History discussion - no, hitler has never seeked the spear of destiny - General

[QUOTE=thefreeman;39522780]The treaty also put full blame on Germany for WW1. Which Hitler then used that in his speeches to gain more followers. You're right when you say that Germany had fucked up policies, but the treaty it really gave Hitler ammunition for his speeches.[/QUOTE] And yet the majority of people who joined the Nazi Party had not heard Hitler speak. And we have to come back to the fact that in 1932 the Nazi party was in decline, more speeches about the Treaty wouldn't have changed that, so how can we come to the conclusion that the Treaty of Versailles led to the Rise of Hitler when clearly Hitler got lucky when Von Papen convinced Hindenburg to let him into government so they could use the Nazi's for their own interests. If that had never happened the Nazi party would have gone back to pre-1929 popularity levels as the economy continued to recover and people saw less benefit in supporting an extremist party. The same would have happened with the KPD. Whether or not a Republican democracy would have remained is not clear, after three Chancellors completely abandoning the constitution it might have gone back to a monarchy or authoritarian system of government but there would not be an extremist party in control in any way.

I think we can all agree on the fact that the French revolution did not go as well as it should have. The actual revolution went fine but what followed (aka every single noble got decapitated, even the ones who helped the revolution or were pretty cool guys like Lavoisier who was a scientist) was terrible. It really was a mess.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;39526476]I think we can all agree on the fact that the French revolution did not go as well as it should have. The actual revolution went fine but what followed (aka every single noble got decapitated, even the ones who helped the revolution or were pretty cool guys like Lavoisier who was a scientist) was terrible. It really was a mess.[/QUOTE] I dont disagree. A lot of what they attempted in the F.R. was naive and far to idealistic to be successful. In terms of freedom being set back though, the effects of the F.R. were so immense that even though may have failed in things like bringing full equality to women(which was being considered) and abolishing slavery(which did happen in the Decl. of Rights of Man, but was later brought back) it certainly brought us closer to those happening, even if it failed at the time. If we hadn't tried and failed then, it would have been harder for freedom to rise afterall. [editline]9th February 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Thom12255;39526166]And yet the majority of people who joined the Nazi Party had not heard Hitler speak. And we have to come back to the fact that in 1932 the Nazi party was in decline, more speeches about the Treaty wouldn't have changed that, so how can we come to the conclusion that the Treaty of Versailles led to the Rise of Hitler when clearly Hitler got lucky when Von Papen convinced Hindenburg to let him into government so they could use the Nazi's for their own interests. If that had never happened the Nazi party would have gone back to pre-1929 popularity levels as the economy continued to recover and people saw less benefit in supporting an extremist party. The same would have happened with the KPD. Whether or not a Republican democracy would have remained is not clear, after three Chancellors completely abandoning the constitution it might have gone back to a monarchy or authoritarian system of government but there would not be an extremist party in control in any way.[/QUOTE] You raise plenty of good reasons that contributed to Hitler's rise to power that are not directly related to the ToV but I think you are underestimating the influence it had to create the conditions that were created that allowed Hitler to come into power. Clearly a million things could have happened that would have stopped Hitler, but he DID come into power and in examining the causes we have to concede how the ToV definitely contributed highly to creating that situation. Clearly multi-causality should be embraced as in any case, and ToV isnt the sole reasoning, but it played it's part.

[QUOTE=yawmwen;39525144]no it wasnt. it was a colony of france which meant these people were essentially second class citizens to the french and simply exploited for economic gain. the people of africa had(and have) every right to rebel against their colonial slavemasters.[/QUOTE] the french controlled it it was annexed into france therefore it was france

[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;39527020]the french controlled it it was annexed into france therefore it was france[/QUOTE] Doesn't mean it was right for them to keep it, let alone treat the natives as second class citizens.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;39527198]Doesn't mean it was right for them to keep it, let alone treat the natives as second class citizens.[/QUOTE] why doesn't it?

[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;39527223]why doesn't it?[/QUOTE] The place was taken and held by force. People were abused constantly by being forced to buy French goods to boost France's economy. Despite being reminded constantly that they were part of France, they had no political rights and the only people among them who were allowed to speak up were either corrupt or colonialists. The "pieds-noirs" (black feet, aka French people who settles in Algeria) despite being a minority had complete dominance over everything, and were the only one treated decently because they were white colonialists who decided to live in North Africa to make money. Racism was omnipresent and the indigenous population was considered a bunch of ignorant idiots who should be considered grateful for having the privilege of being under dominion of the obviously superior occidental white man. Colonialism wasn't just an issue of owning a territory. In the mindset of people at the time, you also owned the people who originally lived here and you had all the rights to treat them like utter shit.

I would post an essay I wrote recently about masonic influence in early 19th century Mexico, but I don't want to get nailed for academic dishonesty somehow. I might post it when I get it back and marked though. It's a really cool subject I didn't know much about until I spent several hours reading journals and doing research. They were probably the most influential secret group of that time.

What do you guys think about Historical determinism? Personally I think it's a load of bollocks.

It's all a bunch of baloney, is there any other answer? Especially the Marxist progression of history, yuck.

[QUOTE=Frayyyy;39530512]It's all a bunch of baloney, is there any other answer? Especially the Marxist progression of history, yuck.[/QUOTE] Yeah, a lot of Marx said was basically pseudoscience.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;39530879]Yeah, a lot of Marx said was basically pseudoscience.[/QUOTE] But how, then, did Marx predict that massive world-changing revolution that happened in the mid 19th century that transformed the world into a massive socialist utopia? Remember? I think we can all agree that capitalism isn't capable of sustaining a large number of people at a high standard of living. [editline]9th February 2013[/editline] Obviously.

Has anyone here checked out archive.org's text collections? You can find a load of historical primary sources, especially those pertaining to the 19th century. Right now I'm reading through a few memoirs of those who witnessed the Russian expansion into Central Asia during the Great Game, like Frederick Burnaby's "A Ride to Khiva".

finally there's a history thread on FP: shame it's about modern history, I find most modern extremely boring. ancient history major general

[QUOTE=Pelican;39536029]finally there's a history thread on FP: shame it's about modern history, I find most modern extremely boring. ancient history major general[/QUOTE] It's not like it's only about modern history, all history is interesting

no history can touch the american revolution don't even try

[QUOTE=skynrdfan3;39536111]no history can touch the american revolution don't even try[/QUOTE] american history is the most boring history

[QUOTE=zzzz;39536161]american history is the most boring history[/QUOTE]I agree. As an American, I find European history, in particular the French, [I]much[/I] more interesting than ours. [editline]9th February 2013[/editline] Totally not francophile bias

[QUOTE=skynrdfan3;39536111]no history can touch the american revolution don't even try[/QUOTE] it's incredibly boring to me. but then again american history can be a little bit "bland" when you actually are an american and have to read about it all the time. middle ages ftw.

For the longest time I knew more about american history than canadian history (i'm canadian obv.), mostly because we barely learned any in school and the little amount we did learn was about world wars/current events. European history (classical/antiquated) is probably my favourite since I've never had an interest in Asia in general. On a separate note, am i the only one who gets caught in endless wikipedia browsing, similar to tv tropes? I remember starting on a fallacy i've never heard of and ending up on the high kings of ireland around an hour later.

I find Western History in anytime period interesting but I can't for the life of me get into Eastern, just not interested.

[QUOTE=Walrus.;39536525]For the longest time I knew more about american history than canadian history (i'm canadian obv.), mostly because we barely learned any in school and the little amount we did learn was about world wars/current events. European history (classical/antiquated) is probably my favourite since I've never had an interest in Asia in general. On a separate note, am i the only one who gets caught in endless wikipedia browsing, similar to tv tropes? I remember starting on a fallacy i've never heard of and ending up on the high kings of ireland around an hour later.[/QUOTE] no, you're not the only one. it happens to me with pretty much any subject(s), i'll start on time dialation and end up on the equal protection clause [editline]10th February 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Thom12255;39536543]I find Western History in anytime period interesting but I can't for the life of me get into Eastern, just not interested.[/QUOTE] i agree mostly, though i find some major eastern history interesting, for example, the han dynasty of china, and specifically the exploration of zheng he i find as a pretty interesting subject

Eastern history can be daunting to get into because of the names of the people and places, but I actually find it really fascinating. The lifestyles in super-mountainous China and isolated Japan made for interesting contrasts in the way humans interact compared to Europe.

Honestly it's hard for me to find a period of history I'm not interested in. Just what I spend most of my time learning about is usually all things Western Civ, but lately been endeavouring to learn more Eastern and pre-columbian history. Hence why I'm currently in an East Asian history course.

[QUOTE=Pelican;39536029]finally there's a history thread on FP: shame it's about modern history, I find most modern extremely boring. ancient history major general[/QUOTE] It's not only about modern history, really. I know I said it was about "more or less recent events" but really that's all up to your own perception of what is "less recent". I ust said that because personally I feel like I'm much more qualified in modern history.

[QUOTE=zzzz;39536161]american history is the most boring history[/QUOTE] You havn't met Australian history. Australian historians have a really bad habit of focusing only on a few key events, namely Ned Kelly, Gallipoli and the aboriginal discrimination. Seriously, I went into my school library looking for resources about Australia in the Vietnam War and I found at least five books about bushrangers, twelve books on World War I (only one of them focused on WWI as a whole, the rest were about Gallipoli), three books about the Sydney Opera house and god damn, there was an [I]entire shelf [/I]dedicated to Australian discrimination. Only a quarter of them were about discrimination against someone other than Aboriginals. I even had this happen to me- Scott: "I need a book about Australian history that isn't completely focused on the rights of natives" Librarian: "Don't be so insensitive! They're [I]traditional custodians[/I], not natives. Say something like that again and I'll bring the principal here" Fuck political correctness. Fuck boring Australian history. Enough of my rant about Australia, railroads are where it's at. Did you know that the Catholic church condemned steam locomotives because they believed that the smoke was the breath of the devil?

[QUOTE=kamikaze470;39536175]I agree. As an American, I find European history, in particular the French, [I]much[/I] more interesting than ours. [editline]9th February 2013[/editline] Totally not francophile bias[/QUOTE] As a Frenchman I know surprisingly little about French medieval history. It's not really the part of history we get to study the most in class, and we study it very early (when we are about 8 to 10 years old), so it's difficult to remember anything about that time. Speaking of medieval history, Henry IV, the most beloved King of France in the history of French kings, used to rest at the Saint-Denis Basilica like the rest of the kings. But during the French Revolution, in 1793 iirc, revolutionaries showed up at the basilica, opened most of the tombs and tossed the bodies of all the kings who rested there in a common grave just outside of the building. Henry IV, however, was first exposed in his opened coffin placed vertically against a wall. According to records of this time, people approached the body and started slapping Henry IV's dead face, shake his hand, sample a bit of his hair/bear, etc. His head was then cut off for some reason and the body ditched with the rest. What is interesting is that the head disappeared for two centuries, until a broker found the mummified head at an auction and bought it for 3 Francs (0.45€). He then tried to prove it was Henry IV's head without success. When he died, the head somehow found its way in the hands of an old man who kept it in a box for a long time until he revealed it in 2010. The head was then taken for study and several DNA samples were attempted without success because the coffin (made partially of lead) had polluted the skull. Eventually, a Barcelona laboratory managed to get a good DNA sample and sent it for studies. Not only was the skull physically identical to the descriptions of Henry IV at the time (pierced ear, scarred lip, notably), but it also shared DNA with Louis XIV with 7 generations in-between. This definitely proved it was Henry IV's skull, and it also proved that Louis XIV was indeed the son of Louis XIII, which was a rather discussed fact. Finally, a few days ago, another laboratory managed to reconstitute a 3D image of Henry IV's face, up to the tiniest detail. What a crazy story.

[QUOTE=skynrdfan3;39536111]no history can touch the american revolution don't even try[/QUOTE] boston tea harbour happened because taxes went down

[QUOTE=ScottyWired;39537074]You havn't met Australian history. Australian historians have a really bad habit of focusing only on a few key events, namely Ned Kelly, Gallipoli and the aboriginal discrimination. [/QUOTE] god damn. in school, it was mandatory for year 10 to do australian history - and oh my lord. it was all on ww1/ww2 (possibly the most boring things ever), and even more so JUST BASED ON THE AUSTRALIANS. everyone knows that australia is pretty much irrelevant in ww1/2, and having to go through a YEAR of it was suffering

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;39537142]boston tea harbour happened because taxes went down[/QUOTE] And then they lost to the Ravens. Wait wrong patriots.