#history

[yesterdaysprint]

Courier-News, Plainfield, New Jersey, November 24, 1936

[copperbadge]

Some photos of the “food” section of the Pompeii exhibit at the MSI. I found this section especially fascinating because 1. I love food but also 2. People really are just gonna people. That frying pan, which I think is bronze, looks like the cast iron frying pan I cook with. Next to it is a strainer that’s actually very similar to my mesh strainer and if I could buy one like that today, I would. 

That large orange terracotta bowl is two thousand years old and looks like something you could buy in a bougie home goods store today. 

The last photo is recognizable to most people with a tumblr and a passing interest in history as a loaf of Roman bread -- it has the classic round shape with scoring across the top and an indentation around the edge where it was baked with a cord wrapped around it. It’s a copy of course, but it’s a resin cast of an actual loaf of bread recovered from Pompeii. As a bread baker myself I spent quite a while studying it. 

[ID: Three photos; top, a display of cookware including a modern-looking likely-bronze skillet, a small, deep strainer with a long handle, and an angular, deep cooking pot. Lower left, a bright orange bowl with a flat bottom, high rim, and decorative printing on the outside; it has been cleaned and shines with a high red burnish. Lower right, the bread loaf appears as a round black disc with score marks around the edge and on the top.]

[ousia-poetica]

California.

[olekciy]

    A short reminder that Russia is imperialist, has been imperialist for a long time, and there's no way around that fact.

Sections of the Western left have developed a narrative according to which Russia has been gradually surrounded by NATO and that supposedly "provoked" Putin. It's increasingly difficult to sustain the notion that Russia is simply "defending itself" after 24 February 2022, but the thing is - the invasion did not come out of the blue. One needs a different narrative to understand what Russia actually is: an aggressive imperialist power alongside other imperialisms.

So, a different narrative:

- 1994: Russia, with US support, acquires Ukrainian nuclear arsenal in exchange for the assurances to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity

- 1997: Russia acquires the Sevastopol naval base and almost all of the ships (82%, to be exact)... in exchange for the assurances to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity!

- 2004: Russia meddles in Ukrainian presidential elections, fighting hard to force an undemocratic fraudulent outcome, but fails

- Mid-to-late 2000s: As punishment for Ukraine electing Yushchenko, Russia uses energy blackmail, a form of economic coercion not very different from the IMF and World Bank lending and conditionality

- 2008: NATO refuses to adopt a roadmap towards Ukraine's membership and in effect postpones the decision indefinitely. Ukraine's security is in no way guaranteed, while Russia has already demonstrated the propensity to use coercion to force Ukraine to do its bidding

- 2009: Dmitry Medvedev, then president, writes to Yushchenko that "Russia does not pose and cannot pose any kind of threat to Ukraine", so seeking NATO membership is stupid. Yea, sure

- 2014: Russia, which "does not pose and cannot pose a threat to Ukraine"... annexes Crimea. Really, Dima?? I thought you were for real??

Of course, by annexing Crimea Russia not only makes all the previous statements that it "can never pose a threat to Ukraine" a ridiculous lie, but also breaks the 1994 memorandum and 1997 treaty. "We are the Kremlin. Our word is worth nothing"

- Crimea's annexation provokes armed separatism in Donbas that Russia supports and coordinates, including direct military command and control, and then completely subordinates Donbas "authorities", in effect occupying the region

- Ukraine's still not in NATO, its security is still in no way guaranteed, and the supplies of US weapons only begin in 2018. They are kept to a minimum... out of fear of provoking Russia!

- Nevertheless, on 24 February 2022 Russia launches a full-scale invasion to establish 100% control over all of Ukraine in one way or another. There is literally no military development on the ground that could have provoked the invasion. On Russia's part, it's a war of choice in exactly the same way the invasion of Iraq was a war of choice for the US in 2003.

Now, this is only the general outline. One should add Russia's drowning of Ukraine with spies and agents of influence, money to corrupt Ukrainian politicians and massive acquisition of Ukrainian assets to impose economic and political dependency.

These are well-known facts, but so many on the left refuse to see the story behind them. It's a story of decades of imperialist aggression, culminating in a war that cost 150,000 lives in 2022 alone. Any discussion of left-wing internationalism should begin with recognizing the reality of what Russia is and what it did.

[livesunique]

Bangalore Palace, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

[sovietpostcards]

The last day of childhood. Photo by Sergey Vasilyev (Chelyabinsk, 1970s).

[todayinhiphophistory]

Today in Hip Hop History:

Lauryn Hill was born May 26, 1975

[undr]

Inge Morath. Magnum Poster: Dancer’s skirt. Seville, Spain, 1987

[classicalcanvas]

Title: Sleeping Cat

Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Date: 1862

Style: Impressionism

Genre: Animal Painting

[vintageeveryday]

Was this the best tabloid news story ever? Readers of a certain vintage will recall the name Joyce McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming. Errol Morris told her story of Mormons, cloned dogs, sex, a false leg for a horse, The Osmonds and an escape from justice in Tabloid.

[yesterdaysprint]

Slipperches by Gustave Verbeek, Evening Star, Washington DC, March 31, 1912

[memories-of-ancients]

Bronze gui (food vessel), China, Western Zhou Dynasty, 11th century BC

from The Shanghai Museum

[marzipanandminutiae]

it is not even 7 AM and I've already been smacked in the face with the Hot Take that the existence of queer history as a field is bigoted because "it should all just be History!!!! queer stuff shouldn't be separate!!!!!"

friend

real question

do you think history specializations operate on the segregated drinking fountains model

[werewolfetone]

Conservatives who go "leftists must not study history 🤣 otherwise they would know that they're wrong and not justified" are so silly. babygirl studying history is why I'm a leftist

[kyrieignisdivine]

Ignored my to-do list today and picked flowers on a long walk instead (chamomile). Felt like a little rebellion.