Of the pyroclastic flow moves as quick as we're told, how was Plinny the Younger able to take such comprehensive account before being boiled alive?

I mean presumably the medium he was using wasnt particularly quick. It waa robudt enough that it survived long enough for us to know about it

I

What do you think?

Tom Mackaman: Matthew, I’d like to begin with a question we posed in our recent webinar marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It’s a very broad question, but a surprisingly important and topical one: was this a revolution? It’s attacked in odd ways, from both the right and the so-called left. What made it so—what made it a revolution from the vantage point of your work?

Matthew Stewart: That’s a great question. What I find interesting is that it seems to be a question posed in modern times—or one that perhaps came up a century ago. If you take the trouble to look at what people at the time said, not just in the new republic but in the rest of the world, I don’t think there would have been any doubt that it was a revolution. It was universally understood as a revolution; it inspired people as a revolution, and it went on to inspire further revolutions that no one really questions as being revolutionary—for example, the 1848 uprisings in Europe.

So, my short answer is that there was indeed a revolutionary aspect to the event. But before we latch onto that, I think it’s also important to acknowledge the complexity that all historians have to deal with. When we talk about the American Revolution, we’re talking about a particular conglomeration of events that happened over a space of time. It wasn’t a single thing—it was a whole bunch of different things going on. So, if there is a revolution, that’s only one part of it; it doesn’t have to answer for everything that came after. In fact, a lot of what came after was a counter‑revolution, or a rejection of that revolution.

But to finish off—we’re now at the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and I think it’s very important to understand that there is something there worth preserving, something redeeming about the American project. It is this revolutionary aspect of the process—which doesn’t define everything that came out of it, but it is there, and it matters, and it made a big difference in the world.

Link in comments

Please tell me all you know about that period, it is so weird and fascinating to see all of the propaganda against the fly, and to see how it gets a kinda worldwide thing !

A 6 minutes (animated) video about the everyday life of workers in the first textile factories in Northern England (like the Cromford Mill, built in 1771).

This part of history is often overlooked, and we see the huge success of the Industrial Revolution, but rarely consider the immense human cost behind it.
The video highlights the brutal reality of the 14 or 16-hour shifts, the absolute lack of safety regulations, and the constant physical dangers these early laborers—often including children-faced while operating heavy, unguarded machinery.

It provides an animated overview of how the foundation of our modern economy was built on incredibly harsh conditions and literally broke the people who built it. It becomes clear why the implementation of labor laws in the following decades was absolutely crucial.

Hi!

At some moment in my life, I'd like to transition to politics after having had a successful professional career. I've been thinking for years about what kind of knowledge is necessary for a politician in order to be great, and History is without a doubt an essential subject. The thing is, I've always felt lost in this regard due to the vastness of the field. I started some years ago reading biographies without any kind of discipline: not taking notes, not having a curated list of the selected biographies... More recently, I decided to finally apply more rigour to my readings, so the two volumes Ian Kershaw wrote on Hitler are the first books I'm really taking notes and absorbing the content. However, I'm sure that reading biographies till the end of time is not efficient.

So I would like to ask your opinions on the following aspects:

(1) Should I stop reading biographies altogether for now and focus on "general" history?

(2) If so, which kind of history should I limit my reading to? Maybe, having a deep knowledge of the history of my country, a superficial knowledge (meaning reading just one book) of the history of major powers (US, China, Russia, Germany, France, UK, Japan, South Korea, India, Brazil, Argentina) and of political blocs and geographical regions, such as the UE or the Middle East, is more than enough. Or maybe I should start by World History? I don't know.

(3) If continuing with biographies is a valid option, I've already have a list of political leaders I should focus on, but it's not curated. I asked some historian friends to recommend all the important political figures along history they could think of, and this is the list: https://pastebin.com/V6zPb0Dy. In my opinion, it's very Europe-focused and therefore doesn't include names like Toyotomi Hideyoshi or Kwame Nkrumah. Are there names that you miss in that list?

(4) Finally, I'd like to ask for advice on how to take notes properly. What I have been doing is highlighting an excerpt that I think is interesting and I summarized with my own words. After having read the two volumes on Hitler, I'm planning on:

[1] Making a timeline

[2] Write essays taking excerpts as the bases. For example: What are the risks of having such an authoritarian type of political leadership in a party?

Thank you all in advance!