Their literacy, urbanization, and industrialization rates seem to be very low, so they definitely had no established bourgeoise to count on. They also had no history of democracy, having been ruled by feudal kings before the Brits took over. And it's not even that they had cultural institutions, because their neighbours (Pakistan and Bangladesh) did fall into military rule.

What was special or new about the first WORLD WAR in comparison to other wars?

I’m just quite curious about this. Is it all just representations of a traditional honourable Victorian women (e.g. who is totally obedient to her husband) vs dishonourable women (e.g. prostitutes)?

Similarly, is the portrayal of women in the arts/literature of the Victorian era linked to the theme of sexuality and marriage?

Any recommendations on books that give further info would also be great :)

I've read the fascinating book(s) by Braudel on the Mediterranean in the time of Philip II. of Spain and he often writes about the king "raising" or "recruiting" troops in Spain, Italy or Germany for his various military campaigns. It also regularly mentions that these troops are again disbanded in Winter.

So how exactly did that work? Was it a semi-professional army? Was it just mercenaries? Did always the same or different people get employed by the Spanish army? Was it different bands of mercenaries?

I'm trying to e.g. compare it to the ancient Roman military or a modern army. Both (the Romans after a certain point in time) had professional armies, i.e. all or most soldiers only professionally worked in that capacity, were employed for a certain time (e.g. 15 or 20 years), wore uniforms and mostly lived in or near military camps. Was it the same or different for Spain in the 16th century? How exactly?

Hello, can anyone tell me where I can find trusted, accurate, and in-depth sources where I can learn more about the Bronze Age?

I'm specifically interested in Mesopotamia, but I'd be more than happy to have anything about the Bronze Age in general.

Primary sources are welcomed as I don't know where to look for those either. Or at least not in a place where I can see multiple easily.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I tried to word this question as best I could without it getting too long.

Also, I would like to know if this is something that others associated specifically with girls, or if others noticed the phenomenon but didn’t associate it specifically with girls.

Here is a full quote. Tell me if you need more context but it should be enough. (Also, I am using the 1953 English translation, which is apparently somewhat inaccurate but it’s what I’ve got.) Also, from the context of this chapter, “young girl” for the most part seems to refer to adolescent girls.

But like laughter, the use of obscene language is not merely a method of combat: it is also a defiance of adults, a kind of sacrilege, a deliberately perverse form of behaviour. Flouting nature and society, the young girl challenges and braves them in a number of peculiar ways. Often noted are whimsical food habits: she eats pencil leads, sealing wafers, bits of wood, live shrimps; she swallows aspirin tablets by the dozen; she even consumes flies and spiders. I have known one girl, no fool, who made up frightful mixtures of coffee and white wine and forced herself to drink them; she also ate sugar soaked in vinegar. I saw another find a white worm in her salad and resolutely devour it.

It is often said that the treaties were too much, and they only fed the resentment that the Nazi's grew from. Is this really the case? In what ways were they? Realistically, how should it have been different?

With the introduction of radio in warfare, was there any form of arms race between the combatants over it? I understand there was interception through units like the British Room 40, but was there any attempts at things like jamming or using radio communications in deceptive ways (like sending false signals)?

I remember learning that paper was usually quite expensive before the Industrial Revolutions, so were mental maths encouraged to make up for the costs of it?

Hello all, I’m curious if such a book exists? I know there was a century of propaganda to sprinkle pretty large misconceptions so if there were even two fairly easily to take in accountings from opposite ends of the historical retelling spectrum, that would be fine. I saw them mentioned in a speech the other day and I really don’t want to go into it tryin to confirm or deny my opinion of that, I want to understand how on or off that statement was (and not just be told etc). I’m asking for easy read because I work a full time job, I run a full time business, and I read at a very very slow rate.

If I need to move this somewhere please let me know.

Of if someone wants to chime in on the accuracy of the American right / maga people being akin to the Bolsheviks, I’m all ears, I don’t really want to get bludgeoned with rhetoric. Hence my willingness just to read lol. Thanks boys and gals love your sub and what you do.

I've scoured the internet for information on this, but everything that I've been able to find is either about crafts or arts in general at best, and generally uninformative Youtube videos at worst. I'm extremely curious about the specifics of how smiths worked, what kind of things apprentices would be doing as opposed to journeymen/masters, and of course how they actually made the products of their crafts. I'd even be willing to read primary sources, if there are any publicly accessible ones.

Edit: In fact, either my google-fu needs some practice, or I can't find any comprehensive histories on blacksmithing anywhere. Everything is either post-Industrial Revolution or a contemporary guide on the practice of smithing today. So really, anything pre-Industrial on the topic would help.

ive looked at an overview of the punic wars via secondary sources, and want to read first hand accounts from generals or other important figures during the Punic wars, and maybe even from specific battles.

Ive tried websites like the british meuseam, national geographic, brittanica, etc, etc. So im thinking theres probably something im missing where alot of primary sources are stored.

Im not 100% sure what websites to find these on, especially for ancient history. If anyone has any sources help is appreciated.

I was just thinking how weird it is that most US public schools have their own districts separate from county and municipal governments. Why was this the institutional design chosen instead of running schools like other municipal departments?

Here in Canada, there is a movement for making pre-colonial Indigenous history a standard part in the education. I learned it and it was very interesting, but the most common source for a lot of it is “oral tradition”.

What do historians require from “oral tradition” in order to prove that somebody existed or that something took place?

Whenever I see topics regarding biblical history being discussed, sources are challenged because they were written decades after the event took place or after the person would have lived.

Doesn’t that make basically every bit of Indigenous “oral tradition” even less reliable?

I am not a historian by education, but I enjoy reading about history. That being said, dense academic writing is obviously difficult for me - I'm more of a Mike Duncan kind of person. Are there any books on the Etruscans that would be accessible to me? If not - what more academic books on the topic would you recommend for someone with little previous knowledge? I haven't been able to find any on the book list nor by searching in other subs.

I am currently reading The Count of Monte Cristo (can’t recommend enough) and I came along a passage in Chapter 78 “Yanina” where the following conversation between Albert de Morcef and Beauchamp alludes to 3 weeks (24 days) while discussing a potential duel between the two:

“M. Albert de Morcerf,” said Beauchamp, rising in his turn, “I cannot throw you out of window for three weeks—that is to say, for twenty–four days to come—nor have you any right to split my skull open till that time has elapsed.”

I did some brief research into this concept of 8 days per week. Could someone expand on it? Is it common practice (then, being ~1830s, and now)? Do other cultures do the same? What is the overall reasoning/justification for it? Thank you

For some context, I heard during a college class that the Pope was similar to the Japanese Emperor, but always thought that was wrong.

It seemed to me that the Holy Roman Emperor had more in common with the Japanese Emperor, and the individual lords had more in common with the daimyos with with the Kings acting as something similar to the Shogun.

Is this correct?

Also, was the “Old West” similar to either? It seems to me that the time between the Civil War and Great Depression was similar to these systems as the landlords were effectively daimyos with serfs.

Was Medusa black ?

So, my question is sparked by my last undergraduate thesis about Cyril and Methodius' translation missions in Moravia and Pannonia. Nearly all of the primary sources about their mission are totally devoid of important details about their mission (e.g., translation techniques, what is Cyril's Glaglolitic Alphabet based on, etc), yet many of the monographs and secondary sources that I consulted made huge grasps at trying to answer these questions, and always ended their analyses with "so, basically, if you read these books + these primary sources, you can maybe come to this conclusion. But more research needs to be done, lol".

Obviously, I am not trying to undermine the research of the particular Slavic historians that I was researching upon. But, if I am being honest, I find a bit academically disingenuous that historians will consistently try and answer the same questions with equal levels of inconclusiveness. At a certain point, their independent research turns into their own theories about how events played out^1 and future readers have to consult more reading material than is necessary to figure out how events actually played out. In the end, this over-theorizing becomes unproductive and inflates the information surrounding the event in question, which can not only be frustrating but confusing (as I found myself to be since I consulted over 15 books (read two twice over), 5 secondary sources and 7 primary sources for a 15 page paper).

Maybe my case is awfully specific and I am feeling a bit disappointed with reading the same stories over and over again to just compare and contrast the minutae of wording that leads to the same conclsuion in the end. But I think another good example is that according to Wikipedia, there are over 200 theories as to why Rome fell. While I am sure they are all valid, that is way too many theories, and I would bet that a lot of them have overlapping ideas that could easily be merged.

Anyways, all this to say, when do historians look at a topic that has documentation, but not enough to ever reach a definitive conclusion and say "yeah that's it; we can't do anymore?". Or similarly, are there instances where historians have effectively done that? Thank you.

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1: A good example of independent theories are trying to trace the origins of the Slavs. You will notice that there is no conclusion as to where they come from, yet in Alexander Schenker's The Dawn of Slavic Philology he notes that there are various theories as to where they come from, and they are highly speculative at best, if not flat out wrong at worst.