Today:
You know the drill: this is the thread for all your history-related outpourings that are not necessarily questions. Minor questions that you feel don't need or merit their own threads are welcome too. Discovered a great new book, documentary, article or blog? Has your Ph.D. application been successful? Have you made an archaeological discovery in your back yard? Did you find an anecdote about the Doge of Venice telling a joke to Michel Foucault? Tell us all about it.
As usual, moderation in this thread will be relatively non-existent -- jokes, anecdotes and light-hearted banter are welcome.
Just a reminder that our flair drive is still on! Do you have what it takes to serve your country? Or do you know people who you think should be introduced to our little community?
Occasionally we'll get asked "what are you guys looking for in particular?" Well, really, we're looking for about everything that anyone has ever studied, but this is a little list of things where the coverage is particularly gappy.
#ASKHISTORIANS' MOST WANTED LIST
African History
Oceania (including Australia) History
Arts History
Indian and Southeast Asian History
Korea
Food History
Sports History
Gender/Sexuality History
History of Science
Economic History
(This list is by no means exhaustive. Please point out any other gaps you think should be mentioned!)
Just yesterday I bumped into this list and I find it somewhat troubling. It is basically an attempt to rank public intellectuals by their influence heavily relying on social media presence but also other things like their Wikipedia page. In the list of 100 individuals, Neil Ferguson is the only historian.
Now, obviously this list is far from perfect, but as you go down it you can definitely see it has some validity, which is rather unfortunate for the historical profession. Part of this is clearly wider problem of the way society treats history: That Ferguson is so high is a clear demonstration that people will, by and large, listen to the history that agrees with their preconceived notions. But there is more fault than this, and I think that, flawed as it is, this is a powerful demonstration of how terrible historians are at engaging with the public--in the few occasions they decide to.
Not really much of a solution I can offer, but just wanted to show a new demonstration of the scale of the problem.
On a lighter note than my other post, who here has a "layman interest" topic of history that they study in addition to their actual academic field? For example, I enjoy reading about Oceania, particularly the issue of Lapita expansion, and pretty much anything about China (I am just now finishing the superb Ancient Central China). What do you read when you don't read what you need to read?
Oh this is perfect! I've just finished listening to Barbara W. Tuchman's A Distant Mirror which I greatly enjoyed it even though it was a bit overwhelming at times with all the names and dates flying around.
I would love some recommendations on books that pick up where she leaves off, namely the 15th century and the transition from the middle ages to the renaissance/reformation.
On the back of a paper presented at a postgraduate conference I was invited to a present a paper at a professional (ie. region/period specific) and prestigious (most of the speakers are top people in the field) colloquium! Deliriously happy. It seems this homage lark is paying off!
Hello all! Do any of you by chance have or have access to Mario Liverani's article "Early Caravan Trade between South Arabia and Mesopotamia" Yemen 1 (1992), 111-5 -- and would you be willing to scan it for me? I haven't been able to get my hands on it, unfortunately, despite a lot of searching. :(
Quick question from a high schooler who loves history and would like to make a career out of it. What is it that you guys do with your degrees? Would you recommend it to people? I just don't want to go to college and end up dead in the water with a useless degree
The Roman name Cicero means "chickpea" in English, supposedly because he or one of his ancestors had a wart that looked like a chickpea.
The Greek name Xenophon means roughly "foreign voice" and Theophilius "god-lover".
Did their friends and parents go around calling them by these nicknames? Would Cicero's wife, or colleagues have called him "chickpea" in the courts?
Would Theophilius' parents raised him calling him "god-lover"?
It seems weird that their names could be like this when, today, we don't call people by titles/nicknames like this.
In other news, picking up my college classes back up 14 years later. Start next month, because the world needs a foul mouthed gun toting historian. With a kitty.
Alright, I am looking for a decent Reformation Reader to use in a Church History 2 class, which is basically from the Reformation to the present. Are there any solid readers that are under 40 bucks? Or even free online sites? I just do not want to make a bunch of undergrads, who probably do not really want to be in this course, resent it from the start because they had to shell out a significant amount of money for the books. I mean, this is just the reader. They will have at least one more text.
I've bought Jonathan Roth's The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 B.C. - A.D. 235) [first published 1999, reprinted in 2012]. It came highly recommended by /u/GBFel. The book is even better than I expected; it is 400 pages on every detail of supply and logistics. Considering the difficulty of getting accurate data to work with, Roth really has done an awesome job with this work.
Trying to pick out books for the history course I'm teaching next semester. But the World Cup is on.... It's a hard life.
In case you're missing it, the 2014 Battle of the Nations, hosted in Croatia, is now on. I think it's a great event with relevance to many historians, as well as being good fun to watch.