The History Thread

[zolayes 14,489]

HISTORY IS BUNK : How ironic that the author of that quote goes into History as the man who brought motoring into the lives of millions of people.

I have my own definition of history ,, History is everything from the past ,,however recent. Our memories form our view of the past both good and bad.

History in the wider sense is the collective memories of all of mankind ,, Some recorded in written form more recently on film or in data bases...some merely

passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation.

As one gets older so does one's own store of memories. I believe I am fortunate in the places I have lived ,the work I have done and things I have witnessed

and experienced.

I vividly remember seeing the newsreels of the Normandy landings , the excitement of D Day ,, The reaction seeing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

A cinema audience bursting into applause as it was shown.

Many of my early memories revolve around my love of sport...My first game of rugby ..the visit of the Moscow Dynamos ,,,yes I saw newsreels of their game with Chelsea.

1966 and THE WORLD CUP ,,,I hope you are able to celebrate your country's victory some day.. I have a personal reminder of my celebration ....my eldest son now

nearing 50.

I mentioned work ,,firstly I worked as a Chemist for the Atomic Energy Authority ..I worked at Sellafield (later renamed Windscale then renamed Sellafield)

It produced Plutonium for the Nuclear weapons . I was there when the reactor went critical . Next door was the worlds first Atomic power station at Calder Hall/

Leaving there I went into teaching and was indeed blessed to spend 5 years in Kenya ,,close to where humans are said first to have evolved.

My memories from there are as vivid as yesterday even 40 years later.

I had been lucky in the places I had studied and worked in England , Cities and towns rich in History ,, Chester ,Canterbury Tunbridge Wells and Durham.

About 12 years ago we retired to France ,,

Alex mentioned the Crusade s , I lived in the Languedoc region of France , The region where the Cathars flourished .

I loved France with its Medieval towns the magnificent hill castles sadly many destroyed by the Crusaders,

I lived just 10 miles form the town of Beziers site of a terrible massacre of 20000 men women and children ,, both Cathar and Catholic on the orders of the Pope

I n Beziers I have stood in its magnificent Cathedral the n walked a few hundred yards to the small church of Mary Magdalene . It was here people were dragged

out from and butchered ,

I am aware that this has all been about me .. Well History in my opinion is just that . It is all about people and their experiences .

Good and bad ,, History is a record of our humanity and also our inhumanity.

[Sidzeret 2,257]

HISTORY IS BUNK : How ironic that the author of that quote goes into History as the man who brought motoring into the lives of millions of people.

I have my own definition of history ,, History is everything from the past ,,however recent. Our memories form our view of the past both good and bad.

History in the wider sense is the collective memories of all of mankind ,, Some recorded in written form more recently on film or in data bases...some merely

passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation.

As one gets older so does one's own store of memories. I believe I am fortunate in the places I have lived ,the work I have done and things I have witnessed

and experienced.

I vividly remember seeing the newsreels of the Normandy landings , the excitement of D Day ,, The reaction seeing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

A cinema audience bursting into applause as it was shown.

Many of my early memories revolve around my love of sport...My first game of rugby ..the visit of the Moscow Dynamos ,,,yes I saw newsreels of their game with Chelsea.

1966 and THE WORLD CUP ,,,I hope you are able to celebrate your country's victory some day.. I have a personal reminder of my celebration ....my eldest son now

nearing 50.

I mentioned work ,,firstly I worked as a Chemist for the Atomic Energy Authority ..I worked at Sellafield (later renamed Windscale then renamed Sellafield)

It produced Plutonium for the Nuclear weapons . I was there when the reactor went critical . Next door was the worlds first Atomic power station at Calder Hall/

Leaving there I went into teaching and was indeed blessed to spend 5 years in Kenya ,,close to where humans are said first to have evolved.

My memories from there are as vivid as yesterday even 40 years later.

I had been lucky in the places I had studied and worked in England , Cities and towns rich in History ,, Chester ,Canterbury Tunbridge Wells and Durham.

About 12 years ago we retired to France ,,

Alex mentioned the Crusade s , I lived in the Languedoc region of France , The region where the Cathars flourished .

I loved France with its Medieval towns the magnificent hill castles sadly many destroyed by the Crusaders,

I lived just 10 miles form the town of Beziers site of a terrible massacre of 20000 men women and children ,, both Cathar and Catholic on the orders of the Pope

I n Beziers I have stood in its magnificent Cathedral the n walked a few hundred yards to the small church of Mary Magdalene . It was here people were dragged

out from and butchered ,

I am aware that this has all been about me .. Well History in my opinion is just that . It is all about people and their experiences .

Good and bad ,, History is a record of our humanity and also our inhumanity.

That is just a fucking great post, sir.

Celebrate my country's victory? Glad there is a sport called cricket.

[dave30 728]

I'm doing an optional history module at Uni on 'reformation Europe' which I've always found fascinating.

[Fulham Broadway 16,437]

Always enjoyed history at school-but it really became interesting in the first year of a degree.

Social and political history, getting away from all the regurgitated Kings and Queens bollocks, to looking at ordinary people. Black history, Womens history, stories of insurrections and riots, mutinies, that standard historical education airbrushes out. The fact that Britain ruled two thirds of the World in 1870, yet there was dysentry, slums, rickets and malnutrition for people living in Britains cities.

The history of education was fascinating -and how it was always kept away from 'ordinary' people. From when monks kept the secret of reading and writing to themselves, to the present day where the elite universities are where the prime ministers, media moguls, BBC producers, Comedians, Bankers, -basically where the people that shape our lives come from, and you havent a cats hell in chance of acquiring such positions unless you went to Oxbridge.

Good thread.

[Spike 12,049]

Wtf? Stop being such a cry baby and grow up!

What a pathetic human being...

Okay guys...don't keep going. We don't want history repeating itself.

Anyhoo, I love history. It really is a passion of mine. I very much want to write massive posts and debate with everyone but I can't on a tinsy iPhone. cut4spike

[Sidzeret 2,257]

History and evolution of music.... Always a thing that amuses me.

Like, the way punk pop started with The Ramones and reached Blink 182.

[epicsarah-ous 329]

I'm doing a little history here, though more social sciences, Always had big interest in the history of the USSR from lenin to gorbachev,

[EBH 283]

It is something the Liverpool fan likes very much

I like to read Augustus, Res Gestae Divi Augusti. This is a book all the tyrants should read. They can learn how to lie and make the dictatorship of a whole country from Augustus. I think this is where the modern style memoir is coming from. Memoirs today, they are about making the writer of the book look like a good person. They are all lies, but Augustus invent this genre, so it is interesting to read the first one and see how nothing is changing in 2000 years.

[Stingray 9,441]

It is something the Liverpool fan likes very much

I like to read Augustus, Res Gestae Divi Augusti. This is a book all the tyrants should read. They can learn how to lie and make the dictatorship of a whole country from Augustus. I think this is where the modern style memoir is coming from. Memoirs today, they are about making the writer of the book look like a good person. They are all lies, but Augustus invent this genre, so it is interesting to read the first one and see how nothing is changing in 2000 years.

Try Il Principe then from Machiavelli. Funny thing he was actually a democrat 'avant la lettre' just writing that book for the De Medici's. It reads like a guidebook on how to fool the masses and manipulate your way into power as a royal/rich/powerful.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[BlueLion. 21,491]

His or her story

That is the beauty of history. Since the recent libertarian view of feminism and the revival of the feminine voice, I am of the opinion that we are seeing more female-orientated history. Certainly in my experiences, I am looking at the history of female involvement in the medieval "Estates" model, including looking at the role of women within the Church, and even on Crusade. I believe that our religio-centric views have denied us the rightful investigation of the female race, and now we are attempting to counter-balance that by making history a female-centric endeavour.

If it didn't rain one day in 1815, a certain 100 day reign may have been much longer.

Counter-factual history is an easy way of engaging oneself in the grand scheme of things. What if Hitler had been accepted into the Vienna Academy of Art?

History was written by the victors...

Its what fascinates me about the past, especially the classical era (Roman and before). We'll never know the full truth...Like the purpose of the great pyramids, the true birthplace and date of birth of civilzation etc...

Absolutely. The postmodernist in me says that history is a flawed practice. We will never realistically be able to look back at the past and assert that something definitely happened because of factor A, or factor B. That is the beauty of this subject, and why one man can look at a piece of source evidence and interpret it in an entirely different way to another. I believe that our modern-day surrounds consciously affect our ability to look at the past. How can we objectively look at the medieval period and attempt to assert historical "fact"? Are we not completely bound by our present-day biases and presuppositions? I believe that we can identify elements of the past, but that it is impossible to state for definite what society was like back then. Yes, we can agree on what we call historical "facts" - three or more sources can corroborate to imply that something happened in a particular way - but does that make it truth? If enough people lie about an event, that application of evidence becomes truth. And that is why people are engrossed in my subject, because the more and more we delve, the closer we come to the realisation that we haven't got a fucking clue. It is the sheer unwillingness to accept that that drives us to unearth more "truths" and "facts" about the past.

HISTORY IS BUNK : How ironic that the author of that quote goes into History as the man who brought motoring into the lives of millions of people.

I have my own definition of history ,, History is everything from the past ,,however recent. Our memories form our view of the past both good and bad.

History in the wider sense is the collective memories of all of mankind ,, Some recorded in written form more recently on film or in data bases...some merely

passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation.

As one gets older so does one's own store of memories. I believe I am fortunate in the places I have lived ,the work I have done and things I have witnessed

and experienced.

I vividly remember seeing the newsreels of the Normandy landings , the excitement of D Day ,, The reaction seeing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

A cinema audience bursting into applause as it was shown.

Many of my early memories revolve around my love of sport...My first game of rugby ..the visit of the Moscow Dynamos ,,,yes I saw newsreels of their game with Chelsea.

1966 and THE WORLD CUP ,,,I hope you are able to celebrate your country's victory some day.. I have a personal reminder of my celebration ....my eldest son now

nearing 50.

I mentioned work ,,firstly I worked as a Chemist for the Atomic Energy Authority ..I worked at Sellafield (later renamed Windscale then renamed Sellafield)

It produced Plutonium for the Nuclear weapons . I was there when the reactor went critical . Next door was the worlds first Atomic power station at Calder Hall/

Leaving there I went into teaching and was indeed blessed to spend 5 years in Kenya ,,close to where humans are said first to have evolved.

My memories from there are as vivid as yesterday even 40 years later.

I had been lucky in the places I had studied and worked in England , Cities and towns rich in History ,, Chester ,Canterbury Tunbridge Wells and Durham.

About 12 years ago we retired to France ,,

Alex mentioned the Crusade s , I lived in the Languedoc region of France , The region where the Cathars flourished .

I loved France with its Medieval towns the magnificent hill castles sadly many destroyed by the Crusaders,

I lived just 10 miles form the town of Beziers site of a terrible massacre of 20000 men women and children ,, both Cathar and Catholic on the orders of the Pope

I n Beziers I have stood in its magnificent Cathedral the n walked a few hundred yards to the small church of Mary Magdalene . It was here people were dragged

out from and butchered ,

I am aware that this has all been about me .. Well History in my opinion is just that . It is all about people and their experiences .

Good and bad ,, History is a record of our humanity and also our inhumanity.

What a magnificent post. History surrounds us, and those people that fail to acknowledge it are the same people that are doomed to repeat it. There is a postmodern assertion that the "end of history" came with the Holocaust. Indeed, there had been previous genocides - how the fuck did we not learn not to repeat the tragic events that have gone before? It does make you wonder whether history is the subject of the Enlightened...

I'm doing an optional history module at Uni on 'reformation Europe' which I've always found fascinating.

Wonderful choice. You will find the European reformations are the basic divider in modern-day western society in many ways. Of course it is a religio-centric assertion of society, but the Reformations preceded the Enlightenment, and the Enlightenment is a prelude to man's modern-day mental liberation, is it not?

Always enjoyed history at school-but it really became interesting in the first year of a degree.

Social and political history, getting away from all the regurgitated Kings and Queens bollocks, to looking at ordinary people. Black history, Womens history, stories of insurrections and riots, mutinies, that standard historical education airbrushes out. The fact that Britain ruled two thirds of the World in 1870, yet there was dysentry, slums, rickets and malnutrition for people living in Britains cities.

The history of education was fascinating -and how it was always kept away from 'ordinary' people. From when monks kept the secret of reading and writing to themselves, to the present day where the elite universities are where the prime ministers, media moguls, BBC producers, Comedians, Bankers, -basically where the people that shape our lives come from, and you havent a cats hell in chance of acquiring such positions unless you went to Oxbridge.

Good thread.

There you are; a serious issue with this country's history curriculum. Everyone knows - and bores of - the World Wars, the Tudors, and the Ancient Greeks. From a young age, in our ignorance, we become even more ignorant when we are spoon-fed "facts" like Hitler was evil, Henry the 8th was a great king, and the Greeks invented everything. Then, as we progress through GCSEs and A-Levels and then into degrees, we realise we're told lies from a very early age! But it doesn't matter how many times you look at a particular episode in history; there is always another historiographical viewpoint which will confuse and enthuse you to go and find out more. History is like a spider's web; you start from the centre with a small amount of information, and before you know it, you're tangled in an absolute mess of men (largely, anyway...) disagreeing with one-another over the importance of the importation of bone dust in the Lincolnshire fens during the mid-Victorian years of the agricultural revolutions...

[Rmpr 8,977]

Counter-factual history is an easy way of engaging oneself in the grand scheme of things. What if Hitler had been accepted into the Vienna Academy of Art?

I think Hitler was more a product of his time than anything else. I believe the Nazi Political Party would win the elections no matter what and history wouldnt be so different than from today...

I am certainly not an expert on the matter, but that is just my opinion!

[zolayes 14,489]

I think Hitler was more a product of his time than anything else. I believe the Nazi Political Party would win the elections no matter what and history wouldnt be so different than of today...

I am certainly not an expert on the matter, but that is my opinion!

I would agree with much of that ,, The treatment of Germany after World War 1 was largely responsible for creating the Environment where Hitler and the Fascists

could flourish ...

[EBH 283]

I would agree with much of that ,, The treatment of Germany after World War 1 was largely responsible for creating the Environment where Hitler and the Fascists

could flourish ...

Yes, this is what the economist, John Keynes, says. They had two options. They can let Germany go unpunished, or be so heavy that Germany can never again recover. Instead they choose the middle ground, which is the worst from the two.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

I think Hitler was more a product of his time than anything else. I believe the Nazi Political Party would win the elections no matter what and history wouldnt be so different than from today...

I am certainly not an expert on the matter, but that is just my opinion!

I am not particularly well-read on the subject (I am a medievalist - a specialist in Crusader and Byzantine studies; but I did study the Nazi state in significant depth back in 2010/11, reading the likes of AJP Taylor, Ian Kershaw, Richard Evans, Bill Niven (who now teaches me!), and the like), but I know that many historians would agree that Hitler was at the centre of a web of cumulative radicalism, and that the most extreme of Nazi ideals were very rarely his own. The Nazis aligned themselves with a winning combination - national-socialism. You must realise that leftism was sweeping alarmingly across Europe in the 1930s, and Hitler was able to maintain a political status-quo by aligning centrist-leftism with far-right conservatism. The Germans had been backed into a wall by Versailles in 1919, and the populace wanted to pick a party that could unite the country. The Weimar Republic only heightened the social tensions of the time due to its unstable coalitions, so to vote in the Nazi Party was a sensible move that would help the country rebuild.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

I would agree with much of that ,, The treatment of Germany after World War 1 was largely responsible for creating the Environment where Hitler and the Fascists

could flourish ...

Absolutely. The War-Guilt Clause of Versailles was an absolute joke. As Lloyd-George said; the European powers "slithered into the cauldron of war". There was no-one at fault specifically. All the European powers went through extensive military mobilization due to a lack of trust and communication. As soon as Russia mobilized, the British followed suit, and Germany then followed suit. At that point, the Great War was inevitable. If the Allies had have followed Wilson's 14 Points, we would have seen a more representative conclusion to the war. Instead, Germany took the blame. You really can't blame Hitler for gearing them up for war, really.

[EBH 283]

Absolutely. The War-Guilt Clause of Versailles was an absolute joke. As Lloyd-George said; the European powers "slithered into the cauldron of war". There was no-one at fault specifically. All the European powers went through extensive military mobilization due to a lack of trust and communication. As soon as Russia mobilized, the British followed suit, and Germany then followed suit. At that point, the Great War was inevitable. If the Allies had have followed Wilson's 14 Points, we would have seen a more representative conclusion to the war. Instead, Germany took the blame. You really can't blame Hitler for gearing them up for war, really.

The Article 231 is not the problem. If you are saying somebody is at fault wrongfully, then you must make sure they are so badly weakened that they can never come back to hurt. They decide to go against Wilson, so the only option is to go with Clemenceau- completely crush Germany. Instead they go some half way measure... this is the problem.

German people would have been very unhappy with Versailles. They did not even lose the war properly, when the Armitsice is signed, they are still in Francia. No Ally soldier ever come into Germany for the whole 4 years, except as the prisoner. If you punish in this situation, they will be very angry, and they will come back for revenge.

So the solution is, no more Germany. Remove everything Bismarck build. Make Germany into 5, 6, 7, small countries again. They cannot recover now, they cannot pool the resource to become industrial power again.

[EBH 283]

Also, US, they do not become the member of the League of Nations. This becomes the very big problem in 1930s when Hitler is taking Sudetenland, Austria. UK, they do not care about what is happening in Europe, they only want to make sure, Francia, is not the powerful country in Europe. They want, I think it is called, balance of power? Soviet Union, they will not work with the capitalist country to keep Germany tranquilo. Now there is no more Ottoman Empire, no more Austria-Hungary. There is nobody to help against Germany, Édouard Daladier, he is alone. And his country is weak, still suffering from the early war.

This allow Hitler to do anything. If you take so many places with nobody stopping you, why not to take Poland? It is Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini, who is to blame. They can maybe stop him, if they work with Daladier, in early 1930s. But they let it go on, being selfish, only caring about their country.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Absolutely. The Allies compromised between two types of "punishment" for Germany; the tried to cripple them without truly delivering the final blow. And, in their ignorance, the Germans found a commonality in their nationalist desire to rebuild. We turned a blind eye thinking there would be no repercussions. If only we'd have learnt from the First World War that ignorance most certainly is not bliss...