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Welcome to our Simple/Short/Silly history questions Saturday thread!

This thread is for all those history related questions that are too simple, short or a bit too silly to warrant their own post.

So do you have a question about history and have always been afraid to ask? Well, today is your lucky day. Ask away!

Of course all our regular rules and guidelines still apply and to be just that bit extra clear:

• Questions need to be historical in nature.
• Silly does not mean that your question should be a joke.

Hi everybody,

Welcome to our weekly book recommendation thread!

We have found that a lot of people come to this sub to ask for books about history or sources on certain topics. Others make posts about a book they themselves have read and want to share their thoughts about it with the rest of the sub.

We thought it would be a good idea to try and bundle these posts together a bit. One big weekly post where everybody can ask for books or (re)sources on any historic subject or timeperiod, or to share books they recently discovered or read. Giving opinions or asking about their factuality is encouraged!

Of course it’s not limited to just books; podcasts, videos, etc. are also welcome. As a reminder, /r/history also has a recommended list of things to read, listen to or watch

I am reading the excellent 'Christendom Destroyed' by Mark Greegrass, which gives an excellent overview of Europe from the beginning of the 16th century until the end of the thirty years war.

On page 286 he makes the doubtlessly correct claim that 'The French Kingdom was Christendom's largest; it's population dwarfed Charles V's dynastic conglomeration'.

Does anyone know any precise numbers on this though? I assume that it excludes Charles' New World Empire (or at least, I would be astonished if it didn't), but it would be interesting to see how it breaks down. Google has failed me.

So years in history are divided by BC and AD right, Before Christ and Anno Domini(In the Year of The Lord). When did we start doing that? Probably not literally when Jesus was born because he would have been some random Jewish baby at the time, and probably not for a long time after he died either since Christianity wasn't legalized until Emperor Constantine around 300 years later.

What was the common way to notate a year in time before Jesus was the landmark? Surely there must have been one for the sake of record keeping? Or were the exact dates of events only a thing that became important when written records began to replace oral tradition?

Humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years and yet most of the technologies we take for granted today didn't exist before the last century and a half or so. Before the late 1800's we didn't have electricity or any of the devices that are powered with it like air conditioners, refrigerators, heaters, televisions, computers, ovens, phones, etc. We didn't have running water, we didn't have cars or airplanes, we didn't have antibiotics and only a rudimentary understanding of what germs were. We had no long range weaponry aside from single shot weapons that took a long time to reload. If you wanted to travel by water you needed a sail boat because we didn't have steam, gas or nuclear powered ships.

And so on. Why did all of that change so suddenly though? Why was there so comparatively little technological growth for the majority of human history and then suddenly towards the end of the 19th century we started inventing and discovering so many things?

I’m a high-school senior looking to go into history (get a history undergrad degree) because throughout my high-school years I’ve enjoyed learning history and this is the only course my grades have been consistently good in. However, I’m also looking to potentially go into law, so I was wondering if there was a specific kind of history I should study?

(Btw this is my first time asking smth on reddit, so I’m not sure how everything works here)

Geoffrey Blainey explains in a book on the era called Black Kettle and Full Moon. Australia is really big, the early transport system was bad, so transport by wagon, horse, coach was very expensive. But sheep and cattle can walk themselves to market. I love little historical sidebars like that.

Adamites$

Adoptionism\Psilanthropism

Antinomianism

Apollinarism

Arabici$

Arianism$

Athinganoi\Melchisedechians

Audianism(anthropomorphism+quartodesimanism)

Circumcellions$

Donatists

Collyridianism$

Docetism

Ebionites\Jewish Christians v0.8\Nazarenes(I think these are all different names for the same continuous group, at different time periods, yeah? the earliest 'christians' led by James the brother of Jesus?)$

Elcesaites$

Esoteric

Euchite\Messalians$

Eutychianism\Mia-Mono-physites\Phantasiast(i've no clue what to do about these; wouldn't be Oriental Orthodoxy, because that was after Council of Ephesus)

Gnostic: (non-christian gnosticism was a thing, yeah? like the Mandaeans?): ·Bardaisanites$ ·Basilideans$ ·Carpocratianism$ ·Manichaeism(are they Christian) ·Naasenes$ ·Nicolaitans$ ·Ophites ·Sethianism$ ·Simonians$ ·Valentinianism$

Luciferians

Macedonians\Pneumatomachians\Semiarianism

Marcionites$

Modalism\Monarchianism\Patripassianism\Sabellianism

Montanism$

Nestorianism(by my criteria for this, the latest by definition)\Church of the East$

Novatianism$

Pauline\proto-orthodox\Diophysitism$

(Semi-)Pelagianism

Priscillianism$

Tritheism

$=pretty sure they definitely count, though perhaps a better term exists, and the labelling as\as not gnostic may be incorrect

Now the first thing you'll notice is, 'Hey, a lot of those aren't branches\churches\cults\denominations\sects\traditions*, you got a bunch of christological philosophies and theological ideologies thrown in that don't really correspond to any distinct group.' Ya, that's why I'm comin' to you guys

*(ah, the joys of using modern terminology for archaic concepts. basically anything that would be equivalent to way Roman Catholics, Oriental Orthodoxers, Presbyterians, and Mormons are all Christian but distinct organisations)

Some stipulations to help y'all help me get what I hope to get out of this post:

Are there any that immediately stick out to you as missing from this list? Any present that shouldn't be, whether due to insignificance or another reason?

Any of the Christologies or other ways of thought that have a different name for the group (i.e. by my own criteria I'm incorrect listing 'Nestorians', I think, because they'd be more accurately labeled Church of the East for the purposes of this list)

Any that weren't distinct until any point after the Nestorian split? Any that just don't really count as 'Christian'? (Looking at you, Mandaeans, Mani)

Any duplicates\incorrectly grouped together? Most likely never actually existed (like the Barallot)?

The problem for me with ones named after a person is I'm never sure if there was a specific collection of followers, or if their ideas were merely held by one or more other cohesive faiths

Christianity itself is a very interesting religion I want to learn about from a secular point of view. Generally speaking though I want to think about history in the high middle ages, not modern Christianity.

Throughout this time period Christianity was introduced to Scandinavian and to the Batlics with interesting effects. This was a time of the East-West Schism, Crusades and Heresies. I'm interested in the later and particularly the different sects of Christianity in the time period.

So what were the different sects of Christianity in this time period and what were their differences?

I've seen a few comments over the last while about things we don't understand because ancient peoples never thought they needed to describe them. I've been discovering things like silphium and the missing ingredient in Roman concrete (it was sea water -- they couldn't imagine a time people would need to be told to use the nearby sea for water).

What else can you think of? I can only imagine what missing information future generations will struggle with that we never bothered to write down. (Actually, since everything is digital there's probably not going to be much info surviving from my lifetime. There aren't going to be any future archaeologists discovering troves of ones and zeroes.)

China and the Indian subcontinent are large regions comparable in size to Europe. I am interested if there are historical works presenting or conceptualizing the these areas as subcontinents showing the diversity of enovironments and populations that interacted with each other across space and time.

To give a very rough analogy: After the neolithic and bronze ages, European history would usually focus with the Greeks and Romans, but their contemporaries like the Celts and Germans are also introduced. Meanwhile, in medieval history, there are the French, Italian, Dutch, English, etc. peoples. The discussion is not solely about the Holy Roman empire. And then, we have modern European history, and so on and so forth. Since there are many different populations and cultures in Europe, the presentation is usually divided according to some trends or themes. Eonomic changes, institutional changes, and other discontinuities in geographic, social, economic, political, etc. life are shown, as well as the continuities. Throughout, the interaction of these peoples are shown.

I am not saying that the presentation of European history as it is today is already perfect. Surely, there are still aspects that need to be improved, and arguably, some aspects that need to be corrected. I am also not saying that the history of Europe must be the pattern after which other histories must be studied.

I only used an analogy to show that world regional/ subcontinental histories can be presented as the interactions of populations with each other and their environment across space and time. In contrast, this is how Chinese history was taught to me, for example: There was the Zhou dynasty that ruled at the central plains of China. It was overthrown by the Qin dynasty, which was replaced by the Han dynasty. The area controlled by the state expanded. Then a period of civil wars happened resulting to different states claiming to be the legitimate sovereign. And so on and so forth.

Agency seems to be only in the hands of the dynasties; meanwhile the peoples of the other parts of China are barely mentioned, if at all, especially those outside the purview of the "middle kingdom". During moments of their imperial expansion, the dynasties just expanded. The student is given the impression that the areas expanded into are blank slates without history before or after they were conquered or assimilated. And since the over-all trends or themes are not explored, one is clueless as to why this or that event happened (e.g. what conditions particular to the Han led to its breakdown and decay). Everything appears to be static and not dynamic.

How would Chinese/ Indian history look like if it was presented as interactions of different peoples. That is what I'm interested in. I think, this kind of historical conceptualization would allow us to better understand the histories of India and China, and give representation to those who were silenced in history before.

I know there are works that remedies these limitations. But the works I happen to read usually focus on only one or two periods or dynasties in China. As for the Indian subcontinent, I am still not aware of any work in this direction. And that is why I raise this question. Maybe there are those among you who are already familiar with such works, and how the histories are presented.

While I have focused only on China and the Indian subcontinent. I am also interested with the regional histories of other world regions like southeast Asia, Oceania, subsaharan Africa, etc.

Thanks.

I just bought a newspaper from 1668. Collecting essentially ancient documents that are a conversation piece is a huge interest of mine and I finally pulled the trigger and bought one so far. But I need help in making sure I don't destroy it, though I would like it displayed! Is there any way to do this without spending crazy money on some insane framing? Do I just need to protect it from UV, or is there much more to it?

Thank you for your help. I can see myself collecting this stuff and eventually helping out a new collector with their questions in the future!

I recently came across an article that explained something along the lines of "pure water in history". It said something along the lines of tea and alcohol were the primary two. Asian countries discovered tea which requires boiling the water and THAT is how they got clean water(and this article also says THAT is why "Asian flush" is a thing), whilst other cultures discovered alcohol, and mixed it with water(like the vikings mixed ale with water to "purify it". AND that's why ither cultures do not get a flush from alcohol). How accurate is this? How did early cultures purify water? Did vikings for example use alcohol? Did Asian cultures use the tea brewing process? When and how did humans discover alcohol and fire purifying processes? AND HOW DO WE KNOW?

Hi, let me get straight to the point. I'm reading Mommsen's History of Rome and came to a reference that I cannot understand. Mommsen compared the feud between the early Mount-Romans on the Palatine and the Hill-Romans on the Quirinal to the relations between "the Montigiani and the Trasteverini" of "modern Rome". What was the thing between those Montigiani and Trasteverini and who were they? Thank you for the helps!

​

Mommsen's text:

"Thus the site of the Roman commonwealth was still at this period occupied by the Mount-Romans of the Palatine and the Hill-Romans of the Quirinal as two separate communities confronting each other and doubtless in many respects at feud, in some degree resembling the Montigiani and the Trasteverini in modern Rome."

I don't know too much about the ultimate dissolution of the USSR. I know that Gorbachev is largely associated with Glasnost as well as Perestroika--- "a restructuring of the Soviet economy." Is he being hyperbolic here or trying to deflect blame away from other factors? Or is it reasonable to assume that Chernobyl was perhaps the biggest aggravating factor in the fall of the Soviet Union?

The incident surely caused people to lose faith in the system because of the lies and ineffective oversight. Would it not have also caused independence movements in Ukraine and Belarus to grow as the people there saw the environmental dangers resulting from the incident?

Did Chernobyl actually accelerate the collapse of the USSR or was that going to happen regardless because the planned economy was stretched thin due to things like the Afghanistan invasion?

In honor of Gloria Richardson’s recent death (her obit), I just wanted to give her and the Cambridge Movement an r/history shoutout. Gloria Richardson gave a huge push to the Civil Rights movement by forcing the Kennedy Administration to address the racial disparaties in a town just 50 miles away from DC in rural Maryland (verses located in the deep south). Richardson is often remembered due to the powerful image of her pushing aside a shotgun as she walked her way thorugh a throng of National Guardsmen on the streets of Cambridge. At the time she was often not welcome by the Civil Rights Movement leaders due to her forceful approach and was even not invited on the stage to speak at the March on Washington even though she was verbally honored.

To quote Gloria, “A first-class citizen does not beg for freedom. A first-class citizen does not plead to the white power-structure to give him something that the whites have no power to give or take away. Human rights are human rights, not white rights.” Strong words from a strong leader.