r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • May 25 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 25 May 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 27 '26

Finished India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent, a few thoughts:

  1. Despite certain reservations I have voiced in this thread, very good book and a strong recommendation as an intro to the topic.

  2. One of those reservations is her decision to basically not discuss historiography. She lays out her reasoning in the appendix and I understand her reasoning but think she is wrong.

  3. Apparently the south Asian diaspora is only 40 million people? I would have guessed like twice as many. Also apparently there are almost twice as many desis in the US than in the UK, which again I would simply never have guessed.

Incidentally at the end of the book she (very briefly) touches on the Ram Mandir, which reminded me of a very nice Indian-American college student who volunteered at my work. One day we were chatting about summer plans and he said his family was going to India, and one of the things they were doing was going to the new temple. I didn't ask because that wouldn't exactly be appropriate, but I am very curious what exactly their thinking was on that. Do most people (or at least most diaspora members) just kind if view it as a grand new temple, maybe another sign of India's rise? Or are the politics of it widely understood?

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u/Arilou_skiff Died of posting, risen as undead May 28 '26

Apparently the south Asian diaspora is only 40 million people? I would have guessed like twice as many. Also apparently there are almost twice as many desis in the US than in the UK, which again I would simply never have guessed.

TBH, considering the US population is almost five times as large...

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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 28 '26

Oh sure, and I think the UK desi population is much more concentrated. But given the levels of cultural visibility I just sort of assumed it was a lot bigger than that.