I posted this last week but I'm going to post it again just because I still think it's worth reading if you haven't already! I published a major article on "The untold story of the world's biggest bomb" that I am fairly proud of. It's several years of research in the making, and looks at both the Soviet and US programs relating to "very high yield" (+50 megaton) nuclear weapons, including the famous Tsar Bomba, but also beyond that. There are some very interesting novel discoveries in here, including discussions of US work on weapons of this size. The story even got news coverage in the New York Times.

Separately, the London Review of Books published a very generous review of my book, written by Steven Shapin, which gives a great overview of what it is about, if you are interested.

If you enjoyed this week's AMA with Tobias Capwell you might also be interested in the talk he gave as part of the Royal Armouries' winter lecture series this week, a full recording of which is on YouTube.

Hi there! Firstly I’m really sorry if this isn’t the right place to ask a question like this, but honestly I’m totally lost as to where I would go with an idea like this so I’d love some redirection to any website, forum or person (yourself included if you wanted to DM me I’d appreciate) if you could or if I’m in the wrong place. I have a friend that is a big history nerd — he is big into militaria collecting for both world wars and Edmonton military and local stories (city they live in). I had this idea as a gift (for Christmas or later if I can’t get my act together on this one) to get them a wallet and iron on a patch that’s either an insignia from these time periods of some sort of meaningful emblem, if that makes sense. I think he’d really like it if I could pull it off but honestly it really overwhelms me as the amount of information out there is massive and the amount of information I know is slim to none. Does anyone know where id start with a project like this? Anywhere I can look into to start researching what kind of emblem I could put on there or where I could get patches that small that I can iron on? Is it even a good idea? Literally any information through comment or DM would be so helpful. Thanks!

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Friday, October 29 - Thursday, November 04

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Can anyone recommend any movies covering any period in Europe from the Renaissance or earlier that has particularly accurate set design or costumes? Most movies seem to have all their costumes and settings designed with an eye more towards looking cool or conforming to peoples fantasy/D&D-informed preconceptions than being actually historically accurate, and I'm wondering if there are any that are any movies out there that are actually highly accurate in terms of visuals. So things like peasant dress, peoples dwellings, the layout of villages, the interior of churches, etc.

Hello anyone who sees this! I got a degree in marketing as my Bachelor's, but I want to go study history for a master's. I don't feel like I can be in the business world/I'm passionate about history not making money.

I've looked into this before, but I need to have some writing samples since most of my papers were done in groups. I'm kind of at a loss of where to start.

I'm traveling to Spain next year for nine days. I've been tasked with planning part of the itenary, and I suggested Visigoth sites, but there don't appear to be many (except for a few churches). How can I find out which regions would have the most sites to visit from a non-religious standpoint? I know everything was wrapped around religion, but I'd like something more than churches. If I could find a region, or a city, that had a lot of history in one place that would be perfect. We're already going to San Sebastián, so I get to pick the other place(s) we go. My first thought was history before 711, but any era would be great! This would give me the opportunity to learn about the area before we go so that I know what to look for.

Thanks!

I've been thinking lately I'd enjoy teaching history, but the thought of being a public school teacher in the US is just prohibitively bad.

Anyway, I have a real question, which is, how do historians really think and feel about the use of narrative? My impression is that its disapproved of because of its ability to distort views. But my experience and feeling is that narrative is the natural way humans understand anything.

In my own experience, narrative history podcasts (like Tides of History or Revolutions or Slow Burn) are fantastically engaging and effective at teaching me things in ways that stick, and way more effective than podcasts like, say, The Medieval Podcast. And also I understood math better when I was told the story of, like, Newton trying to solve this particular problem for this particular reason.

I don't think this is appropriate to post as a regular topic because it comes off as "I think historians are wrong" and that's not what I want, I do want to understand how people really feel about this and why.

I'm looking for good books on Mexico during the era of "New Spain" and leading up to the wars of the early 20th century. Like, what were the processes that created Mexican culture as we know it today?

and/or

The period in Spain leading up to the Spanish Civil War. What losing a global empire did to the Spanish political and philosophical psyche and identity - the role of Catholicism, etc.

Why are there so few alternate history novels? A lot of authors of historical fiction are actual historians, and plenty of others have at least done a ton of research for their respective works even if they aren't professional historians or don't have degrees. Yet, there's barely any "what if X happened differently?" types of novels out there, and ton of the ones that exist are sci-fi (and there's a bizarre amount of "what if Anne Boleyn was a vampire?" fiction out there as well). It seems to me like "what if X happened like Y instead of Z?" premises would be great for fiction writers - plenty of opportunity to stretch your creative muscles while still having somewhat of an obvious backbone to lean on.

I know pretty much every "what if?" scenario in history would have incredibly far-reaching consequences, but just knowing the typical scope of historic fiction I don't think it would matter a whole lot. So where are all the alternate history novels out there? Why are so many of them about vampires and time travel?? Why aren't there many straight-up historical fiction "palace intrigue, warfare, and love that spans 20 years in like 3 locations" novels when history is rife with alternate possibilities?

Also I'm reading one of the "Uppity Women" books, the ancient world one, and, so fun! I have no idea how historically accurate any of the books are, I'm just loving that they present a lot of women who aren't super well-known and it doesn't go for a "girl power! women were always the best!" tone. It's light-hearted, but it doesn't pretend like someone murdering her sister and being responsible for a war that killed millions of people is cool just because a woman did it.

I guess this fits in the scope of history allowed on this sub, but I got really into collecting uranium glass over the past year, and discovered that this one canister that my mom inherited from her grandmother, that we used to keep q-tips in, is uranium glass. I have this weird nostalgia thing going on when I look at my collection and I just wonder about what all these pieces went through. They're basically all from 1930 through 1935, according to a guidebook, so they've seen some shit. I just wonder about the families that owned the glass originally, and just the journey these pieces have gone through between then and now. I mean you can really wonder about the personal history of any object that you didn't buy brand new from somewhere, but for some reason I'm finding the history of these pieces of glass to be really intriguing.

Something I think of a lot whenever I hop over to this sub, are there any questions you've seen on this sub that made you REALLY curious but nobody ever answered the question? What was the most intriguing or interesting unanswered question you've seen?