(Part 2) Best products from r/badhistory

> That's not to say I don't consider this a decent book; it's the best history textbook I've ever had...

If what is above is true, you really need to get your hands on the latest edition of "The Earth and Its Peoples". I'm far removed from AP & High School now, but I still go back to the latest edition of this textbook whenever I want a general explanation of some event, rather than going directly to wikipedia.

The authors are amazing scholars, especially Dr. Richard Bulliet, who writes all the sections on the Middle East, and is the main editor of the book.

Plus it adds in good sections on women, "homosexual" (in all its many different manifestations), and animal-human history, which I have yet to encounter any other textbook as adequately review.

Fantastic book, PM if you're interested and can't find it.

It's always been a difficult area to write a single book on, because there are so many factors, such as understanding each empire of the time, and what the general atmosphere was regarding trade between empires.

It's funny that you ask though, because a really great book on the very topic recently came out, and it's called "1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed.".

The boldness of the author Eric H. Cline to attribute an exact year, to me, at first seemed ridiculous, but after reading the book, I'm convinced that he's right. It's a fairly short 200 page book, and I enjoyed every page of it.

One thing, if you haven't researched "The Sea Peoples", I would recommend having at least a small understanding of who and what they were and did. It's not completely necessary, but it's helpful. This is due to the fact that so many people like to attribute the collapse of the late bronze age to them, when in fact there are many factors that play into the "systems collapse" that occurred in the late 13th, and early 12th century B.C.

Here's an Amazon link for the book:

http://www.amazon.com/1177-B-C-Civilization-Collapsed-Turning/dp/0691140898/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398200849&sr=1-1&keywords=1177+b.c.+the+year+civilization+collapsed

Here's a wikipedia link to the "Sea Peoples".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_peoples

The entire topic of the collapse of the bronze age, is one of the most fascinating that I have encountered. What's even more incredible is that so few people know it ever happened.

I've spent a lot of time researching, and studying the topic, and if you have any questions at any time, feel free to ask.

Charles Rollin has a very thorough (albeit dry) history of many ancient civilisations, including the Assyrians (here's the first volume). It's not all that great as an introductory text, but it is very informative. Personally, I've found that journal articles are much better for me and my interests. There's a Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies which, while it usually focuses on modern Assyrian issues, also has good articles about history. I can't really recommend any amazing books, but I hope that helps.

First of all, let's try to be academic. That means no name calling. Also random capitalization doesn't do much.

Anyhow.

I am not an expert, but I could link to experts (although searching for "Great Chinese Famine" in JSTOR gives you a lot of stuff!)

Here is one nice link

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41447786

Have also heard go things about this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Tombstone-Great-Chinese-Famine-1958-1962/dp/0374533997


My understanding is mostly of Mao forcing people away from agricultural production, and towards iron, among other things. Also the very famous genocide of all of the birds, which resulted in a glut of pests that killed crops (a mainstay ecological case!). Also like the Irish famine, the government forced exports, which is obviously horrible.

Also: central planning lol

While I appreciate your study of primary sources, I would like to bring this back to my original post. China, like Turkey, has a habit of covering things up, and a vested interest in lying. Just try researching the Tiananmen Square Massacre! So any primary source documents (especially ones from the party and ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY anything released for public consumption) is often highly inaccurate.

A big part of historical analysis is evaluating sources for their accuracy, their message, their audience, etc. Although i'm sure you know this, it is important to keep in mind.

I was going to save this for Sunday Studies, but man, I'm annoyed.

Leslie Peirce has been one of my favorite go-to sources when it comes to women in the early modern Ottoman empire, and I still hold her 1993 work on the structure and evolution of the imperial household in high regard. The Imperial Harem was groundbreaking, although some of her conclusions do not hold up against new evidence and analyses (Börekçi's work on the brief tenure of Handan Sultan, whom Peirce dismisses as an insignificant figure, is the foremost example in my mind).

Based on the preview I just read, I cannot say the same of her newest publication, Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire, which hits shelves September 19. The book is ostensibly a study of Hürrem Sultan, concubine-turned-wife of Süleyman I, but Peirce seems much more intent on venerating her subject over a nuanced presentation.

Peirce makes a number of claims I find questionable at best, such as that she was a political reformer who had a key role in "moving the Ottoman Empire into modern times" (what) and that she and Süleyman were a "reigning couple" (the haseki institution was not equal to that of the Sultan). She credits Hürrem with the beginnings of "a more peaceable system of identifying the next sultan" when her sons Selim and Bayezid became embroiled in a bloody civil war following her death that ended with the death of the latter and his children.

Additionally, Peirce portrays Süleyman and Hürrem as one of history's "greatest love stories"; while Süleyman was doubtlessly enamored with her to raise her to such a status, I'd like to see more critical approaches to their relationship that reflect the fact she was a slave, for instance. At the same time, it is emphasized that Hürrem's climb is all the result of her endurance, smarts and gung-ho attitude that those other woman just couldn't match. Süleyman who?

A friend was left with the impression that the book is "selling [history] as a fairytale rags-to-riches story" in which Hürrem is presented more as a uniquely venerable heroine rather than a complex -- and controversial -- historical figure. I couldn't agree with her more. Granted, we only have access to the introductory chapters and conclusion, but considering they are often indicative of the rest of a book, I can already say I'm taking a pass on this one.

When I was 5 I received an awesome book of Greek Mythology full of amazing artwork. I loved the stories and all the cool monsters. I got my hand on any Mythology book I could and expanded into Norse and a little bit of Egyptian. Interest in actual history came shortly after. A quick google search and I found it!

I don't know how obscure the conflict is, but the Congo Wars are definitely less well known than they should be. Dancing in the Glory of Monsters is a fantastic book which is engrossing and very easy to read. Available on Amazon. Africa's World War is another excellent but more academic/dry book about it. Also widely available.

The closest phenomenon equivalent to evangelicalism in colonial North America was the first Great Awakening (first half of the eighteenth century). It contained all the factors of modern evangelicalism, in the sense that it placed a heavy emphasis upon personal repentance, personal faith, and a personal emotional conversion experience. Men like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards (just to name a few; there were many others) preached long, open-air sermons to groups of thousands that would gather to hear them. The "revival" swept through the colonies, creating a mass wave of religious hysteria and the splitting up of many established and mainline Protestant denominations. If you would like a good short narrative of what were some of the central figures and components of the Great Awakening, I suggest (for starters) you read the pertinent chapters in Richard Hodstadter's book America in 1750.

Well, saying "French Revolutionary regime" is difficult because of how many changes there were, and furthermore the degree to which egalitarianism was part of the revolution's intentions changed as those who initiated the revolution lost control of it. There's a great book called To Speak for the People: Public Opinion and the Problem of Legitimacy in the French Revolution that talks about how the idea of "the people" and "the nation" etc changed as political legitimacy became more and more dependent on public opinion, and as these definitions loosened they opened a space for more and more of the population to cram themselves into. Lynn Hunt also deals with this in an article called Rhetoric of Revolution or Revolutionary Rhetoric (I can never remember) in which she talks about the popular sovereignty over language and has this beautiful quote that says essentially that the terror was the natural consequence of this. This ties in with the last sentence of my first comment, where I say that the level of equality was too high for most people to be equal. Indeed, the Enlightenment principles that were put into practice by the revolutionaries did not believe the rabble could guide themselves, but would need direction. Even though the bourgeois that launched the pamphlet campaigns so essential to fomenting the revolution didn't actually want everyone to be participating in politics, you can just take a peek at the most important documents like Sieyes's "What is the Third Estate?" where his answer to this question is "Everything" and can see how this opened the way for the public to mean "everyone" and thus allow every individual to think they deserved a political voice of their own.

The true issue is that the revolution developed in a public sphere in which participation was limited to those educated enough to write and either talented or wealthy enough to have their works printed. Habermas calls this a bourgeois political public sphere but personally I agree more with Chartier who says that even those who could not directly participate due to restrictions of literacy and access to publishing (can't remember the term he uses, but it's a good term) still saw themselves as participating by exercising reason in their judgment of the media they consumed in private or in reading rooms/whatever. In this way everyone could potentially participate without being held back by traditional distinctions, and their contributions would be based on merit rather than privilege, and thus the inherent and requisite equality in the public sphere. As it became politicized by appeals to public opinion as a source of legitimization (made even by the king), filling the vacuum of legitimization by traditional means, it became this unanimous body that was public (not private like the king) and infallible because it did not exist in time or space, but rather in this sort of ethereal community that existed above those who participated in it. In this way it was immune to coercion (unlike the king) and so its conclusions could not have been influenced by individuals with more power than others (unlike the aristocracy). It was based on ideals of reason that needed unanimity to reach its reasonable judgment, and unanimity requires all voices to be held in equal regard, and thus equality was essential to the revolution. (This unanimity was exactly like absolutism, but this is sort of tangential so I won't go into it)

Unfortunately the public was very much being informed of itself by literary figures who claimed to speak on behalf of the public they addressed. The unanimous decision it reached was reached by others and the public was told they'd figure it out as well if they were reasonable enough. In this way the equal public relied on representation, even though it didn't see itself as requiring representation. The people could speak for themselves, but they didn't need to. In this way appealing to political legitimization was a process of claiming "to speak for the people". In other words the reason the revolution was able to start was because of its essentially representational nature, but the revolutionary rhetoric spewed in the media propagated a form of politics that could not coexist with this representational democracy (in fact I think the only reason people bought into revolutionary rhetoric in the first place was because it was "familiar" in its similarities to absolutism. It could never have been what it wanted to be because, this is sort of entirely 100% speculation, the average people would never have been able to really comprehend the complicated politics of democracy. Hell, people still don't get it. But I'm trying really hard not to go into a tangent lol).

This all came to a head when the French Revolution essentially became the Parisian Revolution, and those people who had defined themselves as equal but were held back from participation solely by literacy or access to publishing were now able to physically participate in public debate by literally storming the assembly. After all, how could they be locked outside if they were equal to those inside? There's this great quote where a member of the assembly attempts to legitimize his argument by saying "the people want X" or something, and an angry member of this crowd says "we are the people!". The representational system could not legitimize itself unless literally everyone agreed, which would require a direct democracy. And of course public opinion can change on a dime, so there's really no way to ever get anything done even if you could get a unanimous decision... and that's why we have so many ethical restrictions limiting the fickle mood swings of public opinion from influencing politics.

This comment is sort of a mess. The tl;dr would be that the French Revolution took the ideal of equality too far. The need for unanimity required all voices to be equal, and power couldn't be concentrated in any individual person or group. So intense was the need for equality that the people allowed the Reign of Terror to literally kill whoever they felt was consolidating power, because if anyone had more power than anyone else the entire revolution would collapse. And it did.

Anyway yeah, mess of a comment, I could go into way further detail but whatever. Hopefully this made at least some sense.

edited to fix some sentences and add a few

edit 2 - Also this is why the terror could act as "the elites enforcing their own policy preferences over the wishes of the majority" while also representing the wishes of the majority (literally everyone). The greatest will of the majority was for the revolution and nation to succeed. I just wrote in this paper a sentence about nationalism during this time which I think is really cool, "The nation maintained its existence by the possibility of its reality". The terror kept that possibility open and in this backwards, ironic way, it sustained the revolution.

I've been reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, due to an interest in the history of the human species brought about by an Intro to Biological Anthropology class I'm in. I'm maybe three chapters in so far, but I'm engrossed. Harari theorizes that the reason that Homo Sapiens were able to outlive all the other Homo species is our ability to conceive fiction, our ability to conceptualise things that don't exist, like religions, nations, etc. This isn't really a historic text, but it's well written and seems to be worth reading if you have an interest in the topic. I'd like to read some critical reviews from experts in the field, though.

Haha the comments point out that he cites Emmett Scott

> The Emmet Scott cited and praised by Fernández-Morera is not just a self-published iconoclast, he’s also the main English-language proponent of Heribert Illig’s bizarre Phantom Time Hypothesis, which postulates that the people and events of the years 614 to 911 AD never actually existed and are the result of a medieval forgery perpetrated by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and possibly the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII. One of his self-published books even expounds on it: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1628940395/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506483560&sr=8-1

> Scott’s popularity in certain circles as a (pseudo-)historian of Islam is rather perplexing in the light of this adherence to the notion that the entire period encompassing Islam’s origin and spread never even happened in the first place. It’d be like citing and praising a book on the history of England written by someone who thinks the British Isles are a fictional creation of medieval geographers and don’t actually exist.

Hmm. For general information on the Iranian world, I recommend Encyclopedia Iranica. The articles are detailed and cover a wide range of topic, written by experts for in a relatively accessible manner (or, well, as accessible as academics can make it). My professor recommended it to me when I was doing a research paper under him.

Anyways, I actually just googled my professor, Prof Daryaee, and coincidentally enough the first video results for him is a lecture about "The Idea of Iran and Iranian Identity." I think it might be relevant to the discussion here. He's of course written several books, but the only one I've read proper is his introduction to Sassanid history for a class I took with him. He also has a website where there are some blog posts and other thing you can read.

I've taken a class with him as often as I can. He has been a big influence on educating me about the issues of Eurocentrism and Orientalism, and although being Asian myself I am more than aware of those sort of things, he's certainly helped me shape my view of history and helped me gain a lot of appreciation for Iranian history.

Since you've actually gone to the subreddit I'll take your word for what you have read, I was looking at articles written about the alt-right and basing my assessment on that.

However, really quickly on your assertions

>That's most definitely not nazism.

>That one actually isn't either.

regarding the Nazi economic system I'm just wondering where you might have learned such inaccuracies? Is there a particular source you are drawing you knowledge from?

Were you referencing the The 25-point Program of the NSDAP which states:

• We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
  
• We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
  
• We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
  
• We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality.
  
• We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.
  
• In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.
  
  You found these statements to be in line with what you imagine to be a Capitalist system?
  
  Maybe you might want to read Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris, by Ian Kershaw to learn a little more about the centralization of agricultural policy and nationalization of German industry during rearmament.
  
  I was able to access this using my University login if you have the ability you might check out this also-The Economic Doctrine of National Socialism by Emil Lederer
  
  Or War and Economy in the Third Reich by R. J. Overy
  to learn about:
  
  
• During the 12 years of the Third Reich, government ownership expanded greatly into formerly private sectors of strategic industries: aviation, synthetic oil and rubber, aluminum, chemicals, iron and steel, and army equipment.
  
• The capital assets of state-owned industry doubled during this same period, whereby the nationalization caused state-ownership of companies to increase to over 500 businesses.
  
• Further, government finances for state-owned enterprises quadrupled from 1933 to 1943.
  
  Or Richard J. Evans's The Third Reich in Power, 1933-1939 to learn:
  
  
• Where the Nazi administration wanted additional industrial capacity, they would first nationalize and then establish a new state-owned-and-operated company. In 1937 Hermann Göring targeted companies producing iron ore, “taking control of all privately owned steelworks and setting up a new company, known as the Hermann Göring Works.”
  
  Or Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State by Götz Aly:
  
  
• The welfare of the common people (Volk) was a primary consideration in determining Nazi policy. From the start of the regime’s power, the commoners’ needs were prioritized and their lot economically improved, first through an efficient campaign to eradicate unemployment and nationalization of major industries and then, throughout the war, by incurring an irresponsible level of state debt that was balanced by political and economic violence in occupied territories
  
  
• Hitler was “an enemy of free market economics” whose regime was committed to an economic “New Order” controlled by the “Party through a bureaucratic apparatus staffed by technical experts and dominated by political interests,” similar to the economic planning of the Soviet Union.
  
  Or Günter Reimann's The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism:
  
  
• By the late 1930s, taxation, regulations and general hostility towards the business community were becoming so onerous that one German businessman wrote: "These Nazi radicals think of nothing except ‘distributing the wealth,'” while some businessmen were “studying Marxist theories, so that they will have a better understanding of the present economic system."
  
  
• In other cases, National Socialist officials were levying harsh fines of millions of marks for a “single bookkeeping error.” The anti-business motives behind the Nationalist Socialists has been attributed to the Nazi leadership’s aim “to soak the rich and ‘neutralize big spenders,’” since they harbored “hostility towards the wealthy.”
  
  The sources are from the class I took last year "Origins Of Nazism" taught by Anne Berg at the University of Michigan, I can include more if you would like to read some more.

In the 1933 German census of the approximately 60 million people living in Germany about 40 million were Protestant and about 20 million were Catholic. Most of the people who were responsible for the Holocaust were Christian just like how most of the people responsible for the Armenian genocide were Muslims. I'm not saying that Christianity caused the Holocaust, I'm saying that there's a discrepancy between how Crowder is saying that Islam is barbaric because a population of Muslims perpetrated the Armenian genocide but does not apply that same logic to Christians.

And as to the American Indians I'd say that yes it was a genocide. There are several good books on the topic, like this one. If you have access to a library it should be relatively easy to get a hold of it or a similar book.

No, but I really don't think I could write better satire if I tried.

A good meme based on this article came out making fun of Alt-right/Return of Kings blogger Matt Forney and his S U P E R I O R :: A E S T H E T I C S.

Not to body-shame but...this self-described "journalist" and pick-up artist, who is fat himself, wrote an entire article titled "Fat Girls Don't Deserve to Be Loved".

He also, wrote a guide in the tradition of RooshV to "making love" to women in the Philippines.

Then after that, he wrote an article about not race-mixing in which he chastised his former self.

And then there's a twitter post in which he predicted a "white baby boom" during the Trump Administration.

> greatest country in the world is Burgundy.

There's actually a great fantasy novel that ties together Burgundy (and it's fall from prominence), Carthage, golems, and a little bit of time travel.

It's by Mary Gentle and is called Ash: A Secret History (Ash is a female mercenary)