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.
So this week, someone asked a really fascinating question about how people dealt with the scourge of malaria in premodern sub-Saharan Africa. /u/Commustar explained what looks like a paradox: early Africa provides numerous examples of plantations, settlements, cities, and even kingdoms centered on the very bodies of water that harbor the pests of malaria, mosquitoes and tsetse flies. /u/khosikulu went a step further. Water for irrigation and water for long-distance transport was (of course) the key to empire-building in pre-1750 Africa! Malaria was a constant problem, but various civilizations intentionally or unintentionally adapted to deal with it. Dietary changes, seasonal migration, and farming strategies all helped mitigate the malaria risk and allow civilizations to use bodies of water to thrive. It was awesome!
Except--nobody saw it.
To be clear, this was one of the most popular threads on sub-Saharan Africa that AH has hosted in a long time. It received a whopping 180 replies. As far as I can tell (as a mod, I can see the removed comments), approximately SIX of those discussed the actual question.
The other 172 posts devolved into what I can't even qualify as a debate over Guns, Germs, & Steel. People talked about Jared Diamond's footnoting patterns. The rivalry between liberal arts colleges and research universities. Stereotypes of historians versus anthropologists. The meaning of the historical profession.
We spent 96% of the thread debating a white American dude and 4% addressing African history. The subject of the question.
To be clear, I am not saying GGS is a breathtaking work of historical accuracy. You'll find, in fact, that the posts by Commustar and khosikulu both critiqued Diamond quite adequately and while addressing the topic. I am also not saying that criticizing Diamond has no place on AskHistorians. You will find that our FAQ has an entire subsection devoted to him.
BUT.
It is a problem when a question that finally addresses a systematically under-represented area of history (on AH and in Western conversation in general) and finally gets popular--completely ignores the marginalized area of history to expend all its energy on a white Western guy.
I'm not blaming any one participant in the thread. Hell, I'm not even blaming any one thread. The problem, after all, is not this particular thread. The problem is the pattern. The problem is that it happens again and again and again.
Reddit is 15% female and, well, not the most lady-friendly place on the Internet. Yet we can host discussions about rape in the Middle Ages, about the erasure of women from history, about the historical inaccuracies of Red Pill-favorite evo psych books that--holy shit--manage to stay focused on medieval women.
Why can't we take a question about Africa and talk about Africa?
I am in the middle of a conference at my university on the subject of maintenance in the history of technology — a push-back against the emphasis on "innovation" that we see in our current culture of talking about technology. (Here's a manifesto of sorts from two of my colleagues.)
Anyway, for this conference I will be (predictably) talking about the issue of maintenance and nuclear weapons. I posted a blog post on the subject this morning: Maintaining the bomb. The long and short of it is that we actually do have some interesting works on the role of long-term maintenance when it comes to nuclear weapons, in part because this is the sort of "maintenance" issue that perks Congress' ears up (unlike, say, bridges). But the politics of maintenance are super tricky in this case, because practically nobody will say, "oh, we should totally let our nuclear weapons decay into an unreliable and scary state," but much of what is claimed to be "maintenance" work on the bombs is arguably falling into the "innovation" category, and we are not supposed to be "innovating" in this field (building new nuclear weapons systems) now that the Cold War has ended.
I'm proofreading proofs of the first article I've ever published! It's equal parts exciting and panic inducing ('Did I write that? Did I really mean it? I CAN'T CHANGE THE PARAGRAPH NOW WHY IS THERE NO EDIT BUTTON!').
Knowing that people whose work I respect will read this, and maybe write me emails telling me what they think about it, is really unnerving, and my imposter syndrome demon is dancing gleeful circles around my stomach. (Knowing that the odds are good that nobody will actually ever read this article or care what I write is not exactly more comforting, of course :p).
The biggest lesson? Dedicated, hands-on editors are amazing. The person I'm working with (who is an unpaid volunteer, like most journal editors) has spent so much time and effort helping me make this article better. We should all take a moment to thank editors like him for saving us from having the read the worst excesses of sloppy argumentation and dreadful academic prose.
Lately I've been feeling like I want to go for a PhD. This was mostly sparked by reading about a doctoral studentship with the V&A and the Queen Mary University of London on mantua-makers in the long 18th century, supervised by Amanda Vickery and Susan North, which is probably the most me thing I've ever read but is completely out of my reach due to the residency requirement. A friend pointed out that I could probably propose something similar with William & Mary and Colonial Williamsburg, and I would so welcome not just the ability but the expectation to do research into account books etc. that are just not available to an online researcher, and to work on a career as an academic.
On the other hand, I have a pretty good idea of the reality and stresses of doing a PhD, and I'm not at all sure that I'd do well with it. That would also represent several years out of the (absolutely terrible) museum job market with little immediate benefit, though at the upper levels of bigger museums PhDs are necessary. And the teaching aspect ... maybe not my best choice.
I suspect that the real issue is mainly that I'm frustrated with my job - my position is "collections manager", but it would be more accurate to call me membership director/administrative assistant/collections manager/gift shop sales associate/maintenance/registrar. Most of what I do has nothing to do with collections, and that's been way worse lately as the director's been on medical leave and our yearly antique/artisan sale is coming up. I'm too tired to do the kind of in-depth online research I used to back in the day, and I don't have the time to do more interesting research in person just for my blog. My book publishing is in limbo and I don't know how to get started writing a paper for a journal like Dress. So it's all just kind of blah right now.
If someone could help me, I'm trying to find a humorous post made on /r/AskHistorians a while back. I don't remember what the tread name was or even the topic, but there was one top-level post that involved "300,000 year old lizard civilization" or something of the sorts in its answer.
Was generously gifted a Kindle Paperwhite last week from a dear friend, now I'll be on my way to downsizing my paper library and start on my E-collection. Also managed to read through three books on surface engagements of the early/mid Pacific War, so all in all it has been a productive week as far as my history is concerned.
World War Two has a lot of focus on the individuals in command of vast forces, the "Great Men" if you will. For better or for worse, names have been immortalized in pages of books, visuals of a screen, memorials and namesakes. If we were to place the names of those men in the Pacific War on a wall, there would be a name that sticks out at a casual glance. Karel Doorman, a Dutch officer of a hastily assembled force, a man who may have been little more than a footnote of history were it not for his (what some would call) "death ride" at Java Sea.
Having finished Rising Sun, Falling Skies: the disastrous Java Sea campaign of World War II, I find the discussion around Karel Doorman fascinating. His conduct during the Java Sea engagements, and the decisions of his tactical command of ABDACOM naval forces have generated a great controversy, certainly due to the decisive destruction of his fleet to the Japanese.
A naval officer of little note otherwise (his naval aviation background serving as the only really unique factor of his pre-war career), he has found himself, and his image, oddly thrust into the pantheon of naval leadership that has popularly defined our image of the War in the Pacific. His death - with the death of his fleet - at Java Sea has only fueled the critiques of his explosive and short lived command. With intense criticism and national lionization at opposite ends, it's hard to find a figure in the Pacific that has been more polarizing and scrutinized. All of this for a position of command that lasted around a couple of months, and I find that absolutely fascinating.
Yesterday I bought a copy of Frederick Starr's 1897 publication The Little Pottery Objects of Lake Chapala, Mexico at the annual SAA conference. I have never seen a copy that wasn't a reprint or scanned into Google Books
Book orders are done for two classes:
History of the British Empire
and Early Modern Europe
The readings for the classes will also naturally include a range of shorter pieces, with plenty of academic articles and some primary sources.
I am reading a great history book on the history of the Roman Empire, called "the Immense Majesty." It mentions that Greek pirates seized some islands off of Sicily and set of a communist society. Can I know more about this?
Another week, another bunch if stuff I've been doing, including books I've read~
https://gunlord500.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/living-the-good-life-episode-2-april-8-2016/
I checked out James Patterson's Freedom is Not Enough, Eugene Robinson's Disintegration, and Nathan Connolly's A World More Concrete. Good times! :D
I did make a thread about it, but it didn't get any love.
anyone know where the myth about the Gurkha Kukri originated from?
If it's drawn it has to draw blood before it's sheathed again.
and if there was ever any truth to it
Yesterday was the day I learned about the City of London. I did a lot of holding back actual laughter.