Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
So, what are you reading?
I'm starting Yeskov's The Last Ringbearer, after a re-watch of the LoTR films. It's an "other side" story from Mordor's perspective mentioned occasionally on /r/rational. Hopefully it doesn't accomplish this by ruining the "good guys" entirely, but I suppose we'll see.
I haven't actually started reading it yet, but I picked up The First Irish Cities: An Eighteenth-Century Transformation because I think, without the author necessarily intending it, it might serve as an argument for the good sides (in terms of economc development at least) of British rule in Ireland.
The potato famine of the 1840s and the century of population loss due to emigration that followed gives the misleading impression that Ireland was always a relatively tiny country. But it had nearly half the population of England and Wales in the 1750s (roughly 3.2 million vs 6.5 million) and Dublin was Europe's 14th largest city, on par with Berlin. The story of how this happened should be an interesting one.
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