I'm actually not a history buff yet, but becoming one is on my to-do list. I'm always impressed by people who have a very expert knowledge of some particular field of history, whether it's one century of one country, or one royal dynasty, or one corporation; I just think it's really cool to know everything and be an expert. To write a book, to be interviewed on a documentary, to put in their places people who assume they know the past because they've seen Hollywood movies. I want to do that, and I plan to do that. Is anyone here a history expert, or planning to become one? What is your field of expertise, what made you interested, why are you interested in that thing? Like I said, I'm not an expert yet, but there are two things I want to become an expert in: post-Columbian-pre-revolutionary North American history, and Superman. The window of time between Europe collectively kicking down North America's door with permanent settlements and later them deciding they no longer want to be part of Europe completely fascinates me, and I live within a few hundred miles of a lot of sites of interest on the east coast. The invaders' conflicts with the original denizens of this land, the evolution of a legal system from living under England's laws to a seemingly lawless transition to a self-made legal system, and generally the concept of being a technologically advanced society starting nearly from-scratch in a new place, without 1000 year old stone roads and maps and local industries; something that collectively hasn't happened many times on our planet. And as far as Superman is concerned, I think he is as much a culture-hero of America as King Arthur or Gilgamesh or Odysseus, with the differences being that we know everything he does is fictional but were written during and influenced by clearly documented recent history, acting as a clear window to the American zeitgeist. Or maybe not Superman, since similar things could be said for Batman and even Wonder Woman with the bonus of seeing an evolution of feminism and how it's been messed up when the comic writers are all a bunch of guys. Some superhero though, for all those reasons I said before.
I am no history expert (I'm more of a science expert), but I do enjoy learning about history. I find a particular field of history so rich that I learned more about world history in this class than I did in my world history classes. History of war. Like I said, I'm no expert, but I do love learning about the history of wars as more than just war is communicated. Not only is most of our time spent in wars, but learning about the various technologies, cultures, world views, and geopolitical situations that lead to these wars teach me more about the world at the time and at large than any class could hope to gather. Through the history of war, I learned that in roman times, the jewish had an a fortress known as Masada and it took the romans 3 years before they could enter the fortress. When they did, they found that all but one of them had committed mass suicide rather than be captured by their enemies and that this mentality persists to modern day Israel. War is such a fascinating topic of discussion in history simply because it never ends and often has such a profound impact on the local environment (both nature and cultural) that you could take only classes on the history of war, and know more about the world than anyone.
I know a fair bit about the Julio-Claudian Emperors. I've always been interested in the Roman Empire - whilst not the largest empire in history, it was definitely one of the most influential and, in my opinion, enlightened. The Julio-Claudian era was certainly a dramatic time, and there is a wonderful amount of writing that has survived from that time period, ranging from the painfully stuffy to the outrageously entertaining...and a lot of it doesn't seem to agree, which makes for an interesting comparison. I studied the period during College, and did a lot of my own background research too as a result. Plus the version of Nero in the Fate franchise is the best character Apart from that, my area of expertise and interest when it comes to ancient civilisations is in their religion and/or mythology more than anything else. Whilst I am not a religious person myself - or perhaps because I am not, and because I have very little faith in the generally-held modern scientific explanations for how the Universe came to be, etc. - I absolutely love studying the religion of other cultures and ancient civilisations especially; it's all wonderfully creative, but it all makes a certain amount of logical sense if you're willing to suspend your disbelief, which makes it...immersive, I suppose might be the word. This is actually due in no small part to modern media, which draws a lot of inspiration from mythology at times, providing its own interpretation which is actually rarely as exciting or bizarre as the original! I'm not as knowledgeable in this area as I would like to be, and have little time to research, but it's something I enjoy reading about a lot, regardless of the civilisation it comes from. Anything more modern though, and my knowledge is non-existent...if it happened after the 16th Century or so, I'm not especially interested in hearing about it. Although a lot went on after that time and I don't have an extensive knowledge of the entire world, so it's likely due to lack of research more than lack of interest. I just have a general fascination with ancient cultures that goes beyond just historical events, so that is where my focus is.
I’m more of a history enthusiast than an expert, but I love learning about America during the 19th century. There were so many technological and social changes during that period (the fashion was pretty cool as well).
Did someone say expert? History's cool, but I've always been really bad at remembering dates. My schools mostly consisted of teaching about the American Revolution every single year for about 5 years straight. Once that was over for some reason they moved onto... Ancient Egyptain history? I was under the impression due to late elementary school/early high school that for some reason knowing Egyptian history would be essential to my everyday life and now I barely remember any of it. I took a really cool archaeology course in college, but aside from that, I didn't learn all that much. History is important, but I've always been more of a mythology/theology buff.
