How does one deal with failure? Just yesterday my advisors told me my honors undergrad thesis wasn't strong enough to have a defense, so I take a lower grade and just get credit for the class. It was a huge blow to me and it has shaken me up a bit concerning if I want to pursue further studies. I'd still like to, but I'm a bit disappointed from how it turned out. Obviously I put a lot work into it and a lot of time researching. I guess it is still good that I'm going to graduate but it feels lesser now than what I had expected it.

I don't know if this is the appropriate thread for this but here's my question:

Why are ancient sites covered under tons of dirt? I can understand sites in desert areas where sand builds up and dinosaur digs where over millions of years dirt and soot builds up.

So I asked the mods about this, and one said it was alright, but save it for Friday.

So here is my question, I am trying to make a Colonial Monopoly board set on the eve of WW1, I need 22 "territories" divided into 8 color groups.

What colonies do I choose?

going from least to most wealth producing, would India be my Boardwalk?

One of the subtle debates I like to look for in naval histories is over the concept of 'navalism' and it's application to maritime powers throughout the centuries. It's one of those debates that never really become prominent, but instead find themselves argued in the subtleties of writing and books.

At it's core, the definition of 'navalism' and it's usefulness as an actual term is wide ranging and has been applied and contested with a number of civilizations that have found themselves powerful on the water. Typically, the word 'navalism' refers to a period (roughly 1880s-1930s) of massive steel fleet buildup in world powers, where the State invested heavily in capital-intensive projects to strengthen it's maritime muscle, and where the professionalization of a naval officer corps significantly influenced the State on the importance of maritime matters. We typically use nations like Germany, Japan, the United States, and Britain as case examples of 'navalism', but their have been studies of the craze hitting South American and Turkish governments around the same time.

However, the definition had been found to range from 'sea-going militarism' to 'the maritime consequences of imperialism' to 'the complex socio-economic relationship of the Navy with the State'. Therefore, the application of 'navalism' has also been extended to historic maritime civilizations, like the Athenians, Carthaginians, Spanish, Dutch, and the Venetians. It is the debated definitions, and reaching application of the term, that calls into question if 'navalism' can be considered a legitimate 'thing', so to speak.

Do we find usefulness in applying the term outside of the 1880s-1930s? Are the comparisons of the German, Carthaginian, and Portuguese Empires hold strongly enough to allow us to slap on a 'navalist' sticker to their history? Is 'Periclean Navalism' a valid concept, or is it the post-hoc application of a modern term? Is it telling, then, that Mahan chose not to use history beyond the 17th Century in forming his seminal Influence of Sea Power upon History?

A couple of weeks ago the Massachusetts Historical Society sponsored a conference about the American Revolution (held in Boston of course). Woody Holton was the keynote speaker and his presentation was recorded (as was the Q&A session that followed).

It's available here, and I highly recommend it, as I think much of what he has to say relates to broad historiographical issues, not just with the American Revolution.

Here are a few key points he made:

• Professors need to spend more time with students as they're writing their dissertations. No more "quickie dissertations".

• Students should get away from the mindset that their paper needs to be the only paper/book on the subject that anybody needs to read. This will let students have more room to write their original research.

Historians need to focus on a few key areas to do more original research

• First--do more comparison studies. Examples he gave were statements written by Abigail Adams on the eve of Revolution and in 1782 and what the differences may have said about her attitudes. That's the micro level. The macro level would be something like studying the China trade from the European perspective and from the Chinese perspective.

• Use more stats. Digging through the research and doing the work (such as with pension records) might be boring but the payoff can be huge. Also more work with GIS^1

• Write more about ordinary people influencing elites. eg Phyllis Wheatley's impact. Along with this write more biographies of people who don't have them. e.g. There are many biographies of Samuel Adams, but none of Peter Oliver (prominent Boston loyalist), and yet Oliver has plenty of papers and records to document his life. Likewise we have an extensive memoir of Joseph Plumb Martin, yet no biography of the man.^2

Woody Holton--Not Yet: The Originality Crisis in American Revolution Studies

1.) Idaho State University has a free GIS intro course available online. It was developed by their history department and is geared towards historians and social scientists.

A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Training Manual for Historians and Historical Social Scientists

2.) Martin's memoir is the only one written by a common soldier during the Revolutionary War (he served for most of the war) and is both entertaining and accurate.

I love the knowledgeable people in this subreddit, but why are there so many questions that amount to, "Which of these two armies from the past would win in a fight? How bad ass was this one army's weapons?" What interesting questions do the historians of AskHistorians do you wish people would ask?

Most overspecfic histroy book you ever read or found?

I was thinking about the London Underground after a particularly intense game of Mornington Crescent and I was wondering when the first suicide in front of a tube train was. Morbid I know.

It's just that it seems to be a very popular method for suicide, and was just thinking whether there was a recorded "first"

I got a bee in my bonnet and decided to read about the Franco-Chinese War, which is often grouped with the Opium Wars as an example of how weak and ineffectual the late Qing army was. But when I looked in detail, it turns out that the Qing gave as good as they got on land, and Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army proved more than a match for the French colonial expedition. The French won in part because of a real naval superiority, and in part because of rather chaotic Chinese command.

It makes me wonder how much more of the received wisdom of European military dominance is, well, just wrong.

Also, this really illustrates the importance of military history outside of the sort of social-history-via-military that tends to dominate discussion. Battles matter!

What would a list of the top ten most influential historians of classical antiquity from the last 100 traes look like?

I'm talking to my university advisor about minoring in history. It is going to be hard since I don't have any spare classes, if I can get the minor, I'm going to take the classes over the summer. I just need some upper level classes. Paradoxically, the upper level classes require "historical methods" (how to write a history paper), but that class is recommended, not required for history minors. I used to be a history major before I changed to psych so I know how to write history papers as I have written five of them, so I will most likely need to either take that historical methods or try to get an override. Lots of work to do even more so since I should graduate this time next year or so knock on wood.

I'm also going to finish my A.S. in History from my community college next year. The only thing that prevented me from that A.S. was pre-algebra and basic algebra and I'm going to finish those classes by this time next year. I called and my community college said that all I need to do is send them the class description then an unofficial copy of my transcript once I pass that class. When that is done, I'll get the A.S. I spent three years there (long story) so it will be nice to finally get the A.S.

Liquid mercury was found in the tunnel underneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent at Teotihuacan, yo

The only other context in which mercury has been in Mesoamerica are within some Maya tombs and ritual caches. They served the function as mirrors because of their reflective surface.

Hi everyone!

Super new to reddit and very new to this subreddit in particular. But mannnn it's well run!!

I don't know if AskHistorians is the right place for this, but recently I've really been getting interested in the folktales and ancient/classical literature from the Middle East and South Asia. Things like 1001 nights (Arabic), the Shahnameh (Persian), and The Adventures of Amir Hamza (Urdu).

I am wondering:

1. If anyone knows of any other well known folktales/classical texts from this region?

2. What, if any, purpose these stories served apart from entertainment? I ask because it seems like a lot of time, effort and money went into drawing these stories out into lavish miniatures.

3. Were these stories ever acted out?

, what do you guys think about benjamin issac Both Racism in classical antiqutiy and the limits of empire Personally , from what I'v read people are both overstating his idea's radicalism and his idea of proto-racism is problematic. Them again i have never read the book so.

What's a good bio on WEB DuBois?

What are some of the best-written history books you've read for laypersons? I don't care about the specific subject, I am happy to learn about anything. Really.

I'm going to have a chance to go to the Glorieta Pass battlefield and speak to Dr. Walter Pittman who's an expert on Civil War history in New Mexico, so if anyone has a question they want answered then I can ask him.

I'm currently writing a paper on the Mandate of Heaven in Chinese history, if anyone has any suggestions on book or journals to read I'd be very grateful.

Which group of people were the most bad ass in history? I'll try to explain.. Growing up I always thought the Vikings were the most bad ass people, in the sort of way that they played by their own rules and did what they wanted..if that makes sense. I've asked some other people this before and I've heard Spartans and Mongols mentioned as well. What's your thoughts? It's probably more of an opinion, but I'd love to hear what you think!

Where can I donate a Nazi Germany magazine/newspaper? It was printed the day Hitler rose to power. It has pics in it they're like see through/black and white.
I wanted to send it to a museum.

You are going to create a prize fight for champion of the world between the two best armies of all time. Technology/weapons aside, which two armies (include time period - Example: 1980s Soviet Army) do you pit against each other based on morale, reliability, training, leadership, personnel quality, organization?

Keep it after 1700 and land-based forces.

I am re-reading W. L. Warren's Henry II. I'm still in luuuuuv with the first Plantagenet king. Ended the anarchy of Stephen's reign so thoroughly that the realm was never again threatened with the disunion of early France or the later Empire. Paraphrasing: Henry I dominated the lords, Stephen let them run rampant, Henry II made them irrelevant for government. Had so many good and firm legal and administrative reforms that, when the big revolt happened, Magna Carta pretty much just regulated them, not abolished them. Whenever I read about the writ of novel disseisin, I have to go wash my pants. Arguably started the Common Law. A king who hated war, but fought it exceedingly well when he had to, at least on the defence. Started in debt, ended the richest of medieval English kings, without excessive oppression. Cared about the reality of power, not in having glitzy courts and clothes and stuff. Had a hand in creating a saint who had it coming.

Is there a project to use the political geography that Jeffrey Lewis and Kenneth Martis and their teams have created and made digital for access by laymen? I loved Dr. Martis's reference works in college, and I wish they were available online in an accessible way.