Which centuries interest you the most?
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  Which centuries interest you the most?
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Question: Which century do you find the most interesting?
#1
20th century
 
#2
19th century
 
#3
18th century
 
#4
17th century
 
#5
16th century
 
#6
15th century
 
#7
Middle Ages
 
#8
Antiquity
 
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Author Topic: Which centuries interest you the most?  (Read 1232 times)
Paul Weller
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« on: May 29, 2020, 08:52:35 PM »

Rank the centuries by how interesting you find them. I've included all "modern" centuries, starting with the 15th, but have grouped together the Middle Ages and Antiquity. If you want to include specific centuries from those two earlier periods, feel free to do so. Here's my ranking:

1. 17th century
2. 18th century
3. 16th century
4. 15th century
5. Middle Ages
6. 19th century
7. 20th century
8. Antiquity

As you might be able to tell based on my ranking, my favorite historical period is the Early Modern era. My least favorite is Antiquity, probably because I haven't ever cared enough to look into it.
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« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2020, 10:41:35 PM »

21st.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2020, 11:43:34 PM »

The Long 19th Century (1789-1914) has always been my favorite.
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brucejoel99
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« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2020, 11:44:35 PM »

The 20th: 2 world wars, 3 different ideologies that dominated the whole planet, incredible technological achievements (from airplanes to the Moon in 65 years!). The whole century was just one amazing, gigantic story.

Seriously, imagine being born around 1900. Think of all the transformations that you'd witness: you'd be able to remember people using horses as a viable means of conveyance, then living through 2 world wars & ending your days with men on the literal Moon. Pretty tough to think of an equivalent period where so much changed so rapidly.
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« Reply #4 on: May 30, 2020, 04:10:21 PM »

20th (1945-1991)
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Paul Weller
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« Reply #5 on: May 30, 2020, 05:03:43 PM »

The Long 19th Century (1789-1914) has always been my favorite.

That would be #1 on my list of most overrated centuries. It's frustrating how much attention the 1800s gets, while the more than 100 years between the end of the 30 Years' War and the start of the 7 Years' War is largely neglected. I've just always found struggles of ideology and nationalism to be far less intriguing than dynastic power politics. The period encompassing the late 17th and early 18th centuries - with its constantly shifting alliances, wars of succession, and conflicting political and religious interests of the various states - was truly the peak of European diplomacy and grand strategy. Not to mention the peak of art, music, and culture on the continent.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #6 on: May 30, 2020, 07:39:10 PM »

The Long 19th Century (1789-1914) has always been my favorite.

That would be #1 on my list of most overrated centuries. It's frustrating how much attention the 1800s gets, while the more than 100 years between the end of the 30 Years' War and the start of the 7 Years' War is largely neglected. I've just always found struggles of ideology and nationalism to be far less intriguing than dynastic power politics. The period encompassing the late 17th and early 18th centuries - with its constantly shifting alliances, wars of succession, and conflicting political and religious interests of the various states - was truly the peak of European diplomacy and grand strategy. Not to mention the peak of art, music, and culture on the continent.
Personally, I could never much bring myself to care which wealthy Italian family was currently king of the hill or which royal cousin has the more "legitimate" claim —none of those people would have been interested in me. I do agree that the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century has a lot to offer, though.
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brucejoel99
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« Reply #7 on: May 30, 2020, 08:09:34 PM »

The Long 19th Century (1789-1914) has always been my favorite.

That would be #1 on my list of most overrated centuries. It's frustrating how much attention the 1800s gets, while the more than 100 years between the end of the 30 Years' War and the start of the 7 Years' War is largely neglected. I've just always found struggles of ideology and nationalism to be far less intriguing than dynastic power politics. The period encompassing the late 17th and early 18th centuries - with its constantly shifting alliances, wars of succession, and conflicting political and religious interests of the various states - was truly the peak of European diplomacy and grand strategy. Not to mention the peak of art, music, and culture on the continent.

So you're just gonna ignore the change that the 19th century was for the average person? In 1800, lots of people outside of England were living the same lives that their ancestors had for hundreds or even thousands of years. By 1899, there was a modern, industrialized world with trains, cars & bicycles, photography, electrification, telegraphy, a media revolution, & modern states. There were only farmers & aristocrats before the 19th & by its end, there was a whole new class: workers. Kings lost their influence to the bourgeoisie; democracy gained strength. Such is all to say that a person born in 1800 was still living in pre-modern world; by 1900, we were in the modern world.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #8 on: May 30, 2020, 08:52:29 PM »

Every century since at least the 9th has seen Europe embroiled in an intricate diplomatic chess game with a myriad actors, ever-shifting alliances, and shocking twists of fate. And yes, it's all fascinating. The difference is that, until the 19th century, this was a game by and large only played by a small elite. The 19th century sees the rise of the masses as a political player - a player freer than it had ever been before (when the masses were too downtrodden to do anything about it) or after (when the rulers started to truly figure out how the masses work and exploit that to their advantage). It was a century where the most carefully laid-out plans frequently crumbled in the face of public sentiment. Of course, it also had Great Men (at least as much as any other centuries, arguably more than most) and the interplay between Great Men and the masses was what made that time so unique.
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Paul Weller
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« Reply #9 on: May 30, 2020, 11:15:08 PM »
« Edited: May 31, 2020, 11:36:41 AM by HenryWallaceVP »

The Long 19th Century (1789-1914) has always been my favorite.

That would be #1 on my list of most overrated centuries. It's frustrating how much attention the 1800s gets, while the more than 100 years between the end of the 30 Years' War and the start of the 7 Years' War is largely neglected. I've just always found struggles of ideology and nationalism to be far less intriguing than dynastic power politics. The period encompassing the late 17th and early 18th centuries - with its constantly shifting alliances, wars of succession, and conflicting political and religious interests of the various states - was truly the peak of European diplomacy and grand strategy. Not to mention the peak of art, music, and culture on the continent.

So you're just gonna ignore the change that the 19th century was for the average person? In 1800, lots of people outside of England were living the same lives that their ancestors had for hundreds or even thousands of years. By 1899, there was a modern, industrialized world with trains, cars & bicycles, photography, electrification, telegraphy, a media revolution, & modern states. There were only farmers & aristocrats before the 19th & by its end, there was a whole new class: workers. Kings lost their influence to the bourgeoisie; democracy gained strength. Such is all to say that a person born in 1800 was still living in pre-modern world; by 1900, we were in the modern world.

I don't disagree with you on how transformative the 19th century was; that it clearly was1. But whether one finds those changes interesting, is an entirely different question, and one that is totally subjective. That said, I have to disagree with what you wrote on the rise of the bourgeoisie. A thriving middle class composed of merchants and skilled craftsmen had existed for centuries, and was by no means a creation of the 19th century2. Furthermore, I would not go so far as to say that the world of 1800 was pre-modern. It was not yet the industrialized world of a century later, certainly, but neither was it the Middle Ages. The early modern period was a distinct period in time, neither medieval nor fully modern.

Since the 19th century did change so many things, I suppose its place in the annals of history is warranted. But as someone who finds more interest in previous centuries, it irritates me to see it everywhere. When I go to my public library's European history section, there's no shortage of books about Napoleon, the rise of the British Empire, Bismarck, and other 19th century topics. There's even a fair amount of books about the Renaissance and Middle Ages. But you'd be hard-pressed to find anything about the later 17th or earlier 18th centuries. That has forced me to do a lot of my own research; I've had to search online for academic journals to find articles on the periods I'm interested in (not that that's a bad thing; I've learned a lot I wouldn't have otherwise). But even in academia, even outside the popular histories of my library, I still get the feeling that the 19th (and 20th) century tends to block out other periods. I know how important and transformative a time it was, but isn't it just a little overrepresented?

Every century since at least the 9th has seen Europe embroiled in an intricate diplomatic chess game with a myriad actors, ever-shifting alliances, and shocking twists of fate. And yes, it's all fascinating. The difference is that, until the 19th century, this was a game by and large only played by a small elite. The 19th century sees the rise of the masses as a political player - a player freer than it had ever been before (when the masses were too downtrodden to do anything about it) or after (when the rulers started to truly figure out how the masses work and exploit that to their advantage). It was a century where the most carefully laid-out plans frequently crumbled in the face of public sentiment. Of course, it also had Great Men (at least as much as any other centuries, arguably more than most) and the interplay between Great Men and the masses was what made that time so unique.

Right, but it took many centuries for diplomacy to fully hit its stride. It wasn't until the 16th century that the resident ambassador became a commonality, and it took another hundred years for the principle of diplomatic immunity to be fully established. As a result, the state system of the Middle Ages was far less mobile and more stagnant than what came later. Whatever the enmities between the princes of Europe, Christendom was bound together by the Pope and the Catholic faith, and had a common enemy in the infidel. Even when permanent envoys arrived with the coming of the Renaissance, the religious hatreds of the Reformation saw Catholics generally ally with Catholics, Protestants with Protestants (France of course being the exception). It wasn't until after 1648 that all the conditions had been set down for the coming of the stately quadrille. Matters of religion were still taken into consideration when forming alliances (unlike in the 19th century, which removes a layer I find interesting), but these religious concerns were now outweighed by raisons d'État. What followed was the most volatile period in diplomatic history, a period that ended sometime between 1789 and 1815. Sure, 19th century people still talked about the balance of power, but the Pax Brittanica prevented the state system from warring like it used to, while in the previous century war had driven it along. Simultaneously, national rivalries became more entrenched due to the rise of nationalism, making the side-switching of the past far less common. Compared to what came before, the 19th century Concert of Europe was stunted, inactive, and plain boring. Never in history has there ever been anything quite like the diplomatic system of the post-Westphalian century3, and to me it it is the most interesting thing ever and what I want to devote my life to studying.

I've gotten a bit carried away, but you do raise a good point with the empowerment of the masses that occurred in the 19th century. If you feel that the input of the masses on the political world made things more interesting, fine4. It's simply a matter of personal preference: to me the era of high diplomacy and the Kabinettskriege is more interesting, to you it isn’t.

1Though I'd argue that the early 20th century was even more impactful.

2There's a great line I remember reading from Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence that goes something like "Many students are taught that the 19th century saw the rise of the bourgeois middle class. This estimate is about 600 years too late."

3However, in the book Renaissance Diplomacy by Garret Mattingly, the author makes a convincing argument that 15th century Italy under the Peace of Lodi presaged the Westphalian state system by 2 or 3 centuries, and is the closest any time and place has ever come to (p)recreating it.

4While I disagree that it made diplomacy and warfare more interesting, I of course find fascinating the elections and political parties brought about by the empowerment of the masses; otherwise I wouldn't have spent so many threads arguing about 19th century American politics.
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« Reply #10 on: May 31, 2020, 02:56:05 AM »

A man of Antiquity to the bitter end, partly because of my infatuation with Rome, but also due to the sense of epic grandeur, the complexities of a much smaller world, and a fascinating - particularly pre-Christian - cultural context. The XIX Century absolutely gets second place though.

From a professional point of view, Antiquity is also very challenging - but in a rewarding way - to approach as an historian. There's just something about the minutiae of attempting a reconstruction of events with comparatively limited means that I find both fascinating and invigorating.
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« Reply #11 on: May 31, 2020, 03:47:36 AM »

All periods of History (not so much Prehistory) interest me.

Hard to say.

Different periods are interesting for different reasons.

For me, picking regions I'm most interested in is a lot easier than picking time periods.

For the regions, it would be Europe, the British Empire (UK, Canada, Antipodes, South Africa, US) and the Middle East.

If I had to pick centuries, I'd probably go with the 19th or 20th centuries, but all are interesting in their own way.

I also quite like the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

And I've increasingly become interested in Antiquity in the last few years, in particular the Antiquity of the Middle East (my interest in Christianity and its history got me interested in the region originally).
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Beet
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« Reply #12 on: May 31, 2020, 04:04:40 AM »

The 19th century, although I have to admit my reasons are rather idiosyncratic. It's the last century where everyone who was alive then was dead, and thus the last one which represents a fully "closed story" to history.

The 1960s, for example, you would wonder what half the young people would think of coronavirus, and you wouldn't know because the pandemic isn't over yet. The story of the people of the 1960s has not yet been finished writing! We are co-contemporaries still. I mean, one's parents were alive in the Sixties, and remember them well. Will that young man marching with Dr. King endorse Biden or Bloomberg in the South Carolina primary? Who will he want for VP in 55 years? It defeats the point of history, which for me is that it is the study of something already complete, fully formed and captured for study-- and also something distant enough to be objective about, ideally to have no relevance to contemporary politics. History is not the same as memory-- it after all began with the advent of writing. The 20th century, outside perhaps the Edwardian era, just doesn't fit the bill.

Besides, many key things did truly begin in the 19th century, not least the start of a truly global history, although admittedly the impact on daily life was not complete until about 1970.
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« Reply #13 on: May 31, 2020, 03:47:04 PM »

20th century
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Orser67
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« Reply #14 on: May 31, 2020, 04:01:18 PM »

Probably the 19th century for me.  The Industrial Revolution is arguably the most important phenomenon in world history since the invention of writing, and it's really fascinating to read about its economic, political, and social effects.

And there was plenty of other stuff going on, e.g. the Napoleonic Wars, the unification of Italy and Germany, the rise of Japan, the colonization of most of the Eastern Hemisphere by European powers, the Latin American wars of independence, the expansion of the U.S., and (perhaps most interesting for me) the development of proto-democracies and new ideologies. Also, kind of like what Beet said, the historical distance between us and the 19th century is really interesting in that it's close enough to see lots of parallels, and yet far enough away for us to develop more of an historical perspective. Really the only thing that's missing is that there wasn't enough Poland.

I tend to be interested in the Middle Ages the least, I think partly because a lot of the centuries and individuals kind of blend together for me, and partly because I have less of a frame of reference given the lack of the U.S.
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« Reply #15 on: June 02, 2020, 06:06:36 PM »

My first love historically is actually Western Europe's fourteenth century, which should tell you a lot about my morbid inclinations. Latterly I've become interested in the "short twentieth century" and in periods going further back into the Middle Ages and Antiquity. In East Asian history I'm interested in the seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.

I disagree with Beet that history ideally deals with matters not relevant to current politics. Current politics is still dealing with the fallout of events like the French Revolution and even the Spanish conquest of the Americas that are clearly "historical" by even the most stringent definition. The still-extant cultural and political fault line between Western and Eastern/Northern Japan is discussed in the Tale of the Heike! I do agree that there's a certain mystique to events that no one now alive remembers, but even with events like World War II that are still well within the memory of very elderly people there's a danger of engaging in mythopoeia rather than history.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #16 on: June 06, 2020, 11:38:38 PM »

Right, but it took many centuries for diplomacy to fully hit its stride. It wasn't until the 16th century that the resident ambassador became a commonality, and it took another hundred years for the principle of diplomatic immunity to be fully established. As a result, the state system of the Middle Ages was far less mobile and more stagnant than what came later. Whatever the enmities between the princes of Europe, Christendom was bound together by the Pope and the Catholic faith, and had a common enemy in the infidel. Even when permanent envoys arrived with the coming of the Renaissance, the religious hatreds of the Reformation saw Catholics generally ally with Catholics, Protestants with Protestants (France of course being the exception). It wasn't until after 1648 that all the conditions had been set down for the coming of the stately quadrille.

I strongly disagree with the idea that the Medieval geopolitical order was "far less mobile and more stagnant". That's a genuinely baffling view to me, because the more I learn about this period the more I realize that it was a time of extreme political complexity, far greater than the post-Westphalia order. The fact that modern "states" weren't yet firmly established, but did exist in an embryonic forms, coupled with the complex web of feudal relationships, all of them subject to the whim of dynastic inheritances, and an equally complex dynamic between church and secular authorities, all these factors created a situation where you had a myriad political actors of all shapes and sizes continually appearing onto the scene and exiting it. Just look at the absolute weirdness of Franco-English relations from 1066 to 1453 (the Hundred Years' War is really only the tip of the iceberg, there's so much more to dig up). Or at the patchwork of Northern Italian city-states and the complex web of alliances and enmities they forged and promptly broke along with the Pope and foreign powers. Or the sheer ridiculousness of Charles V's empire. If anything, it is the Peace of Westphalia that introduced stability and stagnancy into the whole systems. Sure, there were plenty of wars after 1648, and some territories changed hands. But by and large, the set of political actors that mattered was more or less closed after that point, as was the space they would occupy (okay, there's a big outlier in the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but my point stands otherwise). The balance of power was exactly that, balance. Sure, it still took war to preserve it, but the main point of it still was status quo at the end of the day. Now, things might have been different if France had won the War of Spanish Succession, or the Ottomans had successfully captured Vienna, but tbh even then I doubt that things would have changed all that dramatically. Europe by that point had consolidated modern states that couldn't be just wiped off the map (again, Poland excepted), or split off, or conquer so much that their fundamental identity would change. That just wasn't a possibility anymore, and wouldn't be for centuries.


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Sure, 19th century people still talked about the balance of power, but the Pax Brittanica prevented the state system from warring like it used to, while in the previous century war had driven it along.

I mean, if your point was that there was less warring in the 19th century than in the 17th and 18th, I can't argue with that. I mean, if you ignore 1792-1815, which arguably had enough war in 23 years to fill a century under the previous paradigm. But regardless, I guess I just don't find war in and of itself particularly interesting. Historical wars can be interesting, don't get me wrong, but for me, there has to be more to it than just states vying for slightly more power or slight territorial changes. I need a compelling personal or collective "narrative" to attach to it (see the Wars of Italian Independence, which are compelling because they represented the sudden culminations of the aspirations of an idealistic generation).


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Simultaneously, national rivalries became more entrenched due to the rise of nationalism, making the side-switching of the past far less common.

Uh, no? It seems you're thinking of a very specific piece of the 19th century (basically 1815-1848) and ignoring everything else. The post-Vienna order had a loose but stable alliance of basically all the major powers against the vague concept of liberal revolution, but that paradigm fell apart in the second half of the century. Then, you had: England's rapprochement with France (a diplomatic 180 after 7 centuries of rivalry); Prussia fighting a war against Denmark with Austria, then a war against Austria with Italy (who had just been created with aid from France), and finally locking down an alliance with Austria and Italy after a war with France; Russia fighting a war against France and England while being in good terms with Germany then breaking with Germany to ally with France; a myriad shenanigans in the Balkans that would take me a whole essay to detail. Does this sound boring to you? I'm genuinely baffled you'd say so.


Quote
I've gotten a bit carried away, but you do raise a good point with the empowerment of the masses that occurred in the 19th century. If you feel that the input of the masses on the political world made things more interesting, fine4. It's simply a matter of personal preference: to me the era of high diplomacy and the Kabinettskriege is more interesting, to you it isn’t.

4While I disagree that it made diplomacy and warfare more interesting, I of course find fascinating the elections and political parties brought about by the empowerment of the masses; otherwise I wouldn't have spent so many threads arguing about 19th century American politics.

Not just elections, my friend! Are we seriously not going to talk about all the revolutions? C'mon, man! France changed regimes about 10 times, depending on how you count, between 1789 and 1871. Whats not to love? And the whole madness that was 1848? Even if most of those revolutions failed, they represent such a fascinating moment in time. But yes, electoral politics is also fascinating, obviously, and I feel like 19th century European elections deserve to be studied more.
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« Reply #17 on: June 08, 2020, 07:42:19 AM »

Voted 18th.  The golden age of piracy (1715-21), due in large part to the end of the wars of Spanish succession, the decline of Spain and rise of Britain as a global superpower, the Seven years war, continued colonial expansion and the Revolution and early republic. So fascinating, and I also love the architecture of the time.

But I'm fascinated my most of history including the cognitive revolution (70,000 BCE) through the start of Agriculture (8500-9000 BCE)
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« Reply #18 on: June 09, 2020, 08:33:15 PM »

All of them, though not all of the time. When I was younger I would seasonally go through different periods of interest in US history and that has expanded to engulf the whole of human history (and before. Yes I love evolutionary biology). Last summer I was binging videos on evolution and natural science and now I am prowling YouTube comment sections to argue with Lost Causers.

It is folly to single out a single century, for one century builds on the next and to ignore what came before removes vital context for how you got there, removes the contemporary context and what was on their minds and governing their actions in that given period and finally it makes things seem almost unheard of or unprecedented when in reality such was merely a cyclical occurrence or otherwise recedes into the backdrop when presented alongside similar events.

I have favorite events that tend to occupy most of my attention and in every case, I end up drawing on decades and even centuries prior to provide the appropriate context and basis for the events in question.


The Long 19th Century (1789-1914) has always been my favorite.

That would be #1 on my list of most overrated centuries. It's frustrating how much attention the 1800s gets, while the more than 100 years between the end of the 30 Years' War and the start of the 7 Years' War is largely neglected. I've just always found struggles of ideology and nationalism to be far less intriguing than dynastic power politics. The period encompassing the late 17th and early 18th centuries - with its constantly shifting alliances, wars of succession, and conflicting political and religious interests of the various states - was truly the peak of European diplomacy and grand strategy. Not to mention the peak of art, music, and culture on the continent.
Personally, I could never much bring myself to care which wealthy Italian family was currently king of the hill or which royal cousin has the more "legitimate" claim —none of those people would have been interested in me. I do agree that the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century has a lot to offer, though.

Wealthy royal families don't have time to be interested in plebs, Truman. They are far too busy with more important matters, namely making the plebs fight to defend their legitimate rights to the throne of Spain/Austria/Naples to worry about such provincial concerns.
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« Reply #19 on: June 10, 2020, 11:41:01 AM »

It is folly to single out a single century, for one century builds on the next and to ignore what came before removes vital context for how you got there, removes the contemporary context and what was on their minds and governing their actions in that given period and finally it makes things seem almost unheard of or unprecedented when in reality such was merely a cyclical occurrence or otherwise recedes into the backdrop when presented alongside similar events.

I agree with you about the folly of singling out a single time period. But for most people who like history, there's a specific era that interests them the most. Mine would be early modern Europe, but of course that doesn't mean I ignore other periods of history. In fact, one of my favorite things to do is to make comparisons across periods. For instance, I've found many parallels between early modern European diplomacy and contemporary geopolitics in the Middle East.

I'd also add that focusing on certain aspects of history at the detriment of others is equally foolish. There are many people who study the politics and warfare of the past who completely ignore social and cultural history, or vice versa. Like Jacques Barzun, I deplore this "gangrene of specialism". History should be viewed as a whole, with none of its constituent parts left out.
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« Reply #20 on: June 10, 2020, 03:54:45 PM »

It is folly to single out a single century, for one century builds on the next and to ignore what came before removes vital context for how you got there, removes the contemporary context and what was on their minds and governing their actions in that given period and finally it makes things seem almost unheard of or unprecedented when in reality such was merely a cyclical occurrence or otherwise recedes into the backdrop when presented alongside similar events.

I agree with you about the folly of singling out a single time period. But for most people who like history, there's a specific era that interests them the most. Mine would be early modern Europe, but of course that doesn't mean I ignore other periods of history. In fact, one of my favorite things to do is to make comparisons across periods. For instance, I've found many parallels between early modern European diplomacy and contemporary geopolitics in the Middle East.

I'd also add that focusing on certain aspects of history at the detriment of others is equally foolish. There are many people who study the politics and warfare of the past who completely ignore social and cultural history, or vice versa. Like Jacques Barzun, I deplore this "gangrene of specialism". History should be viewed as a whole, with none of its constituent parts left out.

Yeah I agree

That's why I would have had a hard time studying history. I wouldn't know what to specialize in. There's just too much that's interesting in order to totally focus on one small bit of it.
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« Reply #21 on: June 12, 2020, 01:26:52 AM »

I wouldnt want to live in any century that didnt have anesthesia, they had to have child labor without pain meds and pulling their rotten teeth out when Wisdoms hurt. They also had no way of numbing pain for surgeries without alcohol
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Vosem
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Posts: 15,624
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Political Matrix
E: 8.13, S: -6.09

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« Reply #22 on: June 13, 2020, 12:07:07 AM »

The relatively short 20th century (1914-1989) is probably the era I have read the most about, and answering something other than it is a lie, but I share HenryWallace's fondness for the Early Modern period, especially the period where the vast expansions of Russian and British power have begun (with the ascension of Peter the Great and the Glorious Revolution in England; I think the period from 1688 to something like 1763 is among the most fascinating eras in history, though that can be stretched out to like 1815).

Rather than the Peace of Westphalia or the French Revolution, I've often felt that 'modern' history to some extent begins in the late 1680s, with 1688-9 in many ways featuring the beginning of the buildup that led to the Cold War between what were fairly obviously the successors of the early modern Russian Empire and the early modern British Empire. I think the discovery of calculus and publication of the Principia are an underrated turning point; after this point you start seeing various low-hanging fruit in progress (like the flying shuttle, or smelting with coke, or livestock inbreeding) falling and people truly believing that the human condition is not static, which is the absolute bedrock of an attitude towards life that can be called 'modern' in some way.
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