My partner at work and I always discuss history together, we have different expertise since I studied the classics and know mostly about the world of classical antiquity, and he studied British history, focusing primarily on the period after the Norman Conquest.

We were talking about the English Civil War and he told me that it was less about religion or even the conflict between republic and monarchy, it was a class war between the nascent bourgeoisie (merchants et al) who supported parliament versus the nobility who supported the royalists, and that the religious element comes from the connection between Protestantism (especially Reformed Protestantism of Calvin and John Knox, which formed much of the basis for Puritanism) and the birth of capitalism. He's extremely knowledgeable, but he's very influenced by the work of Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hill, EP Thompson and others that came out of the Communist Party Historians Group. I'm not outright opposed to their work, and on his recommendation I read The Making of the English Working Class and Hobsbawm's "long 19th century" trilogy and loved it, but his orientation has led to some debate, specifically on his characterization of Julius Caesar and the Roman populares as proto-socialist.

I do believe in Max Weber's thesis that Protestantism was instrumental in the proliferation of capitalism, but I'm unsure of this characterisation of the English Civil War as a class war. What do you think, historians of Reddit?

Not sure if this is allowed (very new to posting on Reddit, but long time lurker) but I enjoy scrolling on this sub so much. I have a lot of traveling coming up and was wondering if anyone could recommend any podcasts I might enjoy similar to the content of this sub? Thanks

I was just wondering if American change worked in European payphones back in the 80's, or did you have to exchange it first?

Did the ancients have knowledge of time zones, due to communication you wouldn't think they know whether one place has a different time than another, or is it a modern discovery?

Up until recently I thought that the reason none of the ancient/medieval civilizations that controlled the Nile valley went upstream to discover the river's source was the number of cataracts (white currents) the river had up until the modern times.

But now I am learning that even the Romans reached the Sudd swamps (now in South Sudan) that proved to be so difficult to pass through that even the modern explorers had to resort to making land expeditions over the wast jungles of Central Africa in order to discover the source of Nile

My question is: why? I understand that swamps are obviously very difficult to pass through, but neither the Romans nor the 19-century explorers were exploring the Nile by moving on it's banks, right? They were exploring it on ships, going on water. So why did the swamps provide any difficulty exploring whatsoever?

EDIT: Found the answer to the question - see comments.

Quantifying "worse" I mean likelihood of becoming a casualty and severeness of effect of becoming a casualty -with death obviously being the worst outcome. I'm curious because both medical and weapons technology advanced in the 130~ years between the conflict but for the most part soldiers didn't wear armor to protect their torso, arms, and legs.

I was wondering if there were any French troops that landed during the Normandy invasion and if not why not seeing as it was to liberate their country

Longtime lurker, first time poster here.

I was watching a video on youtube when the question occurred to me. Couldn't find an answer so I figured I'd make an account to ask since it's nagging at me that I can't find any info.

I know there's a subset of people who are fascinated with every era and I'm not looking to poke fun at them or anything. I'm just wondering if there's any historical reason for people today being interested in the Victorian Era, over say, the Georgian or the Edwardian.

Is there a historical reason in the same vein as the increase in medieval interest following the popularity of Game of Thrones?

Also if you're someone who's big into this era of history, what's the appeal? I've heard some people really like the inventions and fashion, for example.

Thanks!

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Throughout many mainstream WW1 and WW2 video games we see ethnic minorities on the front lines. To what proportion did this actually happen?