In addition to what's been mentioned as far as political power, it's also worth noting the role of capitalism and industrialization. As capitalism expanded into a global market and technology made it possible to process and produce things like textile products more quickly, you see the plantation system develop into a labor system, and white plantation owners relied on unfree labor to continue growing that. It's worth noting that even a lot of anti-slavery white Americans pre-emancipation are against enslaved labor not because they necessarily care about enslaved African Americans, but because they feel that it's a threat to free white labor.

Some sources to check out if you're interested in exploring the connection between capitalism and slavery:

Slave Country

Slavery's Capitalism

The Half Has Never Been Told

It's the other side of Europe from byzantium bur David Crowthers history of England is good. Same narrative format with lots or polticial/military but not ignoring social, economic etc. Some interviews with historians and guest spots but not loads.

You can start with episode 35 or so. Means you start with Henry II (crowned 1154) who is the first angevin king and pretty interesting/significant.

Dawn Wind by Rosemary Sutcliff is another good (childrens) novel about the life of a commoner in the Saxon age.

Can you suggest some sources so i can learn more about that?

*edit: You guys rule thank you!

Battle of Leuctra seems pretty famous for its insane 50 deep column from the Theban sides. Is there any other battles you have in mind where a deep column is used to great effect?

Yes, quite.

Pulaski was under direct, line-of-sight, fire with rifled artillery, which was the big game changer. There was no accurate counter battery fire from the fort, they didn't have rifled artillery.

The Prezmy fort could not be engaged with direct fire because of the earthworks, trenches and barbed wire defending it. You could lob shells at it with howitzers and mortars, from behind earthworks, but they're nowhere near as accurate. If you breach the walls, you can't easily assault it because of the earthworks, barbed wire, trenches, machine guns, etc.. The defenders would be mostly underground, no-one would be relying on a masonry fort for protection from artillery.

Yeah a little bit.

Heres a documentary i love about the post roman period in Britain.

The focus of my comment was not a comparison with other relevant provinces but relativize and contextualize Baetica urban decline mentioned in the article.

However Africa was not significantly wealthier and for sure not more urbanized than Baetica in the specific period I mentioned: from Caesar to Antoninus Pius. During that period Africa was less influential in long distance trade, less relevant culturally or politically and in regard urbanization rate Africa province's was lower at any period (maybe you are confusing "bigger cities" with urbanization, but those are different things). Africa, Syria and other provinces grew exponentially in most contexts on a later period, just when Baetica declined, since late II and during III century CE.

The first roman colony outside Italy was Italica in Hispania Ulterior (later Baetica), the first provincial citizen to reach the position of Consul at late republican times was an "ulterior" too (Cornelius Balbo), the first heyday of provincial latin authors had a clear prevalence of baetic origins (Seneca, Pomponius Mela, Lucan, Columella) and the first emperors with provincial origins also came from Baetica (Trajan, Hadrian). All those examples are consequences of a major political, economic and cultural relevance and specially of an earlier/deeper urbanization and romanization. Baetica and Africa had different relative development peaks during Roman Empire, earlier in Baetica case as it was its relative decline.

In regard urbanization, which means relative relevance of urban life, percentage of total population living in urban centres and not which place has the "biggest cities", Africa despite including a big metropolis as Carthage and other few big cities, had still predominant rural population as many other places of the Empire, which doesn't seem to be so clearly the case for Baetica. Guadalquivir Valley (Baetis river) and the area around the Strait of Gibraltar (fretum gaditanus at roman times, "Strait of Cadiz") had a constellation of middle cities that Africa lacked by our current knowledge and those 200 proper, but moderately sized cities probably concentrated way higher share of provincial population than in most other major provinces in the Empire. Only considering the roman cities in Baetica we already located and studied/estimated their limits, barely half of the total, they extended for close to 4000 purely urban hectares. That's bigger area than Alexandria + Antioch + Carthage + Ephesus, traditionally considered as the largest metropolis of Roman Empire after Rome (in that order, Carthage never was "second only to Rome"). Population density was lower in small or medium cities than in the mentioned metropolis, but still the very dense Baetica urban net could be hardly balanced by its rural population, considering the relatively small area (approx 80,000 km2, much smaller than Africa), the existence of large low density areas (Sierra Morena and Betic mountains, over half of Baetica surface), the dominance of latifundia in the countryside and the lack of dense enough rural settlement, so prevalent in Africa or many other places of the Empire.

We have the mentions in literary sources too. Roman period authors mention more (proper) cities for Baetica, for example geographers lists (Pliny, Strabo, Pomponius Mela) or oldest/higher amount roman colonies and municipia of roman/latin rights than in Africa or any other place outside Italy.

In regard "wealth", Baetica was not only mentioned far more commonly than Africa in literary sources from the period we discuss, but archaeologic data demonstrates Baetica prevalence in some long distance trade contexts on western half of the Empire during I and II centuries CE, not only in the aforementioned Monte Testaccio in Rome, but by the fact the most common foreign amphorae found in Britannia, Germania or Raetia were also from Baetica, transporting products from that southern Hispania province.

Africa on the other hand was not the "breadbasket of Western Roman Empire" and much less alone. The contexts of grain distribution mentioned in literary sources focus on Rome city alone and its Annona system, not normal trade nor territories outside Rome city. Egypt or Sicily were also as relevant for this specific grain route as Africa was. On the other hand we lack the evidence for long distance trade relevance on african products that we have for Baetica in this period (amphorae and their tituli picti, mostly, but also literary or epigraphic mentions), Africa trade would only rise to prevalence later, since late II century.

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Yup. I’d have known that priest were Scotsman, even if he were mute when I bumped into him in a rain forest in South America.

She’s really beautiful. Which is not usually what I think when I look at women in medieval paintings - maybe it’s their hair, just the changing standards of beauty down the ages or their style & clothes? Regardless, it is rare, even of paintings of women who were known to be “beauties” at the time.

This woman must surely have been considered particularly attractive, even back then?

Radwald is known in Brittany, where he is called Radwal.

According to a German manuscript, Judith of Brittany’s mother (Ermengarde of Anjou) was a kinswoman to the East Anglian king, St Edmund the Martyr.

The truth is more complicated.

I can't offer much in terms of your target time period, but if you like Duncan, and the narrative, chronological format, I'd highly recommend his Revolutions podcast.

England, US, France, so on and so on, in order pretty much, up to the USSR.

The best part is that he not covers them in order, but makes a point of discussing how they are intertwined. Which ones triggered or inspired others, how they relate, how some of them drew on lessons from the previous

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Why does that not surprise me? 😁 👑

Well, no, not lost! The Romano-Britons did remarkably well. They created cross-Channel kingdoms that expanded from Cornwall, Devon and Wales.

They fought against Attila and the Visigoths, established colonies in the Somme, Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Maine, Blois, Berry, Aquitaine, Gascony and Galicia (in Spain), and from these arose many prominent dynasties, some of which were highly influential in England and across the Continent.

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Proof is a strong word.

The early modern monarchs did much the same, imposing on their subjects’ manor houses.

The real Uhtred the Bold lived several generations later, that’s true. He was related to the ancestors of the Nevilles.

I suspect that the House of Wessex was originally a cadet branch of the House of Cornwall, which incidentally outlived it as a ruling dynasty.

>if questions are only for r/askhistorians

You're literally in a thread designed for questions, so no, questions aren't only for askhistorians.

> then why is the main page always full of well questions?

It's not? (edit: went back, over the past 50 submissions allowed on the page only 5 of them are questions/discussions) There can be questions in the main page IF they follow the rules, these are much stricter than the ones allowed here, namely that they have to show prior research, an understanding of the historiography, a substantial write-up, and have a question capable of generating discussion. We require that because 99% of the time questions asked can be answered with a bit of research, and a bit of time.

Edit: I will add that sometimes we do send detailed questions to other subs because they are more likely to have the base of users that will be best to answer it. If you, for example, post here with a detailed question trying to understand a passage of ancient Greek text we'll suggest you take it to /r/AncientGreek because 99% of our users don't know any Greek and the comment thread will just be full of 300 quotes.

I think they usually just pave over the old road because the road foundation is fine, it’s just resurfacing that’s needed and that makes paving over the old surface the cheapest and easiest option that also gets the job done as needed.

An army of Englishmen conquered Normandy in 1091. The AS Chronicle continued to about 1154. So the transition was complicated.