History?

[TickTockMan]

What time periods or events interest you from history?

 

[Alistair]

I love learning about the British Empirial Navy. Sailing ships with only sun and stars to guide you. Fierce battles waged. It's still rings of romance with the sea. I missed my time and my calling.

 

[medic1]

I am more a modern history man, seems more tangible to me.

 

[Willie Boy]

Prehistory.

 

[Zeno Lorea]

Antiquity. Ancient Greece and Rome had achieved incredibly high levels of civilization, including inventions that were lost during the Middle Ages. They had central heating and cooling, toilets connected to gutters, irrigation including canals hundreds of miles long and connected with aqueducts. When the Roman Empire fell, even the monetary system was lost for a while, and in most of Europe, trade was done via exchanging goods directly.

The rot set in under Emperor Constantine who was influenced by a certain monotheistic doomsday cult which he elevated to state religion. This creed was highly suspicious of scientific research, as it believed all necessary knowledge to be contained in their Holy Writ. Human civilization stalled for a dozen centuries, until renaissance and enlightenment finally subdued superstition to religion.

Imagine how advanced the world would have been if the Dark Ages had never happened.

 

[Thad1527]

I just finished a book on the US Civil War battle of Gettysburg. It was written by a long-ago high school friend - boy, have we gone separate ways! - but kept my attention.

I don't care much for ancient or medieval history as a rule. But Geraldine Brooks' "Year of Wonders," set in the time of the Black Death, is probably my very favorite historical novel.

And I love the history of American cities. Not just because my own city, Philadelphia, has so much to offer.

 

[Benvolio]

I love learning about the British Empirial Navy. Sailing ships with only sun and stars to guide you. Fierce battles waged. It's still rings of romance with the sea. I missed my time and my calling.

Sea Fever
BY JOHN MASEFIELD
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

 

[Benvolio]

I read very little fiction, only history. Prefer English history, also Roman. The American Civil War is fascinating but the massive loss of life is too depressing.

 

[peeonme]

I find all of the history of man interesting, not so much what happened, but why it happened.

 

[gsdx]

I'm not to much a student of history as I am a student of interesting historical events, anywhere and in any time period.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

Most recently WWI. Not a buff or anything but I have interest in it. Played a game that really laid out a lot of real information about it and had a compelling story.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War is the game for reference.

 

[Latimer]

Antiquity. Ancient Greece and Rome had achieved incredibly high levels of civilization, including inventions that were lost during the Middle Ages. They had central heating and cooling, toilets connected to gutters, irrigation including canals hundreds of miles long and connected with aqueducts. When the Roman Empire fell, even the monetary system was lost for a while, and in most of Europe, trade was done via exchanging goods directly.

The rot set in under Emperor Constantine who was influenced by a certain monotheistic doomsday cult which he elevated to state religion. This creed was highly suspicious of scientific research, as it believed all necessary knowledge to be contained in their Holy Writ. Human civilization stalled for a dozen centuries, until renaissance and enlightenment finally subdued superstition to religion.

Imagine how advanced the world would have been if the Dark Ages had never happened.

You must be a fan of Gibbon, who seeks to describe "the triumph of barbarism and religion."

"The crowd of writers of every nation, who impute the destruction of the Roman monuments to the Goths and the Christians, have neglected to inquire how far they were animated by a hostile principle, and how far they possessed the means and the leisure to satiate their enmity. In the preceding volumes of this History, I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion; and I can only resume, in a few words, their real or imaginary connection with the ruin of ancient Rome. Our fancy may create, or adopt, a pleasing romance, that the Goths and Vandals sallied from Scandinavia, ardent to avenge the flight of Odin; to break the chains, and to chastise the oppressors, of mankind; that they wished to burn the records of classic literature, and to found their national architecture on the broken members of the Tuscan and Corinthian orders. But in simple truth, the northern conquerors were neither sufficiently savage, nor sufficiently refined, to entertain such aspiring ideas of destruction and revenge. The shepherds of Scythia and Germany had been educated in the armies of the empire, whose discipline they acquired, and whose weakness they invaded: with the familiar use of the Latin tongue, they had learned to reverence the name and titles of Rome; and, though incapable of emulating, they were more inclined to admire, than to abolish, the arts and studies of a brighter period. In the transient possession of a rich and unresisting capital, the soldiers of Alaric and Genseric were stimulated by the passions of a victorious army; amidst the wanton indulgence of lust or cruelty, portable wealth was the object of their search; nor could they derive either pride or pleasure from the unprofitable reflection, that they had battered to the ground the works of the consuls and Caesars. Their moments were indeed precious; the Goths evacuated Rome on the sixth, the Vandals on the fifteenth, day: and, though it be far more difficult to build than to destroy, their hasty assault would have made a slight impression on the solid piles of antiquity. We may remember, that both Alaric and Genseric affected to spare the buildings of the city; that they subsisted in strength and beauty under the auspicious government of Theodoric; and that the momentary resentment of Totila was disarmed by his own temper and the advice of his friends and enemies. From these innocent Barbarians, the reproach may be transferred to the Catholics of Rome. The statues, altars, and houses, of the daemons, were an abomination in their eyes; and in the absolute command of the city, they might labor with zeal and perseverance to erase the idolatry of their ancestors. The demolition of the temples in the East affords to them an example of conduct, and to us an argument of belief; and it is probable that a portion of guilt or merit may be imputed with justice to the Roman proselytes. Yet their abhorrence was confined to the monuments of heathen superstition; and the civil structures that were dedicated to the business or pleasure of society might be preserved without injury or scandal. The change of religion was accomplished, not by a popular tumult, but by the decrees of the emperors, of the senate, and of time. Of the Christian hierarchy, the bishops of Rome were commonly the most prudent and least fanatic; nor can any positive charge be opposed to the meritorious act of saving or converting the majestic structure of the Pantheon."

 

[eastofeden]

Mostly Ancient BC Civilizations like the Sumerians and Babylonians and Phoenecians...and I like reading about Atlantis..

also the Mayan and Inca and Aztec History.....

 

[NotHardUp1]

What a bunch of tripe attributing the dark ages to a "monotheistic doomsday religion." I the obsession to blame Christianity for every ill, you adopt what is a cult of anti-religion, just as blindly empowering it as any cult that ever brainwashed anyone. The difference would be that cult followers at least have community and a semblance of peace while you have but bitterness that is omnipresent.

At the time the Dark Ages began, the poor were still poor, and illiteracy was broad, so talk of modernity in technology is a more than selective when presenting that the average man had modern conveniences. The elevated elite had them, much like today.

And, as always, bigotry lumps the many, and so you have. Christianity was not monolithic before or after the Dark Ages, so depicting it as virulently anti-science, or more to the point, anti-technology, doesn't really fly. The Christians would have been the ones burning libraries. I believe Nero tried that one when he needed to deflect blame, so you follow in the steps of greatness. Indeed.

 

[kallipolis]

It was church founded universities that heralded the renaissance of Western Europe, and among the great early universities were Bologna University (1088) and my post graduate almer mater; Paris University (c 1150); Oxford University (1167); Salerno University (1173); University of Vicenza (1204); Cambridge University (1209); Salamanca University (1218-1219); Padua University (1222); Naples University (1224); and Vercelli University (1228)....all staffed by monastic communites dedicated to scholastic enlightenment.

Using Latin as a lingua franca, the medieval universities across Western Europe produced a great variety of scholars and natural philosophers, including Robert Grosseteste of the University of Oxford, an early expositor of a systematic method of scientific experimentation, and Saint Albert the Great, a pioneer of biological field research. By the mid-15th century Europe had some 50 universities.

The leading exponent of the French Enlightenment was René Descartes who despite many publicly aired differences with the French hierarchy was a practising Catholic.

Here in Greece, and South Eastern Europe the Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire weathered the decline, and fall of The Western Roman Empire until the Ottoman invasion in the late 15th century leading to the collapse of the last vestige of Rome's former empire.

 

[NotHardUp1]

To answer the question of the OP, I enjoy all history and am less interested in a timeline of wars and battles than I am the succession of cultures and technologies.

In college, I minored in history and particularly enjoyed History of Russia, History of the Far East, as well as several courses on my regional history. The Civil War is not one of my interests -- too much like WWI, an appalling waste of lives for an errant cause.

 

[jockofstrap]

Civil War, turn of 20th century, post WW 2.