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've been for some time making a collection of various old maps and cityscapes from 16th and early 17th century Europe, and decided to share some of the ones I find most amazing. So here's the list, with additional period images of the cities for comparison:
Venice 1500 (zoomable) - other images 1486, 1572, 1572, 1580
Genoa 1553 (zoomable) - other images 15th century, 1572, 1573?, 1481(1597)
Amsterdam 1597 (zoomable) - other images 1538, 1557, 1563, 1599, 1611
London 1600 (zoomable) - other images 1550s 1 2 3, 1570?-1605?, 1582, 1593, 1598
Seville 1617 (zoomable) - other images 16th century?, 1572, 1588, 1588
Lisbon 1619 (zoomable) - other images 1510, 1530, 1530s?, 1540s?, 1572, 1598
Naples 1629 (zoomable)- other images 1572, 1579, 1590
Notable other examples:
Antwerpen 1572, 1572,
Barcelona 1563-1, 1563-2, 1572,
Constatinople 1616, 1572, 1585?,
Florence 1493, 1557, 1572,
Paris 1550-1, 1550-2, 1572, 1615,
Rome 1540s, 1557, 1570, 1645
For more images and places I recommend Civitates orbis terrarum, a collection of various maps and city images compiled by Braun and Hogenberg in the late 16th century, which as you will see often contained copies or reproductions of works of other authors
Many interesting details can be found and analyzed. I myself like boats, so I'll take a look at those. The panorama of Venice of 1500 for example shows in the same picture (larger) ships with stern rudder, and some (smaller) vessels with side rudders/oars. There are also depictions of large vessels that exhibit some unusual features. For example, in the same Venice image we see that, several, but not all, ships exhibit some kind of roof structures over their decks, which is something we really don't see much. Then if we think this might be isolated case in this timeframe, we can again find a similar structure on a ship in the panorama of Naples, over a century later! Intriguing and beyond my level for offering an explanation.
Other details we can explore are the images of various shipyards like the famous Venetian Arsenal and we can contrast it with (a century later) Amsterdam's shipyards or Lisbon's for that matter.
In general, the images are great way to familiarize with the architecture and city layout of the period.
It's just some of the features and details I decided to single out, but there are many more!
Have just heard of a rival to Maxfield's--Cauncey E. Green, of Hope Valley, R.I., who offers 137 varieties of ice cream--though not all are on sale on any one day. Some of the bizarre flavours are pond lily, pepsin, mango, wild bee honey, dangleberry, manzanita, sweet corn, guava, & snow apple. Aunt Julia will surely have to go some to lick Chauncey on variety! We'll have to investigate Chauncey. [...] I get this dope on Chauncey from a newspaper writeup. Only twelve old reliable staples, the same all the year round, & six exotic brands, changed daily. It would take more than twenty visits to clean up Chauncey's repertoire.
Lovecraft was a passionate consumer of ice cream.
I was reading Cults and New Religious Movements the other day when I was struck with some inspiration. Sociologists of religion have come up with different classifications for NRMs. The essay that I was reading was describing a classification system based on how the movement relates to the outside world (world affirming, world denying, and world accommodating). I started to think of examples that fit those definitions, and then wondered if religious studies had been used to discuss extremist movements, in particular white supremacist or male supremacist movements.
White supremacist movements often include elements of religion in their rhetoric. Some groups claim a close relationship to the Judo-Christian God, and there's often a close relationship between those groups and religious belief. There are white supremacist texts that describe how they will rise up, take down the corrupt government/world, and install a utopia that is more aligned with their beliefs. Given all of these thoughts, is there research out there that seeks to study their beliefs through the framework of religious studies?
Do any of you guys know how a Medieval farmer or carpenter would set posts in the ground without them rotting? Did they even bother and just replace them in a few years?
Everyone says they don’t like counter-factuals, but lets be real, What’s some of your ideas on some turning points of history?
What if Franz ferdinand didn’t die? What if Virginia didn’t vote for secession? What if the New England Colonies formed their own single state? What if the Teutonic Order won the battle of Grunwald?
People pick sides when reading historical events, what side would you give a little push?
Is the book "Roller-Coaster: Europe, 1950-2017" by Ian Kershaw something similar to Tony Judt's "Postwar"?
First crusade prophet? So I was listening to Christ & Combat by PowerWolf and there is this verse below. To whom is the "To honour the prophet departed" referring to?
Kill and pray, crusaders at heart
In 1097 we started
Lost the way, and spread all apart
The holy roman empire
The remaining knights, prepared for attack
To honour the prophet departed
On they fought, with no turning back
The kingdom rise forever more
Kinda meant to post this yesterday but being busy all day and night...
So my thesis project has started this semester and I'll need to have my "first chapter" written by late November at the latest. My trouble is that I'm still doing readings and research for it. Totally meant to over the summer but work/internship/life got in the way of fully dedicating to it. Anyways, I've got a subscription for the Royal Chelsea Hospital discharge papers and am using those papers as primary sources. I'm using the papers to find the soldier's previous occupation and where he was from for some statistical data. I've been going through towns and regiments to get this info.
I've got a bit of a predicament now. With time constraints I'm not sure if looking through whole towns is viable now with both Lancaster and York pulling up close to 2000 records. So I'm at the point of just finding certain regiments from each town to use as part of my data or just stick to several regiments and separate them by the towns soldiers came from. Anyone have any advice?
My thesis is to look at possible motivations for enlisting in the 18th century British army, this part would be the economics section. Forgot to mention that.