It's probably a very stupid question, but I know that they did have fishing boats, so why did they not bother to build some sort of war navy? I know they didn't have gunpowder or iron to use cannons on them and especially the Aztecs had many wars to fight on land, but due to their geographical location they all had access to an ocean. Or am I just misinformed and they did in fact have a navy? Kinda related to that: Did they try to colonise/find new land by sailing somewhere? And if not, why? Also sorry for only including the three, but they are the most popular by far.

Grover Furr is somewhat of an ever-living notoriety in certain circles, and his history work on the Stalin-era of the USSR is still an unresolved thread today.

The validity of Furr is at something of a standstill, as the same people that retort to subscribe to his work operates in the same logic that rejects the criticisms that is levvied against him: class-conscious marxists will reject what is perceived to be class-antagonistic critique coming from bourgeois historians. Anyway, most of what is said is of a sketchy nature, ad hominins in the vain of rejecting his claims because he is not a sufficient academic doesn't help anyone. There are concrete claims and analyses put forth, and most of these are to my understanding unaddressed. Is the man not relevant enough? Are the claims impossible to debunk and therefore silenced? Now, there are certain hands-on attacks made against Furrs catalogue (certain threads on this subreddit comes to mind), but these are just small scattershots against a bigger catalogue, and they themselves have not been discussed further from the position of Furr or others.

Why haven't there been produced a conclusive assessment of Grover Furrs works? How can a layman without the historical and linguistic skills necessary to dive down the the nitty gritty details make sense of this.

For example, books I'm reading would mention the 'County of X' or 'Duke of Y', but where did these counties or duchies established?

I am wondering if there are historians who call themselves "postmodernists" and what that means? I don't mean historians who study post-modernism, I mean historians who are from a post-modern school of thought and/or analyze history through a post-modern lens.

I'm sorry that I can't be more specific because I don't know much about this idea, but the concept is very interesting to me.

I was just wondering this but what happens if one nation declares war the other? like would they immediately raid the embassy and treat it like enemy territory? like for example what did the Germans do with the Soviet embassy when they invaded the Soviet union? Or the Japanese Embassy in the US when they bombed Pearl Harbor? in the other embassies in history, what has happened to them?

This is admittedly a historiographical rather than historical question. I have seen mods remove answers (not my answers) based on the fact that they mention oral sources, usually teachers, sometimes online lectures. My question would be how legitimate is this? I understand that in the field of history a contemporary written source is better than an oral account, but are we not just reproducing a bias in favor of written words here? If an oral source is corroborated by other sources, or if it leads a step closer to an academic answer, is it really productive to remove it when few or no other answers have been presented? I might be a bit biased as I took specializations in medieval and ancient history, but I would love to hear the answer. No hard feelings to the mods by the way, just interested in hearing how they think about this.

I understand that each religion’s respective books claim their existence but are there other sources or evidence that points to an actual person apart from the mythology as a real person? Any other sources that is widely accepted by historical scholars to be true?

Did the Ancient Romans use marching songs as seen in the movie ben-hur or is this just fictional?

When England was created as a single (but loose) country it was done so by a ruling West Saxon class, not the angles, so why did angle and not Saxon get used for the name of the country and the language? I have nothing more than theories on this so would love to hear your ideas.

I was looking at a map of the Roman empire and noticed that there were many cities clustered in Western North Africa. There were also some real heavy hitters like Carthage, which obviously was destroyed. There were also a lot of prominent North African thinkers in the Roman Empire, the first which comes to mind being St. Augustine. We rarely ever hear about North Africa post Rome. I know there was the Arab Conquest, and the Moors were pushed out of Spain back into North Africa, but why did it lose its prominence in the affairs of the region?

I’m very suspicious of this, mostly because I don’t really believe that any sort of cultural values can override basic survival instinct on a mass scale, most members of al-Qaeda or ISIS aren’t willing to be suicide bombers and they’re generally true beliebers, so I highly doubt that most Japanese conscripts were eager and willing to die for Hirohito. Part of me thinks that this is basic “they’re so different from us” war propaganda, not too different to the “human waves” myth on the Eastern Front and that kamikaze runs and banzai charges were less indicative of a suicidal mentality and more acts of desperation by men who were about to be killed (or believed they were) trying to take out some of their enemies; it also seems like there is some caricaturization going on, for postwar humiliation or some other reason, banzai charges are talked about like they’re absolutely insane but the same tactic — bayonet charges have been employed by mechanized Western armies successfully after WWII, in the Falklands and Iraq by the British for instance.

I’m curious as to whether losing the war, and Hitler killing himself was initially a mourning or a celebration?

Super specific question: but what would the inheritance rights of widowed women have been in 1887 England?

eg/

• If she came into a marriage with wealth, would she have been entitled to it after her husband passed?
• If she inherited a title by the marriage, would she have kept it after her husband's death?
• How would the estate have been divided, if she and her husband had no heirs?

In his Travels, Marco Polo devotes a short passage on Japan. While the question of whether he visited Japan itself (or really anywhere in his Travels) is debatable, it is an interesting acknowledgement of a land that is often shrouded in mystery and it certainly demonstrates awareness of Japan. However, this also makes me wonder, what if any awareness or involvement did Japan have with the outside world?

For reference, I am looking at Japan ideally during the Middle Ages, between 1100 AD and 1400 AD, before the Sengoku Jidai. Did Medieval Japan participate in the Silk Road? If so, to what extent? And what if any goods, ideas or people would have moved between Japan and the outside world through the Silk Road? And what if any knowledge did Japan have of the outside world? Not just of China or Goryeo, but also of India, the Muslim Sultanates of South East Asia, Central Asia, etc. Did the Shoguns of Medieval Japan have any trade, contact or knowledge of the Islamic World? Or Christian Europe?

Just a meta post about the 20 year rule I was curious about.

I completely understand already why the 20 year rule exists, because we don't want the sub cluttered with speculations on current political or pop cultural events that detracts from the study of the past, which also gets into topics that are still controversial.

But what I'm curious about, is why the number 20 specifically? Is it just random, being approximately a single generation of time? Or does it reflect something inherent about historical research in general, that they avoid topics more recent than 20 years old? Is there a gap historical academia for topics like the rise of the Internet or Putinist Russia?

I know documentaries are often produced that touch on topics that are fairly recent, and generally speaking I'd guess modern topics are moreso the realm of journalism than history, but I'm just curious if there is some actual convention by historians on the dividing line between "history" and "now".

The order in which the revelations were given to Muhammad is not the order of the surah in the Qur'an we have today. The Prophet recited the Qur'an but he did not write the Qur'an, nor was it written during his lifetime - his companions, specifically Uthman, are attributed with creating the first book of the Qur'an. So why is the order maintained today?

I've already watched the Bayyinah Institute video on the subject. It suggests that the universe created by Allah is orderly and purposeful in its organized and so the Qur'an is the same way, but the fact remains that the book itself was put together by man, even according to tradition.

Napoleon made his younger brothers kings across Europe. The Kingdom of Westphalia no longer exists, but Spain and the Netherlands are still monarchies. They've avoided the regnal names of Bonaparte kings -- Joseph and Louis, respectively -- in the interim 2 centuries.

But if a Joseph came to the throne of Spain tomorrow, would he be Jose II? The Spanish were famously unhappy with Joseph Bonaparte's appointment. Would the new monarch just be Jose I, and the first one ignored in numbering like Charles the Fat is in the numbering of French kings? (Likewise for Louis I and II of the Netherlands.)