Earlier in the week I had a greatly in-depth discussion with a nice man on the bus where he was telling me how House of the Dragon is the most historically accurate show ever made. While I for one am disappointed I missed all the Dragons fighting it out during the English Anarchy, it does springboard us into a fun question. One we've had before, but why not revisit.

In the Friday thread we've talked about WHAT show you'd make if you had just all the budget. Which historical event or time period. But what about HOW you'd make it? How would you balance the narrative requirements of making a pop show for TV, while also keeping it authentic/accurate?

Are you going to focus on setting? Put all that cash into proper props and costumes? We must have folks here who've spent untold hours planning those dream history based shows, so tell us about it! How would you get it done?

Question to historian graduate students: to what extent, if any, had responding to questions on this forum been included in your course work? How is writing for a popular audience in this forum different than writing for your course work?

What is a topic you desperately wanted to discuss but it breaks the 20 year rule?

A few weeks ago I encountered an annoying contradiction where one source said agricultural prices declined after the Napoleonic Wars and another said they increased.

I brushed it off as insignificant but it’s been stuck in my mind since. I keep telling myself to find the answer some other time but it keeps coming back to annoy me.

I could just ask the question here but I’m more so venting as it’s come to mind again as I’m trying to study for an exam tomorrow morning.

I have a somewhat meta comment. There was a question about the extent of Islamic iconoclasm that ended Buddhism in India. And the top most comment, undeleted, was references from Romila Thapar/Audrey Trushke and also warning against "Hindu revivalists". I didn't have the time to form a complete Answer-from RC Majumdar and few other historians. I want to highlight that you can directly read up primary sources of "History of India as recorded by their historians". Islamic historians in india have very detailed records of their iconoclasm. Infact, the corrupted word "but" was synonymous with Buddha statue/idols. Around 40,000 hindu temples and Buddhist monasteries are recorded to be destroyed by Islamic iconoclasm in India. In contrast, there are less than 20 temples in recorded history that were destroyed by hindu or Buddhist or Jain Iconoclasts-even acknowledged by historians like Romila Thapar. Books like "Flight of deities and rebirth of temples" by Meenakshi Jain are actually historically accurate as they directly reference many primary sources of history. I want readers to be aware of the same.

What actually happened on the eastern front with Austria-Hungary and the Balkans in WW1. All I know is the western front.

Parshall, Jonathan B. (2022) "What WAS Nimitz Thinking?," Naval War College Review: Vol. 75: No. 2, Article 8.

Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol75/iss2/8

This is an article by one of the co-authors of Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. I think the end of his introduction is a reasonable summary and, well, introduction:

Our understanding of history, however, is ever changing, as new sources of information are found and new interpretations created. When Tully and I wrote our appreciation of the odds around 2004, I was not aware of a crucial piece of information that became clearer only in 2006, when John B. Lundstrom published his Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal. Not only was Nimitz willing to fight a potential five enemy carriers with three of his own; it turns out he was willing to give battle at odds of five against two, if Yorktown could not be repaired in time from the damage it had suffered at the Battle of the Coral Sea.^3 To my mind, five carriers on three already felt dicey; five on two honestly seemed reckless. And yet this issue has not been addressed squarely in any major history of the battle. What on earth was Nimitz thinking by accepting those odds? And what likely would have been the outcome had such a lopsided battle actually taken place?

He uses a later bit as evidence that changed his views: "The distant placement of Point LUCK has not been understood properly in any previous history of the battle, including Shattered Sword.", with an explanation of what Point LUCK was and that significance.

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This sure is a broad question, but can anyone recommend a good book on history in general?

Some sort of "Jack of all trades" book for lay people, that not necessarily goes in depth about its topics, but covers the "essentials" from the last 2000 years?

Francesco Sforza went from condottiere to lord and then Duke of Milan, how "high" could a condottiere hope to climb the social ladder in the age that bears their name? How common was it? Were there any other examples beside Sforza, Hawkwood and De Flor?