MN History Club?

[LineRunner]

Hi

On the back of this very busy and brilliant thread here (now in Classics) about medieval history and much more besides, would MNHQ please consider a history topic / MN History Club?

There are lots of comments on the thread such as 'Best thread ever', 'I am so pleased to find others who want to talk about tudor history' etc.

I think it might fit into the In The Club category.

I'm more of a prehistory geek myself, but could start threads within the general MN History Club topic.

Count me in too.

I have no-one in RL that I can talk about this stuff with. The Richard thread has been a godsend even though it has cost me a fortune on Amazon and will cost me even more

One of my audiobooks has Starkey narrating, his Elizabeth book, I think.

Whenever I have it on, DH will not stay in the room and can't understand how I can bear to listen to THAT voice.

I can talk history to my dad, but he knows SO MUCH MORE than me so it usually turns out to be a lecture, and I love my dad, but I don't love his lectures. Whatever the subject, he will derail it to accommodate his special subjects (Judaism....the Middle East....Sumer ). He is bloody clever. You'd have to be, to be able to somehow link Gertrude Stein and her ilk to ancient religious texts thousands of years old.....

Oh yay! A history topic would be great! I just finished a book about Eva Peron which was fascinating. I don't know much about South American history (apart from the Horrible Histories Aztec song obv) so would love to find out if any wise mumsnetter knows more I now know that the Perons were well dodgy and she had fabulous clothes!

QuirrelQuarrel - I'm sure Mary Wollstonecraft would do it. She's on Twitter and she is absolutely brilliant.

There are quite a few other historical figures on Twitter but mostly they just post their diaries whereas Mary W engages people in conversation. The sweetest thing ever was when she was cheering Mary Beard up once saying 'Oh, have you been called a hyena in petticoats too?'

?? I thought she was historical herself!! are there two?....

We like hyenas on mumsnet>>>> we need this with some ears on top

An imposter!!

Ooh, anyone else nosy to know who quirrel's dad is?!

quirrel, Mary W must be some modern person pretending to be her - but she posts 'in character'.

I loved that bit with Mary Beard, too, very sweet.

Who was that vile man who had a go at Mary Beard? A A Gill, wasn't it.

Let's get him on and take him apart, prejudice by prejudice. And get Brian Sewell to sit on him and drink all the mead and eat all the honey cakes.

Oh, he is such a tosser that man. A A Gill, I mean. He just doesn't like people.

My dad is very lovely and should be a celebrity but unfortunately he's not! He couldn't be some old famous professor, he hasn't a beard (although his eyebrows are quite feroce). He's talking about enrolling with me at my uni and doing a dissertation. I thinks he will embarrass me dreadfully. I wish he would!

Oh really? how fab! I wonder if there is an....Anais Nin somewhere. I wish my friend would do Colette. She is the exact reincarnation.

• He thinks I am not quite a teen masochist.

Another vote for a history thread - yes, it would work well as history and genealogy, the two compliment each other.

I've only got a history O Level,but know a fair bit because of my voracious and eclectic reading habit.A history topic gets my vote.

Once upon a time, I loved history stuff too, but in the last few years that has fallen by the wayside.

I have so enjoyed reading through that thread and have been ordering and pulling out my old books to remind myself all about this period.

I'd like to add my vote for a History topic and think that slinging it in with Geneology is a fab idea.

I am reading a history book atm. Well, it was published in the 60s (I got it at Shakespeare and Co ) and it's about "The French" as a peuple but it's mostly about French history. Tho am rather more stuck into my charity shop £1 virago omnibus atm, Weather in the Streets is the first book. I'm going to miss this town, charity shop heaven :(

Ooh yes. Please give us a home.

It doesn't have to be a posh home or have a proper chimney - we'll happily share it with the dumb beasts as long as there is a hole in the roof to let the smoke out.

this made me laugh

I love that.

Oh yes. The replies from people who had not sussed it out are particularly amusing.

I think I'm going to have to namechange in order to reflect the fact that I'm ancient. Back in the day, when I was a fresh(ish)-faced youngster, history was all about king'n'queens and generals'n'battles. Since I don't have a good memory for names'n'dates, I was useless at history.

But I recently got interested in history again, where there's now more focus on how people lived, back in the day. The link that thatlldo posted is a great example of that.

Anyway, I'm just bumping this thread to keep it in the forefront of TPTB at MNHQ. With offers of malmsey and sweetmeats, of course.

I did a Greek and Roman City Planning course once. I kept thinking, Where did all the shit actually go?

I think they did a lot of recycling - solid waste as fertiliser and liquid waste in the laundry business as a bleaching agent. I (vaguely) recall from reading about the American Civil War, that urine was collected so nitrates could be extracted and used to make gunpowder.

Now, that's an idea for a theme - "Pee and Poo Through the Ages" , including Joseph Bazalgette's magnificent London sewers.