I took a tour of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. Have to say, it was impressive and quite comprehensive. I was quite surprised how much they had for things like the Boer War and the UN peacekeeping stuff. And how they managed to find some sort of balance between the three recognised founding nations of Canada (French, English and Native), considering the history of Canadian war largely consisted of French v. Native, French v. English, and English v. Native. I was there for just over 3 hours, and still only got to the Second World War stuff, having to rush through everything from the Korean War to present. Will definitely be back.

Anyways, as I was quickly looking at the UN stuff, I noticed a quote on the wall. It was from Kofi Annan, and said some generic thing about peace (it wasn't that important, or memorable). But what caught my eye was the description: it said Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the UN, 1992. Now I'm no UN scholar, but I knew that he wasn't SC then, considering I know that he was largely the one telling Gen. Romeo Dallaire not to intervene in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, while in some supplementary role beneath the SC, Boutros Boutros-Ghali; and that the genocide was one of the main factors in the US not supporting Boutros-Ghali's second term in office, which I believe was largely unprecedented at the time, and that Annan would replace him in 1995 or 1996 (I can't remember). The point is, Annan was not SC when he made that quote in 1992.

Not being one to let something like that stand, I got home and quickly emailed the Museum, informing them of this fact; I really didn't expect any answer, but wanted them to know they had made a mistake. So imagine my surprise when the next morning I have a reply from the historian in charge of that section of the museum, admitting the mistake and letting me know that they are actually going to revamp the whole section shortly, so will correct it then. I replied to his email with one of thanks, and let him know that such a prompt response was quite welcome. So full credit to the Canadian War Museum and Dr. Craig Mantle, Acting Historian, Post-1945. I had already planned to go back to the museum eventually to see the stuff I had missed, but the professionalism displayed only makes me want to go even more.

Short but awesome: my first set of book galleys arrived from the publisher today. Now to go find all the mortifying errors that I and my copy editor missed...

Took a trip to DC and New York to meet with policymakers and diplomats on the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. Quite an experience. I'm back now, and will be answering questions again, but suffice to say I feel the history is more important now than ever, and that fewer than I thought understand it in full.

For some reason, I'm having a horrible time finding any H. C. Andersen books in their untranslated form. I found this, but the list is incomplete and difficult to read, since they're scanned in as opposed to entered into digital form. Even Project Gutenberg yields no results.

Has anyone seen where these books might exist? Even in .txt form?

Edit: Unrelated, but I would also adore other recommendations from anyone else in the community regarding 19th century Danish literature.

Edit #2: Found it!

I made a post about a month ago in the Theory Thursday thread that didn't get any responses. I'd like to post it here again in the hopes of getting some responses. I've been trying for a while to bounce my ideas around and see what people had to say. I'd love any comments or just the general thoughts of others on the matter.

I'd like to talk about historical inevitability. Particularly, I want to argue that I think it is OK to sometimes speak of certain historical outcomes as inevitable.

When we talk about historical inevitability what we're ultimately talking about is the relationship between people and structures. In the words of William Sewell, Jr. structures are "mutually sustaining cultural schemas and sets of resources that empower and constrain social action and tend to be reproduced by that action." In other words, structures are, to a large extent, the organizing ideas that govern human action.

Historians run into trouble whenever they give too much agency to structures over people. This was the problem with Whig historians who saw history as the inevitable progress of liberalism and capitalism. We've also seen it in more recent decades to describe the inevitability of the Cold War (Communism's inherent expansionist tendencies ensured the Cold War would happen) and the Holocaust (the inherent, virulent form of anti-Semitism in Germany ensured the Holocaust would occur). All of these interpretations, with perhaps an exception for the one regarding the Cold War, are rightly discredited by most historians. The problem with these interpretations is that they give little to no historical agency to people, or put in another way, give way too much importance to contemporary structures.

In response to these historians, I've seen many other historians go in the complete opposite direction, arguing that nothing in history is inevitable or, in other words, that people always have the ability to break free of the contemporary structures that guide their worldview. I think this is an equally dubious intellectual leap to make. While there may be some chance for people to do so, it is highly improbable. (As a sidenote, I will say that I am using inevitability in a loose sense. Obviously, nothing is impossible, although some outcomes are so highly improbable that I believe it is acceptable to still refer to them as impossible). Sometimes, contemporary structures are so prevalent and so ingrained that they can override a person's choices. In this sense, structures can constrain human action and contingent historical actions. I can't think of any historian that would say structures don't play an integral role in history. In some cases, those structures are so strong as to constrain human action to make certain outcomes inevitable or highly likely. This is an argument made by Melvyn Leffler in his book on the Cold War, For the Soul of Mankind. Leffler argues that, although the creation of the Cold War was not inevitable, insecurity and ideology forced the continuation of the Cold War until it ended when it did. Likewise, John Prados has made a similar argument in his recent book, Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975.

To make sure I'm being clear I want to repeat what I tried to say in the previous sentences: Structures can constrain human action and, in some cases, make certain historical outcomes inevitable. I don't believe too many people would actually disagree with this, even though I hear many on this sub-reddit speak about how it is ahistorical to speak of inevitability. To believe that inevitability is ahistorical is directly contrary to another popular line of reasoning on this sub-reddit: that we cannot place contemporary values, or for that matter any other value system, on individuals other than the one in which they lived. Why do we follow this idea? In large part, because we recognize that in many cases historical actors are unable to break free of contemporary structures. These two beliefs then--that historical inevitability is ahistorical and that we cannot displace a historical individual from the value system in which he lived--seem to be paradoxical. We cannot accept that historical inevitability is an invalid concept while at the same time arguing that individuals are unable to step beyond their contemporary structures and worldviews.

How then do we correct the two poles of historical thought--the one that gives too much agency to structures and the other that gives too much agency to human actors? In my opinion, historians must come to use historical frameworks that give a more equitable relationship between structures and human agency, frameworks that, in the words of William Sewell, Jr., understand that "Structures shape people’s practices, but it is also people’s practices that constitute (and reproduce) structures.”

What do historians do on a day-to-day basis as part of their job?

I have been reading up on southeast Asian history recently and I have grown pretty fascinated with the upland/lowland dynamic. I mentioned this a bit in discussing Scott's thesis, but the complexity of the relationship is quite striking. There was certainly the usually raiding, trading and enslaving, but there was also a lot of political dealing, and the lowland empires would frequently bolster the highland confederations as a check against their neighbors (Nan Yue did this against Angkor), and no doubt vice versa. It sort of idly makes me wonder if the failure of lasting empire in SE Asia was the result of the wide presence of "Zomia" as too strong of a threat against the lowland empires.

Also this has exposed one of Wikipedia's great weaknesses in terms of dating. The dating for Khmer, for example, is given as 807-1431, which is kind of sort of correct. It isn't as bad as the dating of Chola (300 BCE-1200 CE, which is just silly) but it illustrates how careful you have to be with these things.

Is there a book that's considered the 'definitive' history of post independence Peru? The wiki only has books about Colombia and Argentina.

By that I mean that the books my parents read in primary and secondary school seemed to aggrandize certain parts of history so it would be nice to read a book that gives a more level narrative of it's history.

I found this Christmas holiday greeting, western union telegram (unknown year as you will see the 19__ was left blank. That my great grandmother had filled out but never sent.

As you can see, you just simply check which greeting you would like, fill the information for the recipient, sign and send.

/r/EconomicHistory is looking to host AMAs from experts on topics in Economic History. This is a chance to showcase your knowledge and help others learn about your field. These will be similar to those seen in /r/AskSocialScience and /r/AskHistorians. All topics are welcome as long as they are relevant to this sub's focus.

Reply or PM me if you're interested. See here for more info.

Minor question: Does anyone know battle cries/war chants that might have been used from around A.D 600-900 in the kingdom of Mercia?

Is there any definitive proof that Achilles existed, apart from the Illiad and other writings? Did he have surviving family that were held in any esteem, years or decades after his death?

Does anyone know the full history of stage bows? I read that actors created them to thank the audience, who would then choose to acknowledge them, but I haven't found any sources backing this up.