What is your favorite part of history to read/learn about?

Fanincowboyland said

While I like all history, my favorite period is American Reconstruction. I see the outcome of the Civil War as basically inevitable based on the resources held by each side. I realize that was not so evident at the time. But, how we would put the country back together was something with no inevitability at all, and is still very much a work in progress 150 years later.

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I wouldn't say the end result of the Civil War was inevitable. In fact, it teetered on a few battles and events. The Confederates had some supporters across the Atlantic who was more than willing to intervene if they could show they could win some major battles. The Cotton Diplomacy would have also work had England not come out of their cotton shortage when they did. The English needed cotton and willing to bust through the blockade to get it. They were also on the verge of intervening and recognizing the rebels. France was going to follow Britain's lead. Had the cotton shortage been extended, a few more battles won by the Confederacy, the war might have ended differently.

Consider, for example, had Lee's "Lost Orders" hadn't been lost and given to McClellan...