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Do you have a favorite historical period/conflict/person/thing to study?

I'm a big history buff myself and I've always found the Crusades interesting for how much it shaped everything that came after. It was horrific and awful and unjustified, but very interesting to study the facets of. From the concept of holy war to the enforcement of powerful extranational entities influencing national politics and function to even the foundation of modern banks, so much was born out of those incredibly bloody conflicts whose influence is still with us in the modern day nearly a thousand years later.

I also find the Roman Empire's rise, its schism into East and West and Rome's eventual fall and then the later flourishing of the Byzantine Empire similarly interesting as well as the rise of the Holy Roman Empire. Japan from the Feudal Period to Meiji Restoration was also quite interesting for just how very unique so many aspects of it were. All those to a bit of a lesser degree than the Crusades though.
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SW-User
I like learning about the World Wars, and would love to learn more about Japan during it's feudal era, I just haven't really found a good place to start with that. Dx
UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M
@SW-User Both Taiko and The Heike Story, by Eiji Yoshikawa, and Shogun, by James Clavell, are the most popular in-roads to learning about feudal Japan. Those are all historical fiction, but well written with only Shogun really diverging considerably from historical record. Shogun's diversions being in that it renames many historical characters and that it includes a romance arc with no historical basis.

Aside from the historical fiction, I'd recommend reading The Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi. Something of a combined autobiography and philosophy book written by a very famous Samurai turned Ronin turned Duelist turned Monk.

For anything more specific and historical-reference-based than that, go delve into Wikipedia and check out the literary sources they use. I have a bunch of books upstairs but I don't feel like digging them out and listing off names right now. XD They're all very dry reads.
SW-User
@UndeadPrivateer I've heard of The Book of The Five Rings before. I'll probs check that out when I get off work. Thank ya man!
UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M
@SW-User No problem, glad to help. As a side note, I quite enjoy reading about the World Wars too. A bit more favoritism toward WWI than WWII for me, but that's largely because of my fascination with the incredible technological transformation of both wars and it was certainly most pronounced during WWI, with literal cavalry charges of heavy machine gun emplacements.