Recent comments in /f/history

dexable t1_ir6rdhn wrote

Reply to comment by fuzzygondola in See lifelike facial reconstructions of a medieval Scottish woman, priest and bishop by unheated1

This does kind of get to the point of the exhibit. The researcher gave the press of the higher percentages to the press to give a more "potentially accurate" model. However most of the sculptures were created to showcase all the possibilities. Meaning there was a small chance that Chelsea could have looked like some of those but it was still there.

Skin tone is an interesting one, we would think it is simple but it is not. To use myself as an example my skin tone shade is closer to my mother's: light than my father's: medium-dark. However the undertone of my skin tone matches my father's golden undertones versus my mother's pink undertones. Which means the more of a tan I have the more I look like my dad to people. I also have my mother's eye shape but my father's eye color. My mother's hair color but my father's hair texture pattern.

I could go on but the point is that genes can really express themselves in a lot of varying ways.

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PhilHeller t1_ir6jm7p wrote

Reply to comment by Nyx_Valentine in Simple/Short/Silly History Questions Saturday! by AutoModerator

I read in "les mondes de l'esclavage" (a sum on slavery that was published last year in France) that 90% of black people in XVIIIth century France were based in Paris (and especially in the aristocratic neighborhoods). Auvergne being a pretty remote region at the time, it is unlikely. However it is not impossible.

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calijnaar t1_ir6hvaf wrote

Reply to comment by kaysea112 in Simple/Short/Silly History Questions Saturday! by AutoModerator

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, is another example of a son of a French planter and an enslaved African woman. He did suffer from racial discrimination, but I would not say he did not have any form of status. He is the first known classical composer with African ancestry, and he became a succesful conductor. However, when he was proposed as the conductor of the Paris opera, this was denied after a petition of the opera singers to the queen asking her to prevent this. He later fought in the first all-black regiment in European history, the Légion St-Georges during the revolutionary wars. (There's an excellent YoU're Dead To Me episode about him, if you're interested)

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dropbear123 t1_ir6dwfm wrote

Reply to Bookclub Wednesday! by AutoModerator

Finished The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia by Peter Hopkirk

>3.75/5

>The writing is good. The book focuses mainly on the stories of the British and Russian agents in central Asia. Not that much perspective from the natives. Covers the entire 19th century and ends with the British invasion of Tibet in 1904 and the Russo-Japanese War . Good if you want a history book that feels like a narrative but if you want an academic view of the period I would look elsewhere.

Now reading a book I bought very recently (rather than having it for ages before reading it) - Crucible: The Long End of the Great War and the Birth of a New World, 1917–1924 by Charles Emmerson. Really enjoying it so far but it is an unusual style for a history book. Each chapter is a year with the subsections being seasons (winter 1917, summer 1919 etc). About 200 pages (out of 600 or so) and it is up to the winter of 1918-19. Jumps around a lot and covers the events as they happened, rather than covering something like the Russian Civil War all in one go. When I say it jumps around I mean it will be something like 'Russia - The Czechoslovak Legion falls out with the Bolsheviks' then 'Washington - Woodrow Wilson begins planning his outline for his peace plan and comes up with his 14 points' (obviously in full paragraphs and more detail than I did but that is the basic style, I think the Amazon storepage for it has a look inside if you want to see what I mean). Focuses a lot on famous people, Lenin, Hemmingway, Rosa Luxemburg etc.

Sidenote - Emmerson's 1913: The Year Before the Great War is very good if you are interested the culture/society/life of pre-WWI world without the focus on international relations.

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camergen t1_ir6aoxm wrote

Reply to comment by LordSneeze in See lifelike facial reconstructions of a medieval Scottish woman, priest and bishop by unheated1

The Bishop, I feel like he has one of those faces that could mean he’s corrupt. It’s probably just Hollywood- the higher ranking church official pretends to be chaste and godly, but uses a portion of the offering to maintain a harem or something. Bishop O’Donnell is all that a good bishop should be- in his appearances. The actions, however….much different.

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