I've always been told that Hegel basically affixed the section about Prussia due to political pressures, and that modern philosophers totally ignore it. Having said that, I wouldn’t read Hegel.

I recommend avoiding reading original texts, and instead reading modern commentaries and compilations. 'Contemporary Readings in Epistemology' was the favoured first-year text at Oxford. Bertrand Russell's "History of Western Philosophy" is quite a good read too.

The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy is also very good.