(Part 2) 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 products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
27. Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews
4 mentions
Used Book in Good Condition
There is a fascinating book called The Most Powerful Idea in the World that I would recommend to anyone interested in this sort of thing. It makes the claim that the steam engine is the most important invention since irrigation, half because of what it allowed us to do, and half because of how our mindset changed while developing it.
Hi! This sounds super interesting! Which game are you modding, sounds like something like Total War? I used to love that back in the day, I would definitely play a mod with some more realistic Scottish historical context!
You're right that this is a difficult area to research - the thing about this era is that the sources for Scotland are very sketchy - very few written records from this period survive, and a lot of it is translated through later witnesses. A lot of it is also apocryphal and not all of it ends up in the history books (though I added some links at the bottom to some good books if that's useful!).
That being said, there are definitely some colourful events that you could draw on in this period, one of huge upheaval and change in Scotland. And using a bit of license is totally OK - as long as you don't just make things up! - some of the best films about Medieval Scotland, like Braveheart, aren't 100% accurate.
So here are a couple of events off the top of my head you might be able to use, adapt, refer to etc. Hopefully other people in the sub can add details if I've forgotten any or got something incorrect!
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The Fànne - Dòbber Wars was a period of major conflict and violence between two tribes (the clans came a bit later) in Scottish history that marked an important early phase in the rise of Kenneth MacAlpin, sometimes seen as the first King of Scots. He was also a member of the Fànne tribe, and in fact is thought to have become Chief of the Fànnes while still quite young due to his military skill. At some point however, before Kenneth was born, the Fànne tribe split due to a dispute over heritage (very important in those days!), which saw one faction claiming rightful heritage of the lineage - known as the Pure Fànnes - whereas a second faction claimed feudal overlordship over all of the tribe. They have come to be known by historians as the Total Fànnes because of the breadth of their claim. Eventually the Pure Fànnes were successful in driving out their rivals, and so the Total Fànnes left the tribe and founded a new one, the Dòbbers (from the old Pictish words Dòb and Ur - 'glorious' and 'exile'). Because they never gave up their claims to their kinship, they came to be called the 'kin Dòbbers'.
If we jump back to Kenneth MacAlpin, by the time he assumed leadership of the tribe these two tribes were basically at war. The 830s saw repeated, bloodthirsty clashes between the Pure Fànnes and the Kin Dòbbers without any resolution, until finally both sides, exhausted, decided to make peace. This was done at the foot of a mountain called Cúl Beag in the northwest Highlands, near modern-day Ullapool. You might have heard of a medieval tradition called the Kiss of Peace. Well Scotland had its own version of that, which was used at this occasion, called the 'Té' in Gaelic, so bearing in mind the location, the peace treaty between the Pure Fànnes and the Kin Dòbbers was known as the Tè Beag.
Because the sources are very unclear we don't know exactly what this looked like, but it involved King Kenneth and the Chief of the Dòbbers, Avon Four Sail (a moniker which evidently refers to his maritime skills and mercantile wealth). The Té Beag is described in much later sources as 'an intimate gesture' (so perhaps not unlike the Kiss of Peace) that was 'performed in a squatting position close to the fundament'. It was followed by both sides breaking open several ritual casks of whisky (booze features in a lot of this history!) known as B'aw, from the Gaelic 'special' and 'drink'. Although we don't know exactly when this event took place, it's still said that 'B'aws were tasted that day'.
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This isn't really a historical event per se, more of a kind of cultural anecdote that you might be able to use - hope it's still useful!
So I'm sure you've heard the word 'maw' before, which usually refers to something like an opening, e.g. the mouth of a cave, but in Scotland it has several meanings. One of these is a kind of container or skin with a narrow opening (so a bit like the other definitions). It was mainly used to store alcohol - especially whisky, back in the day (told you there was a lot of booze! We Scots sure love to drink!). To give you an idea, the modern bagpipe is also built using a maw, so you can see the kind of dimensions I mean.
Now you'll know already that although whisky has been made in Scotland for hundreds of years, it wasn't always done legally. Back in Medieval Scotland, the Crown used to try and tax whisky production in every household, so a lot of people used to make it secretly using their own equipment rather than a big, central still. And it was stored in maws - because they're flexible, they were easier to hide away than a big barrel or cask. This is a much later source, but it gives you an idea: illicit distilling.
OK so in Medieval Scotland, a lot of villages were very remote, so the Royal Tax Collector used to visit only once a year - and as soon as he was gone, they knew they were in the clear for another 12 months! This led to a custom where everyone in the village would gather after the Royal Tax Collector had gone, put the whisky into casks (important for the maturing process) and clean out the maws with rudimentary pumping devices, ready for next time. This was a collective activity and became known as The Pumping of the Maws - basically, everyone in the village would bring their maw to the common grazing lands, see that each maw was properly pumped, and there would be inspections to make sure it was done correctly. Often clansmen would pump each others' maws for a measure of accountability, but it was common enough to pump one's own maw, too. Really skilful clansmen could actually pump numerous maws in one session - in some villages the one who got through the most would be ritually crowned the 'Méad Shaggháir' (from the Gaelic words Méad and Sheág, meaning 'enthusiastic' and 'efficient'). After all this, there would be a giant party where some of the whisky from the previous year would be cracked open and drunk while the freshly-pumped maws would dry out in the sun - great stuff!
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Sorry if that's a bit much detail, I can get a bit carried away with my enthusiasm for history sometimes! I hope it's useful anyway and that you might be able to use one or two details, even if the whole stories don't make it in.
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Finally some literature that you might find useful if you want to do some more research!
Scotland: A New History by Michael Lynch - quite an old book now but it holds up well
Scotland: The Story of a Nation by Magnus Magnusson
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I'd love to see some of these details make it into the mod - keep us posted!
Famous pic.
Book on the subject too.
If anyone is interested in the links between the UK and Saudi Arabia, a fantastic book is Mark Curtis' "Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam"
It deals with the way the British government has consistently funded and trained radical Islamic movements in order to use them as a counterweight to secular, progressive movements in order to maintain control of oil.
I used to have this map on my bedroom wall when I was a kid, probably back in the late 70s but might've been the early 80s... The nostalgia is strong.
OP, where did you find the image? I'd like to get another print copy of this for my kids if I can.
e: Found the same map, in folding form, on Amazon. Not quite the same color palette, though it may be that OPs image is just time worn.
I suggest reading The Face of Battle by John Keegan for more information on Agincourt. Keegan says that arrows did far less damage to the heavily-armored French men-at-arms (mostly dismounted) than popularly believed and instead acted as an irritant that enticed the French to attack the English line. It was Henry's smart deployment of his limited troops at a choke point that turned the day. That combined with the era's lack of tactical communication once the battle began, leading to the men-at-arms at the back of the column effectively trapping their comrades in front of them, somewhat similar to a crush you might experience in a crowd at a sporting event. Henry was then able to hit the French with a flank attack.
Combine this with terrible weather and mud and the English holding the high ground, and you've got one of the all-time upsets.
For a good general overview of Scotland's history you can't go far wrong with Michael Lynch's Scotland: A New History and my dad says that Neil Oliver's book A History of Scotland is good as well. I've not read it myself, but given that it's aimed at a general audience instead of historians it's possibly more readable than Lynch's book.
For modern Scottish history Tam Devine's book The Scottish Nation: 1700-2007 is a pretty good start. I find him quite readable, but it's more of a social history than a dates and facts history. I've taken against him a bit lately as he keeps sticking his oar in whenever there's a social issue on the go (Rangers going into administration was the latest), but I can't fault him for his knowledge and research work. I've a lot of respect for him as a historian.
The articles on Scottish History on Wikipedia tend to be quite well written, researched and sourced so you might find more specific books and information from their footnotes.
I think the book may also be titled "No Greater Ally".
Amazon Link
Looks interesting, I will try to get a copy.
There are lots of more sources to confirm Israel's assistance to Iran during the war. But like always, you chose to be in denial.
These are dozens of other sources confirming the deals between Iran and Israel through different perspectives. You're more than welcome to red-pill yourself out of the category of "poorly informed people":
The other side of the story is just Khomeini's utter denial, which was contagious for the ones who blindly followed him. In despite of all the evidences to support Israel's assistance to Iran, you can be entitled to your opinion regardless of how true or false it is.
PS: I have a bias against the "show sympathy towards Palestine and hate
8 million ordinary jewszionists" dogma that IRI has been trying to shove down everyone's throat. Rationally there is no point for anyone to want to back Palestinians. If they really wanted peace, they'd do more to oust Doofus Abbas for the sake of electing someone more responsive.That true to an extent, but there were other factors. Such as the widespread association of Jews with brutal Communist/Bolshevist revolutions, the post-WWI Communist takeover in Germany led mostly by Jews, the world Jewish boycott of German goods in 1933. And yes, Jews had dominated the press and financial industry for some time.
(the book pages are from Esau's Tears by historian Albert Lindemann)
Just wait until you find out the date of the Irish war of independence :)
If you would like to read a bit on Irish history this book A history of Ireland in 250 episodes is quite good as an overview!
I'm not denying that Western (and African!) countries do it too. If you aren't in a country like the US where there are easy domestic scapegoats for plutocratic policies, you can pretty nicely emulate the US model by blaming scary foreigners (the backward Koreans! the thieving Japanese! the Muslim/African hordes! Brussels! Trump! The German right wing is now going after American expat waiters and baristas, for Christ sakes!) Never mind that a lot of the legitimate problems with Muslim and African culture were allowed to fester and worsen during colonial times, and in some cases were enabled by greedy Westerners looking to turn the Muslim working classes away from teh sociulizm.
I really enjoyed Scotland: A New History, you can get it on Amazon for pennies.
It goes from the Scottish Wars of Independence to modern day Scotland.
Douglas Murray - The Strange Death of Europe, it is very well written and the author is very likeable but I, as a left leaning person, have said no to nearly every thought. But respectfully.
And then there is always Nietzsche. I love Nietzsche, he is my favorite philosopher. But his ideas - they are taunting, beautiful, mind boggling at times, very smart, unexpected, entertaining, funny. - hard to take for any person, especially a left leaning one. But I never liked it so much to be mocked.
The Genealogy of Morals - one of the best books I don't agree with I have ever read.
The Famine Plot
Tim Pat Coogan is a good start https://www.amazon.co.uk/Troubles-Irelands-Ordeal-1966-1996-Search/dp/1570981442. He's written an accessible series of books about the troubles and modern Irish history
This old site is good if you want to trawl through lots of data.
The BBC used to have a great section for the troubles, but they updated the site and left a lot out. It's still pretty good, just not as good as it once was http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/troubles
May I recommend Uprising and The Pianist for films.
As for books, I recommend The Eagle Unbowed, When God Looked the Other Way, and No Greater Ally.
Can't recommend these enough:
Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812217519/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_seDXDb5367ERH
Cunning-Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845190793/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_nfDXDbZWXFQX8
The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotland https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845191803/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_NfDXDbBKC83F0
The book is super awesome.
http://www.amazon.com/Terry-Jones-Medieval-Lives/dp/0563522755
Basically, our notions of what life in the "middle ages" was like is really the Victorians' idea of what it should have been like, to make themselves feel better about their civilization.
There's few Christians in Europe to take revenge against.
Started reading this but couldn't finish. It's like looking at pics of a suicide.
Rules of the Game is a must read for understanding Jutland.
The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591143365/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_W4MWCbDSQT8PP
Castles of Steel is a good book on the history of the war at sea.
Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345408780/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_F5MWCb3C2YZC0
This is awesome. I've been trying to learn more about the history of British Isles. So far I've really enjoyed Neil Oliver's A History of Scotland (also on iPlayer) and the History in an Hour books, 1066 and The Medieval Anarchy, by Kaye Jones.
Is there a larger version of this map? Or anything similar - but again, larger - focusing on the early makeup of the peoples of the isles? I'm looking for a new poster :)!
This is a good read about anti-semitism from a Teacher whose class I took.
[Esau's Tears] (http://www.amazon.com/Esaus-Tears-Modern-Anti-Semitism-Rise/dp/0521795389/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420604654&sr=8-1&keywords=esaus+tears)
Also this is a good documentary on some of the Anti-Semitic history:
[Constantine's Sword] (http://constantinessword.com)
Jews throughout time have been looked down upon for a multitude of reasons. From ancient times where there were seen as arrogant for their belief that they were a chosen people from a singular God. Or during the time of the Crusades when they would be killed if they did not accept Christianity. Or in Europe when they weren't allowed to own property so they were forced to only own money, which allowed them to loan to non-jews (as perversely documented in "The Merchant of Venice"). To scapegoating during World War Two as the German economy was poor. and looking for a cause other than the first world war. To Modern Day Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.
Sadly, they were mostly persecuted because of false stereotypes and being easy targets. At the end of the day Jews are just people some good and some bad just like everyone else.
This is what you want, an outstanding book that covers Irish and British history. Read this, and you'll be above the herd.
https://www.amazon.com/Isles-History-Norman-Davies/dp/0195148312
Just finished "Secret Affairs:Britain's collusion with radical Islam" by Mark Curtis. The author did a lot of research and sited hundreds of sources from interviews, documents, news articles, etc. The link to amazon is here
Emma Wilby also wrote The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotland which is highly regarded in and out of magickal circles. But good luck getting your hands on a copy that costs less than an arm and a leg.
>“In this bold and imaginative book, Emma Wilby attempts to understand Isobel by taking us deeply into her culture and spiritual worldview. . . . With meticulous attention to detail, she reconstructs Isobel’s life as a poor, illiterate farmwife: her cultural horizons within the fermtoun, or small agro-pastoral community where she lived; her spiritual worldview, which combined Christianity with many aspects of folklore rooted in earlier cosmologies; and the likely sequence of events that led to her arrest and imprisonment. Wilby gives equally careful attention to the personalities and agendas of the men who questioned her, showing how a unique combination of personal, religious, and political ideologies came together in the small interrogation room, culminating in her remarkable performance. . . . No other author to date has come up with such a cohesive interpretation of Isobel’s confessions. In the end, this book does what good research should: provide us with provocative, original interpretations and raise questions for further exploration. Wilby’s book will be of great interest to folklorists, anthropologists, historians of witchcraft, and of course modern Pagan Witches.” —Sabina Magliocco, California State University, Journal of Folklore Research
-Treacherous Alliance: The secret dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States, by Trita Parsi, Yale University Press, 2007
(Also from Parsi: https://www.ted.com/talks/trita_parsi_iran_and_israel_peace_is_possible?language=en)
-Arming Iraq : How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's War Machine pg. 20-34 specifically
-https://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/document-friday-when-iran-bombed-iraqs-nuclear-reactor/
-http://www.wrmea.org/1986-november/israeli-arms-sales-to-iran.html
Also, although not a "source," r/AskHistorians had a pretty interesting thread about it.
Keegan's The Face of Battle is a really good account of the battles of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the First Day on the Somme. He gets into what each battle was like on a personal level for the soldiers.
This looks OK:
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Bletchley-Park-Codebreaking/dp/1845136330/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=K8MFTSF76P8E0C59NCFA
Neil Oliver's History of Scotland (http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Scotland-Neil-Oliver/dp/0753826631) is very good, and light enough.
That link is hardly an academic source (it doesn't even have a credited author); some better sources you might want to try would be The Famine Plot, The Graves Are Walking, or The Great Hunger. Their conclusions are not all consistent (so, needless to say, I don't agree with all of them), but they constitute good, honest scholarship in any case.
Now, your problem here is that you are misunderstanding what exactly a famine is, and how to understand scarcity of food. During the Great Famine, food was indeed scarce in several senses, the most important being the following: 1) non-subsistence crops were heavily controlled in Ireland and almost ideologically bound for foreign markets by the landlord class, who legally owned it under the laws of the land at the time; and 2) the subsistence potato crop failed miserably, as a result of the blight afflicting much of Europe's potato crop at the time.
These factors caused extreme food scarcity in the sense that there was little access to essential food supplies, which is why a famine resulted. The effects only worsened when attempts to alleviate the famine proved largely ineffective or even counterproductive (e.g., the corn imported in attempts to alleviate the famine could not be processed or distributed properly; Moralist opposition to food charity led to irrational public works projects; the workhouse model relied on support from local landlords, many of whom were themselves suffering economically from the famine, which resulted in perverse incentives for famine relief; inaccessible corn prices due to predatory behaviour from global corn dealers; and so on).
The reason your reaction here is irrational, given the historical facts and the meaning of the English word "famine" (which, incidentally, is basically synonymous with the Irish word "gorta") is that "famine" does not connote an absolute absence of food but an extreme scarcity due to lack of access to food, for whatever reason (crop failure, state policies, weather, war, etc.). We know this because otherwise, there would virtually never have been any famines anywhere, because there is always food somewhere, even if it would be impossible to access. Put another way: people suffering from a famine face famine conditions due to lack of access to food whether that lack of access is due to all available food being on the other side of the world, due to it being priced above their means, due to it being shipped away to foreign markets, or due to it sitting unground in corn warehouses. All of these situations can contribute to/result in famine (and several of them did, in the case of the Great Famine), and your bizarre view of English semantics on the matter doesn't do much but make you look less credible.
Also: have you spent much time in Ireland? People use the term "famine" in this context all the time (just off the top of my head, take the example of the famous "Famine Walls" of the Burren, in County Clare). Calling it the "Potato Famine" is controversial, but there's really not much controversy in referring to it as a famine, since we all recognize that famines can be the result of deliberate state policies which limit access to otherwise available food sources.
Have you read The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotlandby Emma Wilby? Wow oh wow!! If you haven't, you really should, if you can find a copy.
If you like Monty Python you should like Terry Jones' books. Post-Python he became a medieval historian and written Medieval Lives, Barbarians, and The Crusades. I just read Barbarians (about those who the Romans called barbarians) recently and loved it.
Rubicon by Tom Holland is an excellent account of the fall of the Roman Republic.
I'm currently reading Warriors of God by James Reston about the 3rd Crusade. Its very entertaining but lacks footnotes so I doubt its accuracy. Still for a casual understanding of the 3rd crusade I recommend it.
If you're interested in military history check out Osprey Publishing. These books are very specific but also only 90 pages or with great illustrations.
Finally, if you're looking for historical fiction check out Bernard Cornwell whose written tons of historical novels. He's best known for the Richard Sharpe series about the Napoleonic wars but has also written on Anglo-Saxon England, the American revolution, and elsewhere.
I would stay away from specific studyies of mass murders for now and read some general works for essential background on why the troubles was happening/key moments etc
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Troubles-Conflict-Northern/dp/1561310700
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Troubles-Irelands-Ordeal-1966-1996/dp/1570981442
2 good examples of which there are undoubtedly many.
I'm originally from Northern Ireland myself (and study history at university) so if you have any specific questions feel free to send them my way!
No, we're not feminists.
not a poster but map form
I've just finished The Windup Girl, which I had been putting off for some time. It was, quite simply, the most astounding and breath-taking science fiction book I've ever read. I loved it.
However, my problem is that I buy books compulsively. Mostly hard copies, but recently I bought a Kindle and buy the odd e-book or two. I have literally hundreds of books on my "to read" list.
One near the top is A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel. I recently read her phenomenal Wolf Hall and was blown away by her skills as a story teller. I'm a bit of an armchair historian, and I'm particularly interested in the French Revolution (amongst other things), so I'm very excited by the prospects this book holds. If it's anything like Wolf Hall then I'm in for a very particular treat.
Also near the top lies Quantum - Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality, Manjit Kumar's much lauded recent history of the emergence of quantum mechanics. I very much enjoyed other tangentially related books on this topic, including the wonderful The Making of the Atomic Bomb and The Fly in the Cathedral, so this should be good fun and educational to boot.
Having read and loved Everitt's biography of Cicero, I'm very much looking forward to his biographies of Augustus and Hadrian.
I'm listening to an audio-book version of The Count of Monte Cristo on my iPod, which I find rather enjoyable. I've only got through the first half dozen chapters and it's already taken a few hours, so this looks to be a nice, long-term and periodic treat for when I have time alone in the car.
Cronin's The Passage keeps piquing my interest, but I was foolish enough to buy it in that lamentable format, the much cursed "trade paperback", so the thing is a behemoth. The size puts me off. I wish I had waited for a regular paper-back edition. As it is, it sits there on my bookshelf, flanked by the collected works of Alan Furst (what a wonderfully evocative writer of WWII espionage!!) and a bunch of much recommended, but as yet unread, fantasy including The Darkness that Comes Before by Bakker, The Name of the Wind by Rothfuss and Physiognomy by Ford.
Books I have ordered and am eagerly awaiting, and which shall go straight to the top of the TBR list (no doubt to be replaced by next month's purchases) include Orlando Figes's highly regarded history of The Crimean War, Rosen's history of steam The Most Powerful Idea in the World and Stacy Schiff's contentious biography of Cleopatra.
A bit of a mixed bunch, all up, I'd say.
I like The Isles: A History by Norman Davis as it puts it in context with our neighbours and further, puts that in context with Europe.
It it ain't too specific A History of Ulster is very good.
The Irish by Sean O' Faolin is pretty darn interesting. Not so much a typical history as a racial/psycological/ sociological history. More concerned with ideas than specific events.
Another great Sean O' Faolin one that I'm very fond of is The Great O'Neill.
You might be able to tell I'm a little biased to events in Ulaidh!
Norman Davies is basically the better version of Jared Diamond. He's an actual historian, and does a good job of balancing depth with accessibility.
I really recommend both Europe: A History and The Isles: A History. They are both quite dense tomes, but Davies does a really great job of creating a narrative of the entirety of European/British history (from prehistory to modern times) while challenging our biases and subconscious notions. Instead of a tedious listing of events over 10000 years, he uses narratives and environmental/geographical analysis, interspersed with 'windows' where he goes into several key events in detail.
Book I have heard good things about on the subject. Hopefully, I will get a chance to read it soon.
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Affairs-Britains-Collusion-Radical/dp/1846687640
No Greater Ally. And bonus White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919-1920 and The Miracle on the Vistula
The Saxon stories series by Bernard Cornwell (Uhtred of Bebbanburg).
It shows how a stateless/capitalist society (Vikings) invades England and becomes gradually merged into the English statist culture. Obviously it's not a paragon of the AnCap moral system, but it's the only good portrayal of the closest history has produced to any of our ideological systems.
Much more important to me though is the non-fiction 'The Rules of the Game' by Andrew Gordon. It's a detailed analysis of British Naval culture that led up to the 'disaster' at Jutland. Really it's about how an organizational culture of rules and obedience leads to catastrophe - and success can only be achieved when individuals rely on their own judgement and experience.
Here's an article review that gives a good overview:
https://warisboring.com/the-sinking-of-hms-victoria-led-the-royal-navy-astray/
You're either trying to lie to me or you're deluded yourself.
> The concept isn't meant to be a claim to superiority--though I find deep irony in the fact that alt-right is so offended by this
I don't even consider myself as being alt-right, but I don't think the alt-right as a whole is offended by the concept of chosen-ness. They really don't care. They wouldn't care at all if the Jews were not the hyper-ethnocentric and influential tribe they are.
Also, maybe some more religious Jews don't think alike and they would want to see the Goys under a Jewish master (notice how their own neuroticism tries to twist the fact that they want to have slaves by re-framing it as "the Torah says they will want to be our slaves by themselves!").
> If you think there's a widespread hatred of Christians in the Jewish world after the 1950s, you've been fed a lie.
I think there's some even now. And it may even be entirely religiously-motivated.
or... batshit crazy Jews trying to shame Christian Goys (ohh, kinda common even today considering I had a covert Jewish friend who tried to convince me that Jesus was a Jew and thus Christians were somekind of deluded folk. ALthough I personally totally agree that Christianity is an ir-religion, just like Judaism is an ir-religion, he had no moral right to try to belittle other people's beliefs, but I guess this is so commonplace among Jews, because they create their own morals for the in-tribe)
And btw. here's a book to consider - Esau's tears
AJudaism is evil simply because it's a detrimental egregore.
btw. the Abrahamic God doesn't exist.
And here I am thinking: "ITT: people who haven't read Rules of the Game but need to"
slippery_people: ^^original ^^reddit ^^link
That true to an extent, but there were other factors. Such as the widespread association of Jews with brutal Communist/Bolshevist revolutions, the post-WWI Communist takeover in Germany led mostly by Jews, the world Jewish boycott of German goods in 1933. And yes, Jews had dominated the press and financial industry for some time.
(the book pages are from Esau's Tears by historian Albert Lindemann)
What do you mean by this question? If you are referring to their historical importance and/or adoption, I can give a bit of guidance.
There's a theme here, if you didn't pick up on it. All of these terms are a byproduct of the Anglicization of either Latin, Celtic or Germanic words, the majority of which came into existence during the early middle ages. For more on this, see Norman Davies's work The Isles: A History
The history you mention is a lot more complex and long, so it's a bit like shooting fish in a barrel refuting your comment. What I point out below takes away the spun, nice and black and white 'history' we (in the UK) were taught in school. The history I learned at home was somewhat different, so I've spent a good part of 20 years investigating it.
Neil Oliver put together an excellent history more aligned to what actually happened, rather than the propagandised (written by the victor) history you mentioned. However, if you like books, these are a good start:
This is an excellent resource on the highland clearances. Growing up I was told of how ancestors were thrown off their land, their language and way of life destroyed, betrayed and left to starve by their clansmen for greed and power - then, if they still lived they were ultimately thrown to all corners of the earth looking for a survivable way of life or in fact slavery...
One part of the Irish side of the family was enslaved and sent to the Caribbean (didn't learn about the Irish slaves at school, did you?...). And of course other parts of the family lived (if they were lucky) through what some have called the Irish Holocaust
I spent a period of my youth incredibly angry at 'the powers that be/were' as they stood by and let these genocides happen for two reasons; greed and lust for power. Hence my long interest in history written by those on the receiving end of monarchist, aristocrat and religious policies. These people's ancestors still inhabit the castles and own the land taken at the time.
I woke up one day a long time ago now, clear in the knowledge I had a bad case of Stockholm syndrome brainwashed into me via the 'education' and corporate media. Hence, I'll refute comments such as yours til I'm pushing up the daisies - because it's admittedly a very successful, but deliberate attempt by those in power to tell us what they want us to hear.
In respect to your 'mass extermination of the indigenous people of those islands? (New Zealand)' - again, you're very misinformed on the facts as they've been laid down. For starters, The Maori committed their own genocide before the white man turned up. Then, yes the British monarchy's minions did their usual and committed terrible acts - no change there then, but from the above, I'm sure you'll have picked up which side I stand on, i.e. not 'royal'.
there's also a bestseller about bletchley park [saw it at the whsmith at heathrow]:
http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Bletchley-Park-Codebreaking/dp/1845136330/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317822120&sr=1-2
Not sure if it's any good though; has anyone read it yet?
I'm a big fan of lucky 13!
Terry Jones' Medieval Lives is 13 bucks. I would add it to my books WL, too if I weren't having trouble deciding how to categorize my WLs. Heheheh.
You can purchase it as well
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0007485905/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
For Turing himself I can recommend Alan Turing: The Engima and for a wider look at the stuff he was a part of during the war The Secret Life of Bletchley Park is pretty good.
I HIGHLY recommend Keegan's The Face of Battle, particularly the chapter on Agincourt. He talks at great length and in great depth about the use of the bow on the battlefield. While it's a different battle, a different war (400 years after Hastings), and a different type of bow, it nonetheless is immensely helpful in imagining the impact ranged weapons might have had on a medieval battlefield.
In specific terms of Hastings, it's a bit hard to calculate the impact that bows had upon the battle. The English side had only a smattering of bowmen, while about a quarter of the Norman army were bowmen, so we can at least say that the victors had more bowmen. Additionally, Harold II, leader of the losing side's army, might have been killed by an arrow in the eye (this is a controversial topic, however, so I urge caution).
On the other hand, there's some indication that the Norman archers weren't particularly decisive, either. They were firing uphill, and most of their arrows either bounced off the enemy's shields or flew harmlessly over their heads. Furthermore, the Norman archers were ironically hindered by the lack of arrows being loosed back at them, which meant that no arrows were available once their supplies ran out. When the English responded with ranged attacks of their own, they mostly consisted of axes, javelins, and stones, rather than arrows.
I really enjoyed this book.
I read it shortly after this http://www.amazon.com/The-Most-Powerful-Idea-World/dp/1400067057/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_3 and they went very well together.
Also it went well with the BBC's "The Making of Modern Medicine" radio program.
As a general intro I think "A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes" is one of the better ones:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/all-of-irish-history-in-250-episodes-1.906533
https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Ireland-250-Episodes-Fascinating-ebook/dp/B00BQG7W4Y
Hmm. Well, my position would be that progressive political decisions by many Western European countries, particularly regarding immigration, are fueling the rise of the populist right (eg: Austria's coalition government, difficulties forming a government in Sweden).
This is the direct result of an inability to have a frank discussion about the serious issues with how immigration has been implemented in the EU, because of the authoritarian left's strangehold on discussion, both in journalism and in politics. The populist right responded to that vacuum.
I can't see the populist right returning to the dark hole they crawled out of until immigration, and Islam, could be discussed frankly, without people immediately being labeled "racists" or "Islamaphobes."
Murray's The Strange Death of Europe is the only book I'm aware of that speaks about this.
>"[E]rudite, dispiriting, and indispensable . . . . More than any other book with which I am familiar, The Strange Death of Europe provides a rich, comprehensive, and haunting portrait of a continent in extremis and an astute, thoroughly credible diagnosis of the social, psychological, and cultural afflictions that have led it to this hour of crisis."
The wikipedia articles have citations. You are refusing to accept them, and your only counter argument to the parts I cite are claims that these estimates are not accurate. You have not cited any reason to believe these estimates are inaccurate, other than your belief. I don't mean to be rude, but this sounds like a conspiracy.
But, I digress. I'll do the manual labor of copying the citations from more reputable sources.
First claim
> Clergy entered the country secretly and although services were illegal they were maintained.
You can find this in this book on page 289.
> The Roman Catholic hierarchies were restored in England and Wales in 1850 and in
> Scotland in 1878, and from this point greater effort seems to have been made to
gather statistics in a more systematic fashion, albeit with minimal standardization and
quality control.
Second claim:
> Another estimate for 1764 is of 13,166 Catholics in the Highlands, perhaps a quarter of whom had emigrated by 1790,[27] and another source estimates Catholics as perhaps 10% of the population
This can be found in this book on page 387.
Because it is an estimate, let's see if we can find other sources.
Here are some maps from the mid 19th-century which estimate that Scotland was mostly protestant, and seems to corroborate the 10% claim (it's hard to interpret the exact numbers, but it's definitely a minority).
> In 1923, the Church of Scotland produced a pamphlet calling for a racially pure Scotland and demanding the removal of Catholics. The pamphlet was titled, "The Menace of the Irish Race to our Scottish Nationality". This again goes against your claim that Catholicism could have been a dominant religion in Scotland.
The existence of this pamphlet is corroborated by this source and a copy of its text.
> Church of Scotland is part of the government of the United Kingdom
The Church of Scotland points out that it was only granted freedom from the UK parliament in 1921, although I will admit, it seems to function more independently today, than I claimed.
You should also check out The Secret Life of Bletchley Park, more of a social history but does cover the Bombes and the work of the Post Office engineer who was the main guy behind the actual construction of Colossus.
they're the scottish clans, which these days are just the family names of the major families, I wish it was higher res, was disappointed when I couldn't zoom in, but presume my grandmother's clan is on there.
Edit: found the original map on amazon, http://www.amazon.in/Scotland-Old-Clans-Collins-Pictorial/dp/0007485905
Funnily enough Clan Campbell are shown in the zoomed in image, third pne along, the yellow to the right of Inverness ( and funnily enough the rest of the family who still live up there are in Inverness now.)
Bonus: happen to be at my parents so got a pic of my mother's plate that has the coat of arms and motto; https://imgur.com/a/tQwPF
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Famine-Plot-Englands-Irelands/dp/1137278838
Archives for links in comments:
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I am Mnemosyne 2.0, I've covered wars you know.^^^^/r/botsrights ^^^^Contribute ^^^^Website
No, it's the first chapter of a book by a renowned left wing journalist and historian. I just didn't want to link to Amazon for fear of being accused of marketing. But, here you go.
Sadlyat the time thanks to US pressure and obstructionism, the UN sat on its hands while Saddam gassed his own and iranian people despite repeated IRanian attemtps to raise the issue of Iraqi CW warfare at the UN. http://www.amazon.com/Arming-Iraq-Secretly-Northeastern-Transnational/dp/1555532853
Iran alone suffered 100000 chemical weapons casualties though it refused to respond in kind even when entitled to do so legally in self-defense. http://archive.is/q6pYB
Was Iran supposed to just sit there and wait to see who Saddam decides to gas next?
Excellent show!
I watched the whole thing last night (pity about the quality), then realised I could just buy the book (which I did).
Terry Jones: Medieval Lives
Before I post my resources, I'd like to dive into what the Devil is to the early modern country dwelling folk who practiced cinningcraft/witchcraft and the animistic undertones that still pervaded their worldview until the late 19th Century or so.
The Devil often was less of the theological figure, and more of a folk figure that could refer to any number of local spirits or beliefs, often taking the place of pagan gods and fairy lords. Isobel Gowdie, regarded as genuine witchcraft, was a sixteenth century witch that professed some genuine Devil worship, although in her case the Devil was a king of fairys, in addition to the female fairy queen figure.
This further influenced the modern contemporary forms of witchcraft (Whereas Gerard Gardner made it a point to distance his horned god from the Devil, while other forms like the Clan of Tubal Cain did not), and modern regional practices.
The Visions of Isobel Gowdie
Devils Dozen; Thirteen Craft Rites of the Old One
Masks of Misrule
The Devils Plantation
The History of the Devil
The Fairy Tradition in Britain
The Man in Black
The Devil did me no Harm
The Devil and His Dame in Traditional Witchcraft
The Devil in Witchcraft
Now, I practice Traditional (In this case, witchcraft inspired by folklore, ballads, fairy faith and Folklore, in a truly operative and sorcerous manner, truly pagan and highly blasphemous) witchcraft, and exist as a Fairy Faith animist. The Devil reigns as a pagan god in my craft, the very spirit of air and motion, of the world, whose essence is infused with us in the form of a breath soul, our intellect and ego, whose body is the wind itself. He can be Lucifer, Cernunnos, Odin, Azael, Pwcca, Bucca, Janicot, among other names. He is the primary focus of my "one-man cultus" when it comes to the cosmology. Because of this, I find it important to know how he has appeared in the history of witchcraft.
Like I said, I'm an exmuslim. You're gonna lecture ME about criticising Islam? I don't need you to tell me there are legitimate criticisms of Islam, just as there are of Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism and Sikhism and Buddhism. But your starting point is that because this terrorist was Muslim we should assume all Muslims ascribe to such beliefs. Do you even logic?
>Islam is very right wing
No, wahhabi Islam spread by the Saudi government that (a) the British government created and installed and (b) continues to be propped up by the UK and US, is right wing and intolerant. You may not have heard of Sufi Islam, for instance, but that's your own ignorance. Your argument is analogous to saying than Christianity is terrible because of the Westboro Baptist Church
>with the overwhelming number of terror attacks linked to Islam
After El Paso, right-wing terrorists have killed more people on US soil than jihadis have.. You might also want to pick yourself a copy of Mark Curtis's Secret Affairs.
Facts don't fit your narrative, mate, what are you going to do?
I'm not shutting down discussion. I'm telling you that your position is wrong, or worse, malicious. Discuss away.
Would you like a history book too? https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Ireland-250-Episodes-Fascinating-ebook/dp/B00BQG7W4Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1521330253&sr=8-2&keywords=irish+history Stick it on your wishlist, pm me the link and I'll even pay for it for you :) I gather you can read since you're on reddit.
Islamism is also far right and in many cases is funded by the same NATO-powers that fund other right-wing ideologies, in Chile for instance