I've just written a blog post about my first month or so participating on this subreddit (spoiler: I think it's pretty cool) and thought it might be of interest - particularly to any academics or grad students lurking like I was, trying to decide whether to get stuck in or not! You can read it here.

I've got a new podcast episode out, on European folk dress! (Also fancy new graphics.)

And it is a sound principle of law that a rape is a rape, be the victim a lewd wench or not.

• H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 30 Jul 1933, Letters to J. Vernon Shea 142

One of the issues that I run into fairly frequently is people taking quotes from H. P. Lovecraft and other pulp writers out of context - especially with regard to racism. While Lovecraft did not talk about racism a lot in terms of the percentage of his correspondence, he wrote a lot of letters - an estimated 80,000-100,000 pieces of mail during his lifetime, from postcards to letters that were 50, 70, even once 100 pages long - so even if only a small percentage of that directly addresses issues of race or expresses his prejudices, you still end up with a sizable amount of material. It's easy to quote-mine Lovecraft's published letters to find something he says that is deplorable...and to maybe given an idea of why context is important, I'd like to give a demonstration.

The above quote from Lovecraft is taken out of context. It expresses a complete thought, and that is a thought that many people will agree with, standing by itself. But it was not originally standing alone. Lovecraft was discussing the matter of the Scottsboro Boys Trial with his younger, more liberal correspondent J. Vernon Shea, where a group of black men were accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. The case highlighted the immense legal discrimination faced by people of color in the American South, both in public and in the legal system. The full context of Lovecraft's letter uses some NSFW language, but I' going to present it as it was written:

About the Scottsboro case—it may be as you say; but it remains a fact that the possible willingness of white whores to deal with niggers & falsely accuse them does not make niggers any the less prone to attack white women—whores or otherwise. And it is a sound principle of law that a rape is a rape, be the victim a lewd wench or not. This individual case must be judged on its own merits, & I don’t know enough of the evidence to old any real opinion. But the type of opinion which has frantically rushed to the defence side is not at all prepossessing. I don’t give a damn one way or the other so far as prejudice goes. If the niggers are innocent, they ought not to be condemned—but if they are guilty, they ought not to be set free through maudlin sympathy. I’m in favor of a new trial on northern soil (if such a thing is legally possible) & life imprisonment instead of death if guilt is established without proof of the most direct sort.

• H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 30 Jul 1933, Letters to J. Vernon Shea 142-143

This is really only the tail-end of an intermittent conversation that Lovecraft and Shea had been having in letters for a couple of months, but I think this is sufficient to demonstrate my point. The basic sentiment of the original quote is still there - but as you can see, it's embedded in a much more complicated historical context. Lovecraft's sentiments and even language are not atypical for either the man or the period - Lovecraft was prejudiced, but wasn't prepared to assume anyone immediately guilty (we can leave aside the actual facts of the crime - one of the women eventually admitted she had falsified the accusation - because Lovecraft would only have known what was reported in the papers.) In hindsight, we can still see his biases, and we can see the basic error in trying to take a centralized position in what we now know with hindsight was a gross miscarriage of justice - but I think the context is really important to see what he was saying, and why.

I was reading this article about the mysterious tiny coffins of 19th century Edinburgh, and thinking this is miles and away a better article than anything I'd previously read on the subject. I get to the ending and notice the author is /u/mikedash BUT OF COURSE!

Anyway, Edinburgh’s Mysterious Miniature Coffins is the article and it's a great, creepy read with lots of investigation.

Last year on Memorial Day I noticed a grave in my town that seemed odd: a British Veteran from WWI. Now, I live in rural New England, so I never expected a British Veteran's grave in town. This started me on a path of research.

As it turns out, he had been born in the United Kingdom, enlisted in OTC in mid 1915, and was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Field Artillery in November 1915. He stayed within the military until 1921. In 1923 he married his wife in London, and they had a son. In 1927 they moved to my town, and in 1928 he tragically committed suicide.

The grave itself had an American flag on it (which I have replaced) and I am currently trying to track down living family members - as it seems his son moved to Australia and had three children. The current grave marker is much newer than 1928 (as it says WWI on it) so I would like to ask their permission to take care of the grave.

I still can't find a history of Medieval Georgia :'(

I've just started research on my history dissertation. I chose to look at the rise and fall of Arab Nationalism in the twentieth century.

Does anybody know any good primary sources to look at for the subject. Particularly in regard to Nasserism.

Reading about the back channel mod discussion in the [META] thread on the overlap of moderators flairs, I'm imagining you guys being like the Minds and us regular plebs like the humans in the Culture novels.

I came across this comment in an online discussion

To emphasize: In Operation Paukenschlag the US captured a German Sub. They couldn't copy it because it was too high tech. That's how advanced German military was back then.

I guess my question is whether it's true 1) in general that the German military technology was the most advanced at the time, and 2) in particular if this claim has any merit.

I watched the Netflix special about bias surrounding the happening during WW2. They were very critical of Truman and painted a picture of an insecure man over compensating by making brash heavy handed decisions leading to drastic Japanese deaths and loss of relations w Russia. Was this close to reality or was this a biased show?

Does anyone have an opinion on David Satter and his books? I've been enjoying them but I'm not too sure how well regarded he is.