[removed]

Anglo Saxons by Marc Morris. Just read that on holiday and loved it. In fact, I lost my copy - leaving it in a hotel - and bought another just to finish it.

Just wanted to point out that the premise of your question is slightly off.

The tone of your question implies that a person in power (currently ruling) would kill one of their heirs. This was unnecessary, given that they could change the heir if they wanted or could adjust the rules regarding succession. After all, the ruler is ruling, so unless they were just puppet rulers, they had power to adjust things to their desires. For the most part, something like "King Bob killed his eldest son just because he wants his second son to rule" wasn't really a thing. He could figure out a way to make it so without killing people.

One quite recent example of this is currently reigning Salman of Saudi Arabia. Upon rising to the throne, the Crown Prince title (heir to Saudi Arabia's throne) was transferred to Salman's half brother Muqrin. Soon thereafter, Salman transfered the title to one of his nephews, Muhammad. After Muhammad was arrested and charged with treason, the title was then transfered to Salman's son Mohammad.

Instead, the deaths of heirs for heritage-related reasons (like adjusting who would inherit the throne) were mostly done by those who weren't ruling. People who couldn't change the rules and appoint the ruler they wanted. See the above list posted by someone else for a ton of instances for when, why, and how these deaths happened.

They are all steppe tribes focused on pastoralism (keeping herds) and fighting with (mostly) bows from horseback.

Britain After Rome, by Fleming.

Hey thanks! I’ll check it out!

[removed]

[removed]

On a bit of a tangent, there is a great BBC podcast 13 Minutes to the Moon that uses the final 13 minutes of the moon landing to go over all the technology etc that had to be developed to make that 13 minutes happen. The episode on the flight computer was fascinating. The code was hard wired literally on wires that were then wound/knitted to form the memory core.

I’m sure I’ve massively messed up the simple explanation, but based on the Q I think you’d enjoy the podcast, at least that episode.

Looks like what I'm looking for, thanks!

Thank you!

Thank you!

BBC did a podcast called "History of the world in a hundred objects" that is really nice and succinct. My go-to suggestion for those wanting to get into history in general.

Timurids are Mongol-Turkic people, so similar origins to Mongols of course. Huns origin is more mysterious however there are also possible links between them, Mongols, Turks, Ugrofinic tribes (Hungarians, Fins).

The Huns have nothing to do with the Mongols. The Timurids are an off shoots of the larger mongol peoples (with Turkic influence).

The only link between them is that they are steppe people, which is a category as vast as "native Americans" or "Europeans". It's geographic and includes a lot of very different people that have nothing to do with each others.

>some examples of ways they were superior in intelligence?

None. Because no civilization is superior in intellect to another.

When talking about "primitives" people take for metric: knowledge of technology, complexity of political structure (which are usually way more complex than what outsider see). They say they are less intelligent because they assume that if they don't have steel/guns/wheel/boats/kings/huge buildings, it's because they can't, as if anyone anywhere could come up with those on the fly. While in reality we only develop those technologies if we have the need to. You need specific circumstances, not a bigger brain.

Societies are not more intelligent nowadays that they were 15 000 years ago.

Yes, but when you have enough volunteers you don’t need to enforce it. The problem was the rapid escalation.

[removed]

I would like to know more about Britain after the Romans left up to the Norman conquest. I’m more interested in how people lived (dressed, worked, interacted, ate…) than a list of battles and invasions. Any good books or documentaries to recommend? I’m not really into podcasts or YouTube videos.

Is there any difference between the Huns, the Mongols or the Timurids?

Often people label earlier civilizations as “primitive” (which I take to mean less intelligent.) What are some examples of ways they were superior in intelligence?

The draft was in effect from 1940 to 1973.

[deleted]

Horse breeding and training in general were already ancient arts by the time of World War I and thus included breeding and training horses specifically for war.

As far back as the Middle Ages, there were already distinctions between warhorses, riding horses, and labor horses and there were also different kinds of warhorses. There were destriers (large, heavy, very expensive warhorses meant for knights), coursers (lighter and less expensive warhorses meant for knights and men-at-arms), rounceys (general purpose horses meant for riding and sometimes also for war), palfreys (riding horses only, often used by women), and cart horses (working horses used mainly for plowing and agricultural labor).

[removed]