Big happenings, all very self-absorbed. My department voted on my promotion and tenure this week. I was very anxious (we all are, going up) but the vote was 100% in favor of granting me tenure. Now it has to go up the chain to deans, etc., but this is the most important and most difficult step because it's secret from me and everyone looks at everything I've done for the first time. I don't know who my outside evaluators (six of them) were or what they said, I don't know what the report on me from our 30+ faculty contains, and I never will. I only know that my colleagues voted to keep me and that they and my outside peers see the value of my work, which feels really good as a validation and an affirmation. That's something we get so little of through grad school and as junior faculty, that it's easy to be discouraged, but moments like this are intensely rewarding. (Cue: "You like me! You really like me!" We can finally start thinking about a family and a decent home here.)

My books should arrive an a week or so. Otherwise this job is killing me, but I'm suddenly energized now. It's the brass ring of research academe, and it feels unreal now that it's so close and after so long. I'm excited to get to work on the new projects although I'm already being pestered about University committees.

Big news in First World War aviation research! Opened my GMail inbox this morning and what do I see but the announcement of a new edition of The Sky Their Battlefield by Trevor Henshaw, published by the lads at Cross and Cockade International.

The first The Sky Their Battlefield was a fundamental text in First World War aviation: a complete list of Allied aircrew casualties due to enemy action during the war. It's also been out of print for something like fifteen years; used copies are available but command a heck of a premium. So a new edition, published by a leading British WW1 aviation journal, just in time for Christmas? I must have been a very good boy indeed this year.

The interested should visit Henshaw's site at http://theskytheirbattlefield2.com. Me, I'm gonna go sell a kidney.

Reposting to hopefully get a response! Thanks everyone.

Hi all. I have a question that isn't worth a thread. It's for Chinese or general Asian experts, especially on weapons.

To keep context short, my friend and I are working on costumes from a game that has some historical basis - Ragnarok Online; the costumes are from the jiangshi type monsters, Bongun and Munak. My friend has narrowed down the most likely historical basis to the late Song and early Qing dynasty, although this does not mean knowledge of other dynasties or countries couldn't be useful. I'm wondering if there is any historical basis for Munak's sword, The Punisher . Please let me know if that link doesn't work, the site doesn't like mobile it seems but I know I've used it for years. Here is another.

To me the sword looks ridiculous and like no other Chinese or Korean sword I've been able to find. I say Chinese and Korean because those are the two most likely cultures developers have drawn from for the area these monsters are found in; in no way did the team ever put historical accuracy first though, things have been used from all over Asia.

Basically I'd like to know if this weapon, supposedly used to beat kids with, has any historical basis or if the development team just had their fun. We are trying to keep our costumes somewhat accurate and would enjoy knowing any techniques or purposes this thing had. For what it's worth the other monster's weapon is a simple sword.

Please let me know if I can clarify in any way. I'm writing this on mobile and I know it's all a bit ridiculous.

Edit: Just wanted to add that it might not even be a sword at all. My out of left field guess is it's something like a futon beater repurposed? This is based on the "hoop" in the ingame sprite being flat. Still, any knowledge or guesses on this is welcome.

Is there a subreddit where you can check the accuracy of historical books? It isn't against the rules, and I believe I have seen a few posts asking about books before, but I don't want to have to ask /r/askhistorians every time I want to know how accurate something is.

For example, last year I got 3 "Fighting Techniques of X" *(Naval Warfare, Medieval Warfare, Oriental Warfare) of various authorship from St. Martins Press. At first glance they seem to be pretty good, it I am worried that they take liberties when going over tactics and the Order of Battle. If I remember correctly (as I am at work and can't actually check), they do source their claims, but is that always enough when it comes to these things?

Had a bit of a depressing encounter this week. We went through a cellar room where a museum stored the results of an excavation made in the early 50s. What did they excavate? Their own exhibition rooms. The museum had been bombed and burnt to the ground in '44, and the room containing Roman stone monuments had received a direct hit.

So much had been destroyed, bits and pieces all over the floor where they have been for 60 years, mostly untouched. The problem with many earlier catalogues and editions of inscriptions is that they are, of course, not up to date with modern methodology, they often lack crucial information (f.e., they record only the inscription and not much about the outer form, the decorative elements and such) or contain wrong readings, which in many cases can now no longer be corrected. Whole theories can sometimes hinge on a single inscription or a single monument, and any such loss is a loss for all future generations of historians and their work. There were about seven wooden chests with roman monuments that were in pieces too small too identify, which probably won't ever be reconstructed. Also the other things that were there. A whole room full of burnt, bent, dusty and fragmented artefacts: frankish swords, celtic beads, merowingian bones, prehistoric tools. A small marble bust that had lost its head. Human bones that I hoped had been part of the collection. All thrown together in wooden chests.

The report by the museums leading archaeologist was a pretty bizarre thing to read, too: it read like any excavation report, with the difference that they were excavating their own previous work from a room full of rubble, burnt interior decoration and scattered artefacts; in parts a detailed description of how their own lifes work had been found burnt and shattered below three meters of destroyed museum. It was all told very matter-of-factly.

Am I a misanthropist for thinking more about and feel more sorry for the artefacts that were lost than about the people killed in the bombings?

Here's a question I'm not sure would be fit as a thread on its on, for American history proponents:

What's the likelihood that the family of an American white person today owned slaves during and/or before the American Civil War?

Discovered this historical event over the week: The Brooklyn Whiskey War

I went on a tour of Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn, New York, and this was a featured part of the history lesson. If you're into bourbon, and you like history (like me!) it's a worthwhile experience.

EDIT: Someone put some source news articles online from the period: http://www.panix.com/~cassidy/WhiskeyIndex.html

I get to do a bit of scholarship for the first time in months, as I'm moments away from boarding a plane to Minneapolis for the North American Conference of British Studies. I'm only commenting on a panel and not presenting my own research, but it is very nice to get out of the classroom and away from the stacks of ungraded papers lurking in my office. Anyone else going?

A few tidbits from my dissertation research that made me laugh but have no place in my work:

Deep in the Communist archives at NYU, I found this flyer from 1931. Not completely sure the context, but I'll just assume it was part of the Party's anti-white chauvinism movement.

Article from Chicago Defender, 1930. You can't read the article, but the headline says enough.

Just started creating my own project of becoming acquainted with the history of my hometown. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Look what I got just got a google hit for. An Onion political satire featuring castrati, which is cool enough, but looky looky: they have named their castrato CAFFARELLI instead of after that other guy with that freakin movie who people normally name-drop for castrati.

I AM QUITE PLEASED. MOAR CAFFARELLI.

As a sophomore history major, I had a paper conference with my prof yesterday to discuss the rough draft of my first college history research paper. Went well, and I'm excited to wrap it up.

Hum, M. L. West has just published a book on The Making of the Odyssey, a kind of follow-up to his 2011 Making of the Iliad. Given the weirdness of his Iliad book, I'm not sure what to make of this news. I can't help expecting it to be a pile of dross: the blurb --

With various possible ways of telling the story bubbling up in his mind, [the poet] creates a narrative marked by constant inconsistency of detail.

-- certainly shows that he's chosen to throw away the last 25 years of readings that showed the creation of multiple potential Odysseys within the one poem are an extraordinary artistic achievement. I find it so weird that a scholar capable of such greatness (the Catalogue of Women fragments, the Hesiod commentaries, The East Face of Helicon) can be so blinded by his own assumptions as to ignore everything anyone else has ever done.

I'm a Boardwalk Empire fan and was wondering how common it was in that time period (1920's) for women to actually watch men kill each other.

It seems like it would really have a psychological effect on the women to have to wash brain splatter off their dresses.

Did this happen as much as the show is portraying? What were the effects of this lifestyle on the women?

How did Monarchies form? I'm trying to establish a sort of anthropological timeline beginning with tribes and ending with Monarchy, but I don't research good and I'm not really sure how to find the information I'm looking for. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Most important question of all time: did Qin Shi Huang really destroy all "printed" records, sculptures, written references, etc. relating to the existence of pugs?

Actually a question, but i didn't want to jam up the sub in case i shouldn't be asking here.

I believe that the American poor voter turnout today can be followed back to when the country did away with the draft. From that point forward, only people choosing to enter the military had to worry about it anymore, and those who didn't want to join, couldn't be drafted anymore. Based on what i can see, and what i have researched, i want to say that the number of politically active americans today directly coorelated to the loss of political interest in the common voter due to never running the risk of being drafted against your will again. No longer did parents have to crusade to save their children from Vietnam/Korea/WW1&2, etc.

Basically, is there any truth to what research has led me to believe, that the average american voter was much more involved with americas politics until the draft was shelved.

e: Oh is that what we are doing? Downvoting questions for historians in /r/askhistorians during "Free for all Friday".

Somehow lunch conversation today got onto the Last Spike at Craigallachie, in turn to someone's recollection of "Hold fast Craigallachie" as a telegram to Van Horne regarding financing for the railway, referencing "a war cry to rally the highland clans."

Well, that last bit set of my bullshitometre pretty hard, so I did some easy factchecking. The quote references the Clan Grant motto of STAND fast Craigallachie, supposedly referencing clans rallying to a burning cross...That brought me back to a question on the matter from apparently 8 months ago, in which a since-deleted account was arguing that a "crann-tara" was used during Jacobite days, but which I can't trace beyond Sir Walter Scott. So now I'm wondering a) how that story got mixed in with the Grants and how old their motto is and b) how does this statement tie into the Last Spike, other than Stan Rogers?