(Part 3) Top products from r/HistoryMemes

https://www.amazon.com/Money-Mischief-Episodes-Monetary-History/dp/015661930X

First chapter of Friedman's book talks about a Polynesian tribe that used giant stone wheels as currency and walks through the absurdity of the mechanics of that economy. How the Imperial Germans, when they occupied the island, spurred the islanders to action by painting the rocks with black paint as a punishment for non-compliance with their edicts (it worked). How the tribe developed basically a system of credit that no longer required physical ownership or the moving of the heavy wheels.

Then he turns it around and points out that the paper money and credit economy is basically the same thing.

People will always find a medium of exchange. Gold served perfectly for thousands of years because it was malleable (coinable), rare, you could not fake it (Archimedes solved that), and to a certain degree useful as jewelry. Still is useful as a store of value in that respect, but if you have a responsible money supply (which we've more or less had since 1982), money functions the same as gold

This is a good read. The author really goes in depth over him.

Midnight Rising is also a great if you want a more narrative read and to have to think for yourself over the subject matter.

Hey there! Or I should say Γειά Σου!

I'm a history major in the American College of Greece so we did a lot of Modern Hellenic History (besides our school education, which was based on orthodox [=national] history), and it helped a lot of the Greek-American students get in touch with events.

I'd recommend some books:

https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Greece-War-Independence-Present/dp/1472567560

https://www.amazon.com/Greece-Modern-John-S-Koliopoulos/dp/1850654638

https://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Greece-Cambridge-Histories/dp/1107612039/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=clogg&qid=1574711432&s=books&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Greece-Everyone-Needs-Know%C2%AE/dp/0199948798

You can find more by doing a search on LibGen or visit a library.

If you ever choose to move to Greece again, there're a lot of intensive Greek-language classes for people like yourself. Do not hesitate to ask for more info!

Well, you somehow missed a huge chunk of the Cultural Revolution.

Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 1945-1963 (Needham Research Institute Series)

From the text:

“Our nation’s health work teams are large. They have to concern themselves with over 500 million people [including the] young, old, and ill. … At present, doctors of Western medicine are few, and thus the broad masses of the people, and in particular the peasants, rely on Chinese medicine to treat illness. Therefore, we must strive for the complete unification of Chinese medicine.”

From the Chinese Medical Association in 1955:

“Our ancient medicine is … the subject of interest of the medical world in capitalist countries. Soviet experts once especially invited Professor Li Tao to lecture on the history of Chinese medicine, but a delegation of French medical representatives [also] invited the two old Chinese medical practitioners Shi Jinmo and Yuan Hechai to a discussion. These are all evidence of the emphasis which foreign nations place on Chinese medicine.”

If you’ve ever been to China you’ll recognize terms like “holism” (zhengtiguan) and “preventative care” (yufangxing) in marketing for alternative medicine. Both of these were introduced in Mao’s propaganda, along with many others.

In the case of your argument against the logic of regression in culture and science, do I really have to persuade you that societies can become worse over time? And Communist China of all places? There are records of anesthesia being used in surgery dating back to Hua Tuo (200AD), who was educated in acupuncture and yet spoke against it in favor of anesthesia for use in surgery. And yet, in 1971 after a New York Times journalist described his appendectomy in Peking, and mentioned the use of acupuncture for post-operative comfort, the Chinese Communists engaged in a worldwide media firestorm describing Chinese acupuncture as an effective anesthetic, complete with fake surgical records and testimonies.

tldr; “traditional Chinese medicine” as you know it, originated in the Cultural Revolution. Chinese physicians have known these practices are garbage for literally millennia.

Then Everything Changed by Jeff GreenField. Its a great collection of alternative histories, I should probably reread it. Also, The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century by Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenberg. I have but haven't read [The Man In The High Castle](https://www.amazon.com/Man-High-Castle-Philip-Dick/dp/0544916085/ref=tmm_hrd_, and swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=), and If The Allies Had Fallen. I'll try to read them soon.

> He didn't intentionally kill Ukrainians.

You sure about that? https://www.amazon.com/Red-Famine-Stalins-War-Ukraine/dp/0385538855

Good point.

The Collected What If? Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399152385/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_a0c5BbQAK65MJ

> Granted, he didn't have the control over his country the same way Hitler did, so nothing really came from it.

Yes, I think that's probably the fundamental difference between Germany and Italy during WWII, and the reason why the former was able to accomplish (for lack of a better term) what it did, whereas the latter sputtered-out and died. Also, militarily, Germany had long-running military tradition and well-equipped, well-trained, highly motivated Wehrmacht, whereas Italy was still reliant on First World War supplies and munitions.

If you care for any additional reading on the subject, I'd recommend "Italy's Sorrow" by James Holland. It shines light on some of the points you brought up, as well as gives a full picture of how the Italian Peninsula was ravaged from top-to-bottom during the war.

https://www.amazon.com/Italys-Sorrow-Year-War-1944-1945/dp/0312373961/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550626583&sr=8-1&keywords=italy%27s+sorrow

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp81b00401r000600120003-3

https://sofrep.com/news/russias-ever-elusive-warm-water-quest/

Here's a book you can read, I dont know if it has pictures:
https://www.amazon.com/Afgantsy-Russians-Afghanistan-Rodric-Braithwaite/dp/019983265X

Motel of Mysteries

I had this book when I was a kid and it shaped the way I look at archeology

https://www.amazon.com/Ivans-War-Life-Death-1939-1945/dp/0312426526

this is the closest I could find.

I'd suggest reading this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution/dp/0060995068

Your pop understanding of the Holocaust lacks nuance. Soldiers who refused to participate in war crimes were hardly 'Gestapo'd'. They were allowed to stay in the barracks - though they'd usually 'come around' due to peer pressure. People who criticized the Nazis were quietly deplatformed, but only radicals like antifascists and communists were black-bagged. Ghettos and cattle car shipments were public. Slave camps in Germany were adjacent to civilian centers to facilitate transportation.

The extinction of the untermensch was a popular directive in Germany. People knew and believed and acquiesced not under the jackboot'd pressure of tyranny but out of the logical conclusion of fascism.

Here is probably the most biased source I could think of regarding the Trail of Tears. Not even they themselves consider it to be part of a genocide, but they do recognize the high death count.

Here is information on boarding schools which were pretty much cultural genocide centers (killing cultures, not people).

A book I have on the subject is called North American Indians, A Very Short Introduction . It covers from the discovery of the Americas to the 20th century struggles of the Indians to receive greater autonomy in the government. It also highlights how the Indians who didn't die from disease were dealt with by various European and eventually American powers.

I apologize for not having more text or internet sources to provide. Most of my books on the subject cover pre-columbian and early contact. Also, I live in Georgia so most of my online sources come from Galileo which would not be available to you if you live anywhere other than Georgia.

When i learned about the War of the Insane, i spent some time googling for more info and i found this book, Dreams of the Hmong Kingdom: The Quest for Legitimation in French Indochina, 1850–1960.
I haven't read it yet, but it has an entire chapter dedicated to the War of the Insane and helps the reader understand it within the wider context of Hmong history.

I actually don't know. It was in a book about Cleopatra, actually.

https://www.amazon.com/Cleopatra-Life-Stacy-Schiff/dp/0316001945

I also could be mis-remembering the exact details, but the general plot was the triumvirate had a bit of a swap meet, and decided who would live and who would die.

They still regularly committed reprisals against civilians, and, on the Eastern Front at least, provided logistical support for theEinsatzgruppen.

The SS murdered 1.5 million Jews in Eastern Europe in the early stages of the Holocaust in situ, before the logistics of the cattle cars and gas chambers had been entirely worked out. While the Einsatzgruppen (the term roughly translates as “task force”) provided strategic direction and specialist expertise, they utilized local paramilitary auxiliaries as well as the Wehrmacht for equipment, manpower, and logistics.

The Holocaust could not have been carried out without the assistance of the Wehrmacht. The SS simply never had the ability to carry out an operation of that magnitude themselves, let alone all the other acts of insanity they were tasked with. The Wehrmacht were instrumental in helping the German State carry out atrocities against civilians, actions which had absolutely no military value or utility.

The “clean Wehrmacht” myth was spread by Germans seeking to distance themselves from the actions of the Nazis after they had lost the war, and should be recognized today for what it is: self-serving, ahistorical, easily disproven propaganda.

No they didn’t. Germany wanted to go to war with Russia far before this happened and used this as an excuse. There are documents from general Moltke proving this point - and the idea that Germany gave a fuck about aUstRiA is retarded.

https://www.amazon.com/Europes-Last-Summer-Started-Great/dp/037572575X/ref=nodl_

H. H. Holmes, born Herman Webster Mudgett, is frequently named as America's First Serial Killer. He built a 3 story building in Englewood, just south of Chicago proper in the late 1880s. The first floor was filled with shops, the third floor was hotel rooms, Holmes's office, and a walk-in vault. The second floor was an oddly constructed labyrinth of dead end passages, secret rooms, doors to nowhere, air tight and soundproof rooms, and rooms with gas jets that were controlled by valves in Holmes's office. There were also greased chutes that dropped straight to the basement where Holmes had an operating table, pits of quicklime, and a furnace that was allegedly used for glass bending but was oddly shaped like the furnaces found at crematoriums. No one knows how many people actually died in the murder castle. Holmes claimed he killed 27 in his final confessions, but some of the people he claimed to have killed were still alive and well. The papers attributed upwards of 200 murders to Holmes, because hundreds of people disappeared during the 1893 Chicago's World Fair and it was easy enough to blame it on the dude who owned a friggin murder castle. There are 9 actual murders that can be attributed to Holmes, including 3 children, so either way he was a tremendous piece of human shit.

For more information:

• Wikipedia
  
  
• Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
  
  
• H. H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil by Adam Selzer
  
  
• My dumb podcast, Hundred Proof History, featuring dick jokes and heavy drinking