Worse or better than Batista?
>>436418
Batista ran the country in this shitty protection scheme sort of regime than did favors for nobody (save for corporate US backers)
Much worse in every conceivable way.
Cuba used to receive migrants from all around the world, from Chinese and Europeans to even Americans expatriates. Now they flee their own countries in containers and not even Haitians want to live there.
>but muh HDI
Fake stats, also the whole HDI thing was made up by Amartya Sen to promote the communist governed state of Kerala so obviously another communist shithole would fare well.
Why was the last recommendation for good history books deleted, you know instead of archived?
Let us make this the new recommendation thread for history books.
Anybody have anything on Islamic Spain and the Reconquista.
Bumping for a book on pre- and post-Roman Spain.
>>435222
Why don't you just play Rome: Total War with realism mods?
>>435225
Because I want to read about what actually happened. There's a dearth of information on the subject because every Spanish historian can't resist writing about either the Reconquista, the Golden Age or the Civil War.
Besides, I already do that.
Is it true that these guys are actually really fucking hardcore or is that just a rumour that spread in contrast to their ridiculous uniforms?
Papist clowns.
>>434942
Where are their knives? They're holding the wrong weapons.
>>434942
It's a rumour, they experience the same training as Swiss regulars and don't do anything impressive at any point during their service
Anybody got good videos on hoplite warfare re-enactments? I've heard people argue whether they held the spears overhead (risking hitting the guy in the back in the eye) or underhand (hitting the guy in the back in the dick)
>>434739
It would be impossible for a closed hoplite rank to use their spear underhand. It just is not practical at all.
The argument derives from some people refusing to believe ancient sources on the way hoplites fought: pushing into each other. This is only because historical martial recreationists think it is stupid, and either nobody would die or everybody would die.
Illustrations of hoplite phalanx, including arguably the first, depict overhand use of the spear. Not only that, they even show how the spear was held. Some recreationists dispute this and insist it was held reverse (which is retarded as the video I will link to will demonstrate).
Pic related, Chiggi vase, one of the first red figure pottery examples.
Also, people who've experimented with the idea have discovered you do not hit the guy in back in the eye with overhand.
At this point the only dispute is how exactly they would have used the spear to thrust for the most power.
Issues also include the balance and weight of the spear. So for overarm technique being practical in Phalanx:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZVs97QKH-8
For spear balance demonstration that apparently no reconstructionists have seen or agree with? Never seen it mentioned or seen balance like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgHOHbW9fCA
And for a possible technique they used for actually thrusting overhand:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LaSKE57rZA&list=PLBp7ebiDRbagRbX0Hi6xJ2BwvXb3nhffy&index=9
>>434739
Lindybeige bait thread. Lindybait?
Traditional Greek hoplites used overhead spears.
Alexander (or his father) reformed the Macedonian army to use much longer sarissa spears to form the famous impenetrable phalanx wall.
Is the european union basically the modern day HRE?
>>434364
It's neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire so you could definitely say that.
>The katechon (from Greek: τὸ kατέχον, "that which withholds", or ὁ kατέχων, "the one who withholds") is a biblical concept which has subsequently developed into a notion of political philosophy.
The following identifications of the katechon have been proposed:
The Name of God (or God's presence);
The Holy Spirit;
The Archangel Michael;
The Catholic Church (and the perpetual sacrifice of the Eucharist);
The Papacy;
The Holy Roman Empire;
The State as such;
The Law;
Some more or less important eschatological figure(s) preceding the Antichrist and the end of times (like the two witnesses of the Book of Revelation).
>Last Roman Emperor or Last World Emperor is a figure of medieval European legend, which developed as an aspect of eschatology in the Catholic Church. The legend predicts that in the end times, a last emperor would appear on earth to reestablish the Holy Roman Empire and assume his function as biblical katechon who stalls the coming of the Antichrist.
Flag of the European Union
>in 1987, following the adoption of the flag by the EEC, Arsène Heitz (1908–1989), one of the designers who had submitted proposals for the flag's design, suggested a religious inspiration for it. He claimed that the circle of stars was based on the iconographic tradition of showing the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Woman of the Apocalypse, wearing a "crown of twelve stars".
Apocalypse, here we come.
>>434388
Angela Merkel is the whore of Babylon.
How was Spain able to BTFO the Moors and spread of Islam completely?
>>434089
"the moors" aren't a monolithic entity and had their own wars between taifas
>>434089
Muslim Iberia divided into small kingdoms and the christian kingdoms teamed up in order to defeat them
>>434089
The same reason the Muslim held on to the land for so long: there was no unified realm so the biggest power with the most allies came to dominate the region.
As for the spread of religion, religion tended to follow the feudal lord in charge. And the feudal lord in charge tended to follow the religion that was winning.
Why does everything middle brow or higher has never been succeeded in being funny?
picrelated is funnier than all novels and artistic works put together
>>433888
Mel Brooks considers Ulysses to be the funniest novel of 20th century.
Because the funniest things are the ones you didn't expect
Because you're a pleb
What do you learn during a history degree?
Everything was fine until the white man came.
Everything was fine until Post-modernism came.
In theory you can do anything with a history degree!
What do Jehovah Witnesses believe?
Knocking on my door like clockwork just after I've whipped out the dick
>>431684
The end is nigh.
I can see the signs.
They are autistic biblical literalists. They can't have blood transfusions and they believe that literally 144,000 people will get into heaven. Basically they take everything literally.
How the FUCK did anyone convince soldiers to physically engage and fight each other brutally when this was a major style of warfare? Even something like WW1 seems impersonal and easy compared to two masses of men engaging face to face and hacking away at each other with steel. Furthermore, especially how the FUCK did anyone convince anyone who wasn't outright suicidal to assault the walls first in a siege? I imagine the first man up a ladder or out of a tower or through the breach would have almost no chance to live, but someone had to, and did. Madness.
>>438303
literally ignorance
you just tell people what they want to hear rather than what is true
>>438303
Sieges were led by the forlorn hope/verloren hoop/whatever it was called in different nations. They accepted the increased risk in exchange for priviledges, like higher pay and quicker promotion. Furthermore, it was kind of necessary to fight those wars. If an enemy army started campaigning in your country, the peasants generally weren't having a really nice time. So you had to defend yourself and your compatriots.
Which religion has the best temples?
Catholicism
Can't beat cathedrals, but there are some nice mosques here and there.
>>438085
Hard to tell based on those that survived, because there are some magnificent ones that were destroyed. The Greeks had some great temples that were generally demolished or blown up; the Buddhas carved out of the mountains in Afghanistan and China were demolished by the Taliban and the Communists, respectively. The Chinese also inundated hundreds of ancient temples in the building of the three gorges dam. Chichen Itza and the mesoamerican temples we do see are probably only a portion of what was once built. None of the Jews' temples of jerusalem have survived; I'm sure Persepolis had some great temples before Alexander just burnt it down too.
>Shit tier: people who blindly follow religion without ever truly questioning it
>Meh tier: people who are atheists because "lol religion is for dumb sheeple! I dont need imaginary friends!!!"
>God tier: religious people who are intelligent enough to question it when necessary, but also have a good comprehension of theological concepts and such
Agree? pic unrelated
>>435477
What about I find God not interesting enough?
>>435477
What about atheists who study theology?
>>435477
No, because being religious is still believing things that probably aren't true or haven't been demonstrated to be true.
What triggered the first ''humans'' so to speak, first idea, of language,music, writing , money, trading etc.?
By that i mean, the spark of consciousness.
Every one seems to have a different opinion on the topic.
Adam and Eve were fully programmed adults.
They could talk, walk and marry on the first day.
Fear of death. Came a moment in Humanity where tribes could get bigger and bigger and destroy the others.
So people had to unite and organize themselves to survive, mostly by seeking safety together.
>>434877
CONSCIOUSNESS IN ITS PRESENT CONDITION ORIGINATED IN CIRCA SEVENTH CENTURY C E , MOST PROBABLY DUE TO AN ELECTROMAGNETIC PHENOMENON THAT EITHER ALTERED PERSONS NEUROPSYCHOLOGICALLY, OR MUTATED THEM GENETICALLY SO THAT THEIR OFFSPRING WERE BORN AS CONSCIOUS MUTANTS, OR BOTH.
Did there have to be a cold war? Couldn't america and the soviet union have just kept their borders open and kept trading with each other? Who started the cold war?
>>434874
both sides started the cold war
it was inevitable
>>434874
>Couldn't america and the soviet union have just kept their borders open and kept trading with each other?
They weren't open in the first place?
The Soviets were allies of convenience, and vice versa. They were both growing increasingly worried over each others influence in world politics, and the Blocs they formed were measures of containment.
>Who started the Cold war
It officially started sometime during the Greek civil war, with the Soviets backing the Communist forces and the US packing the incumbent government, and got worse following the Berlin Blockade.
>>434874
The Cold War was already happening during WWII, FDR and Stalin both realized that there was an underlying ideological conflict, to the point that Stalin often implied FDR was waiting to enter the European Conflict because he hoped the Soviets and Nazi's would wipe each other out.
Wasn't until the Long Telegram (when a US Gov't official over in Russia, I can't be assed to look up his name or position, wrote President Truman and made it clear that a conflict was com) was written that the was shifted to an openly "Cold" one.
How fast does time flow?
At the rate of sixty seconds a minute, sixty minutes an hour and twenty four hours in one day.
>>434871
1 second per second
>>434871
It doesn't.
We experience time as a series of singular moments, when in fact all those moments exist as a singular simultaneous occurrence.
If you think of time as just a 4th spatial dimension, and consider our position in the 3d dimension as relative to the 4th as our shadows (2nd dimension) are to us, you can see clearly that we are limited in the scope of our vision.
