Lately I've been doing a lot more reading than writing, and I realized how much I missed it. In particular, I love finding older articles or books that hold up really well. My favorite for this past week is Anna Davin's "Imperialism and Motherhood" from History Workshop, 1978. What a brilliant piece. She identifies the way that a crisis of imperialism centered on but not exclusive to the Boer War generated a new discourse of motherhood. British mothers and domestic spaces were connected to the empire in ways they never had been before: mothers were now blamed for the empire's problems and held responsible for its future, and thus became essentially a sight of biopolitical intervention. What's remarkable about this piece is that she wrote it in 1978, when terms like discourse, biopolitics, even "gender" as a category of analysis were not big parts of English-language scholarship. She's describing a kind of culture of empire more than a decade before that kind analysis really got widespread. Of course, her article is still written very much in an older, 1970s social history kind of way, but the analysis itself is more cultural history. It's a fantastic piece, highly recommended reading.

I wanted to give a shout out to /u/vonadler who was extremely helpful in answering my questions via PM on the strength of the American navy post war of 1812 to European powers.

Just attended a panel over "Evolving Frontiers in the Persianate World," and, specifically, an interesting presentation by Nile Green from UCLA over his research on the "Silk Road to the Railroad (and back): The Making of the Modern Iranian Encounter with China." I've linked the article, and, for those who have access, I recommend reading it—it's truly fascinating.

Ok, as someone who works on the Vikings a whole bunch, do I have to watch that Vikings TV show or can I continue on in oblivious bliss and leave it to my students?

So this article came into my radar this week: WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH LGBT HISTORY MONTH?, which first off taught me that apparently in the UK it is in Feb and not in October like it is in America, boy we just cannot agree on anything, but second off, it articulates this idea that LGBT history-making is a form of genealogy, which I find quite interesting. I don't have anything really smart to say here, but it's a nice blog post.

I'm personally skeptical of "startups", but I wonder if there are any history-related, not for profit startups. I use the word because it seems to mean "group of young people getting together to form an enterprise/organization that is independent from other sectors like large corporations, universities, or government, but often serves those sectors". I would see any startup trying to take over "teaching" as a threat (to both my job and actual student learning), but I imagine there are some decent models that might serve historians in their investigations of the past and links to the present.

ALSO: what do people make of the changes in the SAT? It seems like the changes are in line with how college/university-level historians envision how history should be taught, in opposition to the cliché history-as-memorization-of-dates that is taught in sub-par high schools.

If you could wave a magic wand and make one widespread myth or misconception about an area of history just disappear, what would you make vanish?

I've been waiting all week to ask this since my post earlier this week didn't really fit the community standards since it was a "throughout history" question.

I have no specific examples in mind but was curious about events in history that were seemingly coincidental but had major impacts on the course of History. I am not thinking of the "butterfly effect" and idea that every seemingly coincidental event had some set of other events that lead up to it and repercussions as a result.

I am thinking of someone missing their train and ending up seated next to a future political rival or co-inventor of new technology. Maybe a noose slipped at a particular hanging allowing someone to live who later became very influential.

I just really like thinking along the lines of "Wow, can you believe that this ancient civilization wouldn't have risen to the power they are today if it wasn't for so and so eating Eggs instead of Fish for lunch that one day 4,000 years ago"

A far stretch, but I think you know what I am going for here. Entertain me with interesting coincidences and quirks "throughout history"!

Minor Question: When did bathing in America become a daily occurrence? I have been looking online for answers, but haven't really found any.

I find the lack of interest about the Diadochi Wars odd. In the months I've visited this sub I think I only saw one question about the Diadochi Wars. A shame really, everybody in those wars was a larger-than-life figure.

Who or what was the most to blame for the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre?
What was the lasting legacy of this event?

It's still Friday somewhere...

Does anyone know what tunes were popular in the American Revolution? Specifically Scottish bagpipe tunes? A lot of marches and Ceol beg is more modern or 1800s, so I can't find much on tunes from the 1700s. Piobaireachds maybe, but I have not succeeded in finding dates.

Has anyone read the book "Rebels and Raiders" by Frank Sherry and if so what did you think of it? I just got it and it doesn't seem too bad so far, but admittedly I'm only like 35 pages in.