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.
There's been some controversy on one of our recent threads regarding the use of the term "Latinx" here, where I had this to say:
Just to chime in and add to my colleague's comments on the issue of the term "Latinx", as a non-binary Latin American I have some thoughts.
Is the term Latinx controversial? Sure. Many terms have been controversial in history. Are languages monolithic, never-changing and unmovable entities that transcend humanity? Of course not. The fact that there are those in Latin América who "frown upon" the use of the X or the E at the end of traditionally gendered words to make them inclusive and gender neutral, doesn't cancel the fact that those of us who use such terminology, use it for a reason.
The struggle for gender equality and representation of sexual and gender dissidents isn't something new, we've been fighting for our rights and our visibility for thousands of years. In recent decades, the interchangeable use of the letters X and E to modify terms that have been used to describe people based on a binary understanding of gender has become more prevalent and has gained traction thanks to the internet, one of the many great things these mediums and platforms present us with. The fact that you, like other people in this thread and in real life, feel somewhat offended by the use of a term that should pose no threat to you or your status quo, were you open to a sincere discussion and unburdened by prejudice, only demonstrates that you are in fact prejudiced and unwilling to engage in a cultural discussion of how we use our language as a form of self identification. If you think that the way in which we communicate with others, one of the fundamental elements of humanity, has nothing to do with our political or ideological views, you are either alienated, or are openly bigoted. Why should you or anyone else, including the Royal Spanish Academy, have the power to dictate and control how people identify themselves? There is a difference between respecting proper grammar or syntax, and using that as a front to try and disguise prejudices and harmful preconceptions that have hurt millions of people like myself for as long as history has been recorded.
Languages evolve and change with the zeitgeist of every society, friend. The usual argument has consistently been "it's always been a certain way, there is no need to change things, that doesn't help any cause". But the rights of slaves, the rights of women, the rights of Jewish and Muslim and Roma people were systematically restricted by laws that had "always been like this". Am I equating this to those struggles? Of course not, I'm not just a Latinx, I'm a half Jewish native descendant, trust me, I know the difference. But I also know and understand that recognising and acknowledging different ways to shape and use languages is an important step in any productive conversation when it comes to reaching what should be the goal of every human community and society: coexistence.
If anyone is interested in keeping this conversation going, this is the space to do so, and I'm happy to chat about these terms and ways in which we use language to shape our collective and individual identities!
Most people know that some of Lovecraft's fiction wasn't published until after his death, and some people wonder if there are any Lovecraft stories still out there waiting to be discovered. The answer is...kinda? Earlier this year I talked about "The Surama of Atlantis" and "The Automatic Electric Executioner", two unpublished variants of stories that Lovecraft wrote for his revision client Adolphe de Castro which survive among de Castro's papers. And this week I talk about two possible unpublished stories by another revision client, Hazel Heald: "In the Gulf of N'Logh" and "Lair of Fungous Death".
Is there more out there? Maybe! I'm looking...
The post the other day about Bush’s role in the 2000 election has seven top-level answers. I’m pretty sure that’s the largest number I’ve seen. Does anyone know what the record is for number of top-level answers on a regular post (perhaps not including the more meta kinds of questions about stuff like the role and practice of history education today, which I think naturally spur more discussion and responses)?
I keep forgetting to share part 2 of a two part podcast I did on the archaeology and history of (far) West Mexico. Hopefully this compliments the /r/AskHistorians podcast episode I did a few years ago with /u/400-rabbits.
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, October 30 - Thursday, November 05
###Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 7,561 | 123 comments | Tsar Nicholas II looks extremely fit in these photos of him bathing at Tsarskoye Tselo; what would his fitness regimen have been? |
| 7,417 | 72 comments | The US voter turnout in 1896 was nearly 80%. By 1920, fewer than 50% of eligible voters turned out. What explains such an extreme drop in voter turnout in such a short period of time? |
| 5,622 | 81 comments | Grover Cleveland was accused of raping a maid during the 1884 presidential election. His campaign called her a liar, and he won anyway. Has evidence emerged since about who was correct? Cleveland also later married his adopted daughter when he was 48 and she was 21. Did that cause a scandal itself? |
| 3,857 | 52 comments | [Elections and Campaigns] Did the average American expect war as a possible result of the 1860 election? |
| 3,774 | 69 comments | Did steppe horse archers shoot individually and with precision (like snipers in a cantabrian circle) or did they fire in volleys like foot archers? |
| 3,140 | 83 comments | If I thought there was an open 'niche' in my local economy in the Soviet Union, how would I go about filling it? For example, if I thought my town or city needed or wanted a Mexican restaurant, was there any mechanism to open one? |
| 3,101 | 85 comments | [Elections and Campaigns] I believe it has been twenty years now. How did the Republicans red, Democrats blue party colours come about? |
| 3,022 | 225 comments | What did anarchist counterculture look like in the 19th century? |
| 2,495 | 6 comments | A few US presidents used both free and enslaved African Americans as servants in the White House. How were these two groups viewed in contrast with each other by the white workers in the White House? How did they view each other? |
| 2,346 | 65 comments | FDR was elected 5 times and had 3 different vice presidents during his terms. Why didn't he just stick with the same VP each time? |
###Top 10 Comments
Hi all!
I am a teacher candidate up in Canada conducting an inquiry project into how theatre and drama can help enhance social studies learning.
For my end project I decided to create a "choose your own adventure" where you take on the roll of someone in history (could be an important political figure, could be an everyday person) who has to make a series of decisions, and talk to people who will try to influence you along the way.
I am really excited for this idea, and have looked around on the web and found lots of cool projects doing this too!
My issue is that I cannot for the life of me decide on a person/event to put the user in! The people seeing the project will be students grade 9-12, teachers, and my peers. Topics I have considered are the gold rush, the Quebec crisis, and a couple others, but I haven't found one yet that would be the right mix of interesting and fun for such a wide audience.
It doesn't necessarily have to do with Canadian social studies, but that would be a plus!
Thanks for any suggestions!
With all of the US election news at the moment, I’d love to learn a little more about the history of US presidential concessions, especially through the relatively objective lens of the posters in this sub.
One day I was talking with a friend of mine, who is a fellow Muslim and a PhD student on history. He then said something the lines of "If you want to study history, you must prepare to lose your din (faith)". I disagreed with him, but it makes me wonder myself. Are there any of you are religious? How is learning history academically change or affect it? (If at all?)
Hello everyone,
I know asking questions about books is kind of a no-no since you’ve provided a VERY extensive list of recommendations but I was wondering anyone knew of a decent book on general US history that was maybe a little bit lighter reading than “The Oxford History of the United States”. I’m interested but I don’t think I’m ready to take that on lol. I considered “A people’s history of the untied states” but saw that not everyone on this thread thought that was a good book and I also was considering “Almanac of American history”.
I’m sorry for asking here, I’ve just literally never been into history before now. I just spent 5 years at a university working on a degree where I did math and science all day everyday and idk where to begin to look for history stuff. I’m mostly looking for a book that will help me begin to be able to begin to string the events of us history together chronologically in my head...it’s like I know of stuff that happened but when you read about it all separate from every other event the actual timeline and time between big events seems funky and discombobulated (at least to me).
If you’re wondering where the interest came from my younger brother was having a tough time and convinced me to help him do about 3 weeks worth of history homework he missed in community college. I ended up reading his textbook from the end of the Jefferson presidency to the Jackson presidency and I was like “wow this actually super interesting, I didn’t realize so much happened during this time in history, in my mind that time period has just all been kind of the same.”
Does anyone have a comprehensive list of exactly what was translated / survived during the Greek and Syriac translation movement into Arabic?
We all know Aristotle was translated, but how much of the rest of the Greek classics was translated? Were Homer and the Pre-Socratics translated? The Greek histories? The Stoics? The Neoplatonists? Were authors translated or just ideas from later philosophical schools?
On the religion side: was the Septuagint translated? Was the New testament in its entirety translated? Were the Church fathers translated? What existed in Syriac that was translated/was not?
To put it comprehensively: what was translated other than most of Aristotle, and Plato's Republic?
I have two questions:
1- We always read about the build up of tensions before revolutions and those revolutions are often violent and dramatic. Are there any societies who had a massive build up of tensions, but didn't go the violent revolution route?
2-My favorite thing about history are the little stories that go with it, like the Roman senator (I always forget if it's a Cato or Cicero, but I think it's the later) who ended every speech with "Also, Carthage should be destroyed." The problem is that a lot of these stories are from Western Civ. But for example, Mansa Musa damaged local economies during his Hajj because of all the money he spent, but there's got to be more.What's a good source to read the fun/interesting/weird stories from the rest of the world, especially Africa and Asia?