Feature History
Published on 20 Aug 2017Hello and welcome to Feature History, featuring the Peninsular War and not much else. It’s not called Peninsular War and other stuff, just Peninsular War so really you can’t complain.
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I do the research, writing, narration, art, and animation. Yes, it is very lonely
August 27, 2018
Feature History – Peninsular War
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August 26, 2018
Italians in AH Army – Military Missions I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
The Great War
Published on 25 Aug 2018Chair of Wisdom Time!
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August 25, 2018
Swedish Antiaircraft Artillery: Bofors 40mm Automatic Gun M1
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 24 Aug 2018Note: In the video I mistakenly describe this as a two-stamp NFA gun. It is actually deactivated, and thus does not require a tax stamp. Sorry for the mistake!
http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
The Swedish Bofors company developed their 40mm antiaircraft gun in the 1930s, and it would go on to be one of the most successful weapon designs in modern history. Used by both sides in WWII and in all theaters, improved versions of the 40mm Bofors gun continue to serve in military front lines to this very day. In the US, they comprise part of the armament on the AC-130 Spectre gunships, for example.
This particular gun is a WW2 vintage piece, made in Sweden. Most of the examples used by the United States were made under license by Chrysler, the car company. Something like 60,000 were produced during the war, mostly for naval use. These guns would be a mainstay of American vessels’ air defense against Japanese Kamikaze attacks.
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
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Mediterranean trade in the Iron Age
Jan Bakker, Stephan Maurer, Jörn-Steffen Pischke, and Ferdinand Rauch look at the relationships between trade and economic growth around the Mediterranean during the Iron Age:
Economists often point out the benefits of trade, yet empirical evidence for these benefits has been hard to come by and tends to be recent. This column goes back to the first millennium BC to analyse the growth effects of one of the first major trade expansions in human history: the systematic crossing of the open sea in the Mediterranean by the Phoenicians. A strong positive relationship between connectedness and archaeological sites suggests a large role for geography and trade in development even at such an early juncture in history.
The effects of free trade inspire a lot of public debate these days, and policies to restrict trade are gaining in prominence. Economists since Adam Smith and David Ricardo have typically pointed out the benefits of trade. Yet empirical evidence for these benefits has been much harder to come by and is much more recent. In particular, empirical economists have tried to demonstrate that more open economies or more integrated markets see faster growth. The relationship between these two variables is not much disputed; the more difficult question is whether this is due to trade causing growth or richer economies being more open.
[…]
To analyse whether this increased trade also caused growth, we exploit the fact that open sea sailing creates different levels of connectedness for different points on the coast. The shape of the coast and the location of islands determineshow easy it is to reach other points, which might be potential trading partners, within a certain distance. We create such a measure of connectedness for travel via sea. Figure 1 shows the values of this measure on a map and demonstrates how some regions, for example the Aegean but also southern Italy and Sicily, are much better connected than others.
We use this measure of connectedness as a proxy for trading opportunities.
Figure 1 Log connectedness at 500km distance
Note: Darker blue indicates better connected locations.
Measuring growth for an early period of human history is more difficult as we have no standard measure of income, GDP, or even population. We quantify growth by the presence of archaeologic sites for settlements or urbanisations. While this is clearly not a perfect measure, more sites should imply more human presence and activity. We then relate the number of active archaeological sites in a particular period to our measure of connectedness.
We find a large positive relationship between connectedness and archaeological sites. The effect of connections on growth in the Iron Age Mediterranean are up to twice as large as the effects Donaldson and Hornbeck (2016) found for US railroads. Although these results are unlikely to be directly comparable, the magnitudes suggest a large role for geography and trade in development even at such an early juncture in history.
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Why was Italy so Ineffective in WWII? | Animated History
The Armchair Historian
Published on 27 Jul 2018Potential History’s Video: https://youtu.be/QB2GINNs3Aw
Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/armchairhistory
Our Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArmchairHist
Sources:
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer
Fascist Italy’s Military Struggles from Africa and Western Europe to the Mediterranean and Soviet Union 1935-45, Frank Joseph
Hitler’s Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and the War of 1940-1943, MacGregor Knox
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August 24, 2018
Over By Christmas? – Growing Allied Confidence I THE GREAT WAR Week 213
The Great War
Published on 23 Aug 2018Get David Zabecki’s Book about the German 1918 Offensives: http://bit.ly/Zabecki1918
With the recent “Black Day of the German Army” and the success of the new strategy of Allied attacks along the Western Front and with the renewed offensives in Palestine, British Commander Sir Douglas Haig is confident the war can be won by the end of the year. Entente Generalissimo Ferdinand Foch is a bit more cautious but also thinks the war can be won by 1919.
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From Software-as-a-Service to emerging Techno-Feudalism
The shift from selling software to selling software subscriptions was a major sea-change in the technology world. Here’s a bit of historical perspective from The Z Man to explain why this could be a very bad thing indeed for the average user:
Feudalism only works when a small elite controls the source of wealth. Then they can control the exploitation of it. In Europe, as Christianity spread, the Church acquired lands, becoming one of the most powerful forces in society. The warrior elite was exclusively Catholic, thus they had a loyalty to the Pope, as God’s representative on earth. Therefore, the system of controlling wealth not only had a direct financial benefit to the people at the top, it had the blessing of God’s representative, who sat atop the whole system.
That’s something to keep in mind as we see technology evolve into a feudal system, where a small elite controls the resources and grants permission to users. The software oligopolies are now shifting all of their licensing to a subscription model. It’s not just the mobile platforms. Developers of enterprise software for business are adopting the same model. The users have no ownership rights. Instead they are renters, subject to terms and conditions imposed by the developer or platform holder. The user is literally a tenant.
The main reason developers are shifting to this model is that they cannot charge high fees for their software, due to the mass of software on the market. Competition has drive down prices. Further, customers are not inclined to pay high maintenance fees, when they can buy new systems at competitive rates. The solution is stop selling the stuff and start renting it. This fits the oligopoly scheme as it ultimately puts them in control of the developers. Apple and Google are now running protection rackets for developers.
It also means the end of any useful development. Take a look at the situation Stefan Molyneux faces. A band of religious fanatics has declared him a heretic and wants him burned. The Great Church of Technology is now in the process of having him expelled from the internet. As he wrote in a post, he invests 12 years building his business on-line, only to find out he owns none of it. He was always just a tenant farmer, who foolishly invested millions in YouTube. Like a peasant, he is now about to be evicted.
How long before someone like this monster discovers that Google and Apple will no longer allow him to use any apps on his phone? Or maybe he is denied access to his accounting system? How long before his insurer cuts off his business insurance, claiming the threat from homosexual terrorists poses too high of a risk? Federal law prevents the electric company from shutting off his power due to politics, but Federal law used to prevent secret courts and secret warrants. Things change as the people in charge change.
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Tank Chats #35 Centurion | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 14 Apr 2017The thirty-fifth Tank Chat, presented David Fletcher MBE, is the first of the videos on the Centurion series of tanks.
The Centurion is one of the most important tanks in the history of the British AFV and is one of the most significant post-war Western tanks. Introduced in the spring of 1945, a small number of the Beach Armoured Recovery Version (BARV) served with the British forces during the Iraq war of 2003, 58 years later.
To find out more, buy the Haynes Centurion tank manual. https://www.myonlinebooking.co.uk/tan…
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August 22, 2018
The 10 Worst British Military Aircraft
Hush Kit
Published on 5 Feb 2018Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/hush_kit
PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/HushKit
Blog – https://hushkit.net/
If you want something done slowly, expensively and possibly very well, you go to the British. While Britain created the immortal Spitfire, Lancaster and Edgley Optica, it also created a wealth of dangerous, disgraceful and diabolical designs. These are just ten plucked from a shortlist of thirty. In defining ‘worst’- we’ve looked for one, or a combination, of the following: design flaws, conceptual mistakes, being extremely dangerous, being unpleasant to fly, or obsolete at the point of service entry (and the type must have entered service). Grab a cup of tea, and prepare for ire as you read about ten machines they wanted your dad, grandad or great grandad to fly to war. I’d love to hear your opinions below. The original article can be found here: https://hushkit.net/2016/03/02/the-te…
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August 21, 2018
Creating An American Army – John J. Pershing I WHO DID WHAT IN WW1?
The Great War
Published on 20 Aug 2018Check Out Desert Operations: https://desertoperations.gamigo.com/
John Pershing already had a long career in in the US forces when World War 1 broke out. When 1917 came around he was tasked with the monumental challenge of creating and expanding the American Expeditionary Forces and send them over to Europe.
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Celebrity chef accused of cultural appropriation
Tim Worstall explains why, despite jerk chicken being something like the national dish of Jamaica, accusing Jamie Oliver of culturally appropriating it makes no sense whatsoever:
Well, here’s a recipe for that jerk chicken which does seem to be close to being the Jamaican national dish.
Ingredients
8 -10 pieces of legs and thighs
1 lemon/lime
Salt and pepper to season
½ tablespoon cinnamon powder
1 sprig of fresh thyme
3 medium scallions (green onions) chopped
1 medium onion coarsely chopped
2-4 habanero pepper chopped
1 1/2 tablespoon Maggi or soy sauce
1 tablespoon bouillon powder optional
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
6 garlic cloves chopped
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon allspice coarsely ground
1 1/2 tablespoon fresh ginger chopped
1 tablespoon coarsely ground pepperAs far as I can tell those ingredients coming from, in order – the chicken, SE Asia via land cultural exchange to Europe and then the Americas by the Portuguese and Spanish. Sure, some evidence of Polynesian delivery but on West Coast only. The lemon, SE Asia, salt everywhere, pepper India or perhaps Indonesia. Cinnamon, SE Asia but introduction to European thus Caribbean cuisines through Ancient Egypt and thus into Greece. Thyme, the Levant and Ancient Egypt, scallions at least as far back as Ashkelon and further east than that. Onions, definitely Eurasian, habaneros definitively Latin American. Soy sauce, think we’ll allow Nippon to claim that, maybe China. Bouillon powder, industrial civilisation somewhere. Sugar, Indian subcontinent, garlic central Asia we think. Nutmeg and allspice the Spice Islands, now Indonesia. Ginger, South and SE Asia.
So, someone who makes this is accusing us of cultural appropriation if we make it?
Oh Aye?
All of which is, of course, to misunderstand the basic point about human beings. We’re apes, ones with a special and remarkable talent. We’ve this readin’ an’ writin’ stuff meaning that when we spot something that works we’re able to tell other people about it. In a manner rather more efficient than just teaching junior to do what we’ve learned to do. This is the secret of our success. That things once learned can be passed onto millions, billions, of other people. If we had to go reinvent the wheel each generation then we’d not all be rolling around in cars now, would we?
The very essence of our being the successful tool using species we are is that we copy. Appropriate that is. So insistences that we don’t “culturally” appropriate are demands that we stop being us, stop being human. Well, you know, good luck with that, however delightful the concept of cultural appropriation is as a method of having something else to shout about.
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The StuG III – Germany’s deadliest AFV
Lindybeige
Published on 31 Jul 2018At Bovington Tankfest, there were three Stug III assault guns for me to have a look at. Naturally, I looked at all three.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LindybeigeThanks to The Tank Museum at Bovington for the invitation.
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
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August 20, 2018
The Opium War
In Quillette, Jeffrey Chen reviews Song-Chuan Chen’s Merchants of War and Peace: British Knowledge of China in the Making of the Opium War:
The war had a name even before its first shot. The first recorded use of the moniker, the ‘Opium War,’ was in an 1839 piece in the London Morning Herald; within months it would be echoed across the benches of Parliament and across the carronades of the fleet sent to punish the Chinese crackdown on British trade.
The war’s nomenclature revealed from the beginning the multivalent views the British public held towards the war: it was at once the “unjust and iniquitous” Opium War — to use Gladstone’s well-known phrase — as well as the patriotic ‘China War,’ as its proponents wanted it to be called. The historiography of the war is similarly divided among varied lines. Some see the war as reflective of China’s failure to catch up to Western technologies; others emphasize the British desire to avenge their slighted national honour as the prime motive for the conflict. A wide array of scholars have placed a central focus on the role of opium, while some prefer to see the war in the context of imperial and economic expansion. Song-Chuan Chen’s Merchants of War and Peace: British Knowledge of China in the Making of the Opium War is a worthy addition to these voices.
Chen’s portrait of the Opium War places the role of British traders and their lobbying efforts in the foreground by arguing that it was British knowledge of China, as transmitted via the merchant class, that contributed to the ‘making’ (in the sense of both manufacture and execution) of the war. Chen asserts that it was the decade-long campaign of bellicose editorials and pamphlets on the part of the Canton merchant intelligentsia, as well as an accumulation of knowledge on the details of China’s coastal defences and overall military strength, that made it possible for Britain to both conceive of and win the war. The book casts, as its main actors, the ‘Warlike Party,’ a group of British merchants in Canton who lobbied for military intervention to expand the Canton System of trade, and the ‘Pacific Party,’ who opposed the war and criticised the diffusion of opium as an illicit and immoral drug. By narrowing his focus towards the production of knowledge, Chen also elevates the importance of language. A chapter of the book is devoted to a summary of the ‘Barbarian’ controversy – the disagreements and narratives spun around the British choice in translating the Chinese character 夷 (Yí) as ‘Barbarian,’ rather than ‘Foreigner.’
Chen’s account is thus of a battle as much between China and Britain as an internal conflict within the British public sphere. Though Chen is careful to nuance his depiction of the war by overlaying the many causal factors detailed by existing scholarship, his book makes two main arguments, which, in the words of the author, are new to the field: firstly, that the decisive factor in the war’s escalation was due to the machinations of the Warlike Party; and secondly, that the Canton System represented a ‘soft border’ through which the British were able to secure intelligence on the Qing state, without a reciprocal exchange of knowledge.
Written in engaging, lucid prose that presents its ideas clearly, if repetitively, Chen’s monograph is studded with riveting selections of his primary source research, drawn from the National Archives, UK, the First Historical Archives of China, the National Palace Museum, the British Library, SOAS Library, and Cambridge’s Jardine & Matheson archive. These quotations are often reproduced at generous length from the Warlike Party’s Canton Register and the Pacific Party’s Canton Press, and they provide a revealing account of the vigorous rhetorical strategies employed by the two camps.
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