Mithrandir wrote:
All history is interesting.
Right now, I would like to learn a little bit more about outside Europ (Since it is primarily what is studied in schools)
I would like to start with a little bit on the middle East...
I thoroughly agree with you Mithrandir. All history is interesting, and the history of Middle Earth, I mean the history of the Middle East, is insufficiently taught. Which time periods of Middle/Near Eastern/West Asian history particularly interest you? Sumerians, Akkadians, Hittites, and so on or the more recent history post the fall of the Persian Sassanid Empire and the rise of Islam? Or the Achamenids, Seleucids and Parthians in between? If the more recent history, how recent? Umayyads and Abbassids, Seljuqs and Ottomans, or the twentieth and twenty-first century? (yes I know Ottomans lasted until a fair way into the early twentieth century, but I am thinking post-Ottoman here). If ancient, would you have any interest in the Old Testament (or Tanakh- Torah Nevi'im Ketuvim "Law/Instruction, Prophets, Writings" if Old Testament is potentially religiously insensitive)? The reliability of this source may be disputed by some, but leaving arguments concerning revelation aside, Assyrian chronicles are prone to propaganda and still may be valuable sources to historians. Generally, to dismiss a source out of hand is equally bad historiography as accepting uncritically. Does Wrong Planet have a separate history forum, or does it come under Religion Politics and Philosophy, with some recent history under news?
Can anyone tell me more about the Elamites and the Scythians? Also the Picts (see, I am getting back to Europe. And Gandalf, I mean Mithrandir, started it). How did the Medes and Persians become distinct?