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.
Don't ask me why but /u/tr4gicfire seems to have deleted his question on whether the so-called "vegvísir" is debated among historians on whether it is a Viking symbol. (it's not). Since I wrote a long debunking of the symbol and the faux-viking-internet culture that surrounds it, could I just leave a link here back to it so it remains accessible?
It's pretty annoying to write a long answer and dig up these examples and references and then have them all vanish because the thread got deleted.
So I'm going to go on a pedantic rant. I'm listening to an audiobook version of Odd Arne Westad's The Cold War: A World History. Something that comes up a lot is referring to the Soviet military as the "Red Army" - even though it wasn't called this after 1946. There's also occasions where General Secretaries like Brezhnev get referred to as the "president".
And like, OK, these are minor flubs. I'd never say don't read the book just because of that. But I recall Tony Judt doing the same flubs in Postwar. Is it that hard to call things by the right names, especially when they're relatively important things in your history? Or should we start writing about the American General Secretary commanding the Continental Army?
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, November 01 - Thursday, November 07
| Top 10 Posts | score | link to comments |
|---|---|---|
| I have finally convinced my fiercely nationalistic father to read a book of my choice on the Armenian genocide. Could you recommend me a book that both makes compelling historically sound arguments that also doesn’t demonize Turks. | 3,787 | 64 comments |
| Would Don Draper be able to afford his life style? | 2,999 | 217 comments |
| There is a common conception within Irish popular history that Ireland's low level of forest cover is primarily due to extractive deforestation and resource exploitation under Norman/English/British rule. How accurate is this statement? | 2,916 | 59 comments |
| 18th century calorie intake - did they really eat 6000 calories per day, like I've often heard? | 2,732 | 140 comments |
| How "populated" were the woods of medieval Europe? On what reality is the image of the secluded cabin in the middle of the forest based? | 2,585 | 55 comments |
| Did the opening of Japan change the Japanese diet and cuisine? Was there a "Perryan exchange" from increased contact with western trade? | 2,033 | 73 comments |
| According to Andrew Roberts, Haiti in the early 1790’s, half an island with 8,000 people, produced more value of crops than every other American or Caribbean colony combined. How is it agriculturally possible to farm to densely? | 1,827 | 51 comments |
| Did Hitler have the support of the moneyed interests in Germany? If so, what was his promise to them? | 1,700 | 85 comments |
| I'm a 'hillbilly' living a secluded life in Appalachia in the American south during the American Civil War. Do I know there is a war going on, and I am technically living in a different country? | 1,660 | 57 comments |
| Did Stalin really say "Mama, do you remember our tsar? Well, I'm something like the tsar" ? | 1,639 | 44 comments |
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Hello!
I was wondering if you fine people could please help me remember a term. When I was in college a professor used a term that described the kind of history study where a person could determine history could have been different if a person/group/country did something differently. For example, “if [country] had [made a different move than what they really did], they could have won the war.” It wasn’t revisionism or historiography, but I think it was a longer word. The example he used was that governments will hire historians to do these kind of studies to determine if something could have been done differently in conflict.
What was it like when people first heard Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd? Were people’s minds blown? Did they hate it?