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One area I've found particularly fascinating recently is comparative history, and examining the parallels and repeats in history over a given period.

One that particularly jumped out at me was the contrast between France and Russia between the Napoleonic Wars and WW1. In 1815, end of the second Napoleonic war, Russia were seen as the greatest military power in Europe, and a pinnacle of autocracy and stability, while France were weak, leaderless, blighted with opposition factions and unstable to say the least, having a constitutional monarchy with a king that held all the real power.

Fast forward to 1854, and the Crimean war, and suddenly, Russia are hopelessly outdated, Napoleon III has modernised France's military, industry and economy, and has a fairly stable position as Emperor. Alexander II of Russia comes to the throne, the last remaining European Autocrat without a constitution, and tries to improve Russia, but only serves to increase opposition. His son expands the economy and beats opposition, but at the expense of appearing brutal and blind to the people's needs. His son, Nicholas II, becomes the last Tsar, and in 1905, 91 years after France, a constitution is put in place, By this point, France has no monarchy, and is a fully democratic republic.

By 1917, France is holding its ground against Germany, and generally well-supported, while Russia is collapsing into revolution as the people demand more, and the Tsar is willing to give less. The Socialists take power, and it is only by 1920 that Russia has a 'stable'(I use the term loosely) government.

I think this is the real reason why the Russian revolution was so significant and violent, as they underwent the same political change (constitutional monarchy > no monarch, left-wing government) that had taken France the best part of 60 years in just 12 (1905-17). They went from the last great autocratic power to the world's first communist state in such a short space of time, making that one of the most extreme shifts in politics in history.

Apologies to anyone I've just bored to death.

I wrote a paper on comparative history in senior year. Compare and contrast between the SS and the CCC

Somewhere.. sometime... somebody discovered porn. The world would never be the same again.

I am only interested in economic history, and even then anything pre-19th century is basically guesswork. I just enjoy hard numbers, the rest of history seems more or less like guesswork.

I am most interested in the history of sex, love, and everything that it connects / infects.

 necrovamp wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 necrovamp wrote:
Anyone know anything about the Korean Peninsular before it split?

I watched War of the Arrows. That was kind of a cool movie

May have to watch it. It just occurred to me I know nothing about Korea pre 1950's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms_of_Korea

Lots of japanese games are based on this era

Captain fantastic, Japanese Fanboy much.

China, Vietnam, Korea, Mongolia has a rich culteral history, calling it boring doesn't do it justice, Lots of "Japanese" art and tradition originated from China.

Medieval Europe mostly.

I like Knights.

And the Mongol conquests, thanks to those books by Conn Iggulden. They really got me interested in the period, despite being largely fictional.

 iproxtaco wrote:
Medieval Europe mostly.

I like Knights.

And the Mongol conquests, thanks to those books by Conn Iggulden. They really got me interested in the period, despite being largely fictional.

Though he probably did actually get a lot of things right. They were fantastic books, weren't they?

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 necrovamp wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 necrovamp wrote:
Anyone know anything about the Korean Peninsular before it split?

I watched War of the Arrows. That was kind of a cool movie

May have to watch it. It just occurred to me I know nothing about Korea pre 1950's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms_of_Korea

Lots of japanese games are based on this era

Captain fantastic, Japanese Fanboy much.

China, Vietnam, Korea, Mongolia has a rich culteral history, calling it boring doesn't do it justice, Lots of "Japanese" art and tradition originated from China.

Hence why he said "boring to me". He didn't say they were boring as an absolute statement, he simply said that HE thinks they're boring, which doesn't have to mean that he can't see why other people might like the history of aforementioned countries.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

 iproxtaco wrote:
Medieval Europe mostly.

I like Knights.

And the Mongol conquests, thanks to those books by Conn Iggulden. They really got me interested in the period, despite being largely fictional.

Though he probably did actually get a lot of things right. They were fantastic books, weren't they?

They absolutely were, one of my favorite fictional series. He got a lot of things right, he just simplified it to make it easier to digest. Like Mongol culture and society. In the books, it's fairly straightforward. Not inaccurate, just less complicated.

I've been reading and watching videos on a lot of history recently.

My favourite periods are all a bit Ireland centric unfortunately, but I'm trying to branch out!
-I love the Dark Ages, the clash of cultures between the Vikings, Gaelic Irish and the Normans in that period is really interesting. It's often used as Nationalists to start the narrative of "Irish Oppression" which makes it interesting for me to study and figure out which bits from school were propoganda and which were accurate.
-Cromwell's war in Ireland is also interesting to study, but what is in some ways more interesting is comparing the coverage of that genocidal maniac/hero of the common man on the west side of the Irish sea to that from our eastern neighbours. It was shocking to me to see a statue of Cromwell outside parliament in the UK, and lead to me reading a lot more about him and realising that rather than a 2 dimensional monster he was a complex man who achieved both great things and terrible things in his lifetime.
-More recently, I've been developing an interest in the 30 years war, because to me it reads like someone took most of continental Europe and put it in a blender for the entire duration. Fascinating to see the gradual emergence of the modern nation state from the reprecussions of that.