It seems to me that the US is currently on a straight forward path to fascism.

The recent overturning of Roe vs. Wade, the explicitly fascist-theocratic-libertarian Texas GOP manifesto, the January 6th coup attempt, the GOP reactions to that event and the hearings, the actions and all suggest an explicit intent of overturning American democracy by the GOP.

The 2022 midterm elections may be the most important midterm elections yet in the history of the US, and the GOP is poised to take both the House and maybe even the Senate. They would then control 2 out of 3 government branches. The Supreme Court itself already gives them vast amounts of power and it is entirely unaccountable to anyone.

Then the 2024 elections may see an actual successful coup by the GOP.

The Democratic party also currently seems to not have seen the writing on the wall yet and still tries to be good with optics and not be severe enough with dealing out punishments for the attempt at overturning American democracy on January 6th. Joe Manchin destroys what little hope there is for a Democrat election victory this November by blocking any and all useful Democrat legislation.

Mind you, I am an outside observer from Germany but the US path since 2016 has me extremely worried and I am afraid we may be headed to either civil war or theocratic-fascist dictatorship in the worlds biggest economy with the 2nd biggest nuclear arsenal. Especially in light of my own country's history this has me extremely worried.

So my question is: What do the historians here think of the recent developments in the US?

There is a book from the 40s called "It can't happen here" and imho that title perfectly summons up the attitude a lot of Americans have towards the possibility of a dictatorship on their soil.

Recently asked “Was the Plantation of Ulster an act of genocide” because I saw a comment saying as much and I know that nationalist and propagandists tend to blow these things up to more than they are, but shortly after posting the question I realised I probably could answer it myself if I was patient enough to finish some of my books on the shelf.

I couldn’t confidently answer the question yet, but as I’m reading I’m always fascinated by how many parts of history tend to be more complicated than our brief understanding of them are.

I started to answer this question by u/LordCommanderBlack but I feel like this is too full of my opinions and maybe doesn't fit the sub and would be deleted. So I thought maybe I'd share it here instead. Maybe it will and should be deleted here also, which would be understandable and fine. Anyway here's the answer I wrote:

I did some digging on this and it was a fun little quest to go on, although the answer may not be very satisfying. The short answer is, as Sotheby's put it in their catalogue note for the sale of this painting, "His paintings evoke the poetry of Tennyson and Malory's Morte d'Arthur but Stitching the Standard does not depict a particular Guinevere, or Lily Maid of Astolat; she is a nameless damsel of the Middle Ages with no story to tell."

If this work had been painted fifty years earlier, there might well be a paragraph-long title explaining every particular, but by 1911 when it was made that sort of thing was no longer done. Leighton was essentially a part of the academic tradition in painting, but coming very late for that, when it was less fashionable, so he worked as an illustrator for magazines like Harper's Bazaar, and one of the important skills in illustration is to communicate everything in the image. Leighton did sometimes paint subjects from history or famous stories, but when he did the title was straightforward in referencing it, such as Abelard and his Pupil Heloise or The Chairty of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. With paintings like this or God Speed he worked from his imagination and an idealized, Romantic, probably Walter Scott-derived idea of the chivalrous Middle Ages.

The leading expert on Leighton, as far as I know, is Kara Lysander Ross, daughter of Fred Ross and with him founder of the disappointingly, but perhaps inevitably, reactionary Art Renewal Center. It was founded in 1999 after years of Fred Ross's cranky advocacy of academic painting, and although I think that work deserves attention, it's too bad that it has to be at the hands of conservatives pushing an agenda -- it is entirely possible to like both academic art and modernism (I know this, because I do myself) and to study either without saying it's "better" than the other. But alas, the ARC is bad news. Kara Ross has also written for The Epoch Times, if that gives you any indication. Nevertheless her article on Leighton is worth reading.

I will leave it to heraldry experts to weigh in on the standard, but I will say that although Leighton was meticulous about fabrics, I find it very unlikely for him to have a historical sense of heraldry and how it changed over time, rather a Romantic sense of it as splendid and evocative.

Anyone knows a good book about the Falkland War?

I have a thing for haunted places and libraries - haunted libraries are my bag of popcorn. I wrote this for my Dublin-based friend.

Ireland's oldest public library, Marsh's Library (est 1707), is located behind St. Patrick's Cathedral. It's one of the few buildings from the 18th century in Dublin that's still used for its original purpose.

The interior is mostly untouched and features 3 cages in the back. This comes from the legacy of chain libraries in Europe in the Middle Ages. In these libraries, the (expensive) books were locked in cages to keep readers from grabbing and making off with them. Marsh's does one better - locks up the readers themselves!

The library is made up of 2 long galleries joined by a small reading area. The books are in bays on either side of the gallery. The bookcases are equipped with rolling ladders.

However, though the history of this book repository would be enough for me to write about, what attracted me is that it's haunted. Not as haunted as Malahide Castle, but then...I don't think there are many sites in Ireland more haunted that that place.

The ghost of an old man has been seen rummaging through the bookcases at midnight - he has been identified as the library's founder, Archbishop Narcissus Marsh. He became Archbishop of Dublin in 1694 and founded his library in 1707 on the grounds of his residence, The House of St. Sepulchre. The story goes that the Archbishop's niece, Grace, whom he raised from childhood, fell in love with a sea captain when she was 19. The Archbishop was not on board with this (hehe) and made it known that he wasn't. Grace and her sea captain ran away and eloped. Grace left a note for her uncle explaining why she disappeared and asking for his forgiveness. In order to prevent the Archbishop from finding the note too soon and foiling her plans, she put the note in one of the books in his library (by this time numbering in the thousands) for him to find. He never found it. Hence his return to keep searching for Grace's note, even after his death.

The author Johnathan Swift and his girlfriend Stella are buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Copies were made of their skulls and Stella’s is in one of the cages at the back of the library, while Jonathan's remained at St. Patrick's. The story is that Swift’s ghost comes to the library to visit Stella.

Famous visitors: Bram Stoker, Jonathan Swift, James Joyce and others. Bram was a frequent visitor during his university days at Trinity College Dublin, and detailed records survive of which books he consulted on his visits: religion, witchcraft and travel in Eastern Europe. Already planning his Dracula, I suspect.

Here's the library's website. It's open to the public.

Alright y'all, this is a long shot, but I know that if any group of people on any sub could do it this is the one. Forgive me if it would've been better for the book recommendation thread.

Here it goes: I have this vague recollection from years back when Jon Stewart was still hosting The Daily Show and he had guest author who'd just written a book about all the major religions of the world and how they relate to each other and why they end up in conflict. What I thought was particularly interesting was when the author went into what each religion viewed as the greatest evils for man to overcome. He listed several of them, but I only remember him saying that Islam viewed man's pride/conceit to be the greatest evil to overcome. I have no idea if that's really how Muslims view the world, but I was fascinated by the concepts of what each religion stands against. Does anyone here know which book/author this was or can anyone shed light on these principles?

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