(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best african history books

I would contend that the subheader "Powerful Conservative Voices" right there on the masthead is a strong indication that what follows is not likely to be impartial, and indeed disqualifies this publication from being an unbiased source.

You are surely already aware of this, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and explain it. The Democrats and Republicans essentially switched positions on civil rights in the 60's when the Dixiecrats (Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott, etc.) moved to the Republican party. Here's an academic book on the subject. Here's another. I'll give you some peer-reviewed academic articles too, though you'll need academic credentials to access them:

The Coalition Merchants: The Ideological Roots of the Civil Rights Realignment. By: Noel, Hans. Journal of Politics. Jan2012, Vol. 74 Issue 1, p156-173. 18p. DOI: 10.1017/S0022381611001186.

Abstract
Over the course of the twentieth century, the Democratic and Republican parties have reversed positions on racial
issues. This reversal is credited to a variety of factors, chief among them strategic decisions on the part of party
leaders competing for votes. An original dataset of the opinions expressed by political thinkers in leading magazines
and newspapers is used to develop a measure of ideological positions parallel to NOMINATE scores for members of
Congress. Results show that the current ideological pattern, in which racial and economic liberalism are aligned
together, emerged among political intellectuals at least 20 years before it appeared in congressional voting. The
finding is consistent with the view that ideology shapes party coalitions.

PLATFORMS AND PARTNERS: THE CIVIL RIGHTS REALIGNMENT RECONSIDERED. By: Feinstein, Brian D.; Schickler, Eric. Studies in American Political Development. Apr2008, Vol. 22 Issue 1, p1-31. 31p.

Abstract:
A study of state political party platforms during 1920-68 illuminates the process by which the Democratic Party came to advocate racial liberalism while the Republican Party took a conservative position on civil rights. In contrast to studies that have suggested the Democratic Party shift in favor of civil rights in the 1950's-60's stemmed from the initiative of party elites, this article shows that Democratic civil rights advocacy emerged from pressures mounted by grassroots activists at the state level, beginning during the New Deal era. As the Democratic Party created the New Deal coalition of unions, liberal academics, Jews, and African Americans, while at the same time embracing government activism, social welfare, and workers rights, the party became the natural home of civil rights advocacy. Grassroots activists began to push civil rights to the center of the Democratic Party's agenda during the New Deal, an initiative that flowered in later decades. In the same era the Republican Party stood to gain very little, while losing the support of important parts of its coalition, by supporting civil rights.

I spent my senior year of high school studying gentrification and demographic patterns in the District for my senior thesis and used these three sources extensively, they're superb books that are great reads for anyone even remotely interested in the District. They're pretty pricey to buy, but DCPL has each book, and the last one is available for Kindle.

City of Magnificent Intentions is an amazing book. It's the DCPS textbook for D.C. History (mandatory to graduate high school) and is filled with great facts, photos and drawings. Although it's formatted like a textbook, it is still a fantastic history of the city. It does a great job addressing planning and general demographics. It's probably one of the best books on D.C.

Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C. is a fascinating read on the politics and racial history of the District, and it's co-authored by Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood! It has a great section on the riots, how they affected the District, and the rise (and I believe also the fall) of Marion Barry.

The Great Society Subway is an incredibly detailed history of Metro, but might also interest you based on the way it details the impact it made on various sections of the city and suburbs (For instance, it goes in depth about how the green line was the last line built and how that impacted the neighborhoods it passed through, often the poorest in the city).

I think you should read a book called Poor People's movements. It looks at historically successful campaigns for reform. Labor, Civil Rights, Anti-Vietnam. There are common threads in all of the ones that are successful, and this applies to Ghandi's work for independence and reduction in classism, and Mandela's work against apartheid.

Successful campaigns have clear figureheads, and clear demands. Rosa Parks is a great example of this. She was a manufactured figurehead. She wasn't the first person to personally boycott the back of the bus, but she was the first one to boycott it and create a cultural movement where other people wanted to join her. The demand was also very clear, blacks get to sit on the bus as equals.

They could have asked for more, but they wanted to win, not feel good about themselves, so they picked a winnable battle, and without having done that, and won in '56, the civil rights movement would not have been possible, because a bunch of naysayers would have said "Do you really think the crackers are gonna give up the rights to put us in separate bathrooms, schools, facilities, stores and give up the right to enact vigilante justice whenever they want?" But King and others already had an answer "We won in Montgomery, and that affected all of Alabama."

Personally, I think the salmon are much more important than anything else, and the risk of extinction for salmon is a potentially millenia long threat. Salmon provide immense ecological and nutritional services, and losing them would be catastrophic.

One oil spill is not going to make them go extinct though, and what I think matters more is setting a precedent where the protestors stop saying "no pipeline," which is an absurd request, and start saying "we'll let you build the pipeline when we see laws coming from congress that will ensure better oversight on safety than we've seen before and serious monetary penalties that make a perfect operation record the only clear way to have a profitable business model."

That is a power we actually have. Congress wants that pipeline, Kinder Morgan wants the pipeline. Lots of folks are invested in KM, so lots of people will want what they want. If we leverage that to say "hey we are willing to negotiate, but we're playing fucking hardball here and you gotta throw us a bone, and if you fuck up, we're taking you to the cleaners, as is only fair," that's a message that is actually sympathetic to the vast majority of the US public.

Link for the book I recommended.

> Also there are subjects that I'd definitely implore you to pick up a book or two about, especially regarding the history of black communities in the U.S, which is a topic I'm interested in but not too well-read on.

This is my area of expertise. My thesis work was on a particular movement in Albany Georgia during the civil right movement.

Clayborne Carson's In Struggle is an excellent text on one of the prominent groups.

https://www.amazon.com/Struggle-SNCC-Black-Awakening-1960s/dp/0674447271/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_sims?ie=UTF8

The Eyes on the Prize book and documentary series is a nice overview of the movement as well but goes into less depth then the SNCC exploration. W.E.B DuBois is also a very good read as is Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave girl if you like narratives. My absolute favorite text on this era however is a Collection of Essay by Baldwin entitled The Fire Next Time. Powerful, passionate prose.

I also did some work on communist infiltration into poor white and black sharecropper groups in the during the great depression. Some of these groups worked there way all the way up into Chicago Union organizations.

Most of my career has been related to outreach in poor black and hispanic communities. I don't come to my libertarian positions out of ignorance or hate. I truly believe free enterprise and abolishment of the welfare state is the way to lead people out of poverty and squalor. I no longer see the utility of the oppressor oppressed narrative, but I certainly appreciate you outlining your perspective more and giving me some great sources to explore.

/r/learnswahili


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJRI1aNvhSo

This lady wrote some published grammar books and her videos are concise .

https://www.amazon.com/Swahili-Foundation-Speaking-Reading-Writing/dp/0761809724/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=513Jwn%2B4OtL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR124%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=N9KKCT556X8PMPXJ4BQC


If your mom wants to learn more than just a basic phrase or two, this textbook is good .all of the vocab is already typed up on memrise under "swahili: a foundation vocab" .You can link it to her on memrise and just have her play the game.

http://langmedia.fivecolleges.edu/swahili/index.html


The audio that goes with the "swahili a foundation" textbook is available legally for free.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0819172154/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=41t1v5AmauL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL100_SR100%2C100_&psc=1&refRID=NPR4Q4M2DHMS0DNEPE8E


This workbook goes with the book I linked and buying both together as long as you buy them used should be under 20 bucks.


There are 28 lessons in the grammar book/reader, and the people on the recordings online are natives.



The swahili book I linked has cute illustrations and paragraphs and it is less intimidating .

https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/swahili.html

This course is free and legal, but more "boring" and has no photos .


I would go with the "swahili:a foundation" coursebook used, and maybe the workbook. The workbook doesn't have answers, but the exercises are still pretty useful and it is like 6 dollars.

You could bookmark the page where the audio for the "swahili a foundation" book, put it on cds or on her mp3, or even a smartphone .


Even just listening/reading to the FSI course works pretty well, I like ot a lot. I have a hardcopy and it works well just listening and reading to it. Also, I found it really helpful to work in conjunction with memrise. It helped me a lot to learn the words prior to tackling them in the book (swahili a foundation) .That memrise list I mentioned matches all the words per chapter, so when you got to the chapter, you could read the texts and conversations .


IMHO you can get pretty decent grasp of the grammar and reading knowledge with the book I suggested. The audio helps too.

If you're looking for something substantial, I would recommend "A concise History of the Middle East" by Goldschmidt and Davidson. At 500 pages they're clearly trolling by calling it concise, but it's an excellent one-stop reference for Middle Eastern History (starting like I did with Muhammad). I will forewarn you that this isn't light reading., but if you're interested in serious Middle Eastern scholarship this is a great place to start.

Other than that my personal education was from college lectures and primary sources. You shouldn't necessarily avoid all unbiased sources, rather attempt to recognize biases as you come across them, and potentially seek out an alternate opinion.

In middle eastern history the best example of this is the Israeli - Palestinian conflict; its impossible to learn about this and not come out with an opinion. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to learn about it at all, just try to sort out fact from conjecture from opinion from fiction. This is what serious history scholarship is about anyway. History is messy and making sense out of it is what most historians find enjoyable.

Edit - If you would like something to read that's Middle Eastern history related but not nearly as dry as a textbook I would recommend Parsepolis. It's a graphic novel, and it's in the first person so it definitely has bias, but it's an excellent look into Iran through the eyes of an Iranian child, and it's a fun read even if you have no interest in history.

If you're looking for must reads /r/AskHistorians has a great list.

My all time favorite history book is A History of the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill. It's a little dated in all it's facts but it is written beautifully and I love reading his description on America's Revolutionary and Civil Wars. You can find it in a 4 volume unabridged or 1 book abridged set.

My favorite peoples in all of history are the Normans, and I enjoyed The Norman Conquest by Marc Morris. It's not just about the Battle of Hastings, but everything that lead up to that point and the resolutions which followed it. Plus the Normans were just badasses.

You ever learned about the Siege of Malta? One of the greatest stands in history, and a merging of the old world and the new (melee mixing with gunpowder), makes for an amazing story.

Maybe something lighter (sort of...)? I enjoyed German Wars: A Concise History, 1859-1945. Cheap book and gives you a simple understanding of how Germany became a country and it's mindset leading all the way to 1945. It focuses on the battles but gives lots of information on all the participants, their capabilities (and how they were able to reach those capabilities), and lots of the little deciding factors like the weather, roads, logistics, etc.

1700-1800's is an amazing time period to read because it was documented so thoroughly. I would recommend perusing that askhistorians list, going to your local bookstore and giving some of them a read, as some historians will write much different then others, and see which book you can sit through. The French Revolution and the age of Napoleon would be mandatory reading. Another is the subject of how Italy became a state; after the western Roman Empire fell it was one of the few places in Europe that still recorded it's history, and how all the city-states interacted and warred with each other is very interesting.

Firstly in order for the crusades to be "won" there needed to be a clearly defined goal. For many of the crusades there was none. The first crusade was a success because it did have a goal - the conquest of Jerusalem. However, subsequent crusades often lacked this kind of goal, focusing instead on large Western European armies marching in waves with unknown objectives which fundamentally undermined their integrity. Something the movie “Kingdom of Heaven” manages to depict well is the contrast between actual Levantine Christian attitudes, and the modern perception of crusaders. Many crusaders were not totally devoted to religious eradication of the indigenous population; rather they often lived peacefully and side by side with the Muslim population. However, for the purpose of answering the question, I am going to assume you mean "win" as in create a Christian Kingdom, safe from the threat of invasion in the Levant in order to secure Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Sites.

By this definition it was possible, but not even remotely plausible given the realities of the time and situation. In order for this to occur, the newly created Crusader States would have required a structured aid formula from Western Europe, as opposed to the ragtag mobs they received every now and again. Meaning they would have required large amounts of dependable manpower, capable and willing to remain in the Holy Land for more than a season or two. Often the crusades were hastily thrown together, and lacked central structure. This led too many power disputes and Christian armies marching into a complex political quagmire with only an overly simplistic understanding of the situation. The Western world was oblivious to the real needs of the Crusader states, and the complexities of the situation in which it was entering. For example, newly arrived crusaders were often at odds with the landed Levantine Christians, and uncooperative. Later, when monarchs such as Richard the Lionhearted arrived they would simply overshadow the nobility of the Crusader States. Richard is noted for completely rearranging the political atmosphere of the Levant to suit his own needs: source.

Thus the needs of the Crusader states ran counter to how the Crusades evolved. The Crusades as they are perceived now were not thought of as such as they happened. They evolved over time, the word crusader wasn't even invented until more than a century after the first crusade took place. Before the Crusades holy war was essentially unheard of to Western European Christians. The evolutionary nature of the crusades certainly meant that a different path was possible. However, this would be impractical since the Crusades were seen as a pilgrimage. It was an armed pilgrimage, and a dangerous one, but ultimately a journey away from one’s life temporarily, to fulfil a spiritual requirement of their life. The Crusader states needed permanent manpower, not the temporary flux and flow exodus’ that occurred.

Furthermore the Crusader states would have needed a stronger sense of fundamentalism. While the idea of holy war is extremely fundamental, many crusaders partook only for personal gain. Few of them had any desire for Muslim eradication. They came for spiritual benefits, or material gain. There is an abundance of evidence of peaceful coexistence between Christian and Muslim populations generated through trade.

In conclusion: possible, under very different and impractical changes to the very core structure of how the crusades functioned, and the mentality of the crusaders, so for all intents and purposes the answer is effectively “no.”

TL;DR Possible? Yes. Plausible? Not in the slightest. For a good accurate representation see Thomas Asbridge's "The Crusades" Link

Addendum, it’s 3 am and I read this twice before posting. I hope it is an acceptable answer. Feedback and constructive criticism welcomed. Will provide additional sources if requested.
edit: removed repetition in a spot.

I haven't encountered any novels about that particular event, but I can recommend some pretty good nonfiction!

Steven Runciman's book, while old, is a pretty good summary.

This one's a bit hyperbolic in my mind, but it does the job, and it is pretty well-written.

If you really get into it, Nicolas Barbaro's eyewitness account is absolutely fascinating, though it is his diary and translated from medieval Italian, so it's a bit clunky if you're looking for something that reads well.

kiswahili kwa kitendo is great
https://www2.ku.edu/~kiswahili/

https://www.amazon.com/Swahili-Foundation-Speaking-Reading-Writing/dp/0761809724/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=swahili+textbook&qid=1563664912&s=gateway&sr=8-1 buy this book used it is great

you can teach yourself pretty decent swahili for a beginner with this book. I think a grammar helps, which would be this book:https://www.amazon.com/Swahili-Grammar-Introductory-Intermediate-Levels/dp/0761863818/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=swahili+grammar&qid=1563664961&s=gateway&sr=8-1


you can get both of these used.

Also: the audio for the first book is here legally: https://langmedia.fivecolleges.edu/node/190291

I would just buy the book for thirty bucks and work through it. there are good flashcard and audio resources on memrise, even flashcard sets that are designed around the units in the first book. Whatever you do don't try to learn both at the same time. I'd pick whichever you are interested in and have family who would talk to you or work with you. They're different enough to where "learning both" or learning both at the same time wouldn't help other than a few cognates like as-samak and samaki.

Enjoy.


Also, connect with swahili media like pop music (taurus music on youtube), voa swahili, and bbc swahili website.

Probably a lot of readers of /r/water have read Cadillac Desert.

I own a copy of, and have made two false starts reading, The King Of California as recommend by the anonymous author of the blog On The Public Record.

I highly recommend A Great Aridness, a worthy heir to Cadillac Desert.

Also on my to-read list is Rising Tide. I would like to find a book that does for the Great Lakes what Marc Reisner did for water in the American West with his book Cadillac Desert.

A few things I've read this year that have little to do with water:

• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
  
• The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind
  
• The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2
  
• The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
  
• Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government
  

The context is modern Middle Eastern history.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement, as well as the Balfour Declaration are the key points in modern Arab history, that unfortunately most Arabs know nothing about.

It is also important to remember that this man who began the Arab Revolt due to promises made by the English, intended for one Arab state only.

The Arab revolt remains to this day the only war of independence fought by Arabs, unless you choose to count Kuwait's hiring of the US to fight Iraq a popular independence movement. The armies that fought during the Arab revolt were made up of Arabs from various tribes of Arabia, as well as from Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, etc. It even contained some Muslim volunteers from India. The Arab revolt saw the emergence of some great Arab heroes of the past century, such as Dhuqan al-Atrash, his son Sultan al-Atrash, Prince Rashed al-Khuzai, Ezz el-din al-Qassam, Fawzi al-Qawuqji, and many many others.

The context is the creation by colonial powers of national states where non existed before.

The context is key to our history as Arabs in a time where we care more about the next iphone than how our countries came to be made.

If you care enough to verify the statements I've made, feel free to read A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin, or Inventing Iraq, another great book.

We did not create our countries, they were created for us and the statements and documents made by Balfour and others exist till this day, bragging about how he "drew lines on an empty map" based on accents and oil fields.

yeah, but even metrics like that can be shifted for numerological purposes

you could measure the monetary wealth of, say, the world's 95 richest people, to covertly reference martin luther's 95 theses, and still achieve the same analogical purpose generally while making a more subtle reference to specific power dynamics of theologically oriented material privileges and broader coalescing of ontic trends interpolating intermittently between essential materiality and immateriality, a self-fulfillment of natural law intracohesion perhaps, reawakening ad infinitum to unending recognition cycles of the self and the other

power measures should not necessarily be seen as statically correlative with material, symbolic material, or even capital, of course +

I don't think I'd be able to really stay updated, I never do with that sort of stuff. But, I have a reading list that you should add- that is if you are doing payed books:

For full on historians looking for depth in medieval subjects:

-Asbridge's The Crusades is a far better Crusades history that goes into good depth than any other I've read

-Morris' The Norman Conquest oncemore just a great book for depth and detail

-Jones' The Plantagenets this one I would avoid if you hate sensationalism in history, Dan Jones is a real historian and he writes it as a real historian but he's on the edge of being more entertainer level than educator level

-Moore's 2008 edition of The Formation of a Persecuting Society is definitely the best analysis of medieval heresy I've read

(+ for more details into his actual thought process and the full counter argument to his critics that came out against him later on )

For casual historians looking for analysis and shorter reads:

-Phillip's Holy Warriors is probably an overall better analysis than Asbridge but far less deep, if you like battles go for Asbridge but this is a far shorter read

-Asbridge's The Greatest Knight good book on the Plantagenets through the eyes of the knights

-Golding's Conquest and Colonisation a slightly more boring read, maybe go with the "A short introduction to" book isntead

-Pegg's A Most Holy War for lighter reading on medieval heresy

> How is that relevant? They weren't British.

Neither were the Germanic Saxons, neither were the Norwegian invaders in the 9th Century. And yet over time, they were considered British...

> There were people in North America before the English showed up, but they weren't American.

Right, so who specifically is considered an American then?

> They're ethnically and culturally different than Europeans.

So? Why is there a magical barrier around black people, such that even when they have had a presence in Britain for close to 2000 years, pre-dating invaders who later became 'British' even though they weren't before, they can't be considered part of the British people? Black Britons were part of society even in the Roman period.

> Which means you have zero evidence that they were dark skinned at that latitude, and the only people pushing it have an agenda.

Well those people included one of the original researchers, but like I said it's not really relevant to my larger point, but you can keep bringing it up if you like.

> Where? How many?

Well as we're talking about an ethnic minority going back to Roman and medieval times, like I said not a huge amount is known. I already gave you multiple links if you were interested to learn more. You can also look into books such as this, this and this if you want to find out more.

There is a terrific book about the machinations of Great Britain and France to use WWI to break up the Ottoman Empire and grab the Middle East, that explains in fascinating detail how we got into our present mess. Check it out
A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

Becoming politically literate is not like learning how to fix a car. There is no "unbiased" how-to manual. The reason for this is that political discussions consist of claims about: a) what the facts are, b) which facts matter and how they matter, c) whose claims about the facts are trustworthy, and d) what justice consists of. Most of these disputes are ideological, and so you will not find an ideologically netural ("unbiased") account of politics.

I would suggest immersing yourself in different political media and then see which points of view tend to best account for the facts and to best correspond to your sense of justice. Spend some time watching Fox news (hard-right), skimming through the NY Times (center-right), and and then listen to FAIR's Counterspin (hard-left).

Here are some books I would recommend. (These are all written from a hard-left to center-left perspective, but their authors are all serious scholars/intellectuals, and you will learn a lot from them.)

-Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States

-Vijay Prashad's The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World

-Joseph Stiglitz's The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them

-Doug Henwood's After the New Economy

31 days for Augustus

August is a good month all around. School starts, and Autumn is starting. The leaves are the most beautiful, and the weather is nice. Hunting season also begins.

Thanks for the contest!

Item 1

Item 2

Item 3

Item 4

> hundred year old talking points

Official redlining didn't start until 1934. Other forms of discrimination and segregation existed during that same time period. For example, the realtors association of Grosse Pointe had an informal racial point system until the 1960s. This is hardly a hundred-year-old issue. Elderly people alive today spent a good portion of their lives living under these conditions. There are plenty of excellent, thoroughly-sourced books on the subject. Enjoy!

1 2 3 4

p.s. Wealth may not last for three generations, but that doesn't necessarily mean that poverty (and its effect) also does not last for three generations. It's much easier to lose wealth than it is to gain it in the first place.

One of the best and most dramatic works I can recommend is The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic, by Robert L. O'Connell. The battle of Cannae was a turning point for Rome, and O'Connell captures the horror and drama of the battle and surrounding events excellently. I HIGHLY recommend it.

In terms of Roman historians... It really depends on what period you're looking at. Want an awesome insight into the military? Go with Caesar's Commentaries of the Conquest of Gaul. Punic Wars? Check out Livy. Definitely check out Plutarch's Parallel Lives as well.

Of course, the quintessential book on the Roman Empire is Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. One can hardly consider themselves a Roman scholar without reading it, and nearly every historian will refer to it at some point.

Oh! And there's an interesting one I came across, for a bit more of a lower-look. By a Roman no less! Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome*, by Apicius is very interesting. Might not be worth it to put on your list, but definitely check it out.

TL;DR: If I have to pick two to add, take the Ghosts of Cannae and Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. By a Roman, pick from what's relevant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine

On 29 November 2012, in a 138–9 vote (with 41 abstentions and 5 absences),[32] the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 67/19, upgrading Palestine from an "observer entity" to a "non-member observer state" within the United Nations system, which was described as recognition of the PLO's sovereignty.[15][16][33][34][35] Palestine's new status is equivalent to that of the Holy See.[not in citation given][36] The UN has permitted Palestine to title its representative office to the UN as "The Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations",[37] and Palestine has instructed its diplomats to officially represent "The State of Palestine"—no longer the Palestinian National Authority.[35] On 17 December 2012, UN Chief of Protocol Yeocheol Yoon declared that "the designation of 'State of Palestine' shall be used by the Secretariat in all official United Nations documents",[38] thus recognising the title 'State of Palestine' as the state's official name for all UN purposes. As of 14 September 2015, 136 (70.5%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations have recognised the State of Palestine.[34][39]



I also suggest you read the following book:
https://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Middle-East-Ninth/dp/0813343887/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=

Report back to us after page 530.

Have you ever read "State of Africa" by Martin Meredith? (US Amazon, UK Amazon if you want new). Hands down one of the most accessible history books I've ever read, and as Meredith has been living throughout Africa, he uses a lot of original sources since he understands the language. Rather than a brief history of each state, he focuses on time periods and tells you what happened in each state during that time period. The latest version takes you from imperialism to early 2013 after the Egyptian revolution. What I like best about it is there is no romance - he presents facts and figures and let's you make your own impression.

> Furthemore, why did the South shift from being a Democratic stronghold to a Republican one?

There have been plenty of threads here about the Southern Strategy and the partisan realignment. The tl;dr is that the Republican Party appealed to racism against blacks and opposition to civil rights among southern white voters. Those voters, previously strongly Democratic voters, switched to supporting the Republican Party, where they remain to this day. (For an academic look, you can see here.)

> Why is it that after '92 the Northeast and West coast became consistently Democratic, and the South and midwest become consistently Republican?

It's largely a function of population demographics. Another tl;dr is that the coasts are far more urbanized than the South and midwest. Highly urban areas tend to be more Democratic-leaning. Essentially, blue states are blue because they're disproportionately urban, while red states are red because they're disproportionately rural. Even in states like California, you see large swaths of Republican counties because they're heavily rural areas.

As for the central thrust of your question, Andrew Gelman would likely argue that, even though rich people tend to vote Republican quite overwhelmingly, 1) there are far more poor people in those blue states, and poor people tend to vote Democratic, and 2) rich people on the coasts care more about social issues that Democrats favor. In general, I think it's just a function of population demographics.

Indiana (where my folks are from) was the klan capital for several years. It’s still pretty backwards there. When my dad thought about retiring there, my mom said she would have to call a divorce attorney if he did. :) They’re both really, really liberal and I don’t think it would have been a good idea.

I used to live just north of Boston (in a town known for its own long past problems, Salem) and I gotta say I heard the n word in Boston almost as much as I heard it when I lived in Tennessee.

It’s fucking everywhere.

I live in Baltimore now. We’ve got the Black Butterfly/White L issue because of years of decades of racist policies. Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City is a great book all about it!

Post-Crusades, but might still be of interest. The Great Siege: Malta, 1565, by Ernle Bradford. On the defender's side, the Knights Hospitaller & allies, 6000. On the attacker's side, an Ottoman armada of 48,000.

Here's a free book that talks about Egyptian mythology, if you need a dose of Maat into your diet. I haven't read it, but it may be a useful tool. Traverse carefully, and make sure to use other sources to back up each other's claims.

Anybody interested in this may also be interested in reading Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City

http://www.amazon.com/Not-My-Neighborhood-Bigotry-American/dp/1566638437/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457468272&sr=8-1&keywords=not+in+my+baltimore

I'm currently reading Fromkin's "A Peace to End All Peace," and while I just started it, it's pretty clear that the Russians and Brits were instrumental in setting the course for the modern Middle East. We (the U.S.) just threw our shoulder to the wheel later on.

Well it was, for the most part, the colonial nations that drew the lines and I agree that is certainly a cause for continued conflict in Africa.

Read a good book on this a few years back called the State of Africa, recommend: https://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Africa-History-Continent-Independence/dp/0857203886

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer

https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Ass-Librarians-Timbuktu-Precious-Manuscripts/dp/1476777411

Yeah it's a great book. It started me now on a whole path of reading about the Crusades.

This is the Amazon link... https://www.amazon.com/1453-Holy-Constantinople-Clash-Islam/dp/1401308503

Also plug for the excellent Black and British: a Forgotten History by David Olusoga. It's a great introduction to the topic and IIRC at one point he specifically talks about the life of the Charles Ignatius Sancho (among many other individual cases) mentioned by /u/TheAfternoonStandard and /u/Aceofspades25.

http://www.amazon.com/Dream-City-Power-Decline-Washington/dp/0671768468

Dream City is an excellent read in terms of understanding the peculiar politics of DC.

• Vijay Prashad The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, 2007
  
  Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community, 2002
  
  
• Irfan Habib People's History of India series (Prehistory, The Indus Civilization, The Vedic Age, Mauryan India, Indian Economy, 1858-1914)
  
  
• D.D. Kosambi The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline
  
  Other Works
  
  
  
• MN Roy
  
  
• Romila Thapar: Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300
  
  The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India
  
  Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas
  
  
  You can also check out works by KN Panikkar, Sumit Sarkar, Sushoban Sarkar etc.
  

Yeah, that is an amazing subject to study about this kind of topic.

This book is a fun, quick read on the subject.
https://www.amazon.com/1453-Holy-Constantinople-Clash-Islam/dp/1401308503

There are better and more in depth books out there, but this a nice way to learn a foundation on the subject.

France used to be quite an imperialistic power for the first half of the 20th century. Part of their colonies were the areas then known as "noire afrique" (black africa).

The French actively encouraged their colonies (especially the governing elites who wanted to differentiate themselves from the "uncivilized" masses) to think of themselves as part of the "Greater France" and a lot of people there did indeed come to consider themselves "more French than the French".

Source: Sorry I don't have online sources

The movie that everyone is so familiar with is actually based on a book: Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. It's a really good read, and the movie follows it fairly well.

"The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu". Best title here.

And it's at amazon.

If you haven't already read it 1453 by Roger Crowley is a great read on this event.

Not in My Neighborhood is a great place to start.

For more on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee I would recommend: In Struggle : SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s not the easiest read, however, it's the definitive work on the movement. The clip itself is from a great documentary series called Eyes on the Prize You can check it out at any library.

I enjoyed A Concise History of the Middle East by Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. & Lawrence Davidson, but after checking the Amazon reviews, looks like some like it, some hate it.

In no particular order:

http://www.amazon.com/Beirut-Jerusalem-Thomas-L-Friedman/dp/1250015499

http://www.amazon.com/Lawrence-Arabia-Deceit-Imperial-Making-ebook/dp/B00BH0VSPI/ref=zg_bs_4995_5

http://www.amazon.com/My-Promised-Land-Triumph-Tragedy-ebook/dp/B009QJMXI8/ref=zg_bs_4995_4


http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553/ref=zg_bs_4995_10

http://www.amazon.com/Arabic-Thought-Liberal-Age-1798-1939/dp/0521274230/ref=cm_lmf_tit_3

http://www.amazon.com/History-Arab-Peoples-Albert-Hourani/dp/0446393924/ref=cm_lmf_tit_4

http://www.amazon.com/Women-Gender-Islam-Historical-Modern/dp/0300055838/ref=cm_lmf_tit_9

http://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Modern-Studies-Eastern-History/dp/0195134605/ref=cm_lmf_tit_10

http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805068848/ref=cm_lmf_tit_17


As a non-Muslim, non-Jew, non-Arab, non-Semite, American, and having read these (yay strict immigrant parents!) and some other histories, as well as having had the attacks of 9/11 give me a neurosis about following the news in the Middle East/Central/South Asia as regards potential US involvement and issues:


A lot feels familiar to me, some of it even seems like stuff I know a good deal about, and a few things about "The Middle East" which is a massively rich and complex sociopolitical place and slice of humanity are things I'd consider myself very well read on.


And I don't know shit.


I can tell you as a native born American and US voter what I think my country's policies (in a limited, broad strokes sense) should be - - - but beyond that, there's very little I've ever seen as conclusive and firm coming from anyone who by dint of identity didn't have 'skin in the game' .

A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

A Peace to End All Peace

Check out the history and political science offerings from MIT's OpenCourseWare too

South African (living in the UK) here.

Aside from South Africa’s Western Cape Province (which is run by the official opposition party who’re largely competent and ‘white’), you can’t see much of an improvement across the rest of SA. The ANC has been in control of the country now for 21 years and all they’ve really done is build some shoddy, basic houses for the poor in areas that are visible to the rest of the country (like along national roads).

As a Somalian ex-colleague of mine once said, the biggest problem with Africa is the lack of accountability; SA’s president, Jacob Zuma, has just got away (after a shit ton of hearings and parliamentary reviews) with a grossly-inflated tax payer-funded private compound (that's also is very poorly built) to the tune of £13million. Another problem across the continent is that of the ‘Big Man’ – the chief – who dictates to his village/tribe/country how it is to be, and people simply accept things, thus making it easier to get away with his unquestioned indiscretions. The continent’s incredibly complicated tribal makeup also means people don’t want to work together because of historical tribal animosity – it happens in SA with the Xhosas and Zulus who're always vying for power in government.

Martin Meredith’s The State of Africa is a great read for better understanding why it is the continent is so fucked up.

I also read an ethnography about Women and Islam in Africa. Also, the librarians of Timbuktu are interesting. We studied them in an international preservation class along with Mali.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-the-city-of-mud-stays-standing-meet-the-masons-of-djenne-mali-224225/

https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Ass-Librarians-Timbuktu-Precious-Manuscripts/dp/1476777411/ref=pd_sbs_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1476777411&pd_rd_r=5d933a81-e534-11e8-8667-6f762af60b71&pd_rd_w=m6uCP&pd_rd_wg=2UjhG&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=7d5d9c3c-5e01-44ac-97fd-261afd40b865&pf_rd_r=91ZQ5QYFEVQM1DRDM67G&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=91ZQ5QYFEVQM1DRDM67G

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Smugglers-Timbuktu-Storied-Treasures/dp/0008126658/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541887366&sr=1-1&keywords=9780008126650

https://www.amazon.com/Women-Islamic-Revival-West-African-ebook/dp/B003AKZRTQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541887003&sr=1-1&keywords=9780253003461

Here's a really good book - http://www.amazon.com/Dream-City-Power-Decline-Washington/dp/0671768468#

This is a good point (though it could do without the "douchebags") and should not be downvoted (it was at -7 when I saw it).

I contend that although violence has been reduced, Iranian influence has increased and underlying sectarian tensions remain unresolved. Meanwhile, resentment of the U.S. occupation has risen. National unity, even within the army, is as weak as ever (witness the desertions in the incursion into Basra). Support for a continued U.S. presence appears to be dropping, according to a BBC/ABC poll.

Iraq's government cannot be strengthened and protected with only an unsustainable burst of decreased violence. Political issues, some of them fairly intractable, must be settled by Iraqis themselves. The U.S repeating the blunders Britain made a century ago; it is helping various factions fight each other more effectively and thus prolonging the conflict. I recommend you read A Peace to End All Peace. (This isn't some political diatribe, it's just a great history written in 1989 about mistakes much like these.)

We don't really need to speculate endlessly, there are entire books written about how the disparities in our community came about. We need to continue using the data and scholarship we have, including publications from professors at local universities and longstanding members of the community. It isn't simple and it is complex, for sure. But it's not a situation where we just throw our hands up and say "oh well, just send in people with guns, it's too hard to think through this situation."

Yes, this! After reading The Ghosts of Cannae I had many daydreams of seeing the book made into a movie.

>Actually the South went Democrat until the 80s with Ronald Reagan.

Which is irrelevant to my point. Hoover in 1927 started the Republican effort of reaching out to southern Whites. The idea then was that they already had the Black vote locked up so they could ignore them and work to get the White racist vote. He developed this strategy while working on the Flood of 1927. (He basically used his work there as his presidential campaign.) The strategy did not work immediately but eventually id did.

>Study a little history please.

Study some more history please.

Even though I know this is a loaded question and you really don't care, here are some books for you to read that will answer your question.

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.

This is one is more Baltimore specific Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City .

Since you mentioned Roman history, you might like The Ghosts of Cannae.

It was a book before it was a movie. Very well written. Here's a link to the Kindle edition.

Meh, seems like I’ve already read it: https://www.amazon.com/Not-My-Neighborhood-Bigotry-American/dp/1566638437#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1519095686004

• I read a book about the fall of Constantinople. It had very interesting stories from both sides and gave a good context of the Byzantine history. If I recall correctly Constantine was sacked 2 times before being invaded by Turks. So Turks were mostly disappointed when they got in to city because it was just a shell of it's former glory days. How true is this? Was Constantinople really stripped away of all it's wealth by 1453? Also I am curious about what happened to the Justinian Statue. I think I read, it could have been melted down for scrap after the Ottoman occupation. Is there a reliable source for this?
  
  
• How glamourous was the Constantinople when it peaked? I read depictions of white walls decorated with precious gems. Is this true?
  
  
• Is the Basilisks and the snakehead statues that was located in the middle of the Hippodrome was gifts from other countries? They are still located in İstanbul in the ancient Hippodrome area but unfortunately the Snakeheads are in terrible condition. Although I was incredibly shocked when I heard that the Ancient Egyptian Basilisk was still in it's original condition, because it looked in pristine condition. Why wasn't these precious and foreign hallmarks weren't damaged during the sacks?

Oh and one more that approaches it from the opposite direction (why aren't the poor more mobilized): Poor People's Movements

I'd say that before it's possible to isolate some sort of "inherent cultural" factor you'd have to find some way to rule out the force of political factors. The Middle East has been the subject of Western political gerrymandering throughout the 20th century and before. The full extent of that intrusion may be, on its own, enough to explain the violence characteristic of the modern Middle East. For a primer, I'd recommend David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace.

> Siirtomaahallinnot toimi hyvin mikäli olit valkoinen.

Verrattuna vaikka tähän katastrofiin minusta tuo siirtomaahallinto toimi kyllä melko hyvin kaikille - ja Ghana oli sentään se maa jolla piti olla parhaat mahdollisuudet. Lue tästä lisää jos et usko.

This will give you all the context you'll need, though not directly related to transit, explains a lot about why/how Baltimore is the way it is today.

https://www.amazon.com/Not-My-Neighborhood-Bigotry-American/dp/1566638437

The sentiment here seems to be "Not in my neighborhood", which is also a book title.

http://www.amazon.com/Not-My-Neighborhood-Bigotry-American/dp/1566638437 I have a bit of a different take on it that Pietila has.

The short answer is Redlining, Drugs, and manufacturing.

Here's the defacto book on redlining these days.

Edit: Spelling.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0671768468/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all

used for $7.

If anyone is interested in a good read on how racial prejudice has shaped the very fabric of Baltimore, check out Not in My Neighborhood by Antero Pietila.

One surprising fact he dug up out of the dirty (open) secrets was that the anti-Semitic sentiment was so strong in Baltimore, a third segregated tier of housing (i.e., in addition to segregation for whites and blacks), unique to the city, catering specifically to Jews developed and was even used into the early 1970s. It was so bad that Joseph Meyerhoff (yes, that Meyerhoff), a Ukrainian Jew who's family fled the pogroms of the Russian Empire when he was 7, refused to sell or rent to other Jews (Pietila 2010: 136-140).

Ancient History


Modern African History

Post Independence

EDIT: Don't quite know what ankh-like means..UrbanDictionary and Wikipedia weren't helpful. Apologies in advance if these books are ankh-like.

> This is r/DebateAChristian. Perhaps you are laboring under the mistaken belief that you are on another sub-reddit.

No, I'm going off your flair. Plenty of bitter people around, but most of them have the courtesy to label themselves "Atheist" and "Anti-theist." My understanding was ignostics didn't debate theological crap without definitions involved.

Then again, I am an idiot.

>Are you capable of answering the question?

Well, you seem to want to talk to "Generic Christian Belief X Y Z" instead of me. In my belief, angels didn't set fire to anything, so no, angels wouldn't save raped Yazidi women or keep kids from being decapitated.

>I see. So it was a mistake to build the walls and it was a mistake to not strengthen the walls.

Pretty much. Theologically, they weren't being good Christians. Militarily, their walls were horrifically out of date. A mistake on multiple levels! :)

I only know that because I read a good history about the siege of Constantinople recently.

I read this book a few years ago regarding the final siege from the Byzantines' point of view and the whole thing was just depressing because I knew what was going to happen

Nah that's not really the story of Hampden (or Baltimore) gentrification for the most part. Baltimore segregated via horrific housing policy in the middle of last century (shouts to this book) so gentrification is a bit more natural and less forced/disrupted than New York or DC has been.

Hampden in particular was an all white blue collar Klan holdout into the 80s. Then the artists moved in. Then the hipsters. Then the restaurants. Then the yuppies. Then the families. But it's not over yet. We still have a methadone clinic and some stars and bars flying.

> I disagree because, much like the "Left vs Right" rhetoric, I think that labeling things as "racist" and blaming issues on "racism" is just too shallow of a discussion. Every issue that a country faces is almost never caused by a single factor. There are decades, if not centuries, worth of ongoing circumstances that lead to the present state of affairs.

Well, I'd say at least the problems we are seeing now have started with a racist foundation that was built upon rapidly without equal hastily accountability, and in the case of Baltimore, it's the White flight of the early 20th century in response to affluent Blacks moving into places like Bolton Hill that were the catalyst. This then spread to actions and polices implemented by municipal officials, realtors and housing developers like someone above mentioned such as Redlining. Add in Blockbusting where realtors used White Flight to sell the same property that was sold for pennies on the dollar for more than their actual value to Blacks. The exemption of Blacks from the G.I. bill after World War II that basically propelled many white families(which worked in tandem with Blockbusting as the rowhomes were abandoned for a suburban lifestyle) and was itself a key factor for laying the foundation for the American middle class. There's a few others like the creation of the interstate highway system(bottom of page 14) that also helped segregate these communites further.

So, to answer your question,
> Is racism a part of it?

Yes, in fact it's overwhelmingly the case here.

Annnnnd if you're interested in some light, well-sourced reading, I think you should check out a book that was recommended to me in this very sub called "Not My Neighborhood" Which focuses primarily on how Baltimore's segregated communities came to be.

well without getting too in depth I'd like to first say you should look into and read up on the issue because I will undoubtedly get something wrong here. It's overwhelmingly complicated and I'm not an expert. If you want a quick easy intro you could start with netflix's 13TH. Many of the authors you should be reading if you're interested in the theory of structural racism are quoted or interviewed in that documentary.

 

The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander

Not in my Neighborhood - Antero Pietila (caveat: I read about redlining quite a few years ago now, from someone interviewed in 13th. forget who. would cite them instead but in a rush RN. I think I read a snippet of this book at one point but tbh it's been a long time since I went to school)

 

are both probably good places to start. I have a collection of academic journals and sources from undergrad I might be able to find at home too (although my life is busy this holiday season so no promises). the basic idea is that after the civil rights movement many things aligned to marginalize minorities in place of the more openly racist system of segregation. After WWII vets were given houses, but black vets were encouraged to move into new houses in black neighborhood, which were "redlined" - essentially the houses in black neighborhoods were deemed less valuable and if you lived in these neighborhoods it became progressively harder to get good loans and build your financial assets. so white vets sent their kids to free using the assets their GI bill houses gave their family, while black vets watched their neighborhoods slowly fall into poverty and marginalization.

 

Meanwhile a rhetoric of "criminality" was cultivated in politics - Nixon ran on an anti-crime platform and his adimistration allegedly used drugs and crime to split up hippies and black, keeping them from unifying politically. Reagan grew these policies and next thing you know The New Jim Crow emerged - sorry for wiki but incarceration skyrocketed and disproportionately hit minorities and the lower classes. Check the sources at the bottom of the wiki it's a much more complex issue than one sentence and I don't have time to cite you a million sources. Although democrats don't like to talk about it, Bill Clinton actually resided over a very large part of this trend of mass incarceration and even enacted some of the harshest laws - like three strikes and you're out and mandatory minimums. It's possible this hard stance on crime helped win back the presidency for the Democrats - by then crime had become such an integral part of campaigning that the only way to beat the republicans was to join them.

 

during this time you can actually also find some strong examples of more direct violence against major outspoken black voices - there was the time philadelphia bombed itself - here's an op-ed on that one too and there was the assasination of Fred Hampton while he was asleep next to his wife

 

complicating matters is the privatization of prisons. With so many people in prison states were slow and overcrowding became an issue so profits started to be had in the private prison sector. it didn't take long for other industries to join the party -Lots of big names in American consumerism use or used labor in prison camps to cut labor costs and stay local. Which just makes it more profitable to be tough on crime and run prisons.

 

tl;dr: it pays to have cheap labor and infrastructure/governement can be used to maintain the status quo with a new spin

Eine Freundin von mir hat dieses Buch gelesen und sehr empfohlen. Sie hat gemeint da gabs ja diese ganz komische Geschichte wo der König quasi eine Kolonie hatte die sein "Privatbesitz" war und nicht dem Reich an sich gehört hat oder so.

Sie sagt es ist sehr gut zu lesen, dass es auch bei den Kolonien immer neue Ansätze gab. Also "Ok, dieses mal machen wir es anders und es wird funktionieren!" - "ok, war nix, aber dieses Mal!!!" usw.

Gibt auch einen sehr guten Überblick über die Anfänge von dem Kampf "Arabischer Nationalismus" (also Nasser, Assad, Saddam) versus "Politischer Jihadismus" wo wir die Ableger grade in Syrien und co immer noch/schon wieder sehen. Für mich war das doch sehr neu wie tief da eigentlich die Wurzeln sind. Man kriegt die bei uns nur mit wenn die im Westen einen Anschlag schaffen oder in einem Krieg mitmischen wo der Westen auch involviert ist, aber dann wird einem bewusst, aja die verschwinden ja nicht wirklich zwischen den unterschiedlichen Aktionen, die machen die ganze Zeit weiter, nur halt in Ländern wo wir nicht so aufpassen/die uns nicht so interessieren.

Maybe not the greatest military victory in the sense of a single engagement with outstanding commanding and tactics, but the conquest (fall) of Constantinople was a hugely important and arguably "great" military victory. Let's set the scene: it is 1452, Sultan Mehmed II ascended to the Ottoman throne in the previous year. By this point, the Ottoman Empire has taken over all the land formerly controlled by the Byzantine Empire, on both the Asian and European (into Greece) sides, except for the city of Constantinople. This city, bridging Europe and Asia, on the Bosphorus straits, had been a thorn in the Ottoman side for years, this being their third major siege of the city. Mehmed begins building a fortress on the European side of the strait, Rumelihisarı, opposite to the previously built Anadoluhisarı on the opposite side of the strait. This effectively cut off the strait and inhibited any support coming from the Genoese colonies in the black sea. One story recounts of how a small ship carrying supplies to the city attempted to run through the "danger zone" but a giant block of stone, not even a cannonball, was fired from Rumelihisarı and suddenly there was no more boat. Nobody else tried to pass through the strait. Understanding the dire situation he was about to be in, Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI, sought help from the West, contacting Pope Nicholas V in hopes of garnering support in case of a siege. As it turns out, there was too much bad blood remaining between the Eastern and Western Churches so the Pope didn't offer very much help to the Emperor so he was pretty much on his own, except for the few men who came on their own accord, including Giovanni Giustiniani who took control of the defense of the city, and the Venetian ships that were in the bay (aka the Golden Horn) at the time. Besides the few ships that were stationed in the bay, the defenders also built a chain across the mouth of the bay to inhibit any ottoman ships from entering and laying siege to the city from the water. There were about 7000 defenders for the city as opposed to somewhere upwards of 80000 men and over 100 ships for the Ottomans. Besides men alone, the Ottomans also brought an arsenal of cannons including one 27 foot long behemoth named "Basilica" that was able to fire a 600lb ball over a mile away (fun fact, it would take 3 hours to reload apparently). This was supposedly one of the biggest cannons ever made at the time. And this would have been necessary because the walls surrounding the city were regarded as some of the best ever built. Nobody figured that the walls would fall, some believed that Constantinople was the best defended city in the world.

Now the siege begins. The Ottomans have enough men to completely encircle the city where there is land, the defenders can't man the entire wall. All day every day Basilica fires upon the walls but because it is inaccurate and slow to fire, the walls are mostly maintained and repaired before any serious damage can be done. Because of the chain, the Ottoman ships couldn't make it into the Golden Horn for the entire beginning of the siege, but one night, the entire Ottoman fleet was beached and put on logs. The boats were sent over the coastal hill, back down the other side, and right into the bay, behind the defending fleet. Soon thereafter, in a desperate attempt to strike at the Ottoman fleet, the defenders attempted a daring night attack with the plan to sneak up on the Ottoman fleet and destroy it with Greek fire. The Ottomans were tipped off of the sneak attack prior and prepared accordingly, proceeding to cripple any semblance of a fleet the defenders had, and thereby gaining control of the Golden Horn. Back at the land battle, men were thrown wave-after-wave at the walls, all repulsed with great casualties. The Sultan decides to attempt sapping the walls. Tunnels were dug but were quickly intercepted and destroyed by the defenders' counter-tunnelers (led by a Scot). At this point, Mehmed was at his wit's end, he was ready to give up the assault and was advised so by one of his grand viziers. The other though, Grand Vizier Zaganos Pasha, a man known for his blood-thirst, supposedly gave such a stirring speech to the Sultan that all it would require to take the city is one last major frontal assault, that the Sultan assented and plans were begun to prepare for the big assault in the coming days.

It is now the night of May 28, 1453, the siege having begun 52 days ago. Knowing that the end was imminent, the defenders held one last major ceremony in St. Sophia, members of both the Latin and Greek churches attended. Soon after midnight, the assault began. A veritable torrent of men was sent against the wall, Christians conscripted to fight, Ottoman soldiers, the elite Janissaries, all died in droves in the attack. But recently a small section of the wall had been damaged and this allowed for the Ottomans to gain purchase. In the ensuing fight for the walls, Giustiniani was gravely injured so the few men that came with him attempted to carry their leader to safety, abandoning the wall, thereby eroding the confidence of the Greek defenders. Soon the Ottomans were able to take the rest of the fortifications and the defense fell. Some say the emperor shed his imperial regalia and led the troops in a final attack while others say he hanged himself when he saw that the walls had fallen. Mehmed enters the city through the "liberated" main gates atop his white charger resplendent in his Sultan outfit cutting a resplendent image against his newly conquered city. The attackers were allowed to plunder for 3 days after which order was restored, but not before the city was sacked and thousands of inhabitants were sold into slavery. Mehmed was able to protect some of the city, though, re-purposing St. Sophia into a mosque, Hagia Sophia, as it remains to this day.

That was a very short version of the story, if anybody is interested in learning more, I would recommend 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West