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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Someone please recommend me a couple books on the history of the Islamic Caliphates. Anything by Hugh Kennedy is good- The Great Arab Conquests, the Prophet and the age of the Caliphates, etc.
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Jan 21, 2018 16:03
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Are there any good books on late antiquity religious movements? Mazdak, Gnostics, Manchieans, that sort of thing. Super interested in the context they arose from and how they tried to deal with it.
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Jan 21, 2018 16:18
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Was there ever a pre-modern gold rush?
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Jan 22, 2018 06:42
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SlothfulCobra posted:Was there ever a pre-modern gold rush?
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Jan 22, 2018 06:50
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Unless you're a native
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Jan 22, 2018 12:09
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HEY GUNS posted:spain, new world, hilarity ensues That isn't premodern!
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Jan 22, 2018 12:15
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Didn't Rome accidentally poo poo up their economy by invading Dacia and suddenly having All The Gold?
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Jan 22, 2018 14:37
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Mansa Musa distributed so much gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca that he single-handedly hosed up the economies of several countries due to inflation. I don't think Rome ever ruined their economy with gold. While they had access to tons of it through Dacia and Hispania, mines were almost universally controlled by the state and administered by the army and I think they were careful not to over do it. But, as the title says, I assert this with no evidence.
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Jan 22, 2018 15:39
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Jamwad Hilder posted:While they had access to tons of it through Dacia and Hispania, mines were almost universally controlled by the state and administered by the army and I think they were careful not to over do it. But, as the title says, I assert this with no evidence. I really doubt this tbh. It's not like they had a modern understanding of macroeconomic policy back then; I suspect emperors would happily dig up all the gold they possibly could, especially in times when they were also debasing the currency they made out of that gold. Edit: also, depending on period, mostly silver not gold.
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Jan 22, 2018 16:04
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My guess is that transportation and travel was difficult enough in the ancient world that a "gold rush" was not practically possible due to limitations on the spread of news and the spread of people. Gold rush of the American West type requires a few things -- mass travel, mass news dissemination, open and unclaimed land, etc. -- that I'm not sure existed together in the ancient world in the same way. I mean maybe if you count something like Alexander's conquest of Persia. "They sure have a lot of money, let's bring an army." I'm sure there were gold booms and busts and so forth though.
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Jan 22, 2018 16:17
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sebzilla posted:Didn't Rome accidentally poo poo up their economy by invading Dacia and suddenly having All The Gold? Rome's problem long term was capturing too many slaves after the end of the Second Punic War and onwards, loving up their domestic labour market and dealing with it really, really badly over the next century and a half
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Jan 22, 2018 16:57
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Jamwad Hilder posted:Mansa Musa distributed so much gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca that he single-handedly hosed up the economies of several countries due to inflation. Gold got a bit cheaper over the classical period, but not by much, at least relative to silver. It was 12 x silver in the Republic, and was down to 10 x by the late empire, where seems to have stayed until the late middle ages. Alchemists got really hung up on that 12 to 1 ratio in the Early Modern period, even though the real ratio was over 15:1 by then.
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Jan 22, 2018 17:49
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MikeCrotch posted:Rome's problem long term was capturing too many robots after the end of the Second Punic War and onwards, loving up their domestic labour market and dealing with it really, really badly over the next century and a half Uh oh
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Jan 22, 2018 17:54
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There was also that 100 year period when half the people died of the plague every 20 years .
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Jan 22, 2018 17:55
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A book I read on the early modern period made the claim that the relationship between mining lots of silver and inflation was unknown at the time (though scholars figured it out very quickly once it started happening). It's possible the Romans knew and it was forgotten though.
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Jan 22, 2018 18:27
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cheetah7071 posted:A book I read on the early modern period made the claim that the relationship between mining lots of silver and inflation was unknown at the time (though scholars figured it out very quickly once it started happening). It's possible the Romans knew and it was forgotten though. the romans had very little grasp of inflation as a concept let alone its causes. i think they figured out eventually that debasement of coinage could cause problems if taken too far, but that was the extent of it the early modern period is when europeans start to consider the money supply in isolation from wealth in general
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Jan 22, 2018 18:32
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https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1799&context=open_access_etds I'm still reading it, but it seems well put together. Deadwood in Dacia.
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Jan 22, 2018 18:39
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euphronius posted:There was also that 100 year period when half the people died of the plague every 20 years . I just finished The Fate of Rome by Kyle Harper. He does a great job of describing how epidemics and terrible weather helped to throw everything into chaos.
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Jan 22, 2018 19:53
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Rome fell because they refused to follow Sol Invictus. How else would you explain the plague and other horrible things. 
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Jan 22, 2018 20:50
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ChaseSP posted:Rome fell because they refused to follow Sol Invictus. How else would you explain the plague and other horrible things. What's interesting is that Augustine wrote City of God specifically to argue against that position.
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Jan 22, 2018 20:56
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Rome fell because they failed to embrace the monophysite truth.
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Jan 22, 2018 21:55
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Epicurius posted:What's interesting is that Augustine wrote City of God specifically to argue against that position. That's what you got out of that film?!
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Jan 22, 2018 22:17
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Mantis42 posted:That's what you got out of that film?!
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Jan 22, 2018 22:45
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Mantis42 posted:That's what you got out of that film?! It was a very loose adaptation of the original book.
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Jan 22, 2018 23:03
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Typical Hollywood system, they don't save much from the original screenplay if the money guys don't like you.
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Jan 22, 2018 23:14
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Someone please recommend me a couple books on the history of the Islamic Caliphates. Muslim Spain And Portugal is pretty awesome, let me check my kindle real quick, it's written by Lobster God posted:Anything by Hugh Kennedy is good- The Great Arab Conquests, the Prophet and the age of the Caliphates, etc. well, poo poo
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Jan 23, 2018 00:30
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SlothfulCobra posted:Was there ever a pre-modern gold rush? does ghana/mali cou- Jamwad Hilder posted:Mansa Musa distributed so much gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca that he single-handedly hosed up the economies of several countries due to inflation. 
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Jan 23, 2018 00:31
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The Belgian posted:That isn't premodern!
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Jan 23, 2018 00:40
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Early modern is still modern.
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Jan 23, 2018 01:44
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:My guess is that transportation and travel was difficult enough in the ancient world that a "gold rush" was not practically possible due to limitations on the spread of news and the spread of people. Gold rush of the American West type requires a few things -- mass travel, mass news dissemination, open and unclaimed land, etc. -- that I'm not sure existed together in the ancient world in the same way. I agree with you about Persia. All of a sudden a lot of cash hit the Greek world combined with opening up new land to be claimed and a guarantee of steady well-paying employment for anyone who's willing to be a soldier or just get in on the downfall of the Persian system.
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Jan 23, 2018 05:26
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To some extent, there was a "silver rush" in Athens. After they discovered silver mines, anyone with any slaves would sell them to the silver mines and get rich.
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Jan 23, 2018 06:22
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Roman gold mining was all about dying in tunnels/dying from poison gas/dying from mercury poisoning so people weren't exactly rushing out to do that themselves. Slave mining changes the equation from the more modern gold rushes.Jazerus posted:the romans had very little grasp of inflation as a concept let alone its causes. i think they figured out eventually that debasement of coinage could cause problems if taken too far, but that was the extent of it They did understand debasement was bad. Nothing else I've read suggests they had any real understanding of economics (because no one does lmao!!!) but things like the edict on maximum prices make me think they had some observational awareness of inflation. Like how they figured out a wound was more likely to heal if you clean it with hot wine/vinegar but not understanding the concept behind it. I also don't know a ton about economics myself so may be pulling things out of my rear end.
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Jan 23, 2018 07:24
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FreudianSlippers posted:Early modern is still modern. No, modern is modern and early modern is early modern. While there's a rise of the merchant classes in the early modern, it's still a world where estate often matters more than your income. Less so after the early 19th century.
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Jan 23, 2018 10:37
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Kemper Boyd posted:No, modern is modern and early modern is early modern. Fun game: you draw two random dates, and then you have to construct an argument for why they are the logical start and end of the early modern period. Another version is to see how early you can place the start of the eighteenth century. Some people reckon 1660 is the limit, but I reckon that if I really put my mind to it I could get back as far as 1603.
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Jan 23, 2018 14:54
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The most important definition of the eighteenth century is industrialized power and thus begins with Hero of Alexandria's aeoliple in the 50sish AD.
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Jan 23, 2018 15:32
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Grand Fromage posted:Roman gold mining was all about dying in tunnels/dying from poison gas/dying from mercury poisoning so people weren't exactly rushing out to do that themselves. Slave mining changes the equation from the more modern gold rushes. yeah diocletian's price edict is, i think, around the time inflation had been going fast enough for long enough that they gained an active awareness of it. i haven't seen anything that suggests such an awareness until diocletian tries to grapple with fixing two centuries of emperors semi-routinely debasing when they first get into office to pay the necessary donatives, and afterward they seem to be less cavalier about debasing the solidus than they were about the denarius. for a while, anyway - eventually the byzantines severely debase it, but that took several hundred years even so
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Jan 23, 2018 17:13
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Mr Enderby posted:Fun game: you draw two random dates, and then you have to construct an argument for why they are the logical start and end of the early modern period. Another version is to see how early you can place the start of the eighteenth century. Some people reckon 1660 is the limit, but I reckon that if I really put my mind to it I could get back as far as 1603. For extra fun, this also tends to depend on which country you're talking about. Also - 'While there's a rise of the merchant classes in the early modern' I'm sure I remember something my tutor said way back in the day about how literally everyone's period has a 'rise of the middle classes/merchant classes', no matter which century it is.
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Jan 23, 2018 17:18
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feedmegin posted:For extra fun, this also tends to depend on which country you're talking about. for an extreme example, early modern japan ends in 1868-ish
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Jan 23, 2018 17:19
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feedmegin posted:Also - 'While there's a rise of the merchant classes in the early modern' I'm sure I remember something my tutor said way back in the day about how literally everyone's period has a 'rise of the middle classes/merchant classes', no matter which century it is. Well, you have to separate middle classes and merchant classes. Merchants were always around, but I'd say the growing role of skilled labour in the economy is a distinctive feature of early modern Europe.
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Jan 23, 2018 17:29
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Mr Enderby posted:Well, you have to separate middle classes and merchant classes. Merchants were always around, but I'd say the growing role of skilled labour in the economy is a distinctive feature of early modern Europe. I'm not sure that skilled labour is generally classified as middle class, though.
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Jan 23, 2018 17:37
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