The historical record is filled with examples of race science and people employing racial categorizations to describe people. But underlying all of that has been a scientific truth: from a scientific perspective, every human being is essentially equal. Races do not inherently exist in the human body. Cultures do not inherently exist. Those things are all constructed by whatever society a person happens to live in. The march of science would ultimately provide no more specificity than “Homo sapiens”.

I realized that I don’t really have any examples of early philosophers who believed this. Outside of the American abolition movement, I don’t know of anyone who taught against racial classifications. Are there philosophers who believed the “savages” of Africa were, in a very meaningful way, identical to the aristocracy of Europe?

I feel like maybe Jesus Christ—to the extent he was an actual person who actually held beliefs and taught them to people—is one of the only figures I’m familiar with who taught something like that before 1700. But as far as secular philosophers go, I’m not familiar with any, and I am interested to know of any.

Today, the Democratic Party is clearly defined as the party of liberals and progressives, while the Republican Party is clearly defined as the party of conservatives and libertarians. However, prior to the mass migration that occurred in the 1960s as a result of the Civil Rights Movement, it seems to me that the lines were extremely blurred—conservatives were in both parties, and liberals were in both parties. So what was the actual difference?

Hi all, my girlfriend's birthday is coming up and she's been interested in that time period recently, so I thought it'd be nice to gift her a book about it. I don't really know where to look for recommendations for history books and I wouldn't know which ones are good or bad eitherways, so I figured I'd just ask. She's currently studying a history degree, so the book doesn't need to be entry level, she knows her stuff.

I hope this is the right sub for a question like this, if not be sure to let me know which one would be right.

Here is a description of the book, titled Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century:

“This groundbreaking study tells the story of the highly organised, international legal court case for the abolition of slavery spearheaded by Prince Lourenço da Silva Mendonça in the seventeenth century. The case, presented before the Vatican, called for the freedom of all enslaved people and other oppressed groups. This included New Christians (Jews converted to Christianity) and Indigenous Americans in the Atlantic World, and Black Christians from confraternities in Angola, Brazil, Portugal and Spain. Abolition debate is generally believed to have been dominated by white Europeans in the eighteenth century. By centring African agency, José Lingna Nafafé offers a new perspective on the abolition movement, showing, for the first time, how the legal debate was begun not by Europeans, but by Africans. In the first book of its kind, Lingna Nafafé underscores the exceptionally complex nature of the African liberation struggle, and demystifies the common knowledge and accepted wisdom surrounding African slavery.”

The book was just released in August, but what has been the academic reaction so far? If true, why has this topic been overlooked until now?

How did this slave trade sustain itself? What was its nature before the colonial movement resulted in a huge influx of American colonists? How did that immigration change the slave trade, and how did the trade finally come to an end?

The 1890s were famously called "The Gay Nineties" after the fact. It's not hard to find a wealth of writing that waxes rhapsodic about this better, vanished time. So... why? Nobody's calling the 1930s a time of ease and plenty, and I've heard that the Panic of 1893 was in some ways worse than the Great Depression. Why lionize this particular era?

I recently watched a video by Sam Aronow on Youtube regarding the Reform movemennt in the US and was wondering how it was that, with so many Jewish Americans arriving to Israel after independence today we see little Reform representation. In fact, Reform is the one branch of modern Judaiism not legally recognized in Israel's religious courts. You can have a Reform synagouge, but the Rabbinate is Conservative and Orthodox only, from what I understannd. How did this happen under years of a Socialist government? Was this ever even a question among Labour Zionists? Was the Reform movement so localized to the US that it didn't matter?

If I did understand it and anticipated the possibility of war, what do I do? Were there refugees that fled northward (or in another direction)?

I'm specifically interested in textile history from prehistory until it became 'commercialized' and no longer was a task women did in the home to provide for their families and communities. In order to narrow down my personal research, I'm trying to figure out when weaving was no longer done by your mother and sisters, but was done in a commercial setting where you would then go buy the finished cloth. I have a feeling it's much later in history than I originally assumed (which would be before the Medieval period, but I've watched a few documentaries and now I think I might be very very wrong).

I'm hoping if the time is later than I think, it opens up more documentaries and books for me to enjoy and learn from. I've exhausted most of the prehistory and ancient history documentaries I can find free, so if I can move to later periods and continue learning about the history of fiber crafts that would be amazing.

In most fiction I’ve read, a ship’s captain is the ultimate authority, with maybe a second in command that does most of the hands-on work with the crew. But in Clavell’s novel, he paints a picture of the pilot actually being the one in charge, giving order and often a captain deferring to his judgment. Is this how the power dynamic actually worked on ships of the time, or is the author’s creation?

I read a long while back that the Nazis believed the Croatians to have some “Aryan” blood due to the Germanic tribes with the fall or the Western Roman Empire. Did Hitler or any of his inner circle believe that the Tunisians would have some Aryan blood due to the vandal kingdom? I read that himmler wanted to extract “Aryan souls” to harvest and purify the Reich and the blood.

i’ve been wondering why the indigenous pantheons of europe all died out with no exceptions, but hinduism and Zoroastrianism survived. Does anyone know the reasons why this may have happened?

Would they have known much about them or just that they exist? Was there any version of royal celebrity and interest in personal lives like there is today with the UK royal family?

All the way from prehistory to now.

How much of an impact did it have on your life within and outside of your tribe?

Did its impact change throughout history?

Is this something that historians attempt to study or is it a topic for some other specific subject?

Thanks in advance.

Other than the immediate effect of decreased productivity having a skilled worker die, how would this affect the family business?

Would the reputation of the business be affected, now that a woman is the "head"? (Or would she be a master now?)

If my husband is in a guild, is it likely I can join as well? How would the business be affected if I'm denied membership due to being a woman?

Their demographic study estimated the total war dead at 26.6 million including 20.0 million males and 6.6 million females. I wonder if this had any effect on the marriage practices in the Soviet Union.

I'm sitting here, listening as Ian blows through, and I'm curious if there's any research on how the Tocobaga (or other indigenous groups in the gulf of Mexico region) dealt with these storms. I'm particularly curious if there's any evidence of people changing the environment to help mitigate storm effects.