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.
Happy camper over here who now has not one, but TWO beautiful Gaelic history books, thanks to help tracking down another from /u/mattbin and /u/bitparity.
Someone here asked about the most perfect question for me ever, as well (rate of bilingualism amoung Gaelic speakers at the time of Culloden) that I have been terribly remiss in answering, but hope to get to properly this weekend. If you recognize your question in this description, the short answer is yes, there would have been a high rate of bilingualism then, somewhat like Quebec today. More info to follow, of course, when I find back the post.
Like Samkin Aylward, I warm to a man with the bitter drop in him. And whatever else they were or were not, the Indians weren’t fools enough to forgive a wrong, or what they considered a wrong. I’ve often thought of fictionizing the incident just mentioned, transferring it to another race and age — having Bran Mak Morn eat the heart of a Roman governor, or Conan the Cimmerian that of a Hyborian king. I wonder how much barbarity the readers will stand for. One problem in writing bloody literature is to present it in such a manner as to avoid a suggestion of cheap blood-and-thunder melodrama — which is what some people will always call action, regardless of how realistic and true it is. So many people never have any action in their own placid lives, and therefore can’t believe it exists anywhere or in any age. Another problem is how far you can go without shocking the readers into distaste for your stuff — and therefore cutting down sales. I’ve always held myself down in writing action-stories; I never let my stories be as bloody and brutal as the ages and incidents I was trying to depict actually were. I think sometimes I’ll let myself go — possibly in a yarn of the Middle Ages — and see if I can sell the thing. I don’t know much slaughter and butchery the readers will endure. Their capacity for grisly details seems unlimited, when the cruelty is the torturing of some naked girl, such as Quinn’s stories abound in — no reflection intended on Quinn; he knows what they want and gives it to them. The torture of a naked writhing wretch, utterly helpless — and especially when of the feminine sex amid voluptuous surroundings — seems to excite keen pleasure in some people who have a distaste for wholesale butchery in the heat and fury of a battlefield. Well — to me the former seems much more abominable than the cutting down of armed men — even the slaughter of prisoners in the madness of fighting-lust. I can read of the Little Big Horn, of Little Turtle’s slaughter of Saint Clair’s army, of the slaughter at Nicopolis and at Mohacz and the Horns of Hattin, unmoved except by feelings of admiration for the courage shown; but I have never been able to read of the burning of Joan of Arc without the most intense feeling of horror and rage; the same is true of the execution of William Wallace, and of Robert Emmett; thought of them rouses in me another sensation — a savage satisfaction at the memories of King’s Mountain and New Orleans, with the British soldiers falling like ripe grain before the American rifles — yet I deplore the Scottish troops that fell there. I have seen persons who were constituted right opposite from me; they found accounts of battles and wholesale massacre either repugnant or without interest, yet avidly devoured articles and stories dealing with the persecution of the helpless. I’ve never been able to read the full history of the Spanish Inquisition; it’s too horrible. But I find highly enjoyable the chronicles of Montbars the Exterminator, who went mad from reading and brooding over that same Inquisition and started out to avenge all the French who perished thereby.
Was meditating on this with regards to our discussion about empathy in history a couple weeks back. You still see this kind of...prurience...sometimes, usually in pop history or sometimes military history, or some of the sketchier independent monographs and the like, although mostly this kind of treatment gets left for pure fiction in the Game of Thrones mold. I think it's a valid point that Howard brings up about audience, though...there's a reader response aspect to historical rhetoric, where the reader brings their own biases and interests with them to whatever they read, and historical facts can sometimes be skewed to cater to implicitly support certain viewpoints. Something more to chew on, anyway.
Some may remember that two weeks ago I said I would be sailing on the US Brig Niagara. I am back from that trip, and it was a hell of an experience, being able to learn first hand what it was like to sail a square rigged vessel.
We hauled in sails during a snap thunder squall at midnight, dodged water spouts, had a shore excursion on Kelly's Island, Ohio, and saw the shores of Southern Ontario Province.
It was a fantastic trip, and really brought to life some of what I have and still have to read for my history classes.
Happy camper over here who now has not one, but TWO beautiful Gaelic history books, thanks to help tracking down another from /u/mattbin and /u/bitparity.
Someone here asked about the most perfect question for me ever, as well (rate of bilingualism amoung Gaelic speakers at the time of Culloden) that I have been terribly remiss in answering, but hope to get to properly this weekend. If you recognize your question in this description, the short answer is yes, there would have been a high rate of bilingualism then, somewhat like Quebec today. More info to follow, of course, when I find back the post.
Like Samkin Aylward, I warm to a man with the bitter drop in him. And whatever else they were or were not, the Indians weren’t fools enough to forgive a wrong, or what they considered a wrong. I’ve often thought of fictionizing the incident just mentioned, transferring it to another race and age — having Bran Mak Morn eat the heart of a Roman governor, or Conan the Cimmerian that of a Hyborian king. I wonder how much barbarity the readers will stand for. One problem in writing bloody literature is to present it in such a manner as to avoid a suggestion of cheap blood-and-thunder melodrama — which is what some people will always call action, regardless of how realistic and true it is. So many people never have any action in their own placid lives, and therefore can’t believe it exists anywhere or in any age. Another problem is how far you can go without shocking the readers into distaste for your stuff — and therefore cutting down sales. I’ve always held myself down in writing action-stories; I never let my stories be as bloody and brutal as the ages and incidents I was trying to depict actually were. I think sometimes I’ll let myself go — possibly in a yarn of the Middle Ages — and see if I can sell the thing. I don’t know much slaughter and butchery the readers will endure. Their capacity for grisly details seems unlimited, when the cruelty is the torturing of some naked girl, such as Quinn’s stories abound in — no reflection intended on Quinn; he knows what they want and gives it to them. The torture of a naked writhing wretch, utterly helpless — and especially when of the feminine sex amid voluptuous surroundings — seems to excite keen pleasure in some people who have a distaste for wholesale butchery in the heat and fury of a battlefield. Well — to me the former seems much more abominable than the cutting down of armed men — even the slaughter of prisoners in the madness of fighting-lust. I can read of the Little Big Horn, of Little Turtle’s slaughter of Saint Clair’s army, of the slaughter at Nicopolis and at Mohacz and the Horns of Hattin, unmoved except by feelings of admiration for the courage shown; but I have never been able to read of the burning of Joan of Arc without the most intense feeling of horror and rage; the same is true of the execution of William Wallace, and of Robert Emmett; thought of them rouses in me another sensation — a savage satisfaction at the memories of King’s Mountain and New Orleans, with the British soldiers falling like ripe grain before the American rifles — yet I deplore the Scottish troops that fell there. I have seen persons who were constituted right opposite from me; they found accounts of battles and wholesale massacre either repugnant or without interest, yet avidly devoured articles and stories dealing with the persecution of the helpless. I’ve never been able to read the full history of the Spanish Inquisition; it’s too horrible. But I find highly enjoyable the chronicles of Montbars the Exterminator, who went mad from reading and brooding over that same Inquisition and started out to avenge all the French who perished thereby.
Was meditating on this with regards to our discussion about empathy in history a couple weeks back. You still see this kind of...prurience...sometimes, usually in pop history or sometimes military history, or some of the sketchier independent monographs and the like, although mostly this kind of treatment gets left for pure fiction in the Game of Thrones mold. I think it's a valid point that Howard brings up about audience, though...there's a reader response aspect to historical rhetoric, where the reader brings their own biases and interests with them to whatever they read, and historical facts can sometimes be skewed to cater to implicitly support certain viewpoints. Something more to chew on, anyway.
I'm nearing the end of reading (well, listening to) Frederick Starr's Lost Enlightenment and I will probably write a full review of it when I am done (spoilers: a constant battle between irritation and enjoyment), but I feel like I had to note for posterity one of the most jaw droppingly...unconsidered or perhaps some other polite euphemism claims I have ever seen in a book.
Al-Biruni was a pretty fascinating dude and an impressive scholar, the type who inevitably shows up in the sort of Great Man Theory of Science narratives that tend to dominate popular intellectual history. He wrote about a lot of stuff, including geography, and in that capacity he made quite accurate estimations of the size of the earth and the known world (ie, Eurasia). He then went gosh golly, that sure is a lot of empty ocean, it would not surprise me if there was another continent in there somewhere! Pretty neat, right? But also not exactly world shattering.
Well, Starr has determined that this can not only be legitimately called the discovery of America (even titling the chapter section "Biruni discovers America") but is in fact a more legitimate discovery of America than that of the Norse. Because while the Norse used merely such crude tools as ships, and sails and muscle power, Biruni used the sophisticated and keen power of the mind to do the same thing.
Now the first reaction to this is that it is just remarkably unconsidered, but I think it is worth hearing it out a bit and considered that, on the contrary, it is also jaw droppingly elitist.
I really needed to get that off my chest.
Why was the pre-Columbian sacrifice section in the FAQ removed?
So I think the oddest thing for me this week was NUKEMAP being used on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
More "normally" but still neat was that I had a book review come out in Nature last week.
Why was the pre-Columbian sacrifice section in the FAQ removed?
For a work program I've been reading up on burial traditions in the Ozarks. After a great deal of wading through internet pages, my boss got me the best early Halloween gift possible. Gone to the Grave: Burial Customs of the Arkansas Ozarks, 1850-1950 by Abby Burnett has been an excellent source-based read on all sorts of lovely and grisly topics.
I'm looking forward to educating and unsettling audiences this October during a number of cemetery tours and other 'ghostly' programs.
Wondering if there have been other examples in the past 2000 years where a group (Goths and Pilgrims) immigrated to a foreign land and then either heavily assisted or outright deliberately overthrew/replaced the then nation/native people
Many of you might be aware of this 'A Case For Colonialism' article in Third World Quarterly that's been stirring up controversy this week. There's a piece by a sociology grad student on it here; I'd be interested to hear if people here have further thoughts on the whole affair/the relevant historiography/how it should be handled.
In which historical document did Thomas Jefferson say the Declaration of Independence is "pure Locke"?
How would MacArthur feel about Korean rockets over Japan?
If my friend and I wanted to dress as David and Goliath how would we do so? What type of clothing would we wear and how should our hair and face look.