Edit: 24h later, and one thing has become clear to me by the votes and comments this post has generated: Like the Israel-Palestine conflict or the history of anti-Black racism in America, Ireland's colonial relationship with England is a hornet's nest of a subject. Have anything to do with it, and expect to get stung. Attempting to distance oneself from the issues surrounding it and discuss it objectively and dispassionately only makes one look heartless and ignorant, in the eyes of people whose lives are still very much affected by these historical events.

To put my cards on the table, I'm an American with both Scottish and Irish ancestry, who has never set foot in either country. But I have traveled extensively, and met a fair number of people from both. My working hypothesis is that it ultimately comes down to Scotland sharing a land border with England, and Ireland being a separate island.

From what I can gather, Scotland was an early and relatively enthusiastic adopter of the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. Scotland modernized not long after England and Germany did. By contrast, the Reformation never reached Ireland, industrial development wasn't complete until the latter half of the 20th century, and how thoroughly Enlightenment values ever permeated Irish culture pre-EU is debatable.

I don't mean to belittle the significant friction the Scottish have always had with their world military superpower neighbors the English. But reading historical literature from the Age of Exploration on, it's clear to me that the English and their diaspora populations held the Scottish in much higher regard than they held the Irish. While their descriptions and depictions of Scottish people were not always kind, I don't see the same level of dehumanizing racism against Irish people that was until recently fairly common among ethnically English (and to a lesser degree, Scottish!) people in Anglophone countries. Not surprisingly then, Scottish immigrants tended to integrate and assimilate into the world's "Anglo" populations quicker, with less resistance, and more completely, than Irish immigrants.

From my readings on human migration and cultural dispersal, I have the sense that Scotland enjoys a noticeably greater cultural and genetic continuity with England than Ireland does. The transition from northern England to the Scottish lowlands doesn't involve any abrupt changes in how locals talk, look, and behave. The transition to the more Ireland-like Scottish Highlands similarly happens along a smooth cline, as one travels northwest. I don't think the same can be said for Ireland. A person from anywhere in England, traveling to any place in Ireland, will be immediately aware that he is among a different nation of people. Scotland's geographic situation, then, is much more conducive to low-resistance cultural influence from England, as well as movement of people between the two countries.

If I may put it crudely, it seems as though Scotland's relationship to England was like that of a slightly backwater but integral part of the motherland, while Ireland's relationship to England was more like an overseas colony, whose natives were distinct from, far beneath, and not able to be integrated with the colonizers.

I've heard often the notion that any sense of patriotism or what we would today call national pride is a relatively new thing.

But hold on, ethnic labels still existed, didn't they? European kingdoms were still named after the ethnic groups or dominant tribe in them. And Saint Bede for example described the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons as "English", using the term "natio" to describe them, while another monk, Gildas, wrote a diatribe against his fellow Britons as a people in the 6th century, and a writer by the name of Hector Boece wrote a historical account of Britain that was essentially Scottish propaganda in the 16th century. Meanwhile in my country of Japan, the Sengoku warlords fought over "uniting all under heaven" (i.e. uniting Japan) all the way back in the, well, Sengoku period. Back in Europe, the Polish noble class used to claim that they were Turkic, and Italian city states also had some degree of democracy, so surely there must have been some kind of proto nationalism; and going further back, wasn't city pride extremely high in the Greek city states, and didn't the Ancient Romans have a strong culture of nationalism/Roman exceptionalism? What seems to be nationalistic rhetoric can be read in the Bible too, with the whole "God's people" and "promised land" thing. What's going on here? Hell, just before the French Revolution, the American Revolution happened, and nationalist sentiment abound in the years leading up to that one. Even ethnic stereotypes existed as far back as the middle ages at least, with things like French soldiers calling English soldiers "Le Goddamns". It just doesn't add up.

I know countries were just lands that a ruler happened to own or control for much of history, but was there really nothing resembling national pride or patriotism, no kind of sentimental value attached to the land and borders one lived in or one's ethnic in-group, at all, whatsoever, before the French Revolution? Or was it just that such ideas weren't widespread among the general population? I also think that belief in a certain line of rulers' right to rule a certain people/land or personality cults around a ruler for example are a form of nationalism due to parallels in more modern history, so is it just that whatever existed before the Revolution doesn't fit a certain narrow definition of what patriotism/nationalism is that requires solid borders? And even if it did just sort of pop into existence during the Revolution, where did this new idealogy come from anyway? Surely it had to have come from somewhere.

I asked the professor of a course I was taking one semester, and the response I got was "it's complicated". So I'm led to believe that there's more to this, and that the whole "National pride is new" thing is a great oversimplification, despite it often being used to contradict simplistic pop history.

I mean, before Italy tried to colonize it

I tried to Google it, but it gave me no answers to my questions

I just realized today that when people mention the Jim Crow era they put it as white and black people. How were the non black non whites (Hispanics, Asians, etc) treated? Did they go to the same schools as the black kids, etc.

Hello, As the title suggests, I've yet to figure out who had (if any) air superiority during the Greco-Italian war of 1940. I know about the RAFs assistance to the Greeks, but I've also read about their problems of weather, available and well built airports, supplies etc, so I'm not sure if any side actually enjoyed air superiority. Sources would be more than welcome.

Thanks in advance for your time and answers.

I asked this question 9 days ago and got 19 upvotes but no answers, so I'm asking again.

The Nazi government fought a global war on two fronts while executing one of the largest systematic mass murders in human history, reaping the lives of over 11 million Jews, Roma, homosexuals, intellectuals, and mentally ill people. How could they summon the manpower and capital to create the infrastructure necessary? Were there contemporaneous conflicts between uses of resources on the battlefield and in the camps?

Byzantium constantly kept expanding (say under Basil 2) and contracting in its North and west, while holding onto Anatolia for centuries. With aggressive commanders and emperors even invading on occasion.

While Manzikert changed this irrevocably, is there an earlier date to when Byzantium started it's decline?

Who did the insurgents fight and how did they lose?

It seems a little strange that they would not fight any army and be defeated for it.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa all became dominions of the British with their own parliaments and laws. If these countries were seen to be able to run themselves, but not allowed to be truly independent, why were they separated into different countries rather than incorporated into the United Kingdom?

I’m guessing, like most animals, as soon as possible? I’m also guessing that ASAP because as far as I know, back then they wouldn’t live for too long so they had to leave some offspring

I find it quite amazing that someone charged with treason could be sentenced to only five years, and released after only 9 months. I've read several general descriptions of his passionate testimony which swayed both judge and gallery alike, but no one ever prints his specific words. What the heck did he say which was so amazing? I'd love to read it and find out how he was able to sway everyone involved into giving him such a light sentence.

There is seemingly no context for this in any of the things I've seen it on. What is the reason for the snails?

The questions: are there any (hopefully modern) organized resistances that were unsuccessful? And crucially ‘did these resistances have access similar weapons as those US citizens are able to have via the 2nd amendment?’

I saw a comment on another sub:

The state can’t fight a guerrilla war against its own people they would lose every time. Just look at any revolution that’s kind of a goofy take.

This struck me as very false, but I couldn’t think of a for sure example.

I have 12 audible credits that are running out within a week. I need to buy books fast.

Any recommendations for pre-sumerian history books. I am also looking for something on African history as well as China.

I have a lot of books on Western Europe, Islam and India. If you think of something else that is not mentioned above then please suggest as well.

Thanks in advance.

Is that even a thing that happened or a common misconception? Did they really believe these things would help them in their war effort?

Asked from point of view of a European immigrant to Virginia- Basically, you don't see Native American cemeteries like you see old grave yards with European last names out here. Yet the entire coast was pretty heavily populated in pre-Columbian times.. ?

Perhaps we have a survivorship bias skewing our perspective of past achievements, but it seems like very little infrastructure in the modern world gets built to last more than a single lifespan. On the other hand, you can visit dozens of cities in Europe where old buildings, roads, and water infrastructure from the classical and medieval periods are still perfectly functional (although they've obviously been maintained).

Was passing useful infrastructure on to future generations a goal of past building projects, or just a byproduct of the materials and technologies at hand? Would the builders and funders of these projects have take pride in creating something robust?

At what point in history did we stop thinking about building infrastructure that lasts and switch to rapid replacement model? Why did this happen?

I know he was a commander during battles? But did he himself fight during battles?

It makes me wonder because they portray him as commanding the soldiers from camp only, but I feel like an armored and well equipped man like him would be an good swordsman, like most people at that time, and a fighter, at least occasionally.

I never learnt about the rape of Nanking in school and just recently heard about it from an r/askreddit thread. Considering it was around the same time as the Holocaust and similarly horrific why is it less talked about?