and secondly married to Lieutenant-General de Weyhe. Leonore was the sister of Clara Elisabeth von Meyseburg-Züschen, Countess von Platen, who had been the mistress of George I's father, Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover.
 * 2) Sophia Charlotte von Platen, later Countess of Darlington (1673 – 20 April 1725), shown by Ragnhild Hatton in 1978 to have been George's half-sister and not his mistress.
 * 3) Baroness Sophie Caroline Eva Antoinette von Offeln (2 November 1669 – 23 January 1726), known as the "Young Countess von Platen", she married Count Ernst August von Platen, the brother of Sophia Charlotte, in 1697.

title: George I of Great Britain