What are your favourite periods in history, and why?

[danlo]

Dang Paul! You or Men

Spoiler

you know what register on the Watch for Pete's sake

should start a topic with what you just said above...

[Menolly]

Spoiler

you know what register on the Watch for Pete's sake

Yeah, pooh-bear...

What he said!

Dang Paul! You or Men should start a topic with what you just said above...

Heh.

Paulie, you could always use this forum to finalize that prospectus and dissertation, love.

[Menolly]

:::sorry for the double post:::

Paul: I'm a little busy to register.

Menolly: :::grumble:::

[onewyteduck]

I always liked to play a "what if" game with the civil war. Say the South prevailed and won its "independence". given their lack of industrial infrastructure (iron, factories, etc.) and that the basis of their economy would be agricutural (cotton, foodstuffs)...eventually, they would have to find trading partners and establish long term commitments with such.

Would the N & S then be friendly to one another or would there always be some sort of animosity?

Would the S and the N be on the same side in WWI and WWII? Would the Communists get hold of the south as the southern economy would be weaker and perhaps more prone to the ideas of communism?

It is a fascinating thought.

I personally think that some sort of reintegration would have had ot have occurred. The South lacked infrastructure to maintian a robust economy, when compared to the North...which is why they lost in the first place really. You gotta have access to iron and the plants to produce it to win wars!

There is a mockumentary you might really enjoy called the Confederate States of America. It runs from the Civil War with Grant surrendering to Lee, on up through today. Check it out....

[Cail]

I think it's pretty clear that there would have been a very close relationship between the CSA and the USA for both economic and security reasons.

[Lord Mhoram]

youtube.com/watch?v=1Jc5FEhPzNw

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvvPOIUjHYc

[dlbpharmd]

I always liked to play a "what if" game with the civil war. Say the South prevailed and won its "independence". given their lack of industrial infrastructure (iron, factories, etc.) and that the basis of their economy would be agricutural (cotton, foodstuffs)...eventually, they would have to find trading partners and establish long term commitments with such.

Would the N & S then be friendly to one another or would there always be some sort of animosity?

Would the S and the N be on the same side in WWI and WWII? Would the Communists get hold of the south as the southern economy would be weaker and perhaps more prone to the ideas of communism?

It is a fascinating thought.

I personally think that some sort of reintegration would have had ot have occurred. The South lacked infrastructure to maintian a robust economy, when compared to the North...which is why they lost in the first place really. You gotta have access to iron and the plants to produce it to win wars!

There is a mockumentary you might really enjoy called the Confederate States of America. It runs from the Civil War with Grant surrendering to Lee, on up through today. Check it out....

I've seen that. It's too satirical to predict what actually might have happened if the South had won. Personally I think the South would not have survived on their own.

[Cail]

Where did that come from?

[Lord Mhoram]

My videos? Both are from the mockumentary Guns and dlb are discussing.

dlb,

From the clips, I've seen I agree with your assessment. At the very least, I highly doubt that slavery would exist in the 21st century if the CSA had won the Civil War.

[Cail]

Ah, I missed DLB's post.

From just about everything I've read, it's doubtful slavery would've made it very far into the 1900s had the CSA been allowed to exist.

[dlbpharmd]

I can't imagine a series of circumstances that would've allowed the South to win at all. It's like Shelby Foote said once (paraphrasing): "The North fought the war with one hand tied behind its back. If the South had pressed, the North would've simply untied the hand."

[Cail]

It would have taken the intervention of France for the CSA to win the war. Hence the reason I said "had the CSA been allowed to exist.".

[Lord Mhoram]

Even foreign recognition of the Confederacy, let alone intervention, would have done wonders for their cause. As for slave labor, their economy was not diverse enough to compete on the world scale thanks to their dependence on slavery. It would have been abolished or at least severely diminished in scope and importance if they had been allowed to exist.

[Cail]

Absolutely.

[Damelon]

I enjoy reading history from all eras. Right now, I finished reading Persian Fire, the history of the era of the movie 300. I'll be working up a topic on that era, the book had some very interesting insights.

Regarding the CSA, Napoleon III probably would have gladly recognized them, but he wasn't going to act without the British. One constant in his foreign policy was that he didn't want to antagonize Britain, the enmity of which he believed brought his uncle down. British leaders, because of domestic opposition to on the slavery issue, wasn't in the end going to recognize the CSA without a truly significant victory in the field.

[Tjol]

Well, each period of history I delve into I find interesting. So far I've read about World War II in detail; about the United States of America from Adams, Washington and Hamilton to Andrew Jackson; read through some of the French Revolution, read through some of Cicero's speeches and letters, am now reading the Greco-Persian War, and will probably follow that with the Pelopenessian War(s).

I want to get into the details of the Civil War in the near future as well, someone at work is going to lend me Team of Rivals (about Lincoln's cabinet) and a book of Sherman's memoirs, which he said he read through all 800 plus pages in the span of a couple weeks because it was so interesting.

After the Civil War, I'd like to read more detail on the Renaissance (listening to The Prince on a long drive a little while ago painted an interesting picture of Italian politics at the time), as well as to read more about the period from the sacking of Constantinople to the last crusade.

[Holsety]

-Han China, from about 200 BC to around 200 AD, and the 3 Kingdoms period that followed.
-Bakumatsu (sp?) period in Japan (around 1860s), and the Meiji period that followed (I'd simply want to observe Soseki Natsume for that part).
-Period before WWI in the US. I'd want to watch the country rapidly turn from isolationism to fervent support.
-Great Depression in the US.
-Dublin, 1014; battle of clontarf.
-England and France all over the place from 1337-1453 during the 100 years war. In particular, the battles of Crecy (1346) and Agincourt (1415), and any others with longbowmen being awesome. I think longbowmen rock.

Prolly others but I'll leave it at that.

[Kinslaughterer]

-Han China, from about 200 BC to around 200 AD, and the 3 Kingdoms period that followed

Nice choice...Romance of the Three Kingdoms...I highly recommend the novel as well.

I'm obviously biased toward certain eras but the few that I can think of would be:

Japan-Sengoku period (Beware the Tiger of Kai)
Prehistoric American Southwest (of course but then again it doesn't really count, I suppose)
The Victorian Age throughout the world
European Contact with the Americas
The Age of Exploration

[Avatar]

Always been interested in the sengoku judai period of Japan. Amazing the breadth and variety of the conflict in a country under 400,000 kilometers².

--A

[Kinslaughterer]

What's not to like? You've got samurai, the first Japanese cavalry, arqueubusiers, daimyo vying for the title of Shogun. Good stuff, kind of a shame Shingen died before reaching Kyoto.