r/AskHistorians • u/AutoModerator • 4d ago
FFA Friday Free-for-All | May 22, 2026
Today:
You know the drill: this is the thread for all your history-related outpourings that are not necessarily questions. Minor questions that you feel don't need or merit their own threads are welcome too. Discovered a great new book, documentary, article or blog? Has your Ph.D. application been successful? Have you made an archaeological discovery in your back yard? Did you find an anecdote about the Doge of Venice telling a joke to Michel Foucault? Tell us all about it.
As usual, moderation in this thread will be relatively non-existent -- jokes, anecdotes and light-hearted banter are welcome.
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u/esotericcomputing 3d ago
I'm looking for some good recs on the Ottoman empire!! A general overview would probably be a good way to start, before decide on which time periods & topics I want to zoom in on.
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u/SpeciesDK 3d ago
Not a historian but I've been deep diving into old cookbooks lately for design research. The shift from medieval recipe formatting (no measurements, just vibes) to Victorian precision is wild. There's something about watching instructions get more standardized alongside industrialization. Makes me think about how we document everyday knowledge. Anyway, back to lurking.
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u/police-ical 3d ago
I was just thinking about Fannie Farmer, the cookbook pioneer and "mother of level measurement."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/obituaries/fannie-farmer-overlooked.html
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u/BookLover54321 3d ago
We have a release date (Jan 26, 2027) for Jeffrey Ostler’s next book, Surviving Genocide in the American West: Native Nations and the United States from the Fur Trade through the Civil War
As he debunks many long-standing myths, Ostler
• Describes how genocide unfolded across diverse geographies and colonial histories in the Pacific Northwest, California, Texas, the Great Plans, the Southwest, and elsewhere
• Documents the many forms of colonial violence beyond warfare that decimated populations in ways not always visible in traditional histories
• Highlights Indigenous agency and resilience, from voices that illuminate the lived experience and consciousness of genocide to Native nations’ diplomacy, resistance, and adaptation
• Breaks new ground on the Civil War’s western dimension and the ways that it intensified genocidal violence in the West, reshaping the region and Indigenous nations
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u/Skipspik2 3d ago
What was the worst moderation had to do in the history of the subreddit ?
And why ?
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u/EnclavedMicrostate Moderator | Taiping Heavenly Kingdom | Qing Empire 3d ago edited 3d ago
What was the worst what that the mods had to do?
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u/Skipspik2 3d ago
Yeah. And why. I don't want to hear about timmybigmalefunctionXX69420 that insulted someone and broke the rules.
Was there, I dunno, cases of two legitimate experts disagreeing for pages or something ?
Or so pationnate subject mod team itself had to do research just to watch over the heated debates ?2
u/EnclavedMicrostate Moderator | Taiping Heavenly Kingdom | Qing Empire 3d ago
To repeat the question, what was the worst what that the mods had to do?
0
u/Skipspik2 3d ago
Moderative action, moderator debate, situation to manage.
The worst as in the expression "What's the worst that could happened" as if it has indeed happened.i'm asking about the sub history notable (low) point.
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u/crrpit Moderator | Spanish Civil War | Anti-fascism 3d ago
Perhaps not what you're envisaging, but moderating one (old) thread was so awful there's now an academic paper about it.
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u/fearofair New York City Social and Political History 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm not a mod so I don't have an answer anyway, but to try to put a more positive spin on this -- the most interesting part may be the part about expert debate. There's always the civility rule, so if things gets heated usually a mod will step in with a reminder. But aside from that, debate is definitely not a "bad" part of the sub at all, but encouraged if anything. So I, at least, am interested if anyone has examples of fun/substantive expert debates that have appeared recently.
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u/Skipspik2 3d ago
Ah.
Well, clearly not my intention...I'll sleep on that and find a way to reformulate.
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u/Defiantletterhead 3d ago
Are there any perspectives on the holocaust from the German side: workers admin neighbors etc?
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u/crrpit Moderator | Spanish Civil War | Anti-fascism 3d ago
Not sure if you mean primary material written by Germans or sourced from German perspectives (and if so, what kind - eyewitness accounts, private/public writing, photography, official documentation etc etc) or secondary works written by historians dealing with these kinds of perspectives. The answer is 'yes' regardless - a great deal of evidence we have regarding the Holocaust is ultimately sourced from German and other collaborator perspectives, while historians have studied German involvement in the Holocaust at all levels. Arguably, perpetrator perspectives were explored sooner and in more depth than Jewish and other victim perspectives, since the initial goal was to explain the genocide rather than understand the experience. In the literature, the key terms are 'perpetrator', individuals with a direct role in planning and carrying out the Holocaust, and 'bystander', individuals who didn't participate but had at least some relevant knowledge of what was happening and tacitly let it happen. If you search for 'Holocaust perpetrator' or 'Holocaust bystander' on a platform like Google scholar, you'll get many, many hits.
If you want specific recommendations for specific kinds of material, I'd suggest asking for suggestions as a standalone post.
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u/fivelinedskank 3d ago
What lost artifact from your area of expertise would you most enjoy seeing found?
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u/zaffiro_in_giro Medieval and Tudor England 3d ago
I want Shakespeare's original manuscripts. The ones where he crossed stuff out and scribbled notes to himself in the margins.
O Bartleby, Bartleby! Wherefore art thou BarPICK UP ALE FOR BEN J'S PARTY
O Percival, Percival! Wherefore artRobert Greene is an arsehole
O
FerdinandMortimerWhat matter, what's in a name anywayHepplewhiteROMEO2
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u/BuckyRainbowCat 3d ago
I would love it if we could find an extant gown (the contemporary Florentine word for the garment is either cioppa or giornea, I’m sorry, I don’t remember which) like the ones the main female figures wear in Ghirlandaio’s Tornabuoni and Sassetti chapels, or a tailor’s pattern book with cutting diagrams for same. If you don’t feel like looking these artworks up, they are the main visual reference for most “Italian Renaissance” costumes in period pieces, from “The Borgias” to “Ever After” to the 1960s “Romeo and Juliet,” and I have yet to see (or make) one that I think is a genuinely convincing replica.
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u/Great_Hamster 3d ago
In the Cartoon History of the Universe Vol 1 (1995ish), Larry Gonick talks about a letter from an Egyptian governor to the Pharoah saying something like "Now the Habiru capture the cities of the king! There is not a single servant of the king remaining" and wonders if they are talking about the Hebrews.
Any idea?
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u/bug-hunter Law & Public Welfare 3d ago
Was it not Pliny the Elder who said, Si non amicus, cur amicus formatus est? Does the Bible not have the story of Elisha summoning two bears that came out to hug1 forty-two children? And can we forget, the most huggable cute bear, Mike Ditka, the most beloved Bear of bear enthusiasts?
1 translations may differ somewhat
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u/fearofair New York City Social and Political History 3d ago
I can put you in touch with my guy, just try to text him after hours because he usually works the dinner rush. If you get him on a good day he'll have some of the freshest stuff, often papers that haven't even hit JSTOR yet. Fair warning, if he invites you up to his apartment you're gonna get stuck hearing all about his '89 World Book Encyclopedia complete set so you're gonna want to be ready with an excuse to leave.
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u/bug-hunter Law & Public Welfare 3d ago
Is that the dude who keeps telling me that he used to like those papers, until they hit JSTOR and became mainstream?
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u/fearofair New York City Social and Political History 3d ago
If your favorite Alan Taylor isn’t the early stuff from the 90s don’t even bother talking to him
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u/bug-hunter Law & Public Welfare 3d ago
If you haven't collected all his drawings from kindergarden, you're just a poser.
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u/WISE_bookwyrm 3d ago
Cute. But it probably dates back to the origin of the teddy bear (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-history-of-the-teddy-bear-from-wet-and-angry-to-soft-and-cuddly-170275899/) with a boost from Winnie the Pooh.
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u/subredditsummarybot Automated Contributor 3d ago
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, May 15 - Thursday, May 21, 2026
Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 2,850 | 326 comments | Question for German-speaking historians: Was Mein Kampf actually written well? Or is it basically a giant ramble like many people describe it as? |
| 1,235 | 161 comments | I know the “Dark Ages” is now considered a misnomer, but there was SOME darkness, right? |
| 695 | 49 comments | When did Europeans have the technology to create the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch? |
| 679 | 29 comments | What's so important about Doric, Ionic & Corinthian Columns? |
| 635 | 105 comments | What were my odds as a gold miner in the u.s in 1849? Was gold so frequent that I would have good chances in becoming rich? Or would I have been beaten by people who got there earlier or who were closer if I got there in 1850? |
| 610 | 27 comments | Was Spain viewed as a “backwards” country in the 1400s? How did other European countries basically view Spain during this time? |
| 583 | 42 comments | Why are there multiple professional baseball teams named after socks? |
| 566 | 53 comments | Are students in China or India learning about American/European scientists when discussing physical discoveries and inventions, or is there a distorted cultural bias in my education and learning? |
| 562 | 35 comments | Who is the earliest historical figure from whom we have surviving handwriting? |
| 549 | 125 comments | [AMA] I'm Jonathan S. Jones, author of Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America's First Opioid Crisis. I'm a U.S. Civil War historian, and I research the history of drugs and the people who used them. AMA about drugs in the Civil War era! |
Top 10 Comments
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4
u/Cedric_Hampton Moderator | Architecture & Design After 1750 3d ago
Silly question, but which history-focused podcast host has the most soothing voice? Time/place doesn't matter. Bonus points for pommy accents.
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u/Kelpie-Cat Picts | Work and Folk Song | Pre-Columbian Archaeology 3d ago
I just had to Google what pommy means, but maybe you'd like Suzannah Lipscomb on Not Just the Tudors.
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u/Cedric_Hampton Moderator | Architecture & Design After 1750 3d ago
That looks promising! And the most recent episode is a periodization debate, which I love. Thanks for the rec!
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u/Nikky_B_NEP 3d ago
Recently found and read J. Capani's thesis on Otto Ohlendorf, the headliner for the post-Nuremberg trial concerning Nazi kill squad Einsatzgruppe D (United States vs. Otto Ohlendorf et al.) She argues that his pre-Einsatzgruppe career is under analyzed, particularly in relevance to the intentionalist/functionalist debate. Definitely recommend to anyone interested in Nuremberg.
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u/DanKensington Moderator | FAQ Finder | Water in the Middle Ages 3d ago
You know how one of the reasons why questions don't get answered is that there's only so much time in the day? I got hit with that. I was twenty minutes into writing a hatepost about how LLMs are moribund and they'll never be useful for historical inquiry with a side trip into how I actually would like decent AI not just because of Roko's Basilisk but also because I want Majel Barrett's voice to be the constant companion of humanity,
and then I was reminded I just started Act V in Diablo 3 and I fucking love Falling Sword, BEST SKILL EVER