Best great britain history books according to redditors
We found 1,758 Reddit comments discussing the best great britain history books. We ranked the 746 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 1,758 Reddit comments discussing the best great britain history books. We ranked the 746 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Theoretically, the monarch is still the executive and is the one to call parliament and dissolve it (now limited by the Fixed-Terms Parliament Act). Practically, since at least the time of Queen Victoria, these powers have been understood to be in the hands of Her Majesty's Government, acting in the monarch's name and "advising" the monarch.
That it developed this way has historical reasons: parliament evolved after King John signed Magna Charta in 1215 into a body whose consent was more and more needed for the governing of the realm. The English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution settled the question of who was supreme, the monarch or parliament. But the idea was always that the House of Commons represented the people while the monarch, theoretically, governed. The running of the government was, in practice, delegated to a member of parliament (Lords or Commons), acting in the monarch's name.
This means that in practice, the government, being made of up members of the House of Commons and having a majority there and at the same time holding the monarch's powers, end up able to decide rather a lot about how things go.
(When at the beginning of WW2, the House of Commons passed a law giving the King emergency powers, what this meant was giving the government emergency powers.)
What's unusual here is the timing and the length of the prorogation before the next Queen's Speech (which is written by the government and lays out the legislative programme for the beginning session of parliament).
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EDIT: Since this is getting lots of upvotes, here's some more for the interested - but for a good read on how England and then Great Britain accidentally came to be a parliamentary democracy, I recommend, as a starter, Wikipedia's Parliament of England. Most of the things I say here are gleaned from Trevelyan's classic (i.e. old and in some ways outdated) "History of England" and various other things I've read. Apologies to the Scottish, but I'm simply uninformed about Scottish parliamenty history. And generally, I'm only a history fan. If anyone feels moved to correct me or to add their knowledge, please do so.
There are several crucial points in the development of parliament (as an idea in England/Europe, discounting here the Roman senate and Germanic thing or witan) and Parliament (as an institution). Firstly, of course, that there is a parliament at all, which happened in 1215 when King John needed money from the Barons and they extracted certain concessions from him.
Next is the regular election or appointment of representatives and then the division into a House of Lords and a House of Commons. This happened over the course of the 13th century. If I remember G.M. Trevelyan correctly, this division wasn't so much a decision as it was a gradual development, where members of parliament with common interests would start to meet in separate groups. The landed nobility and the church had different interests from the burghers (the merchant class), so essentially you could say that House of Lords vs. House of Commons came about because the merchant class and the landed class (plus the church) had different material interests and different ideas of how rights should be distributed among the King's subjects.
In 1362, Parliament managed to enshrine in law that all taxation needed its approval (I'm hazy about the how and why; I should read up on it). While monarchs until James II (r. 1685-1688) had enough personal income to finance the army and navy (source: the breathtakingly excellent "Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain 1649-1815" by N.A.M. Rodger), the increasing complexity of the world and the shift of income generation from land to mercantile and, later, industrial activities meant that the defence of the realm eventually slipped from the hands of the monarch alone and was put at Parliament's whim, through the power of taxation and money appropriation.
Queen Anne, who died in 1714, is famous for being the last British monarch to veto a law. There is a quote from one of her speeches: "Make yourselves safe, gentlemen", meaning, it was up to Parliament (the landowners and merchants) to organise the defence of their business interests, oops, I meant "the realm".
England/Britain/the UK remained a strongly class-based society - and still is one, in some respects. There has, at least until now, been relatively little appetite for "off with their heads"-style revolution, and the monarch was disempowered rather quietly after the failed experiment of the first English republic under Cromwell.
King William IV (r. 1830-1837), Victoria's uncle, was the last monarch to force the appointment of a Prime Minister against the will of Parliament. Queen Victoria herself subverted the constitutional process by, for example, writing to fellow European monarchs, some of whom were family relations, on matters of foreign policy.
But what counted was, already then, the actions of the British government and not the personal opinions of the monarch. Victoria's "magic royal circle" (Niall Ferguson) failed to prevent the outbreak of the First World War, as the world had moved beyond the personal control of monarchs - thanks to, in part, England's invention of parliamentary and then constitutional monarchy.
GOLD EDIT: "þanca unc" - thank you - via the Old English Translator.
It's a book.
> All the Countries We've Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To
(emphasis mine)
Bigger image
Historian John Keegan wrote about exactly that- dying soldiers and horses tend to try to climb on top of each other, for support, for mutual defense, or just for comfort in their last moments. Before you know it, you've got a pile, which subsequent waves of attackers and defenders have to try to climb before they can get to their opponents. Then they start dying on top of the piles, making them higher (an armored corpse is an unstable fighting platform and increases your chance of dying, he points out). If you have two or three piles of bodies close by, the gap tends to get filled in by more bodies. And before you know it, wall of bodies, which can trap one of the armies by creating a kill zone they can't get out of.
Ramsey knew this. That was the point of the burning flayed men on saltires. It was to show range to the bowmen. Ramsey let Rickon run towards the Stark army, but waited until Jon was in position to kill him. He knew when Jon was in position because he knew exactly how far away the flayed men were. The fires also helped show wind direction. I'm sure Ramsey had another plan if Jon had refused to take the bait, but… like Sansa said, Ramsey is pretty good at getting into your head and pushing all the buttons in the way that will hurt you the most. Well, was.
Read Keegan's analysis of the battle of Agincourt to get a better feel for the Battle of the Bastards: https://www.amazon.com/Face-Battle-Study-Agincourt-Waterloo/dp/0140048979
These holidays or "holy days" were not often not really vacations but days that you would attend church and have a large meal. These days often were centered around a Saint or the life of Jesus and were pretty frequent. Church, above all, was a social gathering. People were very pious, but they also enjoyed gossip. These days were an important way of uniting scattered farms in the days before reliable mail systems.
On most of these days you would still do many chores and you may have also worked. From what I gather they were somewhat like a modern "half day".
Source: The Time Travelers Guide to Medieval England
Peasant was a very specific role played in a medieval village, though they were not always referred to by that title (title's the wrong word, since peasants weren't really given "titles", but you know what I'm saying.) In short, they were among the lowest classes of the very structured medieval fief system. Not all peasants were considered equal - some were more prestigious than others, either based on family history or their land's yield. Essentially, a peasant was a farmer, but it's more complicated than that. They did not own their own land (usually) and farmland was considered "communal" in that nobody "owned" it (the Lord really did) and everybody worked to keep the system going (for a while, for more information on why this system ended, see the Peasant Wars period in Britain and W. Europe). They were just above cotters, who subsisted in small cottages and lived on whatever they could grow in a tiny garden (this land was either undesirable to a liege lord, or gifted out of pity, or due to a family debt, or something similar). Peasants were workers, and were given land with the understanding that they could take enough food to survive, and pay the rest in tax. In exchange, they were offered protection from invasion and rival Lords, by their liege lord and his army.
We don't refer to people as peasants anymore because our economic system doesn't include this class of people. In modern capitalism, land can be bought and sold by any class of people, and land ownership is common. At least, in theory - I'm sure you could make the argument that banks have become the liege lord, because they hold the deed to your land while you pay your mortgage. In a sense, the middle class in America fulfills the role of peasants, because they pay out most of their wage in the form of bills, taxes, and loans. But, they standard of living for the middle and lower class in America is exponentially better than that of a medieval peasant.
For a good overview of the role of Peasants, Cotters, and liege Lords, read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Life-Medieval-Village-Frances-Gies/dp/0060920467
> ISBN 9780552152297
Welp the isbn is legit. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vulcan-607-Rowland-White/dp/0552152293 But I don't have time to read that shit. Now I just need someone to read it.
Funny I'm reading
Decline and Fall of the British Empire[Rise and Fall of the British Empire] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Rise-Fall-British-Empire/dp/031216985X) right now and finished the chapter on WWI not 20 minutes ago. Weird.On phone so will paraphrase: the British Empire at least had more than enough manpower available. The question was whether to train non-Indian native populations in the craft of modern war. Whites were highly valued as soldiers and did not like fighting next to coloreds of any sort. There was also a big concern about the dangers of teaching Africans and some Asians the craft of modern European war, lest a corps of professionally trained nationalist soldiers be used against white settlers post-bellum.
So while yes, the White ranks were running thin - particularly in the French Army, indigenous soldiers from the reaches of Empire were still mostly held back as porters and quartermasters. There was one story about how the Maori from New Zealand, magnificent fighters, were frustrated at being held on garrison duty in Malta.
So logically, one would expect that if the shortage of white troops grew too severe, native soldiers would fill the combat roles well before the consideration of women.
typed on my iPhone, forgive any typos
That sounds awesome! I'm currently building a world for a book. And something like this seems super helpful. Do you think it's the same as this one, even though the cover isn't quite the same? https://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908
Love this guy! Anyone who's unfamiliar he wrote a book last year called The Strange Death of Europe.
Here's a speech he gave that got a lot of traction as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjthnMOFSZM
A lot of people here are giving shitty answers and not helping because they disprove of your use of "dark ages."
On behalf on the internet I apologize. They are giving you crap for not knowing something you have expressed interest in learning about.
I am fascinated by the "Dark ages" and I have a history degree and I'm still using the term. I understand it to usually mean "the medieval times" or "the huge time-span that is not usually taught to the average student." Most history in public schools (at least that I've seen) tends to gloss over the time from the Romans to the early renaissance so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that's the era you want. It's my favorite era to study for that reason - most people know so little about this 1000 year span in history.
A good starter book for you would be A world lit only by Fire I loved this book. It's not overly scholarly and is a good read.
Another great one is Mysteries of the Middle Ages... Thomas Cahill is a great writer and if this version of the paperback is anything like my copy it is a visually stunning read. I discovered him through "How the Irish Saved Civilization" which was also great.
Mark Kurlansky's books (Salt and Cod specifically come to mind) are well written, specific histories that cover parts of this time period.
I wish my books weren't still packed (recently moved) because I want to dig through the stack and share them all. :) I suck at remembering names of stuff. I recommend browsing the amazon pages section of "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" for other good recommendations.
Happy Reading!! :)
edit - just remembered this one on the byzantine empire of all the books I've read on the Byzantines, that one is my favorite.
edit I'm getting a lashing for "A World Lit Only By Fire" due to the fact that it contains historical inaccuracies.
Please read this one instead In the year 1000.
I'm not trying to recommend dry scholarly tomes, I am trying to think of books that are fun, interesting, and entertaining to read while still being informative.
The core of Britain's Naval success lay around 3 things.
Firstly, the Royal Navy had powerful advocates at all levels of government, this resulted in what could most simply be described as 17th and 18th century interest group politics. This meant that there was always some degree of public funding and enthusiasm for the navy. Something essential in a service that cannot be built up quickly, ships take time to build.
Secondly, navies are expensive. In the 17th and 18th century Britain became the worlds leading economy, both from a basis of domestic manufacturing and internal trade as well as a dominant power in international trade. Additionally Britain had organized public finance, both in the form of the Bank of England, which allowed the government to take out loans at low rates of interest, as well as parliamentary control of expenditures, which meant a budget (this seems normal but both pre- and post revolutionary France lacked this).
Thirdly, due to Britain's extensive maritime trade the Royal Navy had access to a tremendously large pool of trained seamen. While an army can be recruited from the base of the entire population a navy functions best when recruited from a pool of skilled seamen. Despite having a smaller population than France the Royal Navy had access to a far larger pool of skilled sailors due to the relatively small part played by seaborne commerce and high seas fishing in the French economy.
Obviously all these factors are related, essentially 17th and 18th century Britain represented the perfect storm in terms of naval advantages, and while other states saw this and tried to compensate Britain's structural advantage was too great to overcome.
Edit for sources:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Command-Ocean-History-1649%C2%AD-1815/dp/0393060500
http://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Glory-Europe-1648-1815-ebook/dp/B002RUA4Y8/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370804892&sr=1-2&keywords=the+pursuit+of+glory+europe+1648-1815
You should give this a good once over.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World/dp/0609809997
Speaking of that FBI chick, there's a whole subculture of white European girls that want Muslim guys because they're perceived as vicious and strong relative to their cucky European counterparts. Just search tumblr. It's morbid.
Also this is a good book The Strange Death of Europe
The Germans went from a self described "master race" to cucks in under a century.
Agreed. Lots of the WWII books from the 80's and 90's very much bought into the superior Wehrmacht narrative. Michael Reynolds "Steel Inferno: 1st SS Panzer Corps in Normandy" was one of the first "serious" books I read about Normandy and it really hit home on the "inferior" nature of Allied tanks, the superiority of training and leadership of the SS soldiers, and that the Allies prevailed through numbers. It wasn't Wehrby in the sense that the author had a hard-on for the SS, but it was part of the school of thought that developed from the 80's revisionist works like Carlo D'Este book "Decision in Normandy", which made the notion the Allies won purely through superior material and manpower central to its thesis.
My fourth year university seminar paper was on the historiography of Anglo-Canadian armor in the Battle of Normandy, and you can see how many of the Wehraboo idea's came out of the literature of the late 70's and early 80s, though they existed in more "military" circles prior to that (NATO really got off in the 50's and 60's on getting the former German commanders to give them tours so they could "learn their secrets" on how to defeat enemies with superior manpower and resources - apparently forgot these guys lost).
It wasn't until the 2000's you started to get books like John Buckley's "British Armour in the Normandy Campaign 1944" or Stephen Hart's "Montgomery and Colossal Cracks: The 21st Army Group in Northwest Europe, 1944-45" or Terry Copps "Fields of Fire: The Canadians in Normandy" the reevaluated the Anglo-Canadian performance in Normandy against the Wehrmacht and SS in a better light. I'm less familiar with the historiography of the US army in WWII.
But the stuff that Wehraboo's spout was pretty mainstream only 2-3 decades ago. That is why the History Channel stuff is so bad, since the HC stopped doing serious documentaries in the early 2000's for the most part, so what HC documentaries remains on youtube tends to reflect where the school of thought was at that time. For all intents and purposes, the stuff on this subreddit is an outgrowth of the recent round of revisionism that occured in WWII history, which is revisionism against the previous round that occured around the 80's, which itself was revisionism from the post-war works (and there are different kinds of revisionism as well, for example post war works tended to be very strategic looking where as the revisionism of the 80's brought in a lot of the ground level stuff from interviews with veterans - John Kegans work "The face of battle" was really important in starting the trend of getting the experiences of soldiers recorded in WWII history books)
You might be interested in checking out How the Scots Invented the Modern World. Very good writer there if you like reading history.
Start with The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey. It's a great read and it will introduce you to a lot of concepts of the early middle ages in a fun and very informative way.
Then I'd move on to books by Joeseph and Frances Gies, particularly Life in a Medieval City, Life in a Medieval Castle, and Life in a Medieval Village (the last one being my personal favorite, although village life is especially interesting to me). You really can't go wrong with any Gies books though, so if one catches your eye, go for it.
Then, when you're ready to go into further depth, move onto the books of G. G. Coulton. They were mostly written in the early 20th century so they can be a little dry, but holy smokes the guy was an erudite medievalist, and many authors and researchers owe a lot to him.
BONUS: If, like me, you become interested in the village life aspect of the middle ages, there are some primary documents that you can find online too. I recommend at least The Rules of Robert Grosseteste, Seneschaucie, and Robert of Henley's Husbandry (I don't know what that site is, it was just the first one that came up on my search results).
Try The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth century. It's a good book, got good reviews and isn't to in-depth so remains a fun light read.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1845950992/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_K6vWBbDP2QMX7
Meh, over in the Americas, that was the term that we gave to Scottish immigrants at the time, and it stuck. You should note in that contemporary language in the UK at the time, Scotch was a perfectly acceptable adjective to apply to either the drink or the person. Also, at that time Scotch itself was not a popular drink amongst non-scottish folks.
If you're interested in Scottish history, I would recommend Arthur Herman's How the Scots Invented the Modern World:
http://www.amazon.ca/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World/dp/0609809997
Medieval Cities had specialized shops for almost everything. A city with actual walls would have freemen who were chandlers, butchers, leatherworkers, smiths, etc. with their own shops, typically with their family living in the second story of the building.
Market towns (pop a few hundred) are much more likely to have the everything is sold at the market vibe. But usually only twice a week or something. You probably would be entirely unable to find serious armor there.
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368722301&sr=8-1&keywords=time+travelers+guide+to+medieval+england
this book gives you a great background to extrapolate from real history to get a realistic fantasy setting
> Where she claims white europeans are being forced out of europe by dirty brown people.
I'm sorry, did she say that in the video? If so, what timestamp? If not, you're engaging in some very divisive rhetoric.
How about addressing the topic discussed in the video rather than straw manning statements that weren't made? You seem to think Southern is the only one talking about the death of Europe. I would strongly encourage you to read: https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Death-Europe-Immigration-Identity/dp/1472942248/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&dpID=61bPgEl9KIL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=detail
The unfettered import of millions of people who have no ties to Western society, nor the inclination to assimilate, is how you destroy a culture. This isn't rocket science. Pretending that this isn't the case doesn't make you more progressive.
It wasn't all that dissimilar from many marriages today. Two people gathered together with their friends and families, which often constituted their entire village. They gathered at the medieval community center most often, which was usually the local church or chapel. The purpose of meeting here was not only to receive the blessing of God on their marriage, but also to announce their marriage in a public setting with reputable witnesses, of which any official member of the clergy was included. These witnesses legitimized the marriage in the eyes of God and the people, especially important before government records were regularly kept and customs were still largely oral.
Well known modern scholars on the subject are Frances and Joseph Gies, Life in a Medieval Village, here, or Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages, here. Barbara Hanawalt has one of the most respected books on medieval peasantry in the last generation called The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England, here.
Finally, a duller look of medieval marriage according to canon law can be found in Gratian's Decretum here.
I hope this helps a little. Happy Reading!
There’s a really interesting book out there about Operation Black Buck , the RAF Vulcan Bomber - Victor Tanker missions during the Falklands War.
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908
I loved Witcher 3. You might be interested in this: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908
Read, read, and read some more.
A decent popularly-accessible book on life in the later "dark ages" would be The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey. He addresses everything from daily life, to the agricultural cycle, to health and medicine all in a short and easy read.
Now that's for England in the late 10th century. The fads, superstitions, and culture would be different in, say, southern France or Silesia.
As for a little theory-crafting:
Your house would be a single room, made of a timber frame and walled with wattle-and-daub. The thatch making up the roof would be replaced every couple years or so (a more efficient way of doing this wouldn't be invented until the 14th century), and the floor of bare earth covered with a thick layer of rushes that were swept out and replaced periodically.
You wake up at dawn lying on the floor. You have no bed to speak of, but the rushes are comparably soft and warm, and your woolen blanket soft and comfortable. You complain to your wife that it might be time to change the fleabane hanging from the walls, as you think a couple might have gotten in to your blankets. She rolls her eyes at your grousing and prods at the small fire in the center of the single room. The smoke rises to the rafters and slowly leaks out through a vent on one side.
Your children rise groggily and rub their eyes as you wash your face, arms, hands, and chest with water from a pottery basin and ewer. You change your linen undershirt and briaes (sort of like loose boxer shorts) and pull on your long, woolen tunic. You've had it for a long time, and the once more vibrant orange-red color, dyed with madder, has begun to fade.
You instruct your middle child to empty the chamber pots while you head outside to relieve yourself. After you finish, you give your younger children their final reprimands to do their chores, feel the forehead of your youngest and fret she's feeling feverish, fetch your single ox, kiss your wife, and head for the fields. Your eldest son accompanies you. Though he is still young, he will be assigned to keep the birds away from the freshly-planted seed with stones and sticks.
It's early spring, and that means plowing. You meet with the other men of the manner and work together to plow your fields. you have been assigned a couple narrow strips in a couple different fields, as has everyone else. Whatever you can grow in these furrows is yours. In addition to your own land, you and your neighbors also work the land of your lord. It's a two-way relationship--you work his land and he lays on feasts and provides certain resources. If times are hard, he's required to feed you. Last year, the harvest was bad and several freemen from the surrounding came to your lord and voluntarily submitted themselves to him in exchange for food. They now number amongst your neighbors.
You work all morning with the other men plowing long, narrow furrows into the earth and scattering seeds for the yearly crop of wheat or barley. You break at midday for your first meal of the day, a thick pottage of long-boiled vegetables thickened with barley and edible greens. You drink a weak ale or water (you're away from the cities--the water is as clean as it gets).
You work all afternoon, chatting and gossiping with the others. Your wife is at home grinding wheat and barley, tending the fire, cooking your meal, spinning wool into yarn, gathering vegetables from the fields surrounding, and wash the family's linen undergarments. Your children help to their abilities, take care of the animals, fetch water, and play.
In the evening, your chat, play, sing, eat, drink, and pray. When night falls, you strip off your woolen outer layers, maybe change to fresh linens, and curl up in your blankets next to your wife on the floor. Tomorrow is a Sunday, and that means church. The next day is a feast day, and that also means church, as well as some merryment with your neighbors.
You grow different crops at different times of year. You have all sorts of superstitions about how to get the best crop yields, how to stay healthy, how to avoid trouble--some work; some don't. Religion is not really something you even think about--it's just a part of daily life. You've never in your entire life met anyone with beliefs other than that of "christian," though you've heard tell of lands beyond.
If you get sick, there are prayers and home remedies a plenty. You're too poor to afford one of the school-trained doctors, of which there are a few, who study the old Greek and Roman arts of medicine.
If you're badly injured, there are amputations, trepanning, and setting of broken bones.
If we're in England, in times of trouble, you would not be called up to fight in the Fyrd (closest modern term would be "militia"). That was for the freemen. If you were a freeman, you would be required to own a shield and spear and to turn up with both plus personal provisions when your lord orders, or pay a hefty fine.
If you are wronged, justice was local, with the community taking care of most of the judgement and the lord acting as arbiter if necessary. The Saxon-era English had a rather ingenious system of fines for various offences, including set rates for loss or damage of body parts (teeth included).
I do believe this is the book you're looking for. There is most definitely a correlation between the two.
N.A.M. Rogers talks about how trading of languages was common aboard Royal Navy ships; this mixing of languages, in addition to the generally dangerous and insular lifestyle led by career men, would no doubt imprint upon them a veritable omniscience of swears. And it makes sense, in my own interactions with people learning English or Danish, the first words they want to know are the swears.
For the medieval period, I found The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England very interesting. Definitely more of a popular book than hard-core history, though.
"We did some crap back then"
I wouldn't have chosen this phrase when summarising the exploits of the British Empire. It was a murderous and abusive scheme that forced millions into misery, pain and death.
If you feel the urge to glimpse back I recommend you to read The Blood Never Dried: A People's History of the British Empire link here for more deatils http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Blood-Never-Dried-Peoples/dp/1905192126/ref=pd_cp_b_0
To feel guilt about something is the first understand what to truly not feel guilt about.
http://www.amazon.com/Face-Battle-Study-Agincourt-Waterloo/dp/0140048979
You'll never go wrong with John Keegan
https://www.amazon.com/Year-1000-First-Millennium-Englishmans/dp/0316511579
It's time once again for the AskHistorians Book Giveaway! This month we picked two winners: Eric Hacke and Alec Barnaby! The selection of books we have available this month are:
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They supported the vulcans in Operation Black buck, but still are gorgeous aircraft in their own right, those 60s lines will never be repeated.
Vulcan 607 is a great read on the whole operation.
Plus some other stuff.
How the Scots invented the modern world and everything in it
Invented the whole modern world, according to this book. As a Canadian of Scottish descent, I like to think so.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World/dp/0609809997
I'm currently reading this and it's obvious that GRRM has done a great deal of research of this era before putting pen to paper. From the social structures to living conditions, hygiene, rural vs urban living, wars, laws and plagues.
Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain covers the British Isles and is a pretty easy read meant for the non-technical audience. As far as I know, no one seriously disputes its findings which are, basically, that the people of the British Isles are overwhelmingly descended from ice-age populations and not, as many have long believed, from Celtic or Germanic-speaking groups that came over from mainland Europe. There is an ancient divide between the eastern (Germanic) and western (Celtic) sides of the British Isles, but it too dates back to the ice age and arises from the two groups having originated in different ice-age refuges in the western Mediterranean and Black Sea respectively.
For those interested in a good read about The Somme, check out John Keegan's The Face of Battle.
https://www.amazon.com/Face-Battle-Study-Agincourt-Waterloo/dp/0140048979
Here's a good book that came out in 2000 AD and describes life in England circa 1000 AD.
I have nothing to contribute to this excellent comment other than to recommend that the OP read The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, which is an excellent book that answers this very question.
On science and evolution:
Genetics is where it's at. There is a ton of good fossil evidence, but genetics actually proves it on paper. Most books you can get through your local library (even by interlibrary loan) so you don't have to shell out for them just to read them.
Books:
The Making of the Fittest outlines many new forensic proofs of evolution. Fossil genes are an important aspect... they prove common ancestry. Did you know that humans have the gene for Vitamin C synthesis? (which would allow us to synthesize Vitamin C from our food instead of having to ingest it directly from fruit?) Many mammals have the same gene, but through a mutation, we lost the functionality, but it still hangs around.
Deep Ancestry proves the "out of Africa" hypothesis of human origins. It's no longer even a debate. MtDNA and Y-Chromosome DNA can be traced back directly to where our species began.
To give more rounded arguments, Hitchens can't be beat: God Is Not Great and The Portable Atheist (which is an overview of the best atheist writings in history, and one which I cannot recommend highly enough). Also, Dawkin's book The Greatest Show on Earth is a good overview of evolution.
General science: Stephen Hawking's books The Grand Design and A Briefer History of Time are excellent for laying the groundwork from Newtonian physics to Einstein's relativity through to the modern discovery of Quantum Mechanics.
Bertrand Russell and Thomas Paine are also excellent sources for philosophical, humanist, atheist thought; but they are included in the aforementioned Portable Atheist... but I have read much of their writings otherwise, and they are very good.
Also a subscription to a good peer-reviewed journal such as Nature is awesome, but can be expensive and very in depth.
Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate is also an excellent look at the human mind and genetics. To understand how the mind works, is almost your most important tool. If you know why people say the horrible things they do, you can see their words for what they are... you can see past what they say and see the mechanisms behind the words.
I've also been studying Zen for about a year. It's non-theistic and classed as "eastern philosophy". The Way of Zen kept me from losing my mind after deconverting and then struggling with the thought of a purposeless life and no future. I found it absolutely necessary to root out the remainder of the harmful indoctrination that still existed in my mind; and finally allowed me to see reality as it is instead of overlaying an ideology or worldview on everything.
Also, learn about the universe. Astronomy has been a useful tool for me. I can point my telescope at a galaxy that is more than 20 million light years away and say to someone, "See that galaxy? It took over 20 million years for the light from that galaxy to reach your eye." Creationists scoff at millions of years and say that it's a fantasy; but the universe provides real proof of "deep time" you can see with your own eyes.
Videos:
I recommend books first, because they are the best way to learn, but there are also very good video series out there.
BestofScience has an amazing series on evolution.
AronRa's Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism is awesome.
Thunderfoot's Why do people laugh at creationists is good.
Atheistcoffee's Why I am no longer a creationist is also good.
Also check out TheraminTrees for more on the psychology of religion; Potholer54 on The Big Bang to Us Made Easy; and Evid3nc3's series on deconversion.
Also check out the Evolution Documentary Youtube Channel for some of the world's best documentary series on evolution and science.
I'm sure I've overlooked something here... but that's some stuff off the top of my head. If you have any questions about anything, or just need to talk, send me a message!
You might also try Alfred Crosby's Ecological Imperialism. It's required reading (along with Jared Diamond) for my Master's global history program. One thing to remember about Diamond is that he is not a historian and did not intend to write a history - only a theory of why Europeans were given a leg up with the help of environmental factors. Ecological Imperialism (written 10 years prior to Diamond) that operates on a similar theory but is much more historical and (honestly) isn't as dry or repetitive as Diamond. It's worth noting that while Diamond get's a lot of press and praise his theory is also hotly debated by historians and biologists alike.
Agreed.
This is the book that her guest wrote:
https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Death-Liberal-Europe/dp/1472942248
His comments were 100% accurate on European immigration.
Concepts of courage on the battlefield change with the technology and its use in warfare. John Keegan has written two books that touch on this - The Face of Battle and The Mask of Command
I actually found this one even more enjoyable than Time Traveler’s Guide. The prose is so charming.
The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, An Englishman's World
The Year 1000 - I read this book in my History of England class back in college. It's one of the few books assigned I actually read cover to cover. It's small, easy to read, and packed with interesting info.
We also read The Virgin Queen by Christopher Hibbert, that was a pretty good non-fiction book on Elizabeth I that reads more like a novel.
Congratulations! I know what a big step that is, as I've been in the same boat. Books are the best way to become informed. Check out books by:
Also check out the video series Why I am no longer a creationist.
The more you know, the more confident you will be.
It's really hard to separate them accurately. There is a lot of extremely intertwined genetics in the British Isles. A good book on the subject is "Saxons, Vikings and Celts" https://www.amazon.com/Saxons-Vikings-Celts-Genetic-Britain/dp/0393330753
Saxons, Vikings, and Celts by Bryan Sykes is a fascinating book that explores this topic using extensive DNA testing of modern inhabitants of "The Isles" (term Sykes uses for the British Isles throughout the book). Some of of the DNA stuff gets a touch technical but he tries very hard to not overdo the hard science speak. All of your questions are addressed in some fashion. Available on Audible with a very enjoyable reader.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vulcan-607-Rowland-White/dp/0552152293
Really nice book on the sortie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAoLJkiRuGY
Majestic aircraft, absolutely huge.
Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World/dp/0609809997
I was thinking more of ideas rather than implementation. These ideas of Capitalism, Liberalism and Imperialism that define the modern world are found really strongly in the UK, then in the Netherlands, Northern France, and they become diluted and changed as they go further from there.
It's How the Scots Invented the Modern World. Similar titles include How the Irish Saved Civilization, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, and Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. None of them are by the same author, but they're all interesting historical books with similar titles (How some great culture did great things that built what we have now), none the less.
I would love to find similar titles about other countries, cultures, and civilizations. They're always so interesting!
https://www.amazon.com/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World/dp/0609809997
Ian Mortimer's A Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England is a good, cheap, and readable survey of 14th century life.
I just finished this... it was quite good.
This book and it's series of books will tell you most you want to know, from what colors you couldn't wear or what kind of birds you were not allowed to eat. Great detail and fun read.
https://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908
Ian Mortimer has a series of Time Traveler’s Guides to X
https://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908/
Possibly one of those?
https://smile.amazon.com/Wars-Roses-Alison-Weir/dp/0345404335
https://smile.amazon.com/Princes-Tower-Alison-Weir/dp/0345391780
https://smile.amazon.com/Reluctant-Queen-Story-Queens-England-ebook/dp/B000VSW7TI
https://smile.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908
Will probably be hard to find a book on that topic that is not biased in some way, unless you just want to analyze data. And even that presents it’s own problems. It would probably be better to chose a book from each “side” of the bias and read them both.
I would recommend The Strange Death of Europe for the “hey, this level of immigration may be a problem” side.
Wow, what a post. I've tried to track down the quote, which led me to what looks like the source -
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/the-corruption-of-the-white-westerner-foundation-myth/
and that post refers to a article by John Derbyshire
http://www.unz.com/jderbyshire/no-decent-answers-on-douglas-murrays-the-strange-death-of-europe/
which in turn refers to a book by Douglas Murray, 'The Strange Death of Europe'
https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Death-Europe-Immigration-Identity/dp/1472942248/
Might I suggest the reading list?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/europe#wiki_middle_ages
And although it's not on the list, I really enjoyed this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Travellers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1845950992
Hi, medieval historian here.
What time period are you interested in, and what region of the world? You probably need to choose one. The Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian dark age mythology is what Tolkein's world is based on (north western Europe, c. 500-1100) whilst the early parts of Martin's world is based on England during the Wars of the Roses (1465-1485).
If you've not read history before, getting stuck into a text book can be pretty dry going. What you'll want is some kind of generalistic guide. I recommend the following:
The Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England
The mi5 wasn't around when the empire was.
This is a great read about the empire by Lawrence James just if anyone is interested in history.
I would go as far as to say the whole british empire was counting peanuts compared to the US Empire.
And they should have learned from mi6 not mi5 if they want to deal with foreigners. They could share some knowledge on economical warfare.
The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, An Englishman's World
I really enjoyed The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium
Another good one that comes to mind is London: The Biography
Also, if you're on FB, there are some pretty cool groups for UK history enthusiasts that you might want to join/check out. I bet if you asked this question in one of those groups (I used to be in a couple, but am not on FB anymore) you'd get a lot of feedback.
good recommendation. I've finished "The Year 1000" and found it interesting with respect to the daily life based on the work calendar. Nonfiction but interesting
This is the book I would recommend as a starting point to the subject. It is The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy by David Cannadine.
The premise is that it was a combination of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of popular democracy, and the effects of two world wars that led to the British nobility losing so much of their hold over the country in less than a century.
I would add that you really can't underestimate the effect of the First World War on that transformation. First, it was an opportunity for the lower classes to see how completely inept many of their supposed social superiors were, in ineptly leading them into a seemingly pointless and incredibly bloody war. Secondly, the crippling debt incurred by Britain during the war and the ensuing economic crisis. And thirdly, many of the young officers in the British Army during the First World War were scions of the nobility, and the casualty rate among those officers was severe. While the phrase "Lost Generation" might be a bit much, it is not going too far to say that the loss of so many future Dukes, Earls, Viscounts, and Peers did have an effect on the break up of the British Aristocracy.
Maybe Richard Shannon's two-volume biography?
Gladstone: Peel's Inheritor, 1809-1865 (1982)
Gladstone: Heroic Minister, 1865-1898 (1999)
See also David Cannadine's Victorious Century (2017) and his book The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (1990), part of the AskHistorians booklist. There are countless threads in this subreddit about the Victorian Era.
Hi there, I am not a professional naval historian (my master's was in American history, post civil war) but I have read quite a bit on the topic. Several books come to mind:
http://www.amazon.com/Dreadnought-Robert-K-Massie/dp/0345375564/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370960465&sr=1-1&keywords=dreadnought+massie
http://www.amazon.com/Castles-Steel-Britain-Germany-Winning/dp/0345408780/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370960472&sr=1-6
The Safeguard of the Sea:
http://www.amazon.com/Safeguard-Sea-History-Britain-660-1649/dp/0393319601/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370960428&sr=1-3
The Command of the Ocean:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Command-Ocean-History-1649%C2%AD-1815/dp/0393060500
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0140096507
http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Sword-Untold-Battle-Midway/dp/1574889249
And, of course, if you want fiction, both the Horatio Hornblower and the Aubrey-Maturin series are good reads. A-M is a bit more modern lit; Hornblower is entertaining but starts to read a bit older.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Hornblower
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey–Maturin_series
I hope this helps. When I get home I'll take a look at my shelves and see what else comes to mind.
For anybody interested in learning more about almost everything being discussed in this thread, I highly recommend reading The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution by Sean B. Carroll. Dr. Carroll is not only a leader in the field of Evo-Devo, he is an excellent writer, making some of the most difficult concepts of the molecular aspects of evolution easy to understand.
This book is an engaging and quick read if you'd like to know more about Evolution from the viewpoint of how the micro- begets the macro-biology.
> How do you rebutt Christians who claim that prophecies like [Isaiah 53] predicted Jesus and his death?
This is a very, very complex passage. There are literally entire books about proper interpretation of ancient texts; say what you want about the legitimacy of OT scripture, it is a historical document that requires an understanding of the context and culture of its writing. For a brief primer, check this out.
>I have parents that are anti-evolution but know nothing about it. What can I do (if anything) to show them that evolution is fact.
You can do nothing if they are unwilling to investigate it on their own. Being against something you are (willfully) ignorant of is, with all due respect, the epitome of ineptitude.
>Not some wacky theory that some drunken scientist came up with after beating his wife, but fact.
I'm honestly not aware of any well publicized scientific theory that originated from a drunken, wife beating scientist, so there's nothing I can contrast this with. (However, I'm convinced John was on shrooms when he wrote Revelation) If there is any hope, I would begin with the proper explanation of what a "theory" is in the scientific perspective. To simplify (and probably over-simplify), something can still be a theory, scientifically, but also be a fact.
As a demonstration, I would tell them to jump off a bridge. After all, gravity is only a theory.
>Have a favourite Dawkins quote? :)
Yup.
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”
>What single argument was the single greatest point in debunking your creationism? (I ask because I often debate creationists).
Genetics. By far. The DNA evidence is astounding. I highly suggest The Relics of Eden and The Making of the Fittest.
>f I have any questions about the Bible I'll be sure to message you. You sound quite knowledgable on it. Cheers!
I would welcome it. At least I could now put some practical use to all this knowledge in my head. :)
I encourage you to read Vulcan 607 by Rowland White, a dramatised account of the British response to the conflict. It focuses mostly on the military activity but includes details on the mood of the populace and British thought in general.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vulcan-607-Rowland-White/dp/0552152293
great time to watch this documentary (XM607)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBJ99bIhAVk
found via http://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/2go7hv/xm607_falklands_most_daring_raid_2012_the_vulcans/
(mirror working at time i posted).
if you like this, this is the book it's based on, check used for a cheap copy.
> "I more than enjoyed it, it could have been written specially for me."
^Jeremy ^Clarkson
Barbara Tuchman was brilliant writer of history.
Albert Camus was a brilliant absurdist philosopher and novelist.
Jared Diamond has written some brilliant books at the intersection of anthropology and ecology. Another good book in this genre is Clive Ponting's A New Green History of the World.
Gwynne Dyer is an acclaimed military historian turned journalist on international affairs who has written a number of very engaging books on warfare and politics. His most recent book Climate Wars is the ONE book I would recommend to someone, if so limited, on the subject as it embodies both a wonderful synopsis of the science juxtaposed against the harsh realpolitiks and potential fates of humankind that may unfold unless we can manage to tackle the matter seriously, soon. Another great book on climate change is Bill McKibben's Deep Economy.
For social activists interested in ending world hunger and abject poverty, I can recommend: Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom; Nobel Prize winning micro-financier Muhammad Yunus' Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism; UN MDG famed economist Jeffrey Sach's End Of Poverty; and Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea
For anyone of Scottish heritage, I heartily recommend Arthur Hermann's How The Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It
For naval history buffs: Robert K. Massie's Dreadnought.
Last, but not least: Robert Pirsig's classic Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Enjoy!
THAT IS WHY WE HAD TO INVENT MODERN CIVILISATION
How the Scots invented the modern world by Arthur Herman
10/10
https://www.amazon.com/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World/dp/0609809997
MFE,
We’ve had such a delightful string of evenings “together” that I’m only now finally finishing responding to your foreign film message. : )
I’ve seen Seven Samurai, but I think that’s the only one of Kurosawa’s that I’ve seen and I’m afraid I don’t remember it too well. What do you like about his works?
Watching the trailers, I see a lot of parallels to American westerns. How much influence did Kurosawa have on them or they on him?
Ran looks so elegant to me, but I can’t tell if that’s just the score and the way the trailer is cut. Dreams looks amazing. Also, as I watched the trailer, the voiceover wording going from “as a child” to “as a man” struck me. Are there things in Kurosawa’s films that speak to the man you have been, the man you are, and/or the man you are becoming (not that you need to become any different than you are, but we are all constantly changing and growing).
I haven’t seen Tampopo or the trilogy. You calling them tops means I definitely need to see them at some point. : )
Have I told you how much I love Fifth Element? Yet, I haven’t seen any of his others. I love, love, love that the right song was needed before the chase could commence. Oh, and how funny about the guy throwing up. You’d think that’d be par for the course with the driving that goes into a car chase, yet I’ve never seen that shown!
The line from Clockwise about him showing off his muscles and her egging him on reminded me of us: you showing your mental muscle in so many ways and me very much appreciating and enjoying your displays of intellectual prowess.
Nightwatch and Daywatch look mesmerizing. I don’t watch a lot of horror, but those look very good and well worth the chills.
Oh, how have I let myself slip into so much work and so few movies? La Vie En Rose looks amazing! : )
I’ll return the favor, but I notice as I think back on the foreign language films I enjoy that I’ve rarely seen any of them more than once or twice. I think that gets down to the whole multi-tasking thing and in-home media entertainment tending to be a backdrop for manual activities.
And now I’m laughing at how that came out, but I’m going to leave it in just in case you get a laugh out of it too. : )
So, the foreign film that really sticks out for me is Life is Beautiful. The idea that a man could have such a soul as to create that world of charming adventure for his child in a concentration camp blows me away.
(These are more in order of how much I can remember about them rather than in order of favorites.)
The next one I’ve seen enough to remember is Das Boot. War isn’t my first choice of relaxing subject matters, but I think it’s a beautiful film. It has that Ran elegance about it. While the war part isn’t a draw, I love technology and you know how I feel about water, so submarines are pretty amazing. I’ve enjoyed tremendously the ones (all docked) that I’ve toured.
The film 3 Iron (which seems available in its entirety is a quietly surreal piece that leaves you wondering at the end what really happened.
Pan’s Labrynth was visually complex with many scary and rough moments that were are richly detailed as they were discomforting.
O’Horton was just cute. It wasn’t a top favorite, but it’s a warm, sweet film.
The rest I have just the barest memories of, but they all were compelling enough that I’d watch them again if time allowed for it. They include [Like Water for Chocolate] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqm8_GjKDBc), Fanny and Alexander, and [Babette’s Feast] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvNifgj_dv4).
I feel like I have seen this one, but I’m not positive. : )
>And I love to make you smile
: ) You telling me that widens the one you’d already put there. : )
>How is it the Poms seem to have a corner on the Science-Fiction-Comedy?
Just from comparing the wiki pages on British humor and sci fi, I wonder if some of the fit is because the invented portions of people, worlds, and mechanisms are easy targets for sarcasm and the awkwardness of some to function in those unique and demanding settings for self-deprecation. Additionally, humor based on insensitivity to cultural differences can be more acceptable when the culture being joked about is fictional.
I think the inventiveness of Brits (in which the Scots seemed to play no mean role) plays well into a genre called a “literature of ideas” and that depends on the reader/viewer’s ability to be comfortable with new and unusual scientific explanations and solutions .
>Just plain not freezing properly and ruining it for one of the audience...letting someone down.
Oh, that plays into so many things we’ve talked about, doesn’t it? I’ve mentioned the utter enjoyment a woman can have being active around a man even when he prefers to be more staid, and the thought that you might worry even about your ability to be appropriately staid makes my heart go out to you. Yes, I do know the part, though, to do with worrying about letting someone down. Given our conversations about what I do not feel comfortable with in terms of adventure, mine seems to run the opposite course in worrying about my ability to be appropriately active without causing anyone emotional or physical harm.
>Had the old magazine kept moving along, I would probably still be doing it.
I will direct my wishes toward whatever you want to have happen whether it’s to be done with magazine editing or to have some opportunity that you would like materialize. I don’t think it’s a secret that I admire your mind, spirit, and writing. You have a gift, but how you will most enjoy that gift is completely up to you. : )
The Dakar video was amazing. That would be so awesome to do. I read a little bit about Dakar rally and learned what erg is. What would be your vehicle of choice for the rally?
Sama Amie seems to capture well the intensity, risk, and vibrance of the rally as well as the simple of joy of pursuing something complex and thrilling. : )
The headings are great on the picture of the issue cover you linked, and what a great image! : )
>My reporting writing isn't all that great.
I’m sure you know my default is both to beg to differ because of the high qualities I see in your writing while simultaneously deferring to your self-knowledge. Why do you think it isn’t great?
>At the eleventh hour the entire rally was cancelled due to terrorism/security concerns.
I’m so sorry that happened. The world will never know all the little dealings for good that get lost in the vast mis-shufflings of greed.
>Which one would you like me to post?
Please choose what you would like to give me. Your writing of any sort is a gift to me. I’d love for you to pick something out. : )
>sock...black the next day. And the next...
So if I see you in jet, onyx, ebony, obsidian, slate, or raven, I know something has gone terribly wrong, right? : )
>I have to try and figure out who's chopping onions in my front room, can't seem to find 'em.
Good to know I’m not the only one who has welled up on more than one occasion. You fill me with joy to the point of it overflowing onto my cheeks and past my through-my-tears smiles.
better lAte than never
Edit: corralling links
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0609809997?pc_redir=1410434164&robot_redir=1
Apparently the map is from this book: Countries we've Ever Invaded
Some of the territories are very tenuous... so 'Invade' needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.
I believe the map is from/based on information in this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Anglo-American-Establishment-Quigley-Carroll/dp/0945001010
History of the CFR aka the Rhodes group. Quigley describes their system as " rings within rings." Their membership list online would be the outer ring and with so many members, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi for instance the list seems harmless enough. It's sold as a who's who in companies and individuals interested in foreign policy. It's those inner circles that Quigley speaks of that hold memberships not known to anyone. He isn't even sure exactly when members join or leave the group as they have no record of membership. The book is THE definitive work on this group being as its written by such an esteemed historian. To my knowledge no one has been able to write anything thereafter so from the late 60's onward there is this huge gap.
I've never gotten into symbology but tonight when I get off work I'll give your link a go. I'm a huge James Corbett fan and a few weeks ago he put out a crazy video on social engineering that included some weird religious stuff. Here's the link
https://youtu.be/XegdPElp81A
This one is a fun read with some every aspects of life you normally wouldn't think about, Time travelers guide to medieval england http://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112894. It deals with the 1300s though.
If I may suggest a good read on a similar subject: The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer. This is how I wish I had learned about history in school; i.e., not about battles and kings and memorizing dates of treaties, but about how folks were actually living at the time.
Hi!
My name is Ed McDonald and I'm a fantasy author. My debut is going to be released across 6 languages in 2017/18, so I have some insights on this. I am looking forward to Blackwing being published so that I don't have to write this as a disclaimer all the time :D. I'm also speaking on a panel about getting published in fantasy at the London Book Fair in March.
Firstly, read fantasy. All the fantasy. But it's more important to read the things that are currently being published than it is the classics. You won't learn much from Tolkien these days, times have changed since LOTR. Instead, if it's epic fantasy you want to write, then you need to read Rothfuss, Sanderson, Abercrombie, Lawrence and Lynch. They are the big sellers for epic. If you want to write YA stuff then read YA stuff. This is not just because those writers are great, but because it will teach you the market trends.
Next though, reading outside the genre is great, but only to find books that you enjoy so that you can cut them apart. My guilty pleasure? Lee Child's Jack Reacher books. They frequently have glaring plot holes or don't make sense, and are full of deus ex machina resolutions or just "and then Jack blew his head off" finales, but the pace and the simplicity keeps me turning the page. And from that, I learned that I much prefer a Reacher novel to trudging through 5 pages of world building at a time, so when I write fantasy, I write fast paced thrillers which is what then sold Blackwing around the world. I wouldn't have gained that style without reading outside the genre.
Finally, I guess I'm cheating because I have some degrees in history, but if you're writing historically inspired settings, you ought to be reading some history. Don't try to plough through dry academic texts if you aren't a historian though - I'm an academic and even I find those dry as sand. Get the popular stuff, even kid's history, just to try to soak up the feel of the period. The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England is essential for those that want to gain a quick overview.
https://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486802982&sr=1-1&keywords=the+time+traveller%27s+guide+to+medieval+england
I write a blog that mainly focuses on assisting aspiring authors such as yourself and you may find some of it helpful.
https://edmcdonaldwriting.com/2017/01/25/you-are-not-george-rr-martin-how-to-get-published-in-the-grimdark-era-of-fantasy/
There's this, albeit a different time period: http://smile.amazon.com/dp/1439112908/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=BKTCY0V8K7XD&coliid=I1B9AZ44XS0SEO
and also this fun desktop background: http://i.imgur.com/zXFY5.jpg
edit: of course a dozen people have already posted this - what was I thinking?
It can be dangerous to go alone. Take this!
PART II
BUT there are problems with your prose too
There are times where you really do TELL us stuff that you should not.
>We had no idea of the horrors that lay ahead, only that the world we left was not alone. Someone had made a life here, someone not of our land, so it stood to reason that there were more of them out there and a new land that perhaps we could call home.
This is a bad TELL. Don’t let us know there is more horrors. Let us discover them as the narrator does.
Don’t tell us that people made a life here. SHOW us that they did.
> the scene was a thousand times more unsettling than before
This almost made me puke. This is terrible. DO NOT SAY SOMETHING WAS 1000X MORE UNSETTLING. Show us this. It is that simple. SHOW us why it was unsettling. Describe the scene, and let us revel in the quiet horror that you paint.
> I understood then that he was never a coward, but that he simply could not bear the sight of more death. Ironically, his exile brought him in contact with more death than we ever saw at home.
A thousand times NO. You CANNOT tell someone the point of the story. You MUST trust your reader to figure it out. If you do, then your ending will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
At other times, you use ineffective language:
> and cities buzzed like beehives,
This really tells us nothing. It really doesn’t. HOW do they buzz? What are the people doing (or what does the narrator imagine they are doing) that they are buzzing?
OK, on the whole there is middling-to-bad prose, with moments of just absolute mind-boggling brilliance. If you can practice your prose and get it all up the point of the first 4 paragraphs, you will dazzle all those who read your stuff.
You are a LONG-ASS way from this. But the fact is that you can do it. You have done it. You just need to train your writing so that you do it all the time.
So, get to it.
WORLD BUILDING/CONSISTENCY
There are a LOT of problems here. You don’t really lay out a accurate view of the black death. You have the characters describe artifacts that they have never encountered – using words that are commonly used by people familiar with these artifacts. You have them know things about the world they cannot (e.g. like which houses are better built, when they have never seen houses like it).
This is a major problem – but it is an EASY problem to solve
First, decide when you think this occurred. THEN, read a 2-6 books each on the periods of time – both in the Americas and Europe. This will give you a sense of what is reasonable to expect in the Europe setting and what the native Americans would be used to seeing (and not seeing).
If you want to go for the middle ages, I suggest the following (for Europe): The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England. I have no good suggestions for the Americas.
Again, as written the world you have is not good enough to be credible, but this is readily solved via some research.
So, get to it.
CONCLUSIONS
I don’t say this often (ever?). You have the beginnings of an amazing story. Your strongest asset is your moments of amazing prose, and the fact that you have already established compelling characters with so little. If you expand this, while maintaining what is good and correcting what is bad, you will have quite a story. But there is much work to be done. You need a more fleshed out plot. You need more -- and more active -- characters, and you need a more believable story. NONE of these are problems that cannot be solved.
So…Get to it. :)
The book I read.
SHHHHH dude. NOOOO. KEEP IT ON THE DOWNLOW!
I don't want the Islamic Truck of Tolerance to pay me a visit.
Your savior
Douglas Murray - Strange Death of Europe
Douglas Murraylla on todella hyvää näkemystä Euroopan tilanteesta ja tuo kirja on varmasti asiaa vielä enemmän avaava.
O último foi este: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Death-Europe-Immigration-Identity/dp/1472942248
Recomendo.
or Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain by geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer. As mentioned in this book review by the NY Times
> In all, about three-quarters of the ancestors of today’s British and Irish populations arrived between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago ... Ireland received the fewest of the subsequent invaders [i.e. Celts, Romans, Angles/Saxons/Jutes, Norse, Normans]; their DNA makes up about 12 percent of the Irish gene pool, ... 20 percent of the gene pool in Wales, 30 percent in Scotland, and about a third in eastern and southern England. But no single group of invaders is responsible for more than 5 percent of the current gene pool
edit: fixed link, expanded quote
[solved] Yes! YES! That's it! I was going to say the title started with "Welcome To," but I wasn't 100% sure. And THIS is the cover I had:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Welcome-Everytown-Journey-into-English/dp/1862079986/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319066216&sr=1-2
Thank you so much! I wish I could do something nice for you. You have no idea how much this has been bothering me! Seriously, I feel like almost crying with joy.
I don't live there but I've visited and had work there. I live maybe 25-30 minutes drive away, and I have shopped a fair bit nearby.
I've always found it a very nice place. Centre is a bit brutalist in architectural terms. People extremely friendly.
For me it's a great shame it's got tarred with the brush of the child abuse.
It's kind of a little brother to Sheffield though.
There are many nice villages around e.g. Wentworth, Tickhill; quick access to open countryside also. Good communications with the M18 joining up with the A1 and M1.
Recommended reading: Welcome to Everytown by Julian Baggini.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Welcome-Everytown-Journey-into-English/dp/1862079986
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Never-Dried-Peoples-History/dp/1905192126 seems like a good start.
Life in a Medieval Village
https://www.amazon.ca/Life-Medieval-Village-Frances-Gies/dp/0060920467
Anyone interested in medieval peasant life should check out Life in a Medieval Village. It's actually really interesting to see how they lived and is backed up pretty well.
I highly recommend reading the Agincourt chapter of John Keegan's "The Face of Battle". Keegan talks about what a French soldier would have experienced on an individual level, something that was largely absent from discussions of warfare before Keegan wrote this book in the early 1970s.
I read that civilians came around at night after the battle of Waterloo looting corpses and the wounded and even murdering some of them first.
I suggest reading this for anyone interested in first hand accounts from the Napoleonic wars
This is a good place to start: http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/031216985X
Rise and Fall of British Empire: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/031216985X/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/182-1086876-3149244
For a quick, interesting view of life in the medieval period, try the book "The Year 1000". It offers a day-to-day perspective on life in that year alone. Of course there were good and bad aspects of daily life, much like there are now. http://www.amazon.com/Year-1000-First-Millennium-Englishmans/dp/0316511579
The guys in the monasteries , but they would have been in Ireland, up near Scotland and on some of the islands.
You would pretty much be looking for the people producing the illuminated manuscripts. The years are off by a bit but take a look at the Iona Monastery and The Book of Kells as starting points
You might also take a look at the pop history book, The Year 1000, by Lacey and Danziger. It focuses on life in England at the turn of the first millennium.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-1000-Millennium-Englishmans/dp/0316511579
http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-1000-Millennium-Englishmans/dp/0316511579
Great book!
I'll note of course that even the truths that existed in the fictionalization took a very small part of what was going on during the time and made it fit the series, and also that I'm not an expert (I would however strongly recommend The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy by David Cannadine).
From my point of view, there is something to be said for the stability of the estates, as well as the the fact that they generally are architecturally and architecturally important. When an estate went under, what occurred was essentially a fire sale, pieces being sold off piece by piece. There is also very much a labor demand created by these, now 100+ year old estates to keep them up to date, and to now make them tourism attractions (which helps pay for the upkeep). I'm not sure that's really an elegant defense of estates, but just a few things that quickly come to the top of my head as examples.
Used paperback looks relatively inexpensive
I thought this book was a great introduction to evolution for me when I took it up. Chapter 2 is a bit difficult, but otherwise right there for a beginner like me. The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution Reprint Edition
by Sean B. Carroll
https://www.amazon.com/Making-Fittest-Ultimate-Forensic-Evolution/dp/0393330516
Check out this book which is a very interesting look at the topic.
Juvari includes the point about genetics in addition to culture. It had been assumed until the advent of DNA testing relatively recently that the British people were genetically Anglo-Saxon (ie that they descend totally from the AS invaders). In actuality most British people retain at least 70% Celtic DNA, some having up to 30% Germanic, Nordic, or French, depending on region. source
We can broadly define who is genetically British and who is not, see Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes 10 year long DNA survey and resultant book.
Though it is summed up best here and you will notice that the admixture of what we have defined as Britons to be "stubbornly Celtic". Yes, this means also being white. Non-whites while being civically British and British citizens are not, by this definition 'Britons'. In the same way that I can not become what we know to be Japanese, even if the Japanese government says I am. Deep genetic cluster analysis does not work that way.
> I can't define Briton in any way, or respond to any of your points, but I'll declare myself right anyway!
Just because there are intermediary points between diverging sets, does not mean there are not clear distinct groups or sets that we can define. Your post here falls into a form of what is called the 'Continuum Fallacy'.
>Exactly, defining the nationality of your country in terms of a race literally is racism! See the Nazi party.
Nazis breathed air too, better not breathe air or yuo're a nazi!
The genetic bedrock of the British Isles is/was largely Celtic. There are debates about how broad that term should be, but whoever the original bronze and iron age people were (Celts or some other word), they contributed the most to present day English, Scottish, and Irish people.
There's a whole book about it:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/0393330753/RWER603O4QEK1/ref=mw_dp_cr?cursor=1&sort=rd
I read Beyond the Deep and Blind Descent over the summer. Both are about supercave exploration, which it turns out is the most terrifying thing on earth. Both are in the same genre as Into Thin Air, another horribly scary book about things I will never ever do. I'd recommend reading Blind Descent first because it's the more general book, while Into the Deep is about one specific exploration. Both are absolutely mandatory reading if you're planning on seeing that new James Cameron movie that comes out in February.
On the history front, April 1865 by Jay Winik is a superb analysis of the last month of the Civil War. Lincoln's Melancholy by Joshua Wolf Shenk is a great analysis of Lincoln's lifelong battle with depression. And Ecological Imperialism by Alfred Crosby is one of the most interesting history books I've read in a long time. This may be a good follow-up to Guns, Germs, and Steel if you're interested in environmental history.
Here are three books on very different topics that could pique your interest in something new:Ecological Imperialism by Alfred Crosby; The Mission of Friar Rubruck by Willem Van Ruysbroeck; Magic in the Middle Ages by Richard Kieckhefer.
Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 is an alternative that I've been recommended.
https://www.amazon.com/Vulcan-607-Remarkable-British-Attack/dp/0552152293
​
Read this book - it's an incredible true story
This is my favourite: http://www.amazon.ca/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World/dp/0609809997
It goes way beyond the banjo. The Scots invented all kinds of things.
Damn Canadians! Oh, wait...
This was a good read, even if the author did stretch a couple of points to make his case: http://www.amazon.com/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World/dp/0609809997
How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It <----required reading for participation
Apperently there's a book. https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Countries-Weve-Ever-Invaded/dp/0752479695
Haven't read it though.
There's a book listing all the place that GB invaded. https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Countries-Weve-Ever-Invaded/dp/0752479695/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=we+have+invaded&qid=1567781762&s=gateway&sr=8-2 Conversely the list of places that invaded GB in the past is everyone with good enough ships.
There's a similar book for the USA it's 110 pages longer.
He also wrote 'The Anglo American Establishment' which directly addresses US & Britain alliance for rule: https://www.amazon.com/Anglo-American-Establishment-Quigley-Carroll/dp/0945001010/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518851268&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=carol+quigley
Unfortunately, that's not really how it works.
Sure. For the Brotherhood of Death I would recommend reading this book and this book.
Politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats talk about the New World Order all the time. You just have to listen:
Henry Kissinger in 1994: "The New World Order cannot happen without U.S. participation, as we are the most significant single component. Yes, there will be a New World Order, and it will force the United States to change its perceptions"
George Bush Sr in 1990, also a member of the Brotherhood of Death: "The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective—a New World Order—can emerge: a new era, freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can prosper and live in harmony."
I would perhaps recommend this book or this one but there are many more...
Note that none of the authors are "conspiracy theorists". Antony Sutton was an economist at the Hoover Institution. Caroll Quigley was a professor at Georgetown. Sean Stone is an actor and director, etc.
Here is another one: https://www.amazon.com/Anglo-American-Establishment-Carroll-Quigley/dp/0945001010/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?hvadid=77653136134870&amp;hvbmt=be&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvqmt=e&amp;keywords=tradegy+and+hope&amp;qid=1572332777&amp;sr=8-1-spons&amp;psc=1&amp;spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyQ1ZNOE9UNVJSMVhRJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODIxODMyMUpDQ0o1SkhYSTdLUiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMTY2NDA1M1REN1laSEc3M0JEMiZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=
Here is the mobile version of your link
Probably a lot more detail than you're asking for, but this is a great, easy to read book on what medieval europe was actually like to live in.
I don't know the answers to your specific questions, but I found Ian Mortimer's "The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England" to be an enjoyable read which addresses the lives of ordinary people. Check it out: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908
Come now, that's too sweet of you. And yeah, I myself am imprisoned by my books too. I dread the ideas of moving due to the sheer amount of books I have. I thought I was done with it since I bought a kindle 5 years ago but I threw it away after half a year 'cause I could not be without my hardcover books. And sometimes I feel like putting a good book under my pillow or on my night stand makes me feel closer to the book itself. Now if only I can read everything that I own is another problem...
Those are some solid suggestions. I definitely would love to devour...I mean read and appreciate them someday. I have to finish House of Leaves first. Goddamn it's exhausting to read that book but also quite rewarding. I also just ordered The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England. Was thinking about either medieval time or the growth of the Silk Road and ended up with medieval time.
We are such book worms, aren't we? I'd feel so bad if I end up with someone who doesn't like books 'cause I would be so boring and reading all the time.
Didn't have a reason to. I'm on summer break between second and third year of a phd program, but I am fairly sure that I want to leave the program, so I'm now devoting my time toward job hunting online.
Also, none of my friends called me about hanging out last night, and I go to the gym six days a week but yesterday was my day off. Had enough groceries to get by. Net result is me shuffling between my room, kitchen, bathroom, and living room exclusively.
I spent my time yesterday looking for jobs, but mainly getting distracted by stupid shit on the internet. I read some of a book I've started recently, The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England. Also smoked a little weed, but as of today I am quitting until I find a job or a dissertation topic. I am also a month into the /r/nofap challenge, so porn and jerking it was not an option.
I'm not an expert, but I believe books were relatively rare things during this time period. Also, an extensive library during that time might seem quite small by today's standards. Only the well to do, universities, and monasteries would have significant libraries. The vast majority of people didn't own a book, not even a Bible or religious text. I'm basing this half-baked answer off of what I recall from Ian Mortimers's book http://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908
Surprisingly, not true. Recommended reading: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908
Linen undergarments were surprisingly good at absorbing sweat and oil, so as long as *those* were clean (changed and washed frequently) people didn't stink like you would expect. Further since the common knowledge at the time was that disease could be caused by 'miasma' or bad air it was important not to stink.
Medieval cleanliness standards were different from today, not nonexistant.
Well it was over so many years and there is so much to it I'd rather you tell me what you are most interested in and I can go into detail there.
However the main highlights I can think of are:
Internet makes it so much easier, when I started I'd spend months researching into Aztecs, now it would take me less than a week to find out all the basics to get the game going.
> Border policies, whether made by the EU or by individual states, are usually justified on the grounds of safety and security. They protect the public from terrorism, or from threats to identity and culture.
In a 5000 word piece the largest defining issue as I see it is mentioned once in passing.
Recommended reading on this: The Strange Death of Europe.
133244285| > United States Anonymous (ID: IXxUbnwL)
New Book
I recommend this one to be more informed about why the mass immigration problem exists and recommendations on what to do. Great book to share with friends to rage them up and redpill them a bit if they have any modicum of care about their own people.
https://mobile.audible.com/pd/Nonfiction/The-Strange-Death-of-Europe-Audiobook/B06X9CR7GH
The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1472942248/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Rpdyzb8J5M78T
https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Death-Europe-Immigration-Identity/dp/1472942248/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1499025025&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+strange+death+of+europe+by+douglas+murray
https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/is-this-the-end-of-europe
Check this out: The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam Bloomsbur... https://www.amazon.com/dp/1472942248/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_VZuBzbW5SR4KJ
LOL they were not rescuing drowning migrants, they were aiding ILLEGAL economic migrants with NGO's in the mediterranean.
Why should she walk it back? It's Human Trafficking, and very immorral for many reasons. I guess i'll have you tagged as Defender of Human Trafficking from here on out.
People crossing the mediterranean to show up and go on Welfare should be sent back.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/13/mediterranean-people-smuggling-sea-lords-inquiry-uk-eu-ngo
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/07/migrants-and-madness-in-the-med/
http://www.dw.com/en/italy-prosecutor-claims-ngos-working-with-human-smugglers/a-38554753
The bottom line is, those people don't belong in Europe, they're throwing their life savings away to go claim welfare in a country that is not a war torn impoverished shit hole.
They are cowards and scum, as are the people aiding them.
Proper immigration with paperwork and criteria is fine. Boats of god knows who is insanity and the death of Europe as the pinnacle of human civilization and culture..
Please educate yourself, your local library should have a copy of this https://www.amazon.ca/Strange-Death-Europe-Immigration-Identity/dp/1472942248
Read a book
You seem to be wilfully ignoring the fact that Islam isn't a race. Stop being a coward and THINK. Break the BBC's conditioning lol
>That's the position the race realists in this thread are taking.
I'm not responsible for what other people say, I can only point again to the sources I've linked.
>Yes, those group identities are nonsense as well.
You missed the point in this instance, tho you implicitly concede it little later on; it doesn't matter if it's nonsense or not (I still dispute that it is); the point is it works, and further whether or not a reactionary invigoration of group identity will have a better chance than atomized libertarians at beating the left back.
>The race realists are the exact mirrors of the SJWs.
Group differences in IQ distributions among races is scientifically verifiable and largely a product of heredity, SJWs are blank-slate absolutists, so no they are not exact mirrors in very important ways.
> Humans are tribal monsters. We have an innate bias toward treating people as members of imaginary groups. That's why people are able to believe in society, the state, etc.
> The imagined groups were the glue that held tribal hunter-gatherers together. The SJWs, race realists, statists, etc. want to treat these imagined groupings as though they are part of the real world.
You can't say that for nearly all of human history people have been tribal and in the next instance hand-wave it away as "imaginary"; the reason for tribalism is almost undoubtedly an evolved trait, meaning it's biologically hardwired into us, that seems pretty objective to me. If everyone but you is tribal then you're going to have a bad time, as we've seen with Europe letting the migrants in.
>Everyone can see what's wrong with those
Actually no I don't
>This is exactly how statists operate, too. The question for them is: What should the state do? Rather than: Is the state's authority real?
I think you mean "valid" not "real", because the state's authority is very real. Ideally I'm still an Ancap or at least a libertarian as I've been one for almost 10 years now but the hard reality is if you don't ask "what should the state do" then someone else far worse than us will ask the question and their answer won't be a libertarian social order.
Reality is that my ancestors were converted to islam by force (i.e., convert or be killed), OK, Sherlock? Now read this instead of making more dumb comments:
https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Death-Europe-Immigration-Identity/dp/1472942248
DNA analysis has shown that the peoples of the western British Isles are overwhelmingly descended (where over 95% of their DNA is accounted for) from people who, at the last glacial maximum, lived in an ice age refuge somewhere in the western Mediterranean. They then migrated north along what would have then been a very different western European coastline --the British Isles would have been connected to the mainland because of much lower sea-levels-- eventually settling what is now the western British Isles some 13-10k years ago. Since that is so, it's entirely possible, and even likely, that the Basques, who after all do speak an ancient language, are related to the "Celts" of the British Isles.
Here is a relatively recent and authoritative work on the subject that is meant for the non-technical reader. I recommend it.
As for the supposed language connection, either you linked something other than what you intended, or you are badly confused. Since you are evidently unwilling to take my word for it, I recommend that you pose the question to /r/linguistics and see what they have to say about the idea of Basque being somehow related to the Celtic languages. I can assure you that it is a polite subreddit and that you are guaranteed to learn something about how and why languages are classified the way they are.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Origins-British-Prehistory-Britain-Detective/dp/1845294823
I don't have an online source, but it's all covered in this book.
Literally got that from this book.
This is a similar themed book, and a great read, written by Ian Mortimer. There is one for medieval and one for Elizabethan Britain, written as if you had just dropped into a different time and what you would experience there.
The paperback, especially
Looks like my comment touched a nerve. If you want a serious answer: the Brits do complain about minor things from time to time, but criticism is very light ("too polite" is heard quite regularly), and they still look down on everyone else. Even the extract you linked to (which contains serious criticism of Britain - something you almost never see or hear) is called "French Thoughts" and starts with an attack on France, Italy, and the USA...
I think Julian Baggini has it right when he calls it "conservative communitarianism" (book here if interested - note even the reviews call him an "outsider", due to his name, despite being born and raised in the UK).
Hey, with_the_quickness, have you read a book called 'the blood never dried'? It gives a good account of some of the atrocities the British commited throughout history. If you also know of any like this please point me in the right direction :)
Zwar offtopic und hat nichts mit Afrika zu tun.....
Bezüglich Großbritannien kann ich dieses Buch empfehlen, was allderdings eher eine Einführung ist und nur bestimmte Ereignisse anspricht:
The Blood Never Dried: A People's History of the British Empire
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Blood-Never-Dried-Peoples/dp/1905192126
Ereignisse wie die Bengalische Hungersnot 1943, mit bis zu 4 Millionen Toten ist bei uns auch wenig bekannt.
Der Ursache gingen verschiedenste Ereignisse voraus, aber anscheinend spielte die Versorgung des britischen Militärs eine übergeordnete Rolle gegenüber der Bevölkerung.
Gibt auch etliche Pressemitteilungen, die IBT sogar mit einem sehr reißerischen Titel.
http://www.ibtimes.com/bengal-famine-1943-man-made-holocaust-1100525 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/soutikbiswas/2010/10/how_churchill_starved_india.html
It's quite dense, but this book charts the history of the City of London from a banker who is also a Marxist. https://www.versobooks.com/books/2457-the-city
If you want a short but excellent read on Britain's colonial crimes, I would recommend The Blood Never Dried. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Never-Dried-Peoples-History/dp/1905192126
According to one book Thatcher threatened to nuke argentina: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/22/books.france
And the british warships were carrying nuclear weapons (depth charges at least): https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/dec/06/military.freedomofinformation
Plus the Vulcan fleet (The fleet of nuclear bombers) had the capability of striking the mainland and were doing so with conventional weapons (on military targets): Was mentioned in https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vulcan-607-Rowland-White/dp/0552152293 )
http://www.amazon.com/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World/dp/0609809997
> Why is pointing out the USA'S deficiencies at all relevant in this conversation? This is the definition of whataboutism.
The entire discussion is about one big promo stunt for a book written on the "what about the EU" rhetoric.
This is literally how it markets itself.
> The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide.
It fear-mongers immigration, while ignoring everything else.
It acts as if these are EU specific problems. They aren't.
You can actually argue that the EU could have done worse at dealing with immigration because, despite of this, the EU economy has beaten the US and it's only getting better. The article and book ignore this and falsely present the EU as being in bankruptcy.
The article paints the EU as the failing state that couldn't or wouldn't care about its people while it's exactly the opposite of this.
Why is this so? Because look at everybody else.
The US also has immigration problems as well as a different way of dealing with it. And the results are also different. The EU economy has beaten the US economy.
That's the point.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/1472942248/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1502548942&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&amp;keywords=douglas+murray+the+strange+death+of+europe&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=61JhaFlNJML&amp;ref=plSrch
Educate yourself -
The Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain: A Genetic Detective Story
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Origins-British-Prehistory-Britain-Detective/dp/1845294823/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1464486490&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=british+oppenheimer
A very fresh and good read on the subject:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472942248/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_uIbizbVKHXXQP
https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Death-Liberal-Europe/dp/1472942248
Try reading sometime.
> documentary on BBC with a list of the top 7 British inventions ... the penicillin, telephone, etc
Fleming was a Scot, so was Bell along with many others.
Here's a good reading suggestion in this vein;
https://www.amazon.com/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World/dp/0609809997
> Douglas Murray
Oh really?
Let's take a look, oh great has a twitter, great promoting his new book lets take a
The Strange Death of Europe:
>The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Declining birth-rates, mass immigration and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive change as a society.
Oh hey more conservative culture war bullshit! Fuck a material analysis, it's all about pc police and the sjws taking over academia. Also immigrants, the weakest and literally often fleeing from war zones, yes, these people, the people with the least, are responsible for destroying the most prosperous countries. Because until the immigrants showed up everything was perfect and culture was great, but than when the immigrants showed up, this last time, the other times we've already okayd and celebrate (see motherfucking indian/british culture), but this time! THIS TIME THEYRE DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY!
Fucking this hot take is so fresh I can barely contain myself.
edit- Can we take a second and talk about some other hot takes? What is it with our different skull shapes and sizes, could there be something there that IQ is attributed to? Do I have a set of spare calipers? Find out in my next book!
Not really related, but I always found it interesting that Virginia got its name by virtue of an English attempt to inspire settlers to move to the territory by invoking the image of a "young virgin awaiting the loss of her maidenhead".
Source- https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-British-Empire/dp/031216985X
Meh. This book illustrates some of the major issues. All religions are strange and useless, but islam really takes the biscuit. Until there are major reforms within that heinous drivel, Humanity will suffer.
e: down vote all you want, read the book and understand. Until you do, you're just pissing in the winds of a cyclone.
The Scots invented the Modern World