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Baron Porkface posted:How does a city with half a million or more people like Leningrad or Aleppo stay besieged for years without everyone running out of food and dying within 3 months or so? As someone noted, Leningrad had some supply, but nowhere near enough. Otherwise, your population is dropping due to disease/malnutrition/direct enemy action, so over time you need less food anyway. This is after people are eating tree bark/wallpaper paste/zoo or domestic animals/anything and everything, though, so it's still not good. (Can't remember if Leningrad had verifiable cannibalism, or if was just "suspected but we didn't want to look hard enough to prove it".
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Dec 9, 2016 23:48
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chitoryu12 posted:He said that "prosperous peasants" lived in a single room in a large building that also included the farm animals' pens and feed storage, and everyone in the family slept on a communal bed of vermin-filled straw and even had sex among everyone else. Travelers who stayed the night would be invited to sleep in the pile. To be fair that bit is trueful at least, sexual privacy was much less of a thing in the medieval era. When you only have one room in your house, the kids hear you loving to make their next sibling.
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Dec 9, 2016 23:49
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chitoryu12 posted:barely being able to tell anyone how old they were. Point of order: we actually have evidence for that. Early modernity is the time when governments get very serious about census to figure out what the hell their tax base is. So they start assembling all kinds of statistics, including sending commissions into every loving hamlet in their realm and describing the state of each household (a lot of that is hilarious to read, to the tune of "This guy is a noble but somehow thinks he should totally plow his fields himself, which he fucks up so badly it looks like a horde of pigs went through them. Also owns three cows and a horse, but it is old and lame. Also own a couple of chickens. Assessed at x marks."). One of the things they ask for is age, and there are very marked spikes in the numbers of people answering 30, 40 or 50. Which works well enough and shows that people did at least have a rough understanding of numbers, they just didn't necessarily celebrate their birthdays.
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Dec 9, 2016 23:52
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Zamboni Apocalypse posted:(Can't remember if Leningrad had verifiable cannibalism, or if was just "suspected but we didn't want to look hard enough to prove it". According to wikipedia, the NKVD files reported 13 cases and ultimately arrested 2,105 cannibals. Wiki further notes that far more common than cannibalism was just murder for ration cards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad#Cannibalism
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Dec 9, 2016 23:52
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Crazycryodude posted:Adding my voice to the growing chant of "Let's Read". Also, what's the average experience level in this thread? As a newcomer who's a 19 year old college kid I feel pretty out of my depth, it seems like half of you could be my professors. Just read and you'll get there, I'm an engineer by degree and purely do this sort of stuff as a hobby. Last thing that could be considered formal history training that i did was back at school at 18.
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Dec 9, 2016 23:56
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nothing to seehere posted:To be fair that bit is trueful at least, sexual privacy was much less of a thing in the medieval era. When you only have one room in your house, the kids hear you loving to make their next sibling. In this case, the theory is that the entire family just sleeps in a huddled mass and dad tries not to accidentally jab his own daughter with his dick when trying to have another kid. Which is better than the neighbors, who are all naked cannibals. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Dec 10, 2016 |
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Dec 10, 2016 00:01
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PittTheElder posted:who read a lot. Tbh I read sporadically at best 
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Dec 10, 2016 00:03
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Polyakov posted:Just read and you'll get there, I'm an engineer by degree and purely do this sort of stuff as a hobby. Last thing that could be considered formal history training that i did was back at school at 18. Same, except 25 and still failing to get a degree. Turns out, telling professors/TAs they're wrong, even if you're right, has consequences. 
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Dec 10, 2016 00:11
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Baron Porkface posted:How does a city with half a million or more people like Leningrad or Aleppo stay besieged for years without everyone running out of food and dying within 3 months or so? if the siege of paris during the franco-prussian war is any indication, it's by eating literally anything remotely edible that wouldn't normally be considered food - weeds, pets, zoo and work animals, vermin, etc.
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Dec 10, 2016 00:12
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Libluini posted:Dan Carlin talked about this in one of his podcasts. If his sources are right, the Mongols apparently didn't even see Non-Mongols as real people. More like weird, Mongol-like muppets walking around. This is from a few days ago, but I'm catching up on the thread and thought I'd chime in. Basically I'm deeply skeptical of this claim, especially when it comes from Carlin, who favors shock and narrative over the particulars of historical detail or examining his sources. There's a legacy of stereotyping eurasian peoples as savages eking out an existence in the inhospitable hellscape of the steppe that doesn't really stand up to reality. The various khanates were often rich as sin and had a lot more to gain from trade with settled peoples in China and Persia than from war. The Silk Road is often imagined as a long ribbon of civilization passing through the darkness of the inner steppe, but the Tarim Basin was actually the beating heart of the whole thing, a kind of switching station that made whichever tribes controlled it wealthy as hell. The Chinese especially were reliant on steppe horses and often engaged in bulk transactions of silk for ponies. The waters have been muddied on this by classical Chinese historiography, which tends to frame these (and most other interactions with its periphery) as tributary payments. Conflict often occurred, but it was more about the constant struggle of the Chinese imperial center's attempts to shut down a border that was innately porous; they were understandably displeased by the tendency of ostensibly "Chinese" subjects to go nomad and gently caress off for a while when the tax man came around, and they weren't super happy about unsanctioned trade (ie, trade they aren't getting a cut of) with nomads or their dependency on nomad horse herds. When you study central Eurasia there's this weird sense of it being its own parallel civilization to the two regions on its flanks; the various tribes are generally a lot more concerned with their own internal feuds than they are in engaging in diplomacy with their settled neighbors. But given that they didn't write a whole lot down, their identities have been authored for them, generally by those who considered their life style innately barbarous and deviant; the rapacious steppe raider is one of the oldest constructed Others there is. All this isn't to say that they were uniquely peaceful or anything, either. Ghengis gonna Ghengis, Attila gonna Attila. But the idea that they were uniquely violent is pretty bs imo. The Mongols were incredibly successful, and that set them up to engage in the horrors that conquerers traditionally do on an incredibly grand scale. I should also say that part of the reason we are probably so inclined to think of the steppe and its inhabitants as being poor is that the opening of sea trade by Europeans royally hosed the trade networks the tribes depended upon, and sent them into a long decline that they never recovered from. Fuligin fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Dec 10, 2016 |
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Dec 10, 2016 00:46
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Fangz posted:Has anyone seen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tiger_%282012_film%29 ? Have, it's a pretty strange film, sort of like a David Lynch movie set on the Eastern Front with oddball characters and mystical events. The entire thing is up on the official Mosfilm channel with English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiGDJ5-dXaI
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Dec 10, 2016 01:22
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Pornographic Memory posted:if the siege of paris during the franco-prussian war is any indication, it's by eating literally anything remotely edible that wouldn't normally be considered food - weeds, pets, zoo and work animals, vermin, etc. In Nanjing in 1864, they pulled down houses and planted crops on the now vacant lots, since the city was so depopulated and food much more precious than space. Kind of atypical as the Manchu inner city in particular had a lot of unused open space even before the Manchus were massacred.
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Dec 10, 2016 01:28
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T-62 Queue: Medium Mk.II, Light Tank M2, Combat Car T4, Char B, TK-3, Medium Tank Mk.II, Medium Tank Mk.III, KH-50 et al, PzIV Available for request:  T2E1 Light Tank M3A1 Combat Car M1  A1E1 Independent Infantry Tank Mk.I  LTP T-37 with ShKAS ZIK-20 T-12 and T-24 T-55 HTZ-16 Wartime modifications of the T-37 and T-38 SG-122 76 mm gun mod of the Matilda Tank destroyers on the T-30 and T-40 chassis  L-10 and L-30 Strv m/40 Strv m/42 Landsverk prototypes 1943-1951 NEW  Trials of the TKS and C2P in the USSR 37 mm anti-tank gun  SR tanks  Renault NC Renault D1 Renault R35 Renault D2 Renault R40 Char B1 bis NEW  PzI Ausf. B PzI Ausf. C PzII Ausf. a though b PzIII Ausf. A PzIII Ausf. B through D Pak 97/38 Pz.Sfl.IVb
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Dec 10, 2016 03:17
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I'm curious what the gently caress is a Pz.Sfl.IVb and an HTZ-16. EDIT: Oh, the HTZ-16 is one of those tractor-based improvised tanks the Soviets cobbled together in 1941.
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Dec 10, 2016 04:08
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:I'm curious what the gently caress is a Pz.Sfl.IVb and an HTZ-16.  cyka
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Dec 10, 2016 04:24
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Found the best, most succinct review of Manchester...
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Dec 10, 2016 04:40
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I'm pretty sure even the Soviets could cobble together something better than the Bob Semple.
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Dec 10, 2016 04:46
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:I'm curious what the gently caress is a Pz.Sfl.IVb and an HTZ-16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuschrecke_10 
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Dec 10, 2016 04:47
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I guess also back in the days of great man history, there wasn't much call to mention the steppe nomads when they weren't making war. Not a lot of historians back in the day wanted to write about some merchants. It's super interesting me though, could you recommend a good book on the subject? Weird that Chinese historians would prefer to write that they were giving tribute instead of just trading like normal people though. It makes them sound pathetic in comparison. Maybe they just had a mercantilist perspective and thought that trading away your resources was a weakness?
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Dec 10, 2016 05:49
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SlothfulCobra posted:I guess also back in the days of great man history, there wasn't much call to mention the steppe nomads when they weren't making war. Not a lot of historians back in the day wanted to write about some merchants. It's super interesting me though, could you recommend a good book on the subject? Well, Chinese historians tended to be writing for the imperial family so portraying these other societies as being deferential to China was the trend. China had everything and wanted nothing is a common basis of a lot of these assumptions. Of course, this doesn't mean that China didn't trade for things they desired but unlike those uncultured barbarians, they clearly didn't need the things they traded for, and were just being a respected older brother towards their younger siblings, etc.
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Dec 10, 2016 06:07
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SlothfulCobra posted:I guess also back in the days of great man history, there wasn't much call to mention the steppe nomads when they weren't making war. Not a lot of historians back in the day wanted to write about some merchants. It's super interesting me though, could you recommend a good book on the subject? I think they meant the Chinese were receiving tribute, not paying it. Whatever they happened to give the steppe people in exchange was nothing more than benevolent goodwill towards obedient little tributaries.
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Dec 10, 2016 06:08
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Crazycryodude posted:Adding my voice to the growing chant of "Let's Read". Also, what's the average experience level in this thread? As a newcomer who's a 19 year old college kid I feel pretty out of my depth, it seems like half of you could be my professors. I have literally no academic learning at all on the subject and everything I say is just random stuff I picked up from somewhere.
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Dec 10, 2016 06:11
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Robo Captain posted:I'm pretty sure even the Soviets could cobble together something better than the Bob Semple. The NI "tank" built in besieged Odessa from poo poo and twigs is about equal to the Bob Semple.
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Dec 10, 2016 06:31
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Ensign, haven't you already done an article on the T-55?
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Dec 10, 2016 08:27
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HEY GAL posted:we've found a loving buddha in a viking grave Must be my fam, dualclassing religions since 600 AD Kopijeger posted:Have, it's a pretty strange film, sort of like a David Lynch movie set on the Eastern Front with oddball characters and mystical events. The entire thing is up on the official Mosfilm channel with English subtitles:  this looks good.
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Dec 10, 2016 10:34
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Ensign Expendable posted:The NI "tank" built in besieged Odessa from poo poo and twigs is about equal to the Bob Semple. "Vova, can I have the twig seat today?" "NO! You had it last week!"
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Dec 10, 2016 10:49
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chitoryu12 posted:He said that "prosperous peasants" lived in a single room in a large building that also included the farm animals' pens and feed storage, and everyone in the family slept on a communal bed of vermin-filled straw and even had sex among everyone else. Travelers who stayed the night would be invited to sleep in the pile. This sounds more and more like this guy wanted to write about rats and just got terribly confused when putting his pen on paper. He must have been a medieval peasant
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Dec 10, 2016 10:56
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If too many peasants spend too much time in close proximity they get their legs tangled in each other and form a sort of amalgam creature of arms and heads and that's how feudalism got started.
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Dec 10, 2016 12:03
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chitoryu12 posted:He said that "prosperous peasants" lived in a single room in a large building that also included the farm animals' pens and feed storage, and everyone in the family slept on a communal bed of vermin-filled straw and even had sex among everyone else. Travelers who stayed the night would be invited to sleep in the pile.
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Dec 10, 2016 12:55
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But do they life in the same room as animals and sleep in a pile?
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Dec 10, 2016 13:08
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JcDent posted:But do they life in the same room as animals and sleep in a pile?
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Dec 10, 2016 13:24
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I believe a house with animals in it and a loft on top is called a barn.
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Dec 10, 2016 13:33
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Libluini posted:This sounds more and more like this guy wanted to write about rats and just got terribly confused when putting his pen on paper. He must have been a medieval peasant It seems like what would happen if Charlie from It's Always Sunny somehow wrote a history book.
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Dec 10, 2016 13:44
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HEY GAL posted:as i remember hearing, and this was forever ago and possibly wrong, you'd build a divider in your main room so the animals were on one side and you were on the other, or you'd build a sort of loft thing above the stalls and sleep in that. It's so their body heat helps heat the house, because they weigh several tons apiece. I remember mucking the elephant stables at me grampa's farm. I only know this kind of ground plan:  People and loose animals sleeping mixed together in the same room would be physically dangerous - farm animals are large, dumb, panicky, and kind of dicks - and pretty, uh, lovely. A peasant waking up in a pile of manure and finding that the pig had eaten their baby and also a dozen panicking cows stepped on them and them just going "welp, that's Tuesday" would admittedly fit the general picture that writer was going for pretty well. e: come to think of it I have read a scene in And Quiet Flows the Don where the viewpoint cossack family keeps a calf in the family living space but no reason is given and the scene is kinda played for laughs. aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Dec 10, 2016 |
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Dec 10, 2016 13:47
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aphid_licker posted:I remember mucking the elephant stables at me grampa's farm. But how would they know its Tuesday?
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Dec 10, 2016 13:57
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HEY GAL posted:as i remember hearing, and this was forever ago and possibly wrong, you'd build a divider in your main room so the animals were on one side and you were on the other, or you'd build a sort of loft thing above the stalls and sleep in that. It's so their body heat helps heat the house, because they weigh several tons apiece. I can confirm that this was a thing, at the entrance there was just dirt floor and this is where the animals were kept during winter. Ye olde houses didn't even have chimneys because it took some time to figure out how to build a chimney that didn't just vent all the heat straight out, instead you lived at constant risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. It also doubled as a sauna by throwing water on the oven. These primitive 'smoke huts' were still in existence in Finland in the last century because we like sleeping naked in a pile with our farm animals.
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Dec 10, 2016 14:30
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Nenonen posted:I can confirm that this was a thing, at the entrance there was just dirt floor and this is where the animals were kept during winter. Ye olde houses didn't even have chimneys because it took some time to figure out how to build a chimney that didn't just vent all the heat straight out, instead you lived at constant risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. It also doubled as a sauna by throwing water on the oven. These primitive 'smoke huts' were still in existence in Finland in the last century because we like sleeping naked in a pile with our farm animals. Every time I hear something about Finland it makes more sense why you guys like to drink so much The cause and effect might be the wrong way round here
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Dec 10, 2016 14:37
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MikeCrotch posted:Every time I hear something about Finland it makes more sense why you guys like to drink so much It seems like a self-reinforcing cycle, really.
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Dec 10, 2016 14:48
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You try staying sober while dragging a nation from the middle ages to the 21st century in less than 100 years. 
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Dec 10, 2016 14:52
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True story: when Urho Kekkonen was running for Finnish president in 1949 his campaign emphasized that he was still an ordinary hick born in a chimneyless smoke hut, so they spread a photograph of his birth house with the chimney manipulated away from the picture (in reality there was a chimney when he was born). Makes you think of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen.
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Dec 10, 2016 14:54
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