Any history buffs? Name your period or war

[sampsonblk]

I am hooked on the Civil War and WWII. Anyone else?

[Leprechan29]

1. The Scientific Revolution

WWII and the Cold War, Rome (Latin studies will do that to you) and now it seems, the modern Era.

[DivinBreuvage]

2. I love the Civil War and WWII also

with World War II my interest is in the rise of Nazism and the German-Soviet War; I'm not much interested in the involvement of the US, UK, or Japan. With the Civil War I'm more interested now in the ten years leading up to the war. I'm also partial to Puritan New England.

[sampsonblk]

6. R U a New Englander?

I have come to respect the Quakers, although I don't know enough about them. There are a lot of groups that did a lot of good.

[DivinBreuvage]

9. No, but would love to be

I'm from Ohio, although the area I live in (the Western Reserve or "Firelands") was settled by people from Connecticut. I've been fascinated by the Puritans since high school though I'm not really sure why. Probably has something to do with all that intellectualism and repression :eyes:

[sampsonblk]

11. Sounds conservative

Dumb question: Do they still exist?

[DivinBreuvage]

18. In some ways they were more progressive than mainstream Europe

for example with regard to the status of women, the raising of children, and questions of public education and welfare. They actually weren't against sex, fun, and having a pint of ale either, as long as such things were enjoyed not as ends in themselves but as recreations to keep you sound of mind and body and thus render you more fit for the service of God (though of course sex was only to be engaged in between husband and wife)

There are plenty of austere calvinist protestant groups around today, I suppose, but I don't get the sense that they put the same emphasis on intellectual achievements or the public good that the Puritans did. As odd as it seems, New England Puritanism also gave birth to the American liberal tradition. By the time of the American Revolution the New England colonies, particularly Massachusetts, were the most radically "left" of the thirteen, a reputation that they continued to hold through the Civil War and which they still enjoy today. Puritanism itself, I believe, was eventually transformed into Unitarianism, Universalism, Transcendentalism, and suchlike, all very "lefty" strains of religion.

[Zuni]

21. my grandfather fought in the Red Army in WWII

He was a Captain of Eingineers, in the Soviet 9th Army. He was captured along with 200,000 other Russians at Kharkov, May 1942. He was then in German POW camps in Poland, where he nearly starved. Later he was a forced laborer near Berlin, where he met my grandmother, a Don Cossack, deported to work in German factories from Rostov On Don in 1943.
At the end of the war, in despair at the thought of going back to The USSR, they escaped from Berlin and entered American lines.
My mother was born in a refugee camp near Munich Germany, in 1946. My grandfather later worked as a coal miner until he saved up money and finally got a visa to enter the US in 1953. My family arrived at Newark, NJ, where they lived. The first thing they owned was a set of World Book Encyclopedias.
My grandfather, suffering from much apprehension due to the fact he was once a Soviet Officer, finally got a job with Westinghouse as an eingineer. He was a very expierienced eingineer, graduating from a Leningrad school in 1935. He worked at Westinghouse until his death in 1983 and published 2 books on eingineering.

[DivinBreuvage]

26. Great story, Zuni, thanks for sharing it

From what I've read of how the Soviets treated their own army and how the Germans treated eastern prisoners, it's amazing that he survived. I can't imagine what he must have gone through. And from what I've read of how the Soviets treated returning POWs, he and perhaps your grandmother too probably both would have died if they'd gone back to the USSR.

Of all the sad and tragic stories from that war, one of the most heartbreaking, I guess second only to the holocaust, is the way that the almost superhuman sacrifice and achievement of the peoples of the former Soviet republics in ridding their homelands of the Germans was repaid not with the greater freedom they had dreamed of but with a return to repression and terror. There's positively no question that Hitler was a monster, but the more I read of Stalin the more I believe that Hitler was the weak sister of that duo.

I also think it's a disgrace that the people of this country don't have a greater awareness of the debt of gratitude we owe to those people. This is not at all to make light of, or to discount, the sacrifice and achievement of American and British Commonwealth veterans and all the resistance fighters of occupied Europe, but if the Soviet Union hadn't spent two years bleeding the German war machine to death there never would have been an Alamein, there never would have been a D-Day, and there never would have been a liberation of France.

[Zuni]

27. true, but the opposite is also true

The Soviets probably would have been defeated, or at least forced to accept a negotiated settlement if it wasn't for the enormous numbers of German soldiers and airplanes needed to defend against the UK, Commonwealth and American forces, as well as various resistance and partisan movements.
The Soviets, at the very least, owe much of their sucsess to American and British lend lease goods. 3/4 of their trucks, many of the locomotives they used, millions of tons of food products and clothing materials and thousands of tanks and warplanes were all sent to the USSR. Without the trucks and locomotives, their offensives would probably have run out of steam much earlier than they did. The clothing and food aided the Soviets who lost their main agriculture regions in the Ukraine and enabled them to concentrate on war material.

[Lefty48197]

3. 17th century colonial American history

a family member found a genealogical tie and I got hooked instantly. Fascinating part of American history that really isn't covered thoroughly.

[sampsonblk]

7. Lemme guess...

You have done Williamsburg already? I happened to be on the eastern dangler of Virginia and came across a place that apparently was settled by the Custis family. It was pretty interesting. I guess they are related to Gen Lee - maybe his grandparents. It was FREE too. No stuff like free stuff.

[Zuni]

16. The Custises

were on Lee's wife's side I believe. I think Lee married a descendant of Washington.
His father, Gen. 'Light Horse' Lee, was one of Washington's Cavalry commanders.

[HawkerHurricane]

20. Not a direct descendant...

"The Father of Our Country" had no children.

[Zuni]

4. I am a history major and buff

My thing is 20th Century History (although I do love the Civil War --reading Chancellorsville by Stephen Sears right now), and the Populist Movement histories from the 19th). I am fascinated with the World Wars, American History in general, the Soviet Union, Russian Revolution, and the Stalin years and Russia in general(where my family is from. They were anti-soviet defectors), eastern history (mainly China and Japan) and the Cold war (esp. the Cuban Missle Crisis). I just wrote a post on the real story of Sgt. York, in WWI.

[sampsonblk]

8. Makes sense that you are a DUer

That's a pretty impressive list you have. Doesn't seem the other side has much of a sense of history.

[Zuni]

13. I love history, it is my passion

No, I have noticed on FR they have their heads up their asses when it comes to history. All history is a partisan tool (ann coulter's 'treason' comes to mind here), and they reject what is inconvienant. That is one problem with history written for political purposes, right or left, that it often distorts the real lessons of history. I see some of this on DU, particularly among the hard left, but on FR it is an epidemic.

[freetobegay]

5. The American Revolution.

[sampsonblk]

12. Under-studied period

You gotta turn me onto a good book or two. I have only started reading about the revolution in the last 5 years or so. And my book collection is lame on that subject.

[flamingyouth]

10. Ancient Egypt

:hi:

[LSdemocrat]

14. 1960's and the American War for Independence

[HawkerHurricane]

15. WW2, Pacific Theatre, Naval Battles...

Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz, 1st/2nd Naval Battle of Guadalcanal...

Also, what lead to WW2... in other words, WW1. And what lead up to WW1...

Civil War, especially the things that lead up to it. Shiloh.

Military Equipment and Tactics... any and all periods. Especially 2nd rate fighter planes that got the job done.

[Zuni]

17. Have you read Guadalcanal by Richard B. Frank?

Excellent history of all the major air, land and sea actions at Guadalcanal. Very technical, but an excellent reference.

[HawkerHurricane]

19. It goes on my list right now...

alas, with the election season, I'm reading mostly politics (got David Brocks new book) and fiction.

[Zuni]

22. I am going to check out Brock

I read that he was a GOP insider who had much to do with the framing of Clinton. He was one of Blumenthal's contacts when he started to get sick of his mud-slinging job. Blumenthal talks about him at length in the Clinton Wars.

[HawkerHurricane]

24. He was.

His books include 'The Real Anita Hill' (a smear job against Anita Hill's testimony about Clarance Thomas), 'The Seduction of Hilary Rodham' (a smear job on Hilary Clinton), 'Blinded by the Right' (a detailed description on how the right wing paid him to do smear jobs), and his current 'The Republican Noise Machine' (how Republicans use the constant chant of "Liberal Media Bias" to get what little balanced media that occurs to swing further right. Seems that to the right wingers, a 'fair' media would never say anything bad about a Republican...)

[Zuni]

25. Now I know what I am going to buy at B and N tommorow

I would love to hear the secrets this guy has. I have seen Blinded By the Right on the shelf there, and I am going to grab it.

[bpilgrim]

23. wwII

the pacific in paticular but the war in gen.

DU is a great place to learn about all the history i don't know though.

peace

[Menshevik]

28. russian history

all of it...

russian history was my minor in college :)

[CanuckAmok]

29. It's gotta be the War of 1812...

I grew up right where the battles were fought, and the history was hammered into me at a young age.

Plus "we burned your White House down. I notice you've rebuilt it...it's very nice".