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Everyone should have a hardcover copy of The Power Broker.
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Feb 18, 2019 23:17
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| # ? Jun 4, 2024 14:32 |
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I'm halfway through William Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire, a history of the middle ages and the beginnings of the Renaissance. I heard good things about it, and I know it's been taught in AP history courses. I'm not a scholar of history, but as I read it I noticed that Machester is prone to glibly including information that isn't supported or just plain contrary to the consensus of medieval historians. The back of the jacket includes the phrase, "Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse". This view, along with the "fall of Rome" narrative, are featured prominently in this book. He says such things as, "in summertime peasants went about naked". The very young may have been naked, as well as some peasants when they slept, but medieval peasants did indeed feel shame around nudity and would wear clothes. He writes, "If war took a man even a short distance from a nameless hamlet, the chances of his returning to it were slight". To be sure, many conscripted peasants never returned home, but this seems like an exaggeration. It's hard to find where he sources these claims from as he has no footnotes, only a bibliography. "On Sundays, under watchful parental eyes, girls would dress modestly and be demure in church, but on weekdays they opened their blouses, hiked their skirts and romped through the fields in search of phalli.” To be fair, the modesty and chivalric notions of love in this era are often overestimated in popular culture. This sentence takes it a bit too far though. "In the years that followed, Goths, Alans, Burgundians... Quadi, and Magyars joined [the Huns] in ravaging what was left of civilization. The ethnic tide then settled in its conquered lands and darkness descended upon the devastated, unstable continent. It would not lift until forty medieval generations had suffered, wrought their pathetic destinies, and passed on." "Shackled in ignorance, disciplined by fear, and sheathed in superstition, [Europeans] trudged into the sixteenth century in the clumsy, hunched, pigeon-toed gait of rickets victims, their vacant faces, pocked by smallpox, turned blindly toward the future they thought they knew - gullible, pitiful innocents who were about to be swept up in the most powerful, imcomprehensible, irrestible vortex since Alaric had led his Visigoths and Huns across the Alps, fallen on Rome, and extinguished the lamps of learning a thousand years before." No comment. He quotes, without context or qualification, a contemporary who said that the English "drink no water, unless at certain times upon religious score, or by way of doing penance". He repeats, without mentioning any of the more compelling theories, the old canard that the real Pied Piper was "horrible, a psychopath and a pederast" and that "according to some, his victims were never seen again. Others told of dismembered little bodies found scattered in the forest underbrush or festooning the branches of trees." He credulously repeats the most improbable rumors of the Borgia popes. He writes of the ballet of the chestnuts, in which the fifty most beautiful whores in Rome danced naked with guests, which eventually turned into wild sex, with the pope giving prizes to the men who had orgasmed the most. He writes of hungry mobs at executions in which, as soon as the man was dead, they rushed the gallows to eat the warm flesh raw. Of Anne Boleyn, he gets so many details wrong that I can't cover them all. This book is basically one long Monty Python sketch.
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Feb 19, 2019 00:11
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You’d get a more accurate portrayal of Medieval Life from reading a Dan Brown novel.
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Feb 19, 2019 00:38
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How has Norman Cantor's Civilization of the Middle Ages held up? I read it when I was a teenager and thoroughly enjoyed it and it colored my impression of the middle ages for years to come, but now I know enough to generally be wary of older works, that the scholarship has evolved since then, etc.
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Feb 19, 2019 01:01
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lmao at the romping search for phalli. You should post that quote in the ask/tell history thread so everyone can lol
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Feb 19, 2019 04:08
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That book is notorious amongst medievalists for a reason. I don't even know what the point is.
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Feb 19, 2019 17:41
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Kevin DuBrow posted:He quotes, without context or qualification, a contemporary who said that the English "drink no water, unless at certain times upon religious score, or by way of doing penance". "Forgive me father, for I have sinned." "Okay, two hail marys and three glasses of water for you."
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Feb 19, 2019 17:49
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manchester rules because he just made a ton of stuff up from whole cloth and every scholar on earth knows hes full of poo poo but he still gets taught in high schools for some reason
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Feb 19, 2019 18:06
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That is a shame, I really liked his Krupp book when I was younger
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Feb 19, 2019 19:56
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non-medievalists writing about the middle ages is generally a disaster. see also stephen greenblatt's the swerve, which is entirely wrong dogshit although his will in the world is also mostly wrong dogshit and greenblatt's an early modernist so idk what his excuse there is
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Feb 19, 2019 21:02
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HEY GUNS posted:Ferdinand II is the one who was so freaking catholic he started the war up again after he had won it. I think I've seen you post something about this before, but can you expand a little?
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Feb 19, 2019 21:39
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Squalid posted:lmao at the romping search for phalli. You should post that quote in the ask/tell history thread so everyone can lol I can't be the only one who thinks that it'd be a great part of the thread name
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Feb 19, 2019 22:08
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PittTheElder posted:I think I've seen you post something about this before, but can you expand a little? As Saxony (the biggest Lutheran power)'s involvement on the Imperialist side proved, you could spin this war as one about the Imperial constitution, not necessarily about religion. Then Ferdinand II did this.
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Feb 20, 2019 03:48
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HEY GUNS posted:from the outbreak of the war in bohemia until 1625 (in the part of the conflict saxony was fighting in) or 29 (other places) the 30yw went very well for the Imperialists. gustavus adolphus was occupying a citystate in the far north of germany but with no allies except Denmark, which Wallenstein and Tilly destroyed in 29, he could be contained. You could probably make the argument that the Edict of Restitution was technically correct, because the Peace of Augsberg did specifically protect church lands from secularization, and that was being ignored in the Lutheran states, so the edict just enforced the treaty. But it was pretty drat impolitic, given that the Lutheran states were the ones who were specifically financially benefiting from it, and there wasn't much that annoyed the Lutheran princes more.
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Feb 20, 2019 04:24
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Caro the Goon could be the subject of a really fascinating book. Honesty surprised no ones hooked him up with a publisher and a ghost writer. Caro wrote this for the New Yorker about research. As someone who loves digging into documents and is powered by the thought of uncovering something little known and realizing its place, this is beautiful. I'd totally read a book about his research technique and securing interviews.
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Feb 20, 2019 04:45
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RC and Moon Pie posted:Caro wrote this for the New Yorker about research. As someone who loves digging into documents and is powered by the thought of uncovering something little known and realizing its place, this is beautiful. I'd totally read a book about his research technique and securing interviews. You’re in luck: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Robert-Caro/dp/0525656340/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=robert+caro&qid=1550634417&s=gateway&sr=8-1
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Feb 20, 2019 04:47
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RC and Moon Pie posted:Caro wrote this for the New Yorker about research. As someone who loves digging into documents and is powered by the thought of uncovering something little known and realizing its place, this is beautiful. I'd totally read a book about his research technique and securing interviews. This is great, thanks for posting it!
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Feb 20, 2019 06:16
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chernobyl kinsman posted:manchester rules because he just made a ton of stuff up from whole cloth and every scholar on earth knows hes full of poo poo but he still gets taught in high schools for some reason His "autobiographical" (ha ha ha ha ha) take on WWII (Goodbye Darkness) is just execrably bad.
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Feb 20, 2019 18:25
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Epicurius posted:You could probably make the argument that the Edict of Restitution was technically correct, because the Peace of Augsberg did specifically protect church lands from secularization, and that was being ignored in the Lutheran states, so the edict just enforced the treaty. But it was pretty drat impolitic, given that the Lutheran states were the ones who were specifically financially benefiting from it, and there wasn't much that annoyed the Lutheran princes more. wallenstein was like "don't do it" and then he was like "i told you so"
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Feb 20, 2019 20:35
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HEY GUNS posted:wallenstein was like "don't do it" and then he was like "i told you so" Tilly: "Albrecht, you can't keep throwing the Emperor's mistakes in his face like that! He's going to get upset!" Wallenstein: "Oh, lighten up! What's the Emperor going to do? Find me guilty of treason in a secret trial and then get some Irish mercenaries to murder me?" Tilly: "Don't be silly." <turns to the camera and winks> <Opening credits roll for 'That's our Emperor!'> (Don't mind me. I'm just picturing a sitcom about Fedinand II's court)
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Feb 20, 2019 21:47
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Epicurius posted:Tilly: "Albrecht, you can't keep throwing the Emperor's mistakes in his face like that! He's going to get upset!" i told you dog
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Feb 20, 2019 22:57
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Epicurius posted:Wallenstein: "Oh, lighten up! What's the Emperor going to do? Find me guilty of treason in a secret trial and then get some Irish mercenaries to murder me?" 
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Feb 21, 2019 05:25
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"It's Always Sunny in Vienna".
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Feb 21, 2019 05:39
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I've been really enjoying A World Undone (doing the audiobook version). He has a great arrangement, with every other chapter or so being a "Background" on broader aspects of the war, technology, each of the nations and their generals, etc. Fits seamlessly with the more traditional narrative.
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Feb 21, 2019 18:00
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Alikchi posted:I've been really enjoying A World Undone (doing the audiobook version). He has a great arrangement, with every other chapter or so being a "Background" on broader aspects of the war, technology, each of the nations and their generals, etc. Fits seamlessly with the more traditional narrative. That’s on my list. I love the background era you’re talking about. Like 1890s-1914 is an amazing era. I started reading about WW1 itself but the prewar era has fascinated me the most. Mainly all the incompetent leadership. I swear, every audiobook narrator that does a “Wilhelm II” voice is funnier than the last.”
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Feb 23, 2019 04:07
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Bob A Feet posted:That’s on my list. I love the background era you’re talking about. Like 1890s-1914 is an amazing era. I started reading about WW1 itself but the prewar era has fascinated me the most. Mainly all the incompetent leadership. I swear, every audiobook narrator that does a “Wilhelm II” voice is funnier than the last.” Give The Sleepwalkers a whirl. I think you’d enjoy it!
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Feb 23, 2019 05:27
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Dadbod Apocalypse posted:Give The Sleepwalkers a whirl. I think you’d enjoy it! Great recommendation. I loved it. It gives a lot of detail to many things (Morocco Crises for example) that many other works cite but never explain what actually happened. That book is such a great launching point for anything in any European country for the era. I wondered for example why I was reading about Serbian regicides for the first 50 pages until I realized how it fit in 1914. I’m reading (aka listening to) the War that Ended Peace now. Doesn’t have as much detail as Sleepwalkers but has a decent dry humorous take. Enjoying it.
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Feb 23, 2019 05:45
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I'm pretty sure it was someone in this thread who recommended Citizens by Simon Schama as a good overview of the French Revolution. Just wanted to say thanks for the recommendation. It was slightly over my head to start with, as my knowledge was next to nothing, so I had to look a fair bit of stuff up, but I enjoyed it.
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Feb 23, 2019 06:23
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Dadbod Apocalypse posted:Give The Sleepwalkers a whirl. I think you’d enjoy it!
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Feb 23, 2019 15:42
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HEY GUNS posted:i warned you about stairs bro Thanks for the manuscript, I'm about halfway through and enjoying it; it reads easily, the arguments are clear, and it is informative regarding the practicalities of soldiering in this period. I hope other scholars do similar things with other units so some of your hypotheses can be tested.
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Feb 24, 2019 04:45
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Neurosis posted:Thanks for the manuscript, I'm about halfway through and enjoying it; it reads easily, the arguments are clear, and it is informative regarding the practicalities of soldiering in this period. I hope other scholars do similar things with other units so some of your hypotheses can be tested. I suspect that while the general attitude toward life is more or less similar for all early modern soldiers except for highly motivated outliers like Scottish Protestants, the individual experiences would be very different. Enjoy the misery porn Edit: It's important to me to write clearly and, if I can, eloquently. I haaaate academic writing that just sludges it up with lovely prose. Like they turn interesting topics into pieces of poo poo with their prose. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Feb 26, 2019 |
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Feb 26, 2019 04:05
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Are there any decent accessible books on the druids in Britain and what they may have believed? Preferably available as an ebook.
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Feb 28, 2019 20:23
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i'd recommend ronald hutton's pagan britain, which surveys all of the pagan religions of the british isles, or his blood & mistletoe, which focuses on the original druids in the beginning and then expands to cover the proceeding two millennia of re-imaginings and re-inventions that have come to totally define how we see the druids peter berresford ellis' the druids is apparently okay to pretty good. it's organized around an argument that the druids constituted a caste similar to that of the brahmans, which is not insane chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Feb 28, 2019 |
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Feb 28, 2019 21:13
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Just what I'm looking for they all look really interesting thanks! Pagan Britain and the Druids are sitting in the storeroom of my local library so I can check those out tomorrow and request Blood and Mistletoe for later. I have a Welsh friend who's really into this stuff along with folklore and the like but I know jack about it so hopefully I can hold a somewhat informed conversation soon.
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Mar 1, 2019 00:43
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There is also Cundiff's Britain Begins, which is a history from recession of the glaciers to basically the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Whereas it does not get into beliefs per se it does document the migrations of many peoples around northern Europe and ties various neolithic (and other) cultures together using the latest (as of the publication date iirc 2013) archeological knowledge. Important context for understanding how belief systems are interrelated.
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Mar 1, 2019 14:54
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Is there a standard biography of Gandhi? I'm somewhat familiar with Indian culture & religion and the period, so it doesn't need to start with basic-basics. Also interested in histories of the Raj and cultural & religious histories of India. I'm reading Barney White-Spunner's Partition and it's good as a narrative but he doesn't really even attempt to draw a social background for the massacres
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Mar 20, 2019 23:22
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Ras Het posted:Is there a standard biography of Gandhi? I'm somewhat familiar with Indian culture & religion and the period, so it doesn't need to start with basic-basics. Also interested in histories of the Raj and cultural & religious histories of India. I'm reading Barney White-Spunner's Partition and it's good as a narrative but he doesn't really even attempt to draw a social background for the massacres Ramachandra Guha's Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948 is approved by the powers that be
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Mar 21, 2019 00:05
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Boatswain posted:Ramachandra Guha's Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948 is approved by the powers that be Oh duh, I've read his history of modern India but didn't think to check what else he's written, cheers
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Mar 21, 2019 00:16
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Ras Het posted:Oh duh, I've read his history of modern India but didn't think to check what else he's written, cheers I haven't read him but in every interview he is interesting and funny 
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Mar 21, 2019 00:21
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Um, the movie Ghandi starring Rudyard Kipling
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Mar 21, 2019 01:35
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