In the world of "The Difference Engine", France occupies Mexico, as it did briefly in reality during the American Civil War. Like Great Britain, it has its own analytical/difference engines ("ordinateurs"), especially used in the context of domestic surveillance within its police force and intelligence agencies. As for the other world powers, Germany remains fragmented, with no suggestion that Prussia will eventually form the core of a unified nation, as it did in our own timeline in 1871, which may be caused by French sabotage analogous to that pursued in the case of the fragmentation of the United States noted above. Japan is awakening after the British ended its isolation, and looks, as in our timeline, set to become one of this world's leading industrial and economic powers from the 20th century onward.