The History Thread!

Whoops. Removing it right now.

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV

Which times were those? I thought it just kept on going strong until around 30 B.C.

I smell magic in the air. Or maybe barbecue.

Not the best at remembering dates, but it was conquered by the:

• Hyksos,
• Assyria (sort-of, twas more of a vassal relationship)
• the Achaemenid Persians,
• the Macedonians—>Ptolemy Dynasty,
• Rome (30 B.C when Octavian captured Alexandria from the last of the Ptolemies),
• the Sassanid Persians (briefly) occupied it before the restoration of Roman rule, and finally
• the Arabs (Arab rule was far from stable though).

And the name of the country did change. To the ancient Egyptians twas Kemet (Black earth, where black=fertile) to the modern Egyptians tis Misr (idk if that means anything).

edited 11th Apr '17 5:43:17 PM by CenturyEye

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives

Following the Achemenid Persian conquest, Egypt lost its independence to a succession of foreign conquerors and never got it back. The Persians were replaced by the Macedonians who were replaced by the Romans (and then Byzantines) who were replaced by the Ummayyad (Damascus) and Abbassid (Baghdad) Caliphates, then the Fatimid Caliphate from North Africa, then the Kurdish Ayyubid Sultanate, then the Turkic Mamluk Sultanate, then the Ottoman Turkic Sultanate, and then the British (using a royal family of Albanian Muslim descent I might note).

Egypt being an independent nation ruled by people who were actually born in Egypt, rather than a part of a larger empire under foreign domination, is a comparatively recent development.

edited 11th Apr '17 9:19:54 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I knew some of those but damn that is a lot of conquering.

Speaking of the Middle East and neighbouring regions anyone know any good books on their weapons and metallurgy?

edited 11th Apr '17 10:10:12 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

It's not unique to Egypt. The same thing happened to the territories of what's now Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, and Turkey. Once they were absorbed into the original Achaemenid Persian Empire their independence vanished for a couple millennia. They spent roughly two thousand years being passed back and forth between the Macedonian Empire, the Macedonian Successor Kingdoms, the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, and the Byzantine Empire, four separate Persian Empires (Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanian, and Safavid), multiple Arab Caliphates (Ummayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid) and pick your Turkic Sultanate (Seljuk, Ayyubid, Mamluk, Ottoman...), and that's before the British and French rolled in at the end of WWI.

Some forum-ite translated a historian's statistics on shell usage of the German army compared to the Soviet army in 1942-1944. Thought it was interesting. tl;dr:

Artillery and tank shell expenditure in millions of tons:

1942: 446,133 Soviet vs 709,557 German

1943: 828,193 Soviet vs 1,121,545 German

1944: 1,000,962 Soviet vs 1,540,933 German

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."

How the Soviet Union thought itself to death What especially stands out to me is how Soviet intellectuals viewed their history as a massive blood soaked mistake that required redemption. And the only way to redeem themselves was to throw themselves at the feat of the "civilized nations" of the West. I see a very similar attitude play out in the US and the UK.

Slavery did not create economic growth The article veers off when it argues that this means their shouldn't be reparations.

The Baby Boomers weren't heroes Why everything you know about the resistance to the Vietnam war is a lie.

The New York times offers a slightly different view

edited 14th Apr '17 9:04:43 AM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

Haven't seen any of that thought outside tankie circles.

And National Review? Seriously?

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot

The National Interest might be a bit jingoistic but it isn't The National Review, not even close.

Inter arma enim silent leges

National Interest.

Edit: In addition quite a few sane people publish their as well as in other places, for example Robert E Kelly of viral video fame has published their a few times I think.

Julian the Apostate Such a fascinating character.

edited 15th Apr '17 10:39:03 AM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

It was. The USSR murdered millions for little to no cause. It was a state that more than deserved to die.

Oh...?

edited 15th Apr '17 3:19:40 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I'm not necessarily saying they were wrong to view their history like that. And I certainly don't believe that about the US and UK, but the similarities are food for thought. Both the US and USSR have a lot of similarities. One of which is they are mission/idea countries. Once those ideas are invalidated, the country is crippled.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

A proposition: One might get a nuanced view of the USSR from a global perspective. (I can't speak too much about internally—I don't have that much research, the deaths of millions is rather damning no matter what, and that's more for Russians to mull on anyway).
The rise and fall of the USSR was directly related to the fortunes of social justice movements in the west and rhetoric supporting it elsewhere. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights exists partly because of pressure from the Eastern Bloc. (Even if they never followed it, it created standards elsewhere). Further a movement to make transnational corporations more responsible under international and domestic laws floundered when the patronage of the USSR suddenly vanished. Even in the USA, the invigorated communist party was the one that took on the early causes of the Civil Rights Movement. (And more selfishly, on this side of the pond, having a gigantic rival looming over yonder forced one's leaders to stay pragmatic).

At the same time, one has to acknowledge that this came with two-thirds of Europe being made vassal states, the creation of NK, among other things. Then internally, well "Great Purge" needs no explanation and Armageddon and other histories seem to imply that kleptocracy had been a bug all along, just hidden.
The point? Well, the legacy of that state is somewhat more than blood-soaked mistake but far short of paragon of states. In short, there may be something to be learned from the experience besides "good god never again!"

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives

As the Grandson of an army Colonel I am required to say that the USSR was a Commie abomination that died 75 years to late, or else be smited by the spirits of my ancestors. In all seriousness, at the very least their economic system was an utter disaster, average life expectancy, after a drop off due to the chaos of the 90's, rose dramatically after the USSR fell, along with average wealth. The USSR kept everyone equal, equally poor.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

The big reason some people like the USSR (especially in ex-Soviet states) is because as bad as they were they were objectively better than what came before. That part of the narrative always gets forgotten.

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."

They were also stable, as crappy as it is, those soviet states provided nearly all the basic needs without much trouble, you'd get a steady job, a home and the minimum needed so you don't starve. Granted most of it varied between reasonably comfortable living to very crappy living standards but they were better than nothing.

After the Soviet Union feel plenty of people, who depended of the state to provide the basics for them, found themselves without a job because they didn't have competitive skills in a capitalist market or with a much crappier job.

So you can have the nostalgia feeling of thing were shitty but they at least were easy to deal with now everything is a mess.

Inter arma enim silent leges

An (unintentionally) funny look at the Finnish presidential vote in 1978. They are saying the name of the candidate on the ballot. At the time, the MP's voted for the President, not the populace.

Urho Kekkonen won if you're wondering.

edited 16th Apr '17 1:17:19 PM by TerminusEst

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

@Julian the Apostate

Wasn't he the one who wanted to sacrifice tens of thousands of farm animals in the middle of a famine?

Haven't heard that part. He did sacrifice so many animals that his people nicknamed him the butcher. A trouper who used to post here a lot is named after him, or rather the version of him that appeared in the Gore Vidal novel Julian.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

UN Holocaust Archives to be opened to the public.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

As it's Finland's centennial year, I will put this here. The documentary goes through the three wars (Winter, Continuation and Lapland) and has veterans giving their views as well. It's pretty basic, but I think that was the idea.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

Happy independent centennial. With a little luck, here's to another one.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

Al Murray proves Britain has beaten every country in History at war

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

Like the Normans?