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Any history buffs? What's your favorite era?

Astoneroad

Astoneroad

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Since the average age of the ASR faithful probably qualifies each of us as relics, a history thread may seem like old times... :facepalm: . Do you have an era that draws your focus when looking for the next book to read? Etruscans? Athens? Rome? 15th century Florence? Tudor England? Paris in the '20s or New York in the 50's... or cast your sights further East? I find myself going back to the same decades over and over and still tease out relationships and factoids that catch me by surprise.

Who, what, when... and where does your interest wander? Do you have a favorite historian, Suetonius, Bede, Vasari, Durant, Beard, Strathern? (Durant makes me bleed from the eyes... lol)

EDIT: Please keep allusions to current politics out of the mix. Thanks.
 
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I'll go first: Ancient Greece, by far. And this series of recorded Yale open lessons are a must see for me:


Why? Well Professor Donald Kagan explains it in the first minute of the intro video.

Now, would I like to hang around there? Hmmm not sure about that
 
Love reading history. Interested in Spain - civil war and Franco's regime. Germany - 1920s and 1930s. French Revolution. Soviet Union. British Empire. I studied history at university - special subject British Fascism - Mosley's crew. I want to know more about Portugal particularly the 'Carnation Revoultion'. There's so much to learn about.
 
MCH said:
I'll go first: Ancient Greece, by far. And this series of recorded Yale open lessons are a must see for me:


Why? Well Professor Donald Kagan explains it in the first minute of the intro video.

Now, would I like to hang around there? Hmmm not sure about that
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How appropriate for an ASR thread that he stumbled on subjective and objective... lol. Perfect. I'm a big fan of that era as well, along with the Etruscans who were fascinating. My profile name Astoneroad is an homage to Aristotle and "his stone"... and Jack Kerouac's "road"... lol You may recognize my historically significant avatar (if you're worth your coconuts). Regarding hanging around Athens during the golden age... I'm peripatetic by nature and philosophically slanted... but too straight to wanna risk it... lol.
 
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Astoneroad said:
You may recognize my historically significant avatar (if you're worth your coconuts).
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If I were to pick a time to hang out... it would be Florence 1450 to 1495. I would have definitely split right after Lorenzo the Magnificent died and as the Bonfires of the Vanities started up. Amazing how many historical figures walked the streets of Florence and knew each.... probably didn't like each other... but all had common... mostly Medici ties. There's a well-documented argument in the streets between Leonardo and Michaelangelo having a pissy fit over knowing Latin or not... lol.
 
The Chu-Han Contention period in China circa 206–202 BCE that preceded the reunification under the Western Han dynasty.
 
Currently doing some reading on Lewis & Clark, interest created by our recent Montana/Wyoming trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. Amazing that they made it...
 
Joe Smith said:
Currently doing some reading on Lewis & Clark, interest created by our recent Montana/Wyoming trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. Amazing that they made it...
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Lewis and Clark were dilatants compared to Sacagawea, who did the same trek pregnant and giving birth.
 
I love history! My favourite periods:

- Ancient Roman and Greek history
- All of Chinese history, especially 20th Century
- Naval history in the age of sail and the age of exploration
- Middle Eastern history of the 20th Century (essential reading if you want to understand why they the region is so screwed up)

I am a huge fan of Thucydides and his scientific and rational approach to history. I hated history at school because I felt that it was government propaganda (I grew up in Malaysia). I always felt that history always has a bias since it is written by the victors, and this was reinforced when I read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William Shirer. It was entertaining, but it was clear that he hated Nazis and was unable to provide balanced analysis. Yeah I know they were evil, there is no need to convince me of that. But it did not provide any insight into why the Germans went along with it apart from besmirching the majority of them as fools.

That's when I learnt about the paradox of history - that events become clearer when more time has passed. This is because emotions die down and balanced analysis is not so controversial. There are a few good examples - we can not discuss Nazi history without painting everything they did as evil or you may suffer censure if you discussed your analysis in public. And the pendulum has swung the other way with Colonial history - for a period of time, everything the colonialists did was good or justified. Only a few decades ago, Cowboy and Indian movies usually portrayed the Indians as the bad guys. These days, if you express that opinion or make a similar movie, you will be censured. There have been some attempts at portraying the Pacific War with Japan in a balanced way - examples include "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (where the Japanese side was actually filmed by the Japanese) and "Letters from Iwo Jima" which showed the Japanese not as faceless evil fodder but actual human beings who bleed and suffer just as we do.

No doubt this "history as propaganda" thing colours much of what has been published.
 
Consumer culture of the 20th-21st century is what interests me, and in particular, the gadgets that people lusted after, and visions of "the good life" to come.

An example created on behalf of General Motors, circa 1940. My favorite part starts at 7:50 with footage of GM's Futurama at the 1939 NY World's Fair.
https://archive.org/details/0191_To_New_Horizons_M00912_10_39_29_00

And of course there's 1957's MIT/Monsanto/Disney house of the future!
 
In Japan, there were the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the first of the high speed "bullet trains" became operational, and a few years later, Expo 1970:
 
Almost any part of history is highly interesting to me if enough is known of it. I'd probably pick one of my favorites as the early Enlightenment of late 17th and early 18th centuries because so much of it is still important to how things are now. I think that is changing which why that is of heightened interest. Of course we really only have recorded history for about 5000 years.
 
Some interesting design work was done in the USSR, but it seems that most would never see mass production.
 
Of late I've found myself drawn to reading and learning about fin de siècle Vienna - I see a lot of parallels between that era and ours.
 
The end of the last ice age up to the Iron Age is the most fascinating part of history for me,a lot just doesn’t add up.
 
jhaider said:
Of late I've found myself drawn to reading and learning about fin de siècle Vienna - I see a lot of parallels between that era and ours.
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You will like this (and possibly everything by Joseph Roth).
 
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