Possibly the oldest continuous civilization in history. They invented gunpowder, the compass, printing and had scientific theory before the Europeans, right? They also had a big ass empire with the Zhou dynasty over 800 years before the Romans already, and with the exception of the Yuan dynasty I don't think they ever had any significant external conflicts until the 19th-20th century, right? What ever stopped them from using their inventions and lack of conflicts to rule the world?
They've also got amazing martial arts and trillions of kung fu substyles lol.
1 Answers 2020-09-30
If so, how much did empire contribute to British prosperity?
1 Answers 2020-09-30
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41 Answers 2020-09-30
A common refrain on this sub is history isn't objective. On the one hand, it seems like historical facts like 'The King George said X" or "Kissinger did Y" are objective facts with true or false answers. On the other hand, the historical process of stringing facts together to create narratives seems to lack such characteristic objectivity. In this regard, history appears to be no different from storytelling where facts have objective answers, but stories depend on the storytellers's evaluation of what facts are important and what narrative best unifies the facts.
Do historians view themselves as no different from storytellers?
2 Answers 2020-09-30
I was looking up some of the daimyou and generals of the Sengoku era and it seems that a lot of their exploits were either made up/video-game-ified or didn't have a lot of detail put into them.
Did Japan not keep a 'Records of the Sengoku' book?
Even some of the greater players like Imagawa Yoshimoto don't really have as much detail as some of the smaller generals of the 3 Kingdoms era like Xiahou Dun or Xiahou Yuan.
The person with the greatest amount of detail put into his backstory and biography is, well, Oda Nobunaga, but none of his other great rivals has the same amount of information as him.
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I was thinking about the situation with paper ballots and not knowing the results of the election on the night of Election Day in the USA. When all the ballots had to be tallied by hand, how long did it take to figure out who got elected? I know we've gotten used to electronic results and watching the results come in live on TV or the Internet, but it can't possibly have been that fast in the past.
Isn't it generally OK for results to take a while as long as it's figured out prior to Inauguration Day?
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But I want to change that.
I'm feeling overwhelmed because I dont know where or how to start. There's so much information out there.
Any suggestions on where I can start? Any podcast? YouTube channels? Videos? Anything would help!
Thanks!
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The eastern half of Germany, formerly belonging to the GDR, is on average poorer than the western parts of Germany. There's a wealth of literature relating to reasons within the 20th century, but I was curious about the effect of the Thirty Year's War.
It seems from my readings that the area between Saxony and Sweden - more or less modern eastern Germany - bore the brunt of the destruction. Frankfurt an der Oder and the town of Brandenburg lost more than two thirds of their population, Potsdam 40%, Wittenberge and Putlitz were abandoned. Not to mention Magdeburg, which was essentially completely destroyed and de-populated.
I'm aware that this was around 400 years ago, but the population levels in these areas generally reached pre-Thirty Year's War levels during the Industrial Revolution. Is there any literature drawing a concrete link between eastern Germany's weaker economic status today and the Thirty Year's War?
Helpful maps and tables comparing East and West German economic status today: https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Publikationen/Neue-Laender/jahresbericht-zum-stand-der-deutschen-einheit-2020.html
Numbers taken from Christopher Clark's Preußen, Aufstieg und Niedergang 1600–1947. (pp 58-59)
1 Answers 2020-09-30
I would like to avoid generalizations, but it seems that there was a major change in the general approach of the German nation after the WWII towards the neighbor countries.
What were the factors that ensured such transformation?
Why was it different than after WWI?
After WWI Germany lost a big part of their lands, people were expelled from their homeland, the country suffered huge losses, was splitted into two parts and was controlled by other countries for the next 40 years.
Somehow the nation did not grow angry, but became an example of peaceful people.
Was it because of the sense of guilt after WWII? Or because of the close control by other countries? Or there was just a lack of major crisis which would antagonize people?
1 Answers 2020-09-30
i always hear how the germans during ww2 was ahead of their time when it comes to their machine guns, why was the germans more advanced when it comes to machine guns?
1 Answers 2020-09-30
Listening to Dan Carlin’s hardcore history, he spoke of a small movement within American politics to limit their nuclear arms development post WWII.
Assuming that intelligence had seriously considered this at that time (or any time otherwise) was there ever a point in which America seriously considered disbanding their nuclear arsenal?
1 Answers 2020-09-30
I feel like there hasn't been a shortage of companies that could be considered monopolies since 1984, especially in the tech sector, but US Government has seemed unwilling to prosecute these instances or unable to successfully land the case (the antitrust suit against Microsoft at the turn of the century ended in a settlement).
While trying respect the twenty year rule, in curious to know why the latter Reagan, Bush, and Clinton eras of government seemed to lack any meaningful antitrust actions.
3 Answers 2020-09-30
With modern technology allowing for data to be sorted, stored, and searched with comparable ease, challenges that still require actual physical paperwork seem daunting. How did the researchers, businesses, and governments of the past handle the vast amount of written reports generated by daily life? Are there any methods for gathering, sorting, and analyzing physical records that were effective historically, but that modern institutions have lost the will or technical expertise to do?
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I'm not very knowledgeable on Far Eastern History. I know a bit of Korean and Japanese history and I know that Japan has historically been really busy fighting itself with wars like the Sengoku Jedai because of the Daimyo Feudal system. Korea on the other hand was largely stagnant and stable compared to Japan and was behind in things like training and experience for their military, which is why on land Japan was easily able to stomp them.
During the Imjin war though, Admiral Yi was able to absolutely destory Japan's invasion and supply fleets with every odds stacked against them with superior naval ships. How was Japan so easily crushed navally despite being a nation with lots of islands and a large recent military history?
1 Answers 2020-09-30
EDIT: Thank you for your detailed responses!
2 Answers 2020-09-30
Not pure denial that it happened, but minimizing its extent.
Comments like this, saying gas chambers were “primitive” or a casual addition at the end of the Holocaust, rather than a well engineered aspect planned from the beginning.
Are there any suggestions for how best to counter these sorts of falsehoods?
2 Answers 2020-09-29
This seems ridiculous and extremely awkward, but is this just my modern preconceived notions clashing with an untidy historical reality or were their rules in place or overlooked practical considerations that avoided this sort of situation?
{Apologies if this has been answered, I didn't know what to search)
2 Answers 2020-09-29