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Peter the Great has multiple famous examples. Alexander Menshikov was his close advisor and it is suggested by some historians that he was a stable boy as a child. Catherine I, Peter's wife and Empress after his death, was born Marta Helena Skowrońska and lived a life of poverty/peasantry/possibly slavery before becoming mistress to Peter.

Abram Gannibal was originally a slave purchased as a boy from Africa by Peter the Great, who recieved an education and became a military engineer/nobleman into the time of Elizabeth's rule if my memory serves correctly.

Scholars argue whether Daniel from the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible was a real person or not, but his story certainly counts if so.

While not commoners per se, William Marshal, Otto de Grandson, and William Montagu were all members of minor nobility at best who became friends with kings. William Marshal was a companion of Henry the Young King, Otto of Edward I of England, and William Montagu of Edward III of England.

Another example, though later in history, was Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov, the favourite and confidant of Peter the Great. Unlike the three I mentioned above, Menshikov was not even of gentry status. Another example was Aleksey Grigoryevich Razumovsky, a Ukrainian Cossack who became the lover and probably morganatic husband of Peter the Great's daughter, Empress Yelisaveta.

Henry II and Thomas Becket?

While the basic plans are known from surveys and digs and fragmentary accounts survive along with the occasional tablet or relief showing a peripheral part of the layout (at least for Babylon), there isn't enough for a reliable cityscape or reconstruction of daily life. A lot remains to be excavated, though, so hopefully more will turn up when conditions are favourable.

Tried and won

"Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms."

Theodore Roosevelt comes close. He spent two terms in office, resigned, and then ran a third time in 1912, but lost.

And then there was Nixon.

Of course, Cleveland did it and won.

In second grade there was a book of U.S. presidents at the front of the class. If you finished your assignment early you could pick up the book and read while the other students completed their work. For some reason I loved the book, and I decided to memorize the cause of death for every president. My teacher, instead of responding to my questions about typhoid with, "Nice little kids don't talk about death and diseases," helped me look up more information in the encyclopedia.

Shout out to Mrs. Capps for encouraging me to dive deeper into the history of human health and disease. You were the best.

The process can vary from outright suppression of an indigenous language to adoption of a language seen as more useful (e.g. more widely spoken) or conferring higher status. Trade, urbanisation, public education and mass media each accelerated the process and offered dominant groups new means to drive the process still further.

Tell-tale signs of forced assimilation might include withholding education in an indigenous language or denying access to public services or employment for its speakers (unless there really weren't the numbers for it to be a viable proposition), or suppressing or penalising its publication or broadcast. Promotion of a non-indigenous religious model or perception of the past are also used to erode traditional allegiances and identity.

Another top-down approach is of course literal colonisation, settlement of speakers of the privileged language, often with economic advantages (e.g. land grants, government jobs or contracts), forcing native speakers to adopt the dominant tongue for work or sometimes even making them a minority.

It isn't always coercive or associated with migration, and sometimes the "metropolitan" language is itself partly assimilated into a pidgin or creole tongue including indigenous elements: the most widespread lingua franca drawing on different elements is probably Swahili, grammatically Bantu but with large borrowings from Arabic and spoken far beyond the former area of Arab dominance: in Europe, Celtic cultural expressions are similarly thought to have spread ahead of any movement of people or change of ruling elite.

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Mainly cereals - for food and spirits alike: in eastern and north-central Europe that would have meant predominantly rye. In the west and south wheat was the preferred foodgrain, though barley and oats were also consumed, especially among the poor (wheat being more expensive): barley was of course also used for beer and oats as feed for horses and oxen. Just about anything that might me made into booze probably has been at some point, though potatoes never really took off as source of spirits even when they were Ireland's staple food. Vodka's still predominantly made from grain, though now maize or rice get included, the first an introduction from Mexico and the latter little known outside southern Europe until the last few centuries.

Vodka is alcohol and water, that's it. All alcohol is the same thing regardless of the source. They used grain.

So, just to be clear, you may come at this from the wrong angle. What I mean is that if you're looking for a book that will show that Japan exported an "anime and high tech" image specifically in order to cover up war crimes... you won't. Because this didn't happen. They didn't invent Hello Kitty to cover up Nankin. This happened in the late 70s, three decades after the end of the war. It is unrelated.

But, that doesn't mean there isn't a nugget of truth there. You'll have more success by searching how Japan became a democracy... without changing its political class. Kishi Nobusuke, who exploited Machuria in the 30s and was a minister when Japan declared war on the US... was also prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. He said after the war "Strange isn’t it? We are all democrats now.". By the way, he is the grandfather of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.

Embracing Defeat is great for that, it covers some major events of that turn: the Tokyo War trials (and how they found a few scapegoat) and the US occupation which swept the role of the emperor in the war under the rug because the cold war was more important and they wanted a friendly Japan.

Do not look at specific war crimes or 80s pop culture, more at the immediate extremely gray aftermath in the late 40s early 50s.

Are you focusing on their perception in the US, Asia, in Japan itself, or all the NATO states?

If you try to discuss all of them, you'll probably end up with a 300+ page essay, because the issue of Japanese war crimes is incredibly messy, given the sheer number of nations involved in covering every atrocity.

I will say this though, the "cover up" wasn't so much policy as it was practicality: the US was mostly concerned with the treatment of US prisoners at the time, with the expectation that other countries would follow up for their own people with documentation. This being the era of paper, there wasn't much of an exchange of information between the countries, and usually amounted to "Japanese soldiers shot a bunch of civilians in this area" anyway.

Attaching actual names to such events was basically impossible without resorting to torturing soldiers for information ("Itou killed someone? Which Itou? You don't know? What a pity.") and killing thousands of Japanese soldiers just in case would somewhat defy the point of trying to rebuild Japan.

Regardless, I do recommend starting with "Japanese War Crimes Records at the National Archives," because it's both free, and goes into a lot of the difficulties with the war crime trials. For the Japanese cultural shift itself, you should probably decide on a specific time and place to first.

Be sure to include the time Hirohito visited Disneyland in 1975.

Another insight:

Atomic Heroes and Atomic Monsters: American and Japanese Cartoonists Confront the Onset of the Nuclear Age, 1945–80 by Ferenc M. Szasz &Issei Takechi

From the 16th century onward, in France they had a specific status. The younger son (or daughter) of a king would be a "Son/Daughter of France", their child would be a "Grandson/daughter of France" and their descendant "Prince/Princess of the Blood". (note this only applies to legitimate descendants). This meant that they were indeed treated as superior to other nobles. They were considered "Pairs de France" (Peers of France) a specific status which meant they had the highest status in court after the direct royal family.

During the times of the Direct Capetians, the official status of younger Capetian sons was no more exalted than whatever title they were granted. This includes such men as Robert of Burgundy, Hugues of Vermandois, Robert of Dreux, Pierre of Courtenay, Robert of Artois, Alphonse of Poitiers, Charles of Anjou (ancestor of the Capetian House of Anjou), Robert of Clermont (ancestor of the Bourbons), Charles of Valois, and Louis of Évreux. In practice, however, being the sons and brothers of kings gave them unofficial levels of clout and often greater wealth than non-royal counts. Charles of Anjou and Charles of Valois, for example, were able to muster the resources try to claim foreign crowns, though only the former succeeded. Charles of Anjou's descendants, who became kings of Naples and Hungary, enjoyed generally close ties with their French cousins: Charles of Valois married his double second cousin, Marguerite of Naples, Countess of Anjou; Louis X's second wife was Clementia of Hungary; and Louis I of Anjou was designated as heir by Jeanne I of Naples, which subsequent Valois, including Louis II of Anjou, Rene of Anjou, Charles VIII of France, and Louis XII of France, became obsessed with making good on.

However, again, this wasn't officially granted precedence. This is best illustrated when Isabelle of France supposedly protested her son, Edward, giving homage to her cousin, Philippe VI of France, because Edward was the son of a king while Philippe was only the son of a count — nevermind that the count had been her own paternal uncle, Charles of Valois.

The accession of the Valois kings, of which the aforementioned Philippe VI was the first, saw the creation of the title prince du sang, though agnatic descendants they wouldn't been given official ranking over all other members of the peerage until 1576.

How the other cadet branches other than Capetian House of Anjou fared differed: the Vermandois went extinct within three generations and the Courtenays' fortunes were ruined by their adventures in Byzantium, after which half of the family that went east took up residence at the court of Charles of Anjou and married into his family and the few that stayed in France declined into genteel poverty and political irrelevance. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Courtenays tried to claim the status of princes du sang, but without success. However, the Dreux and Bourbons did very well for themselves, all things considered: the last member of the House of Dreux was Anne of Bretagne, the twice queen of France, and the Bourbons eventually got to become kings of France and later, Spain and the Two Sicilies.

I'll do bastard sons in another comment.

After the start of the High Middle Ages, bastard sons of kings held only as much status as their fathers' felt like granting them. Succession of bastard sons to royal and noble titles was far from uncommon in the early Middle Ages (see: William the Conqueror or Ramiro I of Aragon) but it declined rapidly after the mid-11th century, except in Wales and Scandinavia. A number of French and English medieval kings most often arranged for acknowledged bastard sons to marry heiresses or get high-ranking positions in the church.

Examples of the former are Robert of Gloucester, Philippe Hurepel of Boulogne, William Longespée of Salisbury, and Richard de Chilham and an example of the latter are Geoffrey, Archbishop of York. Some royal bastards, such as Philippe Hurepel; Joan, Lady of Wales; Marguerite de Belleville; and the Beauforts; were legitimated by the Pope, though often with the proviso that they were barred from royal succession.

Sometimes, bastard siblings and their legitimate siblings were close; for instance, the unfortunate legitimate sons of Louis I of Orléans seem to have adored their bastard half-brother, Jean de Dunois, who loved them in return and kept watch of the family possessions while his half-brothers were being held captive in England. On the other hand, relations between Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, and his legitimate half-brothers were sometimes tense, though that's not too surprising since relations between his four legitimate brothers put the fun in dysfunctional.

How did you gain the general history you had before? Through years of sitting through courses, years of watching television, years of watching the news or hearing it discussed, there's no Matrix option of just uploading this stuff and large general histories are overall not very helpful and will leave you with more bad understandings than good.

So do you need to sit in a classroom for 10 years again? No. But you do need to start slowly, and build up the knowledge. Pick a topic you are somewhat familiar with as a base point. Read a book about it, figure out which parts of that were interesting to you, read a book about that. Look through the sources that were discussed, look through the historians that were argued against, read their works. Branch out or in depending on how interested or not you are.

Don't hyperfocus either. One common trap is for people to start reading a history book and feeling like they need to look up every single person, every single place, every single event mentioned that they don't automatically know. Instead, just take a note, and come back to it later if you feel like you want to. If you try and master every single page from day one you're going to get overwhelmed and more confused than anything.

There isn't really one work or bit of media that is going to catch you up on 'general history'. You might as well start reading a lot of Wikipedia articles or something, seeing as a lot of pop history coverage is, quite frankly, bad. If you need a book, you could try A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bryson, who at least hangs a lot of detail (albeit too much irrelevant minutiae of persons) on his prose, but if you want quality historical knowledge you are going to have to pick a particular part of history and then look for good books covering it.

Thanks for reminding me, I'm due for a trip before the Easter throngs. And I need to take a tape measure to the V&A, I wish they'd give exhibits' measurements.

"Fun and creative" seems best done with other people: others will be in the same boat, and you can pool resources. See if there's a group interested in whatever aspects take your fancy? Local would be better, but online's a start, and you can trade ideas and maybe get something going. Maybe arrange group museum visits followed by a discussion?

For updating your knowledge, I recommend starting from some topic of particular interest and then radiating out from there, chronologically, geographically or thematically, or all three: that way you can take it at your own pace rather than biting off too much all at once (which reminds me again, I need to read up on Japan, too long on my "to do" list).

The Wars of the Diadochi (323-275 BCE)... absolute pandemonium.

The Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War: English vs. Armagnac/Dauphinist French and then there were the Burgundian French who were sometimes allies of the two other sides.

Also, the Russian Civil War. The two main factions were the Reds and the Whites, but there was also various separatists, the Allied and Central Powers, Black Army, and the so-called Green armies of peasants.

Lord Stanley at Bosworth Field.

That's still a lot of time.

You have the rebellion itself, but that's over by the mid 1780s. There's definitely still a lot of tension though and these come to a climax in 1812. This is because just because the war ended it doesn't mean all the involvement did, and all the money and investments went away. There's still a vested interest.

The Monroe Doctrine in the 1820s is the official notice of "stay away" I think this is the point to draw the line.

Now think about what happens afterwards in both countries. Think about what the Monroe Doctrine represents. It's not "America protecting its allies in the continent" it's "America claiming these territories as their own sphere of influence" England still has the other half of the world to push its own imperialist tendencies. We're no longer colonising, but we're still reaping the benefits out of every place we can find and bringing them home.

And sure, there are some disputes after this, but overall they're not really the end of days type stuff. It's a lot of chest bumping more than sword shaking. Even with the Second US Rebellion in the 1860s the British considered getting involved just to tip the scales a bit in their favour, but overall realised that diplomacy would win the day, and it was better to just sit back and wait and act accordingly afterwards.

This sparked a more open and diplomatic approach which had already been growing. Better to work things out, even we have to act a bit tough for votes, than have young people go die fighting each other. Especially as both were now monumental powers. It's easier to ally with them and use each others strengths and say "hey, look, we scuffled, but we're both from the same cloth" by this point people that fought in the American rebellion or the war of 1812 are no longer alive, or certainly not the majority of the population, there's not that same animosity. "You scratch my back, and help secure trade in the region, which we'll help make you a part of, I scratch your back and I help ensure a peaceful Europe beneficial to you"

So when WWI approaches, the US realised how important it was to keep the Brits as an ally, and to keep them powerful, if it meant a safer Atlantic for their own interest, especially against growing nationalist groups (in particular Germany). The actions of WWI consolidated the US's thoughts on Germany and similar groups, and shone the importants of an ally in Britain. After the war they had to work together to try and rebuild, strengthening them more and realising again the need for continued cooperation, which would continue to prove itself useful.

In short: It's easy to look back at big events of centuries and go "why aren't they hating each other?" but in reality, people care more about what's happening NOW than what happened before they were born. Yes, there are certainly groups which harbour some amazingly longstanding feuds, but even a lot of those still have some relatively diplomatic relationships. A lot can happen in a few generations.

Indeed it took a good deal less than a century: only a decade after the 1812 war London was proposing a joint declaration against Europe's monarchies seizing territory in the Americas; Monroe chose to go it alone, but Britain backed the policy despite implicitly being among those being warned off. Trade shows a still faster recovery in the 1780s and 1810s: within a few years of each war you'd think nothing had happened.

Besides the obvious affinities between their ruling elites, part of the explanation is that with the US renouncing any involvement in Europe's affairs and preoccupied with westward expansion across the North American continent, there was for a century little basis for friction once British rue was gone, apart from the 1840s border dispute, Civil War complications and the brief Venezuela flurry. The two powers shared a distaste for European rivals' imperial designs, Washington wanting to keep Europe "over there" while London prized commercial access to non-European lands, a growing US priority too by mid-century: nor until the 1940s did the US show any inclination to assume the global financial leadership claimed by Britain.

It was ultimately a marriage of convenience, based in the first century on broadly compatible strategic and commercial perspectives, and in the second on waning British capacity to go it alone as others challenged its industrial lead and - unthinkably - its naval supremacy. Once Britain abandoned any fantasies of reconquering its lost North American colonies and US hotheads were talked out seizing Canada, there was little to do but make the best of it.

Please don't underestimate the immense value of a common language (despite G.B. Shaw's famous quotation!) in the hallways of politics and diplomacy. Nuance and idiom are better understood when both parties are speaking their native language. In the U.S., Americans, who are famously and woefully uneducated in any other languages (over 90% of native-born white Americans speak only one language with any fluency), are forced, as were their ancestors, to seek rapport with those who also speak their language. In international diplomacy, there is a perennial distrust of those with whom one cannot smoothly converse. Famously, interpreters in one-on-one conversations will pose a yes-or-no question on behalf of a speaker, to the other individual. And after perhaps a 30-second or more interaction, will turn to the questioner and say, "He says 'yes.'" Well, no, of course he didn't say "yes." He sought clarification, or posed a different response subjected to condensation by the interpreter. Not uncommon.

So, the Americans and their UK cousins, working around accents and idioms, were able to carry on much smoother and understandable deliberations and compromises, than either group could accomplish with any other nations (outside the Commonwealth, who unsurprisingly also remain our closest allies). Once again, famously, the 8000+ mile border between the U.S. and Canada, which has gone unguarded for over two centuries, is unprecedented in world history.

If you like Japan the “history of Japan podcast” by Isaac Meyer is great. More than 400 episodes on every topic from religion to culture to war. The first 40 or so are a chronological history of Japan. Then there are great series that deep dives on topics like the Meiji revolution, the bombs, Hirohito, the Sengoku Jidai, democracy in Japan, so on.

It goes from antiquity to the extremely current (like a four episode biography of former prime minister Abe Shinzo)

Do you mean a single-episode treatment covering the entire history of each of China, Japan or WW2? That's a big ask, because it would be impossible to do justice to the subject without the thing running to series length. I suppose you might just be able to squeeze an overview of Japan or WW2 into 3-4 hours, but it would have to leave out vast amounts: for China without even Japan's dynastic continuity or reasonably compact geography, it would be a hopeless exercise.

Video can be good at relating individual themes or events, but for the whole story there's really nothing else for it but reading - and even then a single treatment gives you only one version of events and their cause and significance (unless it brings in multiple scholarly viewpoints, which is a good format but adds to the length), so you need a few different takes to begin to form a rounded picture (not all necessarily book-length - journal articles can be valuable for specific events or topics).

Each is really too big to take on in a single bound, so it's far better to tackle individual periods or themes ("events" not so much at first, they're better understood once you've the context). But video has its limitations, and I suspect you're drawing a blank in your search because here you're encountering those limitations.

While St Petersburg may have been the more prestigious prize, Moscow would have been strategically the more valuable city, offering routes to the north, east and south and hopefully less challenging climatic conditions (even if these weren't mild in the event): the northern capital is attractive but strategically something of a dead-end unless your adversary chooses to stake everything on holding it, which couldn't be assumed.

I think it was already fading then in favour of the more explicitly relative "East" or fixed area names (the earlier eclipse of "Oriental" presumably having a part in it), though Levant (the same word) survives for the eastern Mediterranean region. Norwich may consciously be adopting an old usage in keeping with the local style of the period, though in England it would probably have been more commonly just "the East".

The term really started falling out of favor in academia and general usage after the publication of Orientalism in 1978.

For whatever it's worth, though, my late grandparents were both around the same age as Norwich and they often used "Oriental" in conversation — I guess because old habits die hard.

Because it isn't very good. Carlin has been known to make things up, regularly takes individual instances to represent whole peoples and eras, exaggerates and makes misleading analogies, and when he makes errors (which is too often) he is reluctant to correct them. He became a regular feature over on /r/badhistory for a reason.

https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/6swvvq/opinion_of_this_sub_on_dan_carlins_hardcore/

https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/385860/we_all_know_about_godwins_law_and_poes_but_i/

https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3v63nh/dan_carlins_blueprint_for_armageddon_has_7/

Part of the problem is (and it's a fundamental thing), he's not a historian, and says so as a way to shield himself from criticism, rather than use it to explain why he's made mistakes. His fans use the same excuse, and don't take criticism of his work well. Throughout his work he hasn't shown much compunction about improving, either.

It's very much pop history. He's really not an academic and somewhat hides behind it.

A lot of the community are outright hostile about him to be honest. Largely because he likes getting into sweeping conversations about culture. The intro to his series on the Pacific Theater spends probably 20-30 minutes on his thoughts for why Japanese society was so fanatical and he uses some less than polite language to describe it.

Many online history communities tend to shun him because it's the 'internet' thing to do. My experience with the history department at my university was that anyone was happy when pop-history gets flipped into genuine academic interest. So if Carlin and his narrative style gets you curious about things, I'd say keep listening.

Personally, I like his work but you have to see it for what it is. Hes a “fan of history, tslking about history”. He’s basically us. Not an academic source. Just a guy who retells stories he finds interesting and wants to talk about.

I think he does a good job of clarifying “this is my feeling about” vs “this is what the community says is a fact”

But if you are viewing him as citable source, I’d be wary there.

Best believe I’ll continue to subscribe to his stuff, but, for example, I would never cite “well Dan Carlin said it went like this” as a counter in a debate.

Social history (like history in general) covers a wide range of themes and approaches, and there isn't a uniform style: it can be a dry analytical treatment or a bodice-ripping account of the racier side of life; it can cover anything from the development of working-class identity and organisation or the situation of women in the family and economic or public life to the evolution of elite taste & etiquette, the latter mercifully not so much in favour nowadays.

So it would help if you could be a bit more specific about the kind of topic or framework you have in mind: each brings its own challenges and likely readership. And do you mean the actual writing, or rather the appropriate research techniques and sources?

It gave a very good impression of having done just that: its army was in retreat, the would-be architect of victory Ludendorff had cracked up and run off, its allies were falling in rapid succession (by the last week there weren't any left) and the civilian population was at the end of its tether.

Militarists and nationalists subsequently boasted that the army remained in being, that Germany had not been invaded, and that it had signed an armistice rather than a surrender, and therefore that it wasn't a defeat - the corollary being that in dictating disadvantageous peace terms the allies had somehow abused German magnanimity in calling it a day.

But in reality, by late 1918 the Reich's options were few and unappetising: the big push in the west hadn't achieved the promised victory, and Allied commanders had at last worked out how to overcome the formidable German defences after four years of trial & error, while the US would become an ever more powerful factor in Allied strength.

Germany might have fought on into 1919, but for what? It had lost, and the subsequent treaty was about as just as anything that was likely to emerge from the carnage. The "let's call it a technical draw" take was understandable as a desperate spin by negotiators seeking easier peace terms, but bore little resemblance to reality.

The claim was (and still is, by some people) that German was never militarily beaten, it was betrayed by its own politicians (and Jews and socialists, who conspired to ensure the country was defeated). The Dolchstosslegende is a pernicious lie, used and spread by the Nazis in particular.

Germany most definitely lost the first world war. And what do you mean by "technically" not losing a war?

Germany lost in every sense, even technically - as said, it's just a lie spread by those who couldn't accept defeat and sought an excuse.

>was under both the Japanese and America at the same time??

Kinda? Although that's semantic, because that can be said for all occupied territory (by that logic Poland was under both German and Polish government in exile control).

A government in exile doesn't really count as control, though, so I'd say from 1942 to 1944/45 the islands were "under" Japan, the US and the Commonwealth government retaining their claim but not yet able to enforce it. For a few months during the Japanese invasion and the subsequent US recapture, parts were Japanese-controlled and parts US-controlled, but in between the US was out of the picture in terms of de facto possession.

All the major gang syndicates are connected, especially when it comes to international borders, as they can help each other smuggle things in and out. So drugs are one of the major places that you see cooperation between the Irish and Italians still in Europe today. The more they can sell, the more money they make, so everyone's happy to help each other out.

In America, the Irish and Italian originated American gangs were often at ends with each other for control of territory, but since these groups were rarely united themselves they could easily convince one of the families to help them take out a rival so both sides benefited.

>Can anybody explain what it is about monarchies that the Iranian regime is so opposed to?

Perhaps if the monarchy hadn't been, or hadn't been seen as, the puppet of foreign interests, Iranians wouldn't have had such a dislike for it. I'm not sure that the type of government Iran had mattered so much as how it operated. An autocratic government is one thing, but subjecting people to that, political/religious repression, inflation, corruption, and violence made revolution inevitable. If the government had ostensibly been a democracy, the result would have been the same, and the succeeding rulers would have denounced democracy in a similar fashion.

>I find this confusing because it seems to me that the present-day Iranian theocracy is very similar to a monarchy itself.

Superficially, yes, and you can argue that perhaps the theocracy is merely a means to an end for some who seek power, but I don't think it's possible to claim that the systems are the same because you have observed one similarity. In a monarchy a ruler can, within some unofficial limitations, make whatever decisions they wish and are not accountable to a higher authority, nor do their decisions have to come from, or be in line with, precedent. In a theocracy, religion informs the rule of the state, and there are conventions, lines of reasoning, and established precedent for virtually all decisions that do not equate to "Because I say so." from a supreme ruler. Whether it is done sincerely, or as an excuse, is another matter.

The impression I've gotten from the past few decades is that a big chunk of the Iranian people hate being a theocracy (or being close to one,) as well, so there probably isn't much of an actual difference in perception.

The author and the date are both significant: Khomeini went far further than most of the religious leadership in his opposition to the Shah's personal rule, and here he's simultaneously proclaiming the illegitimacy of the then regime and the need for clerical leadership of a new state. It's really the moment when the outlines of the post-1979 order are first laid out.

But it wasn't always always thus: the clergy had held the Safavid dynasty in high regard (reciprocating its promotion of clerical authority), and even after viewing its successors as usurpers, senior religious figures made their peace with the Shah after the 1953 coup before their falling-out in the 1960s gave the already outspoken Khomeini his opportunity to claim spiritual leadership of the opposition movement.

Nor was Khomeini's authoritarian clericalist take characteristic of past anti-regime religious sentiment, senior religious figures often siding from the 1890s with popular protest movements (to some extent foreshadowing 1979) and being associated with the 1906-11 constitutionalist movement and (at least for a time) the parliamentary cause in the early 1950s. The republic's eventual form was in part a historical accident, Khomeini emerging just as an earlier generation of leaders was passing from the scene.

Yermak Timofeyevich was a Cossack fur-trapper and explorer who started the conquest of Siberia.

The wealthy Stroganov family helped finance the conquest of Siberia and made much of their fortune through fur trading.

Powerful and well-respected leadership, while the X country is having a lot of political dissent and divisive issues other than with the rebels, that distract the populace.

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If the project's to thrive, most important is a strong sense of distinct shared identity and a competent political leadership capable of uniting the country and winning international recognition. Anyone can declare independence and set up a government: that's the easy part; making it last is another matter, and the conditions for success and for effective statehood can't be conjured out of nothing.

For starters, they would need their current government to agree with that plan.

Or they would have to declare independence while their government is actively engaging in genocidal policies against them.
In that case, this fact needs to be widely recognized. They might even receive international help for their struggle.

Another option is declaring independence when the previous country is already falling apart.

In any case, for a successful declaration of independence, the group seeking independence would need to be a distinct ethnic, religious, or linguistic community that lives in a specific region and is a majority in that region.

You might be thinking of Frank Cushing who lived among the Zuni tribe in New Mexico.

A related question popped up here, and I was surprised not to find more recent works, so I hope someone can add other suggestions.

Besides the Jarrett title mentioned there, Harold Nicolson's The Congress of Vienna relates the contributions of the various principals, but after 77 years that's getting pretty long in the tooth.

For the perspectives of individual players it might be worth consulting biographies: there's a recent sympathetic reappraisal of Metternich by Wolfram Siemann, but sceptics might be left unconvinced that he was the visionary suggested.

Civilians from both Guangdong and Hong Kong were dragooned as forced labour for Hainan's mines and associated railway & port construction. Some such intended fate seems the likeliest candidate, unless he was suspected of political association with the republic's cause or with the British colonial authorities. It was certainly a lucky escape, conditions for the Hainan workers having been exceptionally harsh and treatment of suspected enemies harsher still.

Do you mean the 127mm Type 89? The 100mm Type 98 was a newer design, the Type 89 was used from 1932 onwards, and ships had already had older mountings refitted with Type 89s. The Type 98 was designed in 1938 and didn't enter service until 1941 or 1942.

No. Napoleon was not a revolutionary no compromise republican that would only be satisfied by the destruction of all thrones. His actions are proof of that: he declared himself emperor (meaning the most important monarchical ruler in Europe, above kings in status), he made France into a hereditary monarchy again, he created his own nobility and invited back the old French nobility that went into exile during the Revolution.

So no, he wasn't against monarchy. He wanted France to be a monarchy among other monarchies in Europe... but then, why:

>It sort of feels as though Napoleon was vilified by the Royal families revising history after his defeat.

Because while he wanted to make France into a monarchy again, he wanted to realize the dream of a lot of French monarchs before him: make France the sole superpower in Europe.

That's why he created new kingdoms (Italy, Holland) and usurped old kingdoms (Spain, Naples) and put his brothers and brothers in law on those throne: because his family should rule the largest part of Europe possible.

He also conquered a lot of territories. That's France around 1799 (when Napoleon takes power in a coup). That's France a decade later. He annexed the whole of the Benelux, western Germany, Rome, Northern Italy... and usurped a lot of kingdoms around him.

That's why he was hated. Not because he was going to hang all the monarchs... but because he wanted to take their lands and title away. And put all of Europe under France direct or indirect control.