Also, did the solders ever dig trenches so that they could have something to hide behind?

Around here, some people seem to think it was some mythical pre-Finnish kingdom which before the swedes, and others think that the place, and especially the upper mentioned depiction of Bjarmaland is pseudo-history of the highest order. (it should be mentioned, that only people I've heard believing in the "pre-finnish kingdom" story, are people either using history to reinforce their beliefs, or history to prove that they are "right" about something) Below are some information I managed to find this supposed "kingdom."

Around here, it is believed that Bjarmaland was located either on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, on the shores of the white sea or around the area of modern day Arkhangelsk. It is said that this "kingdom" was also rich in silver.

one depiction mentioned that Bjarmaland was abandoned or razed during the 1200s as people fled from the invading mongols and/or moved away as the people of Novgorod settled on the area

Do we have any historical, or archaeological evidence of this kind of "kingdom" existing in any way similar to the depictions mentioned above, and are these sagas (which, bear in mind I could not find) any good as a historical source, if they even exsist.

one website claimed that the first mentions of Bjarmaland come from a Norwegian named "Otter" when he tells the king of Wessex Alfred the great/Alfred I about the area. I could not find any other sources telling the same story, and the website itself was about a book written in the 1960s, which as far as I know, is regarded as pseudo-history by modern day scholars.

I find the whole idea of Bjarmaland hard to believe, but I am eager to learn more if anyone can help me in that regard.

This may be controversial but I want to deepen my understanding of slavery on the west. I ask because there is alot of talk that white people were slavers etc. Which obviously they were (as a culture), but what about your regular working man? I can imagine a slave would have been something he could not had afforded even if he wanted.

In films, documentaries, and TV shows, that focus on the history of the electric telegraph, they often discuss the trials and failures of laying trans-Atlantic cable, or how Samuel Morse came up with his code, and so on, but there seems to be no information on the engineering/logistics of how one actually sent a message. Today you'd need to dial a certain phone number or type in a particular email address to make sure your message was received by the intended recipient. I've never seen any depictions of "dialing" a telegraph; in the films they just start tapping away on their morse key. How did they know they were sending their message to the correct destination?

As the son of a factory owner who profited immensely from the wealth generated there I wonder if he ever attempted to improve practices and working conditions in those factories and if not, why?

I was reading about the Fall of France and was curious about how Belgium and Switzerland felt about France’s objectives in the event of a German invasion.

The Maginot Line was constructed in order to divert the Germans from France to Belgium (or Switzerland), where the heavy fighting would take place. This was done to prevent devastation similar to that sustained by France during the First World War. Did these two nations have a problem with French strategy? I know they probably weren’t in a position to do much about it, but did they voice any concerns or opposition to a fortification on the French border that would almost certainly lead to a German invasion of their own land?

I've seen it get quite the trashing around, with one of this subreddit's best contributers on the French Revolution, u/MySkinsRedditAcct saying its riddled with inaccuracies. Would someone here explain what is wrong with the book?

Hi,

Here at r/AskHistorians, some of the Internet's best academic minds are assembled. But one thing we can't do is ask people from history directly what their lives were like. I've often fantasized about being able to talk to a Roman, or a tribe of ancient Norse, and interview them first-hand about their lives- and I'm sure many other followers of this subreddit have too. This is of course impossible, but here, we have the resources to do the next best thing.

Which is why I'd like to suggest a new feature to the mods: AMA Historical Role Play!

Someone who is an expert on a certain time period (say, for example, the English Civil War) could pose as a person who lived in that time, and we could ask them questions which they would have to answer in the first person.

Of course, such a feature would rely on some conjecture, and therefore such AMA events would need to be clearly differentiated from the rest of the subreddit. However, this idea would be completely in the spirit of this sub, and I'm sure many people on here would like to see such a thing.

Was it insurance issues? Environmental activists? The public nuclear accidents like Chernobyl and 3 Mile were after the industry was already faltering.

This might be a loaded question. I'm certainly not a colonial apologetic, but the fact that the native population of New Zealand only arrived there so very recently has always intrigued me, especially compared to the Americas and Australia, where the native people had been around for tens of thousands of years, making it very clearly their homeland.

This also ties in on my wider interest in the difference between White-Native relations in New Zealand and other places. PLEASE correct me with I'm wrong, but I always get the feeling that NZ is distinct in that way, what with Maori sharing official language status with English and the likes.

​

Thank you!

Hi all, thanks for popping in and for those of you who answer my question: You’re a beautiful person. Now onto the question—

I’ve heard pop culture shows argue that somehow the Founding Fathers duped the rest of colonial society into supporting the war, and that the war wasn’t as popular say in the 1750’s-1760’s as described in textbooks. The argument revolves around an idea that brilliant orators and writers, the obvious one being Thomas Paine, convinced the layman to go to war without a real legitimate cause.

Up front I would assume this is a case of massive overgeneralization, seeing that the line is parroted by many without primary sources or contextual evidence; but, it left me fascinated. When was the war popularized among colonial elites, the middle class, the poor, how was propaganda utilized other than the famous example of Thomas Paine? Were the laymen mobilized into action based on the falsehoods of a few crafty deist industry leaders? Etc Etc...

Again thanks for the responses!

Christians were severely persecuted during the reigns of Nero, Marcus Aurelius, Severus, Decius, Diocletian and Galerius. However, despite the massive persecutions, the Romans failed to eradicate Christianity from the empire. Why?

So Ive just finished watching 'The King' on Netflix. In the film Henry V steps in to fight a welsh rebel, in their respective armies place. He also offers the french dauphin to fight one on one in their armies stead, an offer which was declined.

Ive done my own research and the film has embellished the interactions and battle of that period. However it got me thinking. Are there any instances in written history where two kings/generals/commanders volunteer to fight one on one in their armies place?

I'm facinated by Ancient Greece and the Byzantine Empire as well as Ancient Greek influence on Byzantium does anyone know some good and super-detailed books on these ?

In January 1837, Abraham Lincoln voted "No" on the question of continuing the institution of slavery and I'm wondering how he justified this position given the fact that he also voted against the proposition of Suffrage for African Americans, citing the fact that to do so would have branded him as an "Abolitionist" which would have been tantamount to Political Suicide

As I understand the reason why taking the beaches was so bloody was because no armor made it ashore, and that happened because the heavy waves made landing armor on the beaches extremely difficult. The delayed it at first over concerns of the weather so why not do it again? Was Hitler almost about to uncover exactly where they were going to land or something like that?

I realise that Shakespeare's plays aren't historical documents and contain many historical errors and that he took many liberties with the stories. They are though based on an essence of truth.

It is widely believed that he attended King's New Grammar School but did not go on to university. Would the education system at the time have taught basic Plantagenet and/or Roman history? If not where would he have learnt enough to write the plays that he did?

From my (admittedly somewhat limited) reading of Marxist (/Marxist-adjacent) historians on the subject of the history of the capitalist system, I think I've noticed a kind of tension between different historian's theoretical frameworks. To put things in a perhaps reductionist way, Marx himself in his critique of political economy seems to suggest that the capitalist mode of production is a historically specific social totality. However, certain historians I've read seem to lean either toward the "historically specific" bit, or the "social totality" bit, in ways that seem mutually exclusive of each counterpart.

Now, the historians I really have in mind here are Ellen Meiksins Wood and Immanuel Wallerstein (maybe not technically a historian but you get the point).

Meiksins Wood emphasized the contingency of the origins of the capitalist system, arguing that capitalism was not merely a "natural" extension or expansion of pre-capitalist trade relations, but rather resulted from a specific set of political and social reforms that produced a dynamic of market imperatives. So, her approach definitely highlights the historical specificity/contingency of the capitalist system. However, in her theory this seems to come at the cost of emphasizing capitalism as a social totality. To my knowledge, she argued that capitalism was only existent in those regions and those situations where market imperatives prevailed. So for example, I believe she argued that the American slave system was not part of the capitalist system. Presumably she also did not regard the Soviet Union as a capitalist state.

Wallerstein, in contrast, emphasized that the capitalist system was a social totality, a world-system driven by a central dynamic but including many varied institutions, not only markets and market imperatives. So for example, for Wallerstein, nation-states exist within the world-system, and even the so-called "actually existing socialist" states must be understood as a part of the capitalist system, though those states may have lacked internal markets. Wallerstein was similarly critical of stageist conceptions of development where peasant societies are considered as still being "feudal" whereas only industrial societies are "capitalist"; peasant and industrial societies simply represent different regions and different aspects of a single capitalist world-system. However, to my knowledge Wallerstein's theory does not seem to emphasize the contingency of the origins of the capitalist system, but rather seems to present the capitalist dynamic as an extension of pre-existing trade relations.

I've read Meiksins Wood's book on the Origin of Capitalism, as well as Wallerstein's introduction to world-systems book. I've also read some essays and listened to some video lectures from each of them. Still, I first of all want to make sure that I'm not misrepresenting either of their theories. Provided that I've portrayed each of them more or less accurately, do you think I'm correct about the specific way that their theories are in tension? Are there other Marxist or Marxist-adjecent historians of capitalism that address this tension, and perhaps even overcome it?

It seems to me that any historical theory of the capitalist system that cannot both account for the system as a social totality (not merely a certain kind of market relations), and account for the contingency of the system's origins (not merely viewing the system as a natural extension of pre-capitalist trade relations), is lacking something important. But I am also not a trained historian. Thanks!

Why were Jews such strong traders? Is it cultural?

We all understand that Jews were often seen as separate and, therefor, easier to target in an order such as this during Civil War times. Is it that separatism that motivated them to be successful traders to overcome vulnerability as being seen as separate? Honest question. I am part Jewish btw.