Excerpt from The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 20 of 30: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences and General Literature; New Maps and Many Original American Articles by Eminent Authors The claims which Prussian history makes upon our attention are based neither upon venerable antiquity nor upon uniformity of origin. The territorial and political development of the country has taken place wholly within the last thousand years and the materials out of which it has been built up - marquisates and duchies, ecclesiastical principalities and free imperial cities - are of the most heterogeneous description. The history of Prussia acquires its primary significance from the fact that this state was the instrument by which the political' regeneration of Germany was ultimately efi'ected from within, and the unity and coherence of the narrative are best observed when we consider it as a record of the training that fitted the country for this task. This r61e was forced upon Prussia rather by the exigencies of its geographical position than by its title to be racially the most representative German state. The people who have established the power of Germany cannot rank in purity of Teutonic blood With the inhabitants of the central, western, and southern parts of the empire. The conquest. Of the Slavonic regions that form so great a part of modern Prussia did not occur without a considerable intermingling of race, and Prussia may perhaps be added to the list of great nations that seem to owe their pre-eminence to the happy blending of their composite parts. It is perhaps also worthy of remark that this state, like its great rival, was developed from a marchland of the German empire - Prussia arising from the North Mark erected against the Wends, and Austria from the East Mark erected against the Hungarians. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.