The history thread

[Stagat]

It doesn't bother me really as I have Boss cologne there and drive a BMW whom I know made aircraft for the German military in the wars. Got to know when to move on. I don't buy Yank stuff these days though, and try not to buy anything Chinese either, though thats increasingly hard to do.

Sounds like you should just move on.

 

[Stringy]

I have my eye on a few history books at the moment.

My understanding of chronology was battered by the Schools History Project and I have spent the majority of my adult life recovering. The English and their History by Robert Tombs is supposed to a good, succinct and entertaining narrative of British history. I have David Starkey's Monarchy but I find his writing style to be a little dry. I'm hoping for something a little easier and more entertaining to read.

Spoiler

I also have my eye on The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Although I am a huge enthusiast of Soviet history, I am less well read on the Romanovs. If it's written in similar eloquence to his other book, The Court of the Red Tsar, then it should be excellent.

Spoiler

Just before Christmas I purchased a book called Events That Changed the World which basically chronicles the most significant events of the past century and a bit.

Spoiler

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51RQPnPTHpL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Its selections up to 1989 were pretty solid but then it went wappy. We have the founding of Amazon, for example, as one of the most important events of the 1990s.

Just take a look at the events selected since 2001:

9/11
The Enron Investigation
Hurricane Katrina
2008 U.S Presidential Election
2010 BP Oil Spill
2011 Japanese Tsunami
The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II
2012 Mars Landing
2012 Space Dive
2013 Pope Benedict XVI's Resignation

I can't see how half of those will matter in 83 years' time and I'm sure there are better options, though I haven't thought of them yet. Still, there were lots of nice pictures, which I always think is good for capturing the spirit of the time.

Finally,

An item of Elizabeth I's clothing has been recovered and will be placed on display.

Income Tax was introduced on this day in 1799.

 

[Bobbin']

Would be interested to hear how you find the Romanov book. It was one of those subjects in GCSE history that really fascinated me for some reason, everything from the murders to Rasputin. Something I've not explored further in my adult life but should.

 

[Abertawe]

This is 9,000 years old. Cave of hands in the south of Argentina. Consensus is they were imprinted by the Tehuelche peoples. The Tehuelche were unique in the sense of their size as they were much bigger than europeans of the time. I wonder if it represents anything other than high jinx, looks cool regardless.

 

[SALTIRE]

I've seen too many horror films, but that is utterly terrifying!

 

[Stringy]

Have baby boomers stolen the family silver?

The dark history of the treadmill.

 

[Abertawe]

Have baby boomers stolen the family silver?

The dark history of the treadmill.

#VoteCorbyn

 

[sl1k]

An interesting presentation on the history and cycles of: global climates/temperatures; economics; and spikes of significant human activity ala warfare, inventiveness et al.

 

[Stringy]

I'm now 200 pages or so into Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. I've worked my way through the early 1930s, Kirov's assassination, the first and second show trials and the purge of the army, so I'm in 1937-38. It's incredible to witness the impact of the terror on the behaviour of Stalin's circle, especially as the book has introduced you to the intimate networks of family and friends. Even the wives of Politburo members weren't safe, and everyone was affected. The language of the show trials illustrates the profoundness of the mood and the craziness of the allegations:

'Terrorism' simply signified 'any doubt about the policies or character of Stalin'. All his political opponents were per se assassins. More than two 'terrorists' was a 'conspiracy' and, putting together such killers from different factions, created a 'Unified Centre'...

Defendants implicate others. The next line of defendants are again attacked zealously by people who are fearing for their lives, and hand over more names, hoping to be spared from execution. It's more like a game of the Night of the Werewolves than a criminal trial.

My favourite bit so far though has been the arrest of the Yagoda:

The search of Yagoda's residences - he had two apartments in central Moscow and the luxurious dacha - revealed the debauchery of the NKVD elite in the list of his possessions. His pornographic collection contained 3,904 photographs plus eleven early pornographic movies ... There were 9 foreign female coats, 4 squirrel coats, 3 sealskin cloaks, another in Astrakhan wool, 31 pairs of female shoes, 91 female berets, 22 female hats, 130 pairs of foreign silk stockings, 10 female belts, 13 bags, 11 female suits, 57 blouses, 69 nighties, 31 female jackets, another 70 pairs of silk tights, 4 silk shawls - plus a collection of 165 pornographic pipes and cigarette holders, and one rubber dildo.

History is full of little surprises.

 

[Luc@]

I love historical memes, here some of the funniest.

 

[Stringy]

Last night I sunk my teeth into Niall Ferguson's Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. I rarely foray into the history of empire, so I'm happy to have found something new to ignite my interest.

I had always rather simplistically considered the British Empire to be barbaric, and that was that. Now, however I am being forced to reconsider my position. One passage which struck me is this one:

When the British governed a country - even when they only influenced its government by flexing their military and financial muscles - there were certain distinctive features of their own society that they tended to disseminate. A list of the more important things would run:

1. The English language
2. English forms of land tenure
3. Scottish and English banking
4. The Common Law
5. Protestantism
6. Team sports
7. The limited or 'night watchman' state
8. Representative assemblies
9. The idea of liberty

The last of these is perhaps the most important because it remains the most distinctive feature of the Empire, the thing that sets it apart from its continental European rivals. I do not mean to claim that all British imperialists were liberals: some were very far from it. But what is very striking about the history of the Empire is that whenever the British were behaving despotically, there was almost always a liberal critique of that behaviour from within British society. Indeed, so powerful and consistent was this tendency to judge Britain's imperial conduct by the yardstick of liberty that it gave the British Empire something of a self-liquidating character. Once a colonized society had sufficiently adopted the other institutions the British brought with them, it became very hard for the British to prohibit the political liberty to which they attached so much significance for themselves.

In this way, the British Empire was unlike other empires.

Hopefully by the end of this book I'll have picked up new stuff on India, which I want to learn more about and be able to make an informed judgement on the British Empire.

 

[Stringy]

That sounds like I'm supporting Empire. I'm not.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

When the British governed a country - even when they only influenced its government by flexing their military and financial muscles - there were certain distinctive features of their own society that they tended to disseminate. A list of the more important things would run:

1. The English language
2. English forms of land tenure
3. Scottish and English banking
4. The Common Law
5. Protestantism
6. Team sports
7. The limited or 'night watchman' state
8. Representative assemblies
9. The idea of liberty

Alty

 

[Abertawe]

I wanna read this

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Last night I sunk my teeth into Niall Ferguson's Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. I rarely foray into the history of empire, so I'm happy to have found something new to ignite my interest.

I had always rather simplistically considered the British Empire to be barbaric, and that was that. Now, however I am being forced to reconsider my position. One passage which struck me is this one:

Word of warning that Ferguson is regarded, at best, as a contrarian and a provocateur and at worst, a notorious apologist for imperialism. Not saying don't read him but when you're done I'd be happy to recommend some reading that offers a different point of view.

 

[johnnytodd]

Waste of time really all this reading lark about the Empire.

We conquered the world and civilized it, shown them how to do stuff and when they didn't need us anymore they wanted us out.

That's it in a nutshell, the cheeky bastards even want us to apologize for doing it now.

Most of them are corrupt as fuck now too.

 

[Stringy]

Word of warning that Ferguson is regarded, at best, as a contrarian and a provocateur and at worst, a notorious apologist for imperialism. Not saying don't read him but when you're done I'd be happy to recommend some reading that offers a different point of view.

He does admit that his view was shaped by his and his family's experience of the British Empire which was wholly positive. I suppose it's good to read the opposite view to your own. I'm always inclined to point to Kenya or firing rebellious colonial subjects from cannons when I'm asked what my opinion is.

Please do recommend books. I'm aiming to expand my collection at the moment. Preferably something easy, accessible and rich in stories.

 

[Stringy]

I wanna read this

I hear Dorothy Thompson covered a gentleman in red wine at a party for questioning her socialist credentials in her later years.

I enjoyed her work on the Chartist movement.

 

[Stringy]

Spoiler

Got my eye on this as well, Ruth Goodman: How to be a Victorian. I love these books telling us what life was like.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

He does admit that his view was shaped by his and his family's experience of the British Empire which was wholly positive. I suppose it's good to read the opposite view to your own. I'm always inclined to point to Kenya or firing rebellious colonial subjects from cannons when I'm asked what my opinion is.

Please do recommend books. I'm aiming to expand my collection at the moment. Preferably something easy, accessible and rich in stories.

Recently I read King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild which is a really good history of the Belgian Congo - and, in parallel, with the Congo Reform Movement. I wouldn't exactly describe it as easy to read, as a lot of what it describes is horrific, but it's certainly gripping, accessible. Hochschild has a knack for pulling out great characters from history. He's also written a book about the trans-atlantic slave trade and abolitionism called Bury the Chains about which I've heard very good things about but haven't read.

Dunno if it'd be your bag (or what your bag is), but another book I recommend to almost everyone is Exterminate All Of The Brutes by Sven Lindqvist. It's kind of unconventional as a history book as it switches between travelogue, history, literary criticism, memoir and dreamscape. But again, it's extraordinarily readable and accessible and the diversions from pure history come as a welcome respite for a lot of harrowing stuff about colonial genocide. The central thesis is that colonialism in Africa was predicated on genocide and land-theft and that the genocides and slaughter of the twentieth century in Europe can be understood as a transposition of methods and philosophies honed in Empire. It's not perfect - like it's weird that he writes about Heart of Darkness without acknowledging post-colonial critiques of it (especially Chinua Achebe's critique) - but it's an interesting book.

It's the second book in a loose history about colonialism, but it's probably the one that best stands on its own. Desert Divers sometimes feels like an extended introduction to Exterminate, but Terra Nullius - about colonialism in Australia - is also worth a read.

 

[Techno Natch]

I'll second King Leopolds ghost. Someone from here gave me a copy if I remember correctly.

 

[sl1k]

Waste of time really all this reading lark about the Empire.

We conquered the world and civilized it, shown them how to do stuff and when they didn't need us anymore they wanted us out.

That's it in a nutshell, the cheeky bastards even want us to apologize for doing it now.

Most of them are corrupt as fuck now too.

 

[Stringy]

Thanks Ian.

I have added those to my wishlist. The idea of twentieth century genocide as being conceived in empire is a good idea, I think.

Speaking of genocide, one I got really into was the Armenian genocide. The unwillingness of academics to discuss it, or politicians to take ownership both alarmed and astounded me. I wondered if I would be able to forgive if the genocide of my people was classed as an accident.

Has anyone been watching the remake of Roots? It aired in America over the summer but has been on the BBC recently. The first episode was excellent and I would definitely recommend it.

 

[Techno Natch]

Hadn't heard of this very important part of British History until today. http://www.peterloomassacre.org/history.html

Also our local radical history group did some great research into a local workhouse where they found over 3000 people buried in unmarked graves.

http://www.brh.org.uk/site/articles/eastville-workhouse-unmarked-graves-paupers-rosemary-green/

 

[Stringy]

There's a new BBC programme tonight, SS-GB, speculating on what life would be like in Britain had it been under German occupation.

Sorry to say, but I find this kind of historical fiction really annoying.

 

[Stringy]

Hadn't heard of this very important part of British History until today. http://www.peterloomassacre.org/history.html

Also our local radical history group did some great research into a local workhouse where they found over 3000 people buried in unmarked graves.

http://www.brh.org.uk/site/articles/eastville-workhouse-unmarked-graves-paupers-rosemary-green/

If I remember rightly, Henry Hunt, who was arrested in the Peterloo massacre was a popular figure with the Chartists and became a hero/celebrity following his death. I can't remember what it was called but I read an article about the Chartists and who they toasting at their meetings in the pub, and Henry Hunt was one of the names that was always mentioned. The author was able to figure out who heroes of working-class radicalism were just by searching Chartist newspapers such as The Northern Star. Pretty amazing what you can figure out from having a keen eye for the evidence really.

I've never been much into the workhouse, but my other half has written an article on Sheffield workhouses for a book on the history of Sheffield which should be published later this year. The proceeds go to charity so if you're into workhouses and fancy buying it...

 

[Techno Natch]

Post it up when it's released. Hadn't heard the phrase Chartist before so looking it up now.

 

[Stringy]

Post it up when it's released. Hadn't heard the phrase Chartist before so looking it up now.

The Chartists were awesome. I hadn't heard of them until a couple of years ago, but they were an enormous movement from 1838-48. They presented three petitions for the People's Charter to parliament in 1839, 1842 and 1848 which gathered 1.2m, 3.2m and 2m signatures. When you consider the population was likely 13-15m in those years - and it would have necessary to sign the Charter by hand - it was an extraordinary mobilisation of people.

What's cool is that they were around before the formation of Labour, so their colours were green and not red, which is odd to my modern mind.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Cross-posting for the nerds in this thread
http://www.onefootballforum.co.uk/i...karl-marx-and-marxism-fred.14509/#post-587336

 

[Stringy]

I've borrowed a copy of King Leopold's Ghost on your recommendation Ian. Looks pretty good from what I've read so far. It's scary to think how easily the history of those who cannot write could be destroyed or lost. I still don't really know anything about the Belgian Congo except something bad might have once happened.

A lad I know is raving about Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind each time I see him at the minute. I'm tempted to read it after I finally complete Court of the Red Tsar, King Leopold's Ghost and The Romanovs.