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.
I was quoted in the New York Times last week. I forgot to insist on being addressed as a "Dr." and so they downgraded me to "Mr." as per their stylesheet. Whoops. And Facebook temporarily blocked the article, which was weird.
Also, I went to Paris, and the Catacombs were my favorite thing there (aside from the food and just walking around and everything else that is wonderful about Paris). Now I am back.
This might just be a personal vendetta of mine, but I'm 80% sure you could teach an above-average Chinese history class without ever using 'Dynasty' as a proper noun. Sure, talking about political history would be tricky, but students may well be much better informed if you instead talked about the changing role of merchants in the Chinese economy, or the evolving examination system, or secret societies and millenarian peasant rebellions. When courses just go by the 'list of dynasties/Confucian morality tale' format, you have to ask what the student is really learning, and especially if that course is worth the 1000+$ it costs verses a wikipedia binge.
Ho. Ho. Ho.
Let's hear about your gifts, either ones you received or ones you gave, that may have something to do with history!
Who's been good and who's been bad?
What the hell is happening in doctor who? 'I'm an archaeologist, look I have a trowel.' It's like a new Indiana Jones. A better one. This episode is actually pretty good. I don't really like DW tbh but this one is good.
Internally screaming bc I got The Army of Flanders and the Spanish road, when i currently have it borrowed from the university library.
I was wondering whether this thread would be up today but then I realised it's run through AutoMod. Merry Christmas redditors, I received Thomas Pakenham's The Scramble for Africa which I've been wanting to read for awhile.
In 1880 the continent of Africa was largely unexplored by Europeans. Less than thirty years later, only Liberia and Ethiopia remained unconquered by them. The rest - 10 million square miles with 110 million bewildered new subjects - had been carved up by five European powers (and one extraordinary individual) in the name of Commerce, Christianity, 'Civilization' and Conquest...
Just that small excerpt from the synopsis of the second edition sounds really intriguing. I know (embarrassingly) next to nothing on African history & what I do know of it, ties in to the ridiculous excuse of an IGO we call the "League of Nations" (1919 - 1946); Most notably the Abyssinian Crisis & the failed Hoare-Laval Pact which was all part of the British appeasement policy (1931 -1939). So I'm hoping Pakenham's book will put together the missing jigsaw puzzle.
Apart from Pakenham I received a cider-making kit (I'm also hoping to start making my own mead as well so shout out to /r/cider & /r/mead) & Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex. I'm also hoping to see The Danish Girl when it gets released on New Years :)
Anyways I hope you're all having a very merry Christmas
Happy holidays!
In keeping with the holiday spirit, I'm posting around 10-12 anecdotes over in /r/HistoryAnecdotes today. I'm almost half-way through right now :)
Edit: Finished! The 12 history anecdotes of Christmas are submitted for your viewing pleasure!
Is there any credible historical basis for the common present-day belief that the reason why Tomatoes were considered to be poisonous in medieval times is because they were blamed for lead poisoning?
Syria. What is the tl;dr on Syria from WW1 to now?
For a long time I've been meaning to get my hands on a copy of A.H.M. Jones' monumental work in two volumes The Later Roman Empire 284-602, but it's out of print and all the copies I can find online are either used or way too expensive. (Yes, I'm aware I could find it in a library, but I don't live in an English-speaking country, plus I actually want to own it.)
Why do books as important and oft-quoted as this one go out of print, and what are the chances that a new edition might be in the offing?
Just finished Horne's The Counterrevolution of 1776, which I thought was pretty fascinating. Anyone have any opinions?
Another week, another report on how I'm doing with my dissertation:
I've managed to get 1,000 words per day done, which is better than nothing, but still not quite as fast as I'd like work to be going on a very very rough draft. Still, I hope things pick up next week...maybe they will :D