Penultimate stretch of the Opium War series tomorrow. I've put off writing it for long enough – let's do this.

EDIT: I've also had a bit of an epiphany – the Ever-Victorious Army were basically the Spanish conquistadors to the Anhui Army's Tlaxcalans.

I think the definitions of "corn" should be in the FAQ. Anyone see a better answer than "What does Thucydides mean by ‘corn’?" by /u/deVerence and /u/YeahLinguisticsBitch ?

While articles in the American Weekly are seldom to be taken literally, it is obvious that much has been unearthed in Maltese archaeology since 1920. Proof of a really evolved civilisation in the Mediterranean region as early as 7000 B.C. would certainly upset many settled nations of cultural distribution--though it probably would not alter the dominant idea that the first seal of civilisation was in upland Asia--with opposite lines of advance which reached India, China, POlynesia, & prehistoric America on the one hand, & Babylonia, Egypt, & the Mediterranean on the other hand. The worship of fat women was certainly comic--as seen in retrospect. Personally, I think I prefer ibis-headed monstrosities to the types suggested in the Maltese carvings!

• H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, 25 Jul 1935, Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith 612

A lot to unpack here, but some context: Lovecraft and his correspondents frequently sent each other clippings from local newspapers and magazines on areas of interest, especially anthropology, archaeology, the occult, Atlantis, etc. This was apparently one such on the archaeology at Malta. Lovecraft goes into a brief diversion on the movement of human history; you have to read between the lines a little but he's basically talking about the Indo-Europeans with one group going west and the other east--Lovecraft also held that South American civilization was probably culturally influenced from Polynesia, hence the "primitive America" comment. The comment on "fat women" is probably a reference to the fat goddesses.

I recently found this newspaper clipping describing a discriminatory practice by INS during the Carter administration. They were refusing re-entry to and revoking residency status of elderly Asian LPRs who received SSI benefits and traveled abroad.

I thought it was relevant considering the immigration and asylum issues we have in the US today. I also wanted to share this with someone because it's a bit of history that I'd never heard before. I'd be interested to know if anyone has more info or context.

Since about 2010, there's been a movement to re-examine the battle of Sekigahara, as was done with Okehazama and Nagashino, to determine what actually happened using only contemporary sources and the most reliable narrative sources. The movement really began in earnest after (I think) the publication of a book doing just that in 2014. I had thought that, like Okehazama and Nagashino, the debate would take 10~20 years to settle down and overthrow the traditional narrative with a new consensus.

Shocked I was, just wanting to check up on the state of the debate a few days ago, to find that there's already a consensus and that almost all (not all) of the traditional narrative had been thrown out. Well, that was fast. It makes me wonder what historians of the battle have been doing all these years, if the traditional narrative could be overturned so fast. This might take the record for most quickly overturned academic consensus from /u/Iphikrates?

Anyways so now I'm frantically trying to catch up on what the details of the new narrative is.

I have just read a couple of books by Richard Overy, The Road to War and Why the Allies Won. Both were interesting books that I got a lot out of them. My question is what books would you recommend about the lead up to the war and more on how the Allies won it. I don’t want a general history, I have those. But it is two areas that I have become interested in lately. Thank you for any recommendations. Take care.