what is the period of history that interests you most?

[Gerry1time]

I'm really into the iron age to roman to saxon transition in the UK, especially the Dobunni mentioned up thread. Quite a big fan of the theory that bronze age boundaries and customs lived on into the Dobunni, who then persisted past the romans becoming (part of?) the Hwicce and the whole Mercia thing. Given some of their boundaries survive to this day, especially in diocese, are there some boundaries we have on maps today that have survived since the bronze age?

Also got a decent interest in the english civil war, and a huge interest in the nazis. Bascially from the stance that shit can go very wrong very quickly very close to home, and is very likely to again unless we learn from what happened at times like these. I went to Munich a few weeks ago and went on a walking tour of Nazi history there. The guide kept asking us questions, and eventually told me I was banned from answering any more so as to let other people have a go.

 

[SovietArmy]

History of North Pole or Deserts.

 

[discokermit]

The Enlightenment. The birth of modern humans, basically. The average person pre 1650 lived in a world almost unrecognisable to our own, with worldviews to match. I think, however, we could communicate with the average person from 1750 and find an awful lot in common in most regards. We would recognise their lives as being much like our own. That period was the birth of science, finance, literature and institutions much as we have them now.

in the future ''The Enlightenment'' will be known as ''The Time Of Western European Middle Class Smugness''.

 

[SpookyFrank]

At the moment it's Italian history for me. Back when it was all perpetually infighting city-states. Umberto Eco has been a big help here, and Machiavelli.

 

[Athos]

none of it. people are boring.

A fan of the jurasic period, maybe?

 

[mojo pixy]

As noted severally, history is never dull. Specifically for me just now, Rome. Obvs that's 1000+ years all by itself but it's more the fact that it's at the root of just about everything Europeans consider european. And at the minute, the whys and wherefores around its (western) fall and the aftermath, and the rise of feudalism.

It all looks worryingly familiar.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I've moved around a bit, used to be pre-Imperial Rome, especially the Punic Wars to Caesar and Iron Age Europe. Then on to pre-renaissance Italy and Europe from 800-1300 (with spillover to about 1500 because most of the resources are focused on that part).

Now I'm looking at Dark Age Britain, in particular whether the Anglo Saxon invasions weren't actually all that, its a very murky period indeed.

Good stuff, theres so much we can't ever know but its nice trying to make sense of the jigsaw puzzle of whats left.

 

[The Octagon]

The Old West (specifically from around 1803, the Louisiana Purchase, up to around 1910).

Ancient Greece

The Dark Ages

 

[Cid]

As noted severally, history is never dull. Specifically for me just now, Rome. Obvs that's 1000+ years all by itself but it's more the fact that it's at the root of just about everything Europeans consider european. And at the minute, the whys and wherefores around its (western) fall and the aftermath, and the rise of feudalism.

It all looks worryingly familiar.

You might also want to look into that Greece place.

 

[Virtual Blue]

Turn of the century to 1950s Hong Kong. Love listening to the stories and seeing the photos.

 

[davesgcr]

19thC UK and "Austerity Britain"

Roman Britain ...

 

[mojo pixy]

You might also want to look into that Greece place.

One of my favourite paintings (which seems even more apt than ever just now) is of Alaric entering Athens...

 

[flypanam]

Am interested in late 18th to mid 20th century Ireland. United Irishmen, The Famine, Davitt and the Land League, Gaelic revival, the Rising etc.

I'm also very interested in Yugoslavia, from creation to dissolution. Especially interested in Tito and Milovan Djilas split.

 

[SikhWarrioR]

The industrial revolution and the Sikhs and British in India, Being both a Sikh and an Engineer

 

[agricola]

For most of my life its been Rome - but over the past year or so I've been fascinated by the tribulations that Islam went through between the eighth and tenth centuries of our calendar - specifically the row between Mu'tazilites and Asharites, and the great flowering of Islamic science and technology that occurred at around the same time.

 

[not-bono-ever]

Late Cold war and Yugoslavia conflict era- mainly cos I was there or thereabouts when it happened and was able to compare the before and after scenaios. Was alos brought up under the threat of a Nuclear holocaust, so it was pretty pertinent

 

[Dom Traynor]

I'm also very interested in the Victorian era; so many parallels with today (particularly in how we can look at how and why technological change affected society in retrospect, with huge amounts of documentation) but also so many differences and so much abiding mythology about the time. So it tells us about ourselves both from how things happened then and how we've reacted to them and pretend they were different.

Apart from that, I wish I knew more about African history generally; not so much a specific period (it would cover centuries). It's another area where mythology in the West has overridden reality. I know that the idea promoted by colonialists and exploiters that there was no real culture before they arrived is bullshit; what I don't know is much about what really _was_ there.

You might find this interesting about the role of women in precolonial Dahomey Women and slavery in the Kingdom of Dahomey - Persée

 

[Dandred]

Samurai

 

[campanula]

Britain:
World Turn'd Upside Down...or the English Civil War...especially marginal dissident groups such as ranters, diggers, levellers, clubmen.
Industrial revolution (I am just old enough to have worked in a Lancashire cotton mill).
Europe:
18-19C - Balkans, revolutionary change
World:
Farming, agriculture, transport shamanic culture, maritime history...so I guess specific ideas rather than fixed time periods...but BC rather than AD.

 

[roryer]

1649 - 1794 Western Europe, particularly in Britain and France.
World - period starting in 2001 - 2031 seems to be shaping up to be interesting for future historians

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Right now the period in which Europe emerged from the Dark into the Middle Ages

 

[camouflage]

I can say what period of history interests me least, the 1970s... humanities lowest point. Even pictures of it make me feel sad, and sort of ashamed for being born in the middle of that mess. The movie Scum captures the spirit of the decade I think. If anyone can suggest a use for the 1970s it might help fix the styless flair-sporting average of human existence thus far and make it overall less crappy.

 

[camouflage]

On a more positive note I've been following a podcast caĺled the History of Ancient China, absolutely fascinating.

 

[october_lost]

Indian colonial and post-colonial history.
Russian revolution.
Spanish Civil War.
Chinese labour/socialist history.