Hearted Youtube comments on Premodernist (@premodernist_history) channel.

  1. It was me. Sorry 😔
    10000
  2. I'm so happy the algorithm recommended this to me. My video about this election is not nearly this good.
    8600
  3. Back in my day we used to take pride in constructing a camel by hand, now all these kids are spoiled with their store bought factory made camels.
    7700
  4. This video format is so refreshing. No unnecessary, overly-dramatic music, just straight facts
    7500
  5. Don't fall for the title folks, the title is totally fake. There's really nothing boring about this video. It's superbly presented, well articulated and informative all the way through.
    5700
  6. To me, the most impressive thing in the account is that these two men -- opposites in such significant ways and who remained opposites throughout -- still also remained on friendly terms with each other.
    4900
  7. My mother grew up in a village in the Balkans without electricity. The slaughter season for pigs was November. They ate very little fresh pork and the rest would be turned into sausage, blood sausage, bacon, smoked ham, pork rinds etc. Even the hair would be used to make rough cloth. Same goes for goats. The only meat that would be eaten mostly fresh was veal but since they had very few calves for a lot of people, storing it was not an issue. Also milk was basically never drunk fresh but made into cheese, buttermilk and butter. A lot of vegetables were pickeled and fruits made into jam. Some, like grapes and apples could even be carefully kept fresh until deep in the winter.
    3500
  8. Humans in the Middle Ages also had the same potential for intelligence that we do. Another one of those myths is that following the fall of Rome everyone suddenly became stupid.
    3300
  9. In the case of Mexico, one could add consideration of the poor diplomatic and political approach of the Aztec Empire. The fact that they relied on a tributary system and allowed their Tlaxcallan rivals to survive gave the Spanish plenty of allies - in that sense, it was more the Tlaxcallans who conquered Mexico with the Spanish help for Cortez. Had the Aztecs produced a unified state (perhaps the direction they were heading, but they weren't there yet), the Spanish would have faced a large and unified army with no allies. Even if the disease would have eventually facilitated their conquest, it would have taken much longer. Worth also considering the survival of the rump Inca state for several decades after Cusco fell and the survival of some Mayan and Central American states for even longer in the deep jungle.
    3100
  10. A personal theory of mine is that all these ancient scholars kept reading about how awesome this library in Alexandria was, but were incredibly disappointed when they actually went to see it. Then there was some bitter old person at the library who said stuff like "kids these days can't appreciate a good book. Back in my day this library was great! Any female born after 193 can't cook..." and the scholars just believed them in order to save face.
    2400
  11. As a tiny note: A Latin Pagan, like Augustus or Trajan is as different to a Christian Greek as a Muslim Turk is.
    2300
  12. The way he seems legitimately devastated for John Adams not getting as many votes as he thought he would 😂
    2200
  13. People should value more these kinds of videos edited for people with competent attention span, fluff-less, and where narrator doesn`t take 20 minutes to get to the point. This is actual content worth watching
    2100
  14. Thanks for reminding us to remember the peacemakers. Those who stop violent changes (conquerors) are quite unappreciated in history.
    2000
  15. Helllloooo random mongolian girl here i didnt know how chinges haan was seen from a western point of view so this vid was awsome. Also i like chinges haan day cuz we get a day off school/work. Legit spent the whole day drawing lmao
    2000
  16. 11/10 thumbnail.
    1900
  17. As a Turk, I can say that we don't usually see the Ottomans as a continuation of Roman Empire and treat them as separate entities. But if you ask my own opinion, it is clear that not only the Ottomans but also the Seljuks saw themselves as the inheritors of the Roman Legacy and you have mentioned many of the reasons why that's the case in your video. Another thing that I would like to add is that Mehmed II (the sultan who captured Constantinople and hence called "The Conqueror") was particularly interested in the idea of being the "Roman Emperor". After the conquest, he made the Orthodox Patriarch crown him as "Caesar of Rome/the Romans" or "Kayser-i RĂťm" in Ottoman Turkish. He added Roman laws into the Ottoman Legislation. He could speak Greek and Latin. He was intellectually a superior man compared to not only his predecessors but also his successors. He even wanted to invade Italy in order to capture Rome and press his claim even further. His soldiers captured the city of Otranto in Italy but he died shortly after (some historians believe that he was possibly poisoned by either the Venetians or his own son Bayezid whom he didn't get along with). Though, after his death the idea of invading Italy was abandoned.
    1900
  18. As a greek myself i can say for sure that even today some rural greeks call themselves romans and that even until the greek revolutionary war it was common for greeks to call themselves romans. At that time the greeks were calling all romanians wallachians (vlahi). After Greece became independent and got a bavarian king on the throne that king loved ancient greek history, so he tried shaping Greece into something separate from the roman times. One of the things he did for example was that he moved the capital from Nafplio to Athens, even though at the time Athens were basically ruins of what they once were and even though back then Athens were dangerously close to the Ottoman border
    1900
  19. Anybody can learn history but not everyone can lecture like this guy
    1800
  20. Thanks for sharing this! I have a BA in Mongolian Language and Literature from Inner Mongolia University in China. I learned the Classical Uighur “Mongol” script. Cyrillic has sadly devastated the written language in Mongolia. But the Mongols in China have kept it alive. 😄 The Mongols were a warring people until they converted to Buddhism. They practice Mystic Buddhism, AKA Tibetan Buddhism, which is a mixture of Shamanism and Buddhism. In order to convert them, to subdue them, they could keep many Shamanistic practices. Converting the Mongols and Tibetans to Buddhist practitioners subdued them. Apparently, this was a kind of psychological warfare, and it was successful in subduing the warrior spirit of the Mongols. The Mongolian Language and culture is fascinating! When learning the language, the one verb that has stood out for me is the verb ᠨᠠᠮᠨᠠᠬᠤ (namnaho). It means “to ride a horse and shoot an arrow.” Obviously, the Mongolian culture is connected strongly to horses. A horse was the one thing that anyone needed to be successful in life. The fact they have a verb expressing riding and horse while shooting an arrow also expresses the importance and commonality of this dual action in their culture at some point in time. Cheers! 😊
    1600
  21. Please continue making episodes through the passage of the 12th amendment, it's really interesting
    1400
  22. As an Epidemiology PhD student: On the topic of smallpox, you can actually still get the smallpox vaccine today. It's still used for protection against monkeypox in high-risk individuals, as smallpox and monkeypox are similar enough that the antibodies offer cross-protection. On a historical note: observing the cross-protective effect between cowpox exposure (which results in relatively mild symptoms in humans) and smallpox infection was what led to the development of the first vaccines (and explains the connection of the word vaccine to the latin word for cow, vacca)
    1400
  23. Back in high school I used to have a history teacher who made our classes so engaging that I would spend all the time imagining myself living there. Listening to your videos, I get the same exact feeling. It is so refreshing to have found such an amazing and incredible channel! Your videos are always engaging, well researched and massively interesting!
    1200
  24. Changchun had some serious balls lecturing Genghis Khan
    1200
  25. It’s alright man, just don’t do it again.
    1200
  26. If you are so inclined, a continued series on each presidential election would be so amazing. I’ve loved the first two.
    1100
  27. I really appreciate you subtitling the videos - I'm fascinated by this type of history and it's so rare to find accessible videos about them as a deaf person!
    1100
  28. "Al-jahiz means the googly-eyed." Nice to see that unfortunate nicknames exist across centuries and continents. This is one of my favorite channels on youtube. Every video is interesting and informative.
    1100
  29. It happens.
    1100
  30. Way easier to pay attention to a lecture when the speaker isn't reading off a script, but actually knows his shit. Well done
    992
  31. "Yes, we're doing a lot of shady things for short-term political expediency, but remember - the election 1792 is the most important election of our lifetimes!"
    945
  32. I think a comparison to China is very apt. Both were massive empires that dominated a continent for millennia, but went through many dynastic, religious, geographic, and ethnic changes over the centuries. From a western viewpoint, we just think of China having always been “China” despite the dozens of different dynasties it went through. Yet many of them were ruled not by Han, but by outsiders like the mongol Yuan dynasty or the most recent dynasty, the Manchu Qing dynasty. If these dynastic changes don’t mean we can’t call these empires Chinese, it should really make us think about why we don’t call the ottomans Roman.
    919
  33. Most YouTubers who cover academic subjects manage to make their videos entertaining with either presentation or overt charisma, not to mention being no longer than 22 minutes, usually closer to 12. You held my attention for this entire video despite it more or less sounding like a lecture, and the reason is because your dynamic grasp on the history is so strong that it almost feels like you were part of this drama and are simply reciting personal recollections. All your videos are great but this one is probably my favorite, because you portrayed these people as humans rather than as bare information.
    901
  34. I could listen to this man talk for hours. Also the talking head style with really clean graphics is really refreshing. My new favorite youtube channel.
    866
  35. People used to sleep in barns so the crossover must have been pretty thorough over the centuries. I've had to huddle against my horse for warmth while lost in the forest and ended up clinging to him like a spider. The risk of him rolling on me during the brief periods of managing to get some sleep simply wasn't enough to dissuade me. Literally couldn't get closer. So I definitely comprehend the desire to huddle with animals when you're cold and hungry.
    846
  36. I'm from Madagascar and here, during the pre colonial era, some people were already aware of wheels. The nobility who ruled over the central highlands actually avoided it as much as they can. The main reason is that by adopting wheels and so transport with wheels, adapted roads would have to be built. The highlands were surrounded by large hills and was a mountainous area, which meant accessing it would be difficult. The nobility saw it as a military advantage as it would make it more complicated for invaders to reach the capital. Along with jungles and dense forests which were infested by mosquitoes that could cause malaria, it was deemed an effective natural protection against invaders. Building roads adapted for wheels would mean that a stronger army could easily reach the capital (like the french). As far as I'm aware of, that was one reason why wheels were not adopted even when they have already witnessed other people using it.
    844
  37. My experience in some little rural towns in Mexico, in a hot humid tropical region: Meat is almost never preserved. Everyone raises pigs in their backyard and when they sacrifice one, they go around gifting (yes, for free) parts of the pig to all the neighbors. Every neighbor will do the same when the time comes, so over time they all get a full pig for free. The meat is cooked fast and is preserved only for a couple of days in the form of a stew, that you can keep boiling.
    843
  38. I would love a Mike Duncan “History of Rome” style history of Iran podcast from you. You have a great voice, your writing is approachable but your rigor and research is obviously quality.
    815
  39. its so refreshing to hear Polish names being pronounced properly by an English speaker, thank you! Great video
    777
  40. As an American and History enthusiast I was surprised by how little I knew about this time period. Thank you for the very informative and enjoyable video.
    766
  41. I recently visited Hawaii and went to a sacred historical site (Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park). The park ranger there gave a talk about the native Hawaiians, and touched on the fact that they didn't use any wheeled vehicle for transportation. He pointed out how many people equate that to a lack of technological innovation, but then pointed all around to the landscape around him and was like "do you really think it would be smart to try to wheel a cart over these jagged lava rocks?" They just used canoes instead.
    699
  42. The root of the question is what does it mean to be Roman. Is Roman an ethnicity? Is it a political system? Is it a language? Because all of those changed over the course of Roman history. We tend to look at things like the Romans as a static snapshot of one point in time (the classical period) and anything that falls outside of that we don't consider Roman. But Rome was never stagnant and it evolved and changed over the centuries. So back to my first point we have to define what it means to be Roman first.
    665
  43. Ottoman empire was much more geographically similar than the other so called Roman empire
    663
  44. As an Austrian, this was quite interesting and enjoyable. I'm still startled by the fact that Mozart completed over 40 symphonies before the US had an elected president though, I never looked at it with that perspective. Shows again how young the US actually is ...
    650
  45. Points from the video • The Library of Alexandria was 1 of 2 Libraries 📕📗 • The Library 2 was A Library at The Museum of Alexandria nearby.📗 4:43 Modern articles name people who lived in the Early Ptolemaic period. • Zenodotus, Callimachus, Apollonius, Eratosthenes, Aristophanes, 4th Century BC 300 BC - 200 BC 3rd Century BC 200 - 100 BC • Aristarchus lived into 150 BC approximately 5:15 Decline - Extremely little records of the library itself - limited information 6:00 Egypt was prosperous in the 3rd century under Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III 7:40 The Legendary Library was not the only library in existence 8:13 Library of Pergamum, Asia Minor, existed and some Greek talents went there. 9:00 Papyrus documents were found in a dry condition, but Alexandria Greece is a humid place. 10:42 Julius Ceasar set fire to the land, and that fire 🔥 may have burnt some of the Library of Alexandria’s Books. 📕 11:21 Plutarch and Gellius both say Julius Ceaser burned down the entire Library of Alexandria📕 12:22 They saw the Library of Alexandria as a declined Library as something of the past. 13:38 Strabo notes that Alexandria’s Library was large in the 4th Century. 15:00 The Library was in decline before Julius Ceaser came along and set fire 🔥 to it. 16:06 Serapeum Library had the largest library in the city, but it was not The Legendary Library of Alexandria. 19:18 Serapeum Temple Structure. Maybe the Christians sacked this Serapeum Library. 20:50 Musli 21:07 1. The Library’s ending did not cause a dark age 2. 1 library destroyed does not cause the catalysmic loss in hunan inowledge 3. Complex Causes, this has several different factors
    637
  46. this is easily one of the best channels on Youtube, you’re so casual yet eloquent and relentlessly well informed. I have minimal interest in US political history and this was a breeze to sit through. Well done.
    637
  47. I went to school in Sweden. Oh, vikings, right! No, not very much. Emphasis is on what and who built the nation state. Gustav Vasa and Magnus LadulĂĽs gets a lot more attention than the vikings. When we read about the vikings it's about their ships, the rhunes - and of course the mythology that never left.
    636
  48. I honestly thought this was a shitpost.
    635
  49. What’s most puzzling is that the algorithm actually recommended thoughtful and inspiring content which aligns with my real preferences. Your channel is a surprising delight, and I wish you well with it.
    628
  50. Pretty much every "This one specific thing happened that changed the course of history!" claims are never as dramatic and usually was just a gradual decline or regular change of whatever that thing is that got romanticized through history.
    623