The title says it all. There's this notion in popular culture that Oliver Cromwell was a genocidal monster that tried to murder half the population of Ireland. This idea doesn't really stand up to even a cursory glance at the actual casualty figures or the events of the British Civil War(s). Cromwell's campaigns in Ireland, while admittedly bloody, were not substantially different from the conduct of similar Continental military leaders of the same era, like Albrecht von Wallenstein, Count Tilly, or Johann Baner. Additonally, Cromwell's campaign in Ireland only lasted a year or two in 1649-50. The English conquest and economic and political colonization Ireland was an ongoing process that began in Tudor times and continuned, arguably, right up into the 20th century. Pinning the full range of English misdeeds in Ireland, true or otherwise, on the personage of Oliver Cromwell, is to ignore the geopolitical interests and motivations of the English government both before and after the English Civil War.

While Cromwell may have been, even by the standards of his own time, a religious and political radical, I don't think claims by either English or Irish historians that paint Cromwell and the Puritans as a bunch of bigoted fanatics are really entirely fair. This isn't to say that the English Puritans weren't a bunch of religious whackos by modern standards, but to judge them that way ignores the political and cultural context in which they existed.

What's the consensus of scholarly historians, as distinct from popular culture? I have this argument nearly every year around St. Patrick's day.

TL;DR: Oliver Cromwell -- misguided radical, or histories greatest monster?

EDIT: Just to forestall any claims otherwise, I'm not saying that any of what Cromwell did was right by modern standards (it wasn't!) -- rather I'm making a plea to try to understand the past on it's own terms, rather than through the lens of modern nationalist rhetoric.

Hey AskHistorians!

I have a MUN coming up ahead and I'll be representing the USSR in the Historical IAEA. THe agenda is the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster.

On 26th April 1986, the most destructive accident in the history of the nuclear industry occurred at Unit 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The disaster led to over 4000 casualties and permanent damage to the livelihoods of people all over Europe due to spread of radioactivity. The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 20 billion.

Was the disaster an act of sabotage? What were the events that led to the disaster? Could the repercussions of the disaster turn out to be worse? Was the disaster mismanaged? Would it have been possible to change the aftermath of the disaster? The Historic IAEA 1986 is an Ad Hoc committee set up on the 27th of April 1986 to deal with the ramifications of the Chernobyl Disaster. The committee has the power to change the course of history and is tasked with the responsibility of curtailing the effects of one of the most catastrophic accidents in human history.

I'm in the stage of research on the topic and I intend to read up as much as possible on the Soviet Union to fully understand the context in which these events took place. So can anyone recommend books which cover the history, politics, culture,foreign relations and views of the USSR?

tl;dr Can you recommend comprehensive books on the USSR

Or something to that effect. I'd appreciate if someone who knows which general it was that did that and a source on it? I know it was mentioned here but didn't copy the citation but it's a good example of what I'm looking for. Please cite it for me if you know where it's from.

Also another example is someone said that when an opposing general's soldier told him that Napoleon was in his sights and asked permission to take a shot he denied permission. He responded something along the lines of "Napoleon and I have better things to do than shoot at each other.". If someone can cite this be my guess, but it's still another good example of what I mean and I know it was posted here in a comment in response to a post, they both were.

The reasoning was like: it's "unfair" to target officers. And a low class soldier "has no right to take the life of aristocracy". So I'd love examples of this kind of action where in the name of "honour" and "bravery" officers gave needlessly dangerous orders.

Hello, historians. I'm a student in 10th Grade World History, and has to write a paper on the parallels between current ISIS and the Nazism of the old Germans. No, this is not a post asking you to do the essay for me, that's my job; I'm just asking about a semi-specific area for the Nazi Party that has a good source attached to it.

I know that the Nazis tried to introduce this idea of Germans being the master race, but did they ever try to destroy any artifacts in German museums at the time of other major cultures? I'm sorry if it's worded badly; I just need to know if destruction of non-German cultural items was prevalent, and a good source to go along with it.

I know that the uymmaded dynasty (mind my spelling) lost all of their Arabian and African holdings when the Abbasid dynasty came to power but they still owned most of Iberia except the northern parts and had much more land than the European states there and the European states were more separated than the one uymmaded dynasty and they owned less land did they ally larger European states like Aquitaine (France at the time) or was it the that the uymmaded still had pressures from Arabia

Are there some cultures that do it a lot and others that don't? Is it a relatively modern thing?

Supposedly, Elena Ceausescu (widely seen as a Lady Macbeth figure, and very much Nicolae's second in command) was so hated that the executioners really took it out on her corpse. Is there any truth to this, or is it just an urban legend?

Can anyone recommend some good layman's books on Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire? Thank you.

I'm doing my homework for my AP US History class, and one of the vocab words is about the Cold War, "The political and economic confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States that dominated world affairs from 1946 to 1989." Why does my book say it lasted until 1989 when the USSR fell in 1991? And is it right to say it lasted until 1989?

I've read accounts that the removal of the obsolete Jupiter missiles in Turkey in exchange for removing the missiles from Cuba was a diplomatic victory for the USA. There were opinions that these were basically "souped up V2s" and due to be scrapped anyhow.

Was this the outcome the Soviet Union planned for, or did they expect something more that they didn't achieve?

Hello, being german myself i was always interested in the history and chains of event evolving into fascist germany. While a number of reasons for this development are usually listed, many of them are rather specific and based on more or less "local" events such as the Versailles treaty or economic developments after WW1. I'd like to learn more about the commonly regarded factors for Japans developments to a fascist state, what's different or may have been similiar between both states. Also i appreciate recommendations for good reading material on this matter. Thank you very much!