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.
Not new to Reddit, but new to r/AskHistorians. It seemed like this would be a better venue than the Saturday Showcase:
It went semi-viral, and encouraged lots of fun discussion! My first venture into some public scholarship.
Historiography is like drugs. Drugs (scholarship) that worked in the past work less effectively now, and eventually lose their patent/copyright. It's not that they were bad drugs for their time, just that we have better drugs today. New drugs are developed all the time to tackle the same illnesses. Some drugs were found to be poisonous and are no longer used (thalidomide, Salvarsan, David Irving, Noble Savage tropes). Most of the newest and best drugs are expensive (behind paywalls, in obscure journals, insurance won't pay for them), and largely inaccessible to the general public. Eventually this understanding filters into the public consciousness or becomes part of a standard formulary. Historians and drug companies recycle their work and tweak the product to sell it again and again (see, for example, all the different versions of synthetic insulin and their delivery devices), sometimes for different markets. Many drugs/fields are packaged together or compounded (ammoxicillin clavulanate or HCTZ/Losartan, English/Scottish history or Greek/Roman history).
AskHistorians Twitter is upping its meme game - surely an incentive to give it a follow if ever there was one?
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, January 24 - Thursday, January 30
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 4,846 | 165 comments | In the movie '1917' the German trenches are depicted as higher in quality compared to British trenches, complete with concrete bunkers and vast underground barracks. Was this usually the case across the entire line? |
| 4,451 | 333 comments | For a country that had a huge Empire and access to all kinds of seasonings and spices, why is traditional British food so bland? |
| 3,797 | 110 comments | [Feature] Special Feature: Holocaust Remembrance Day – to remember and pay respect to those who perished and those who survived. |
| 3,348 | 101 comments | Tlingit Native Americans had more advanced technology and craft including permanent structures, metal armor and, arguably, swords. Normally such a group builds a powerful kingdom over their neighbors. Are there any reasons why they never felt the need to expand, despite their advancements? |
| 3,019 | 94 comments | How seriously should we take claims of US atrocities in Manila in 1945? |
| 2,826 | 45 comments | If you were a child raised in an industrial revolution era workhouse (like Oliver Twist)... what was actually likely to happen to you if you survived to adulthood? Would you have a shot at a decent life or was this system virtually a sentence to life-long slavery? |
| 2,686 | 148 comments | Did Confederate leaders see slavery lasting indefinitely? Were there plans to eventually phase-out the institution years down the line after the Civil War, or was it assumed that it would last forever? |
| 2,404 | 35 comments | When New Amsterdam's name was changed to New York, did people actually like it better that way? |
| 2,324 | 46 comments | The collapse of Yugoslavia is described as inevitable but its creation was extremely popular post-WWI; What caused the decline of Yugoslavian Nationalism for regional/ethnic nationalism? |
| 1,884 | 45 comments | Is Holocaust denial just a modern issue, or were there Holocaust deniers directly after WWII as well? |
###Top 10 Comments
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I'm reading through The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War by Tim Butcher and I'm curious if it represents what historians would call an accurate picture of the historical figure of Gavrilo Princip.
Also, Mr Butcher represents that Gavrilo is an underappreciated and under studied character because of his role in the much larger WWI event. Is this an accurate depiction?