Asking for a friend.
1 Answers 2020-03-11
This might be more suited to r/NoStupidQuestions but it's so common in historical discussion that I thought I'd ask here in order to get a definitive answer. I just hope I can word it in a way that makes sense. Anyway my question is this:
Is infant mortality really factored into the "life expectancy" of past eras and ages?
And if so, how does that not completely skew the data or make it almost irrelevant for "regular" people to understand? I mean, when people hear something like "The average life expectancy in medieval Europe was 35" most people assume that people back then usually died before their 35th birthday. And then someone will come along and say "Oh no. That number is low because of infant mortality rates".
"Well gee, that's great! Thanks for nothing then".
Seriously though, it just seems sort of pointless to factor in infant mortality rates when talking about life expectancy because to the layman, once you do this, it gets extremely confusing. Almost to the point that it seems like someone's trying to trick us. But like I said I'm not 100% certain this is actually the case because the only people I've ever heard say that infant mortality is factored into life expectancy rates are people who are not actual historians.
I'd really like to get to the bottom of this because as someone with an interest in history the idea of "Life Expectancy" has always been a confusing mess for me.
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It just seems a bit harsh; I read that he had somebodies daughter's burned alive.
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A discussion about the rapid industrialization of Meiji-era Japan brought up how many state-owned enterprises set up during this period were loss-making until they were sold to the private sector and restructured. However, nowadays, this is usually done in the opposite way: state-owned enterprises that make money get privatised, while privately-owned enterprises that make a loss but whose work absolutely needs getting done get taken care of by the State, or at least bailed out or subsidized.
Has anyone ever looked at whether this is in fact the general rule, or whether the trend is actually the opposite?
My interlocutor u/ReaperReader provides a first attempt at a response:
I'm not aware of any research that has looked at profitability of SOEs before privatisation as a driver of what firms get privatised, and I haven't found any academic articles on this in a brief search (which is not to say that there isn't any research on this). The closest is that Netter (2001), in a literature review of privatisation research, does note that governments do typically choose to privatise the more profitable SOEs via share issue privatisations (SIPs) (page 240). But that's about the method of privatisation.
An other general finding of the literature is that there's quite a bit of variation in how it happens, both between countries and over time in the same country, down to local political situations. So even if there is a tendency, Japan could easily have been an exception.
But this sort of cross-country comparative research is mainly confined to 1984 onwards (apart from some discussion of the early reforming countries such as Thatcher's UK and New Zealand), when the World Bank's database starts coverage.
Is there any research so far that has gone deeper into this topic?
My understanding is that the privatisation of state-owned enterprises in regimes transitioning away from a "Communist" framework would be fundamentally different in terms of its context, challenges, and rhetorical underpinnings, relative to that of the same in mixed-economy regimes where a Capitalist class exists, which is why they got their own separate question a few days ago.
However, if both types can be explained together under a coherent general overarching theory, I'd be happy to hear it.
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Apparently, after the creation of the USSR, Moscow spent a lot of time and effort trying to convert even tribal people who relied on seal or walrus hunting for sustenance to join the collectivization plan and believe in communism. However, in the anthropological/historiographical theories established in Marxist orthodox canon, these groups' lifestyles would be akin to "primitive communism" , while the State in "Communist" regimes was in the alleged transitional phase of Socialism. What was their rationale for imposing a regression on societies that already are living out the supposed end-goal? Did they try to look at how self-organized communities lived and extrapolate methods towards developing the ideal egalitarian society they claimed to pursue?
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We often hear in WW1 that the officers were incompetent, and callously threw away the lives of their soldiers in trench warfare for ridiculously small gains, that were never going to make a strategic difference. And obviously the numbers of deaths in these areas are truly horrific. What I rarely hear is anyone saying what alternative either side should have taken.
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How did a British officer living in India during the Raj live? What did his schedule look like? What does he do for entertainment and in the evenings. If anyone could also shed some light on diet what the officers meals were and how did they perceive the natives it would definitely be an added bonus! :D
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In more detail, was there a difference in deeds done, gender, or maybe when I died?
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Alternatively, how come the other 22 letters connect to the following letter when word-initial or -medial?
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This is a time in history I have always found particularly interesting not just in Germany but across Europe. I was looking for any recommendations on books that provide a solid account of the time period. I have always thought that the collapse was inevitable due to German attitudes post World War One, the stock market crash and the impact of the treaty of Versailles. Is this somewhat true or is there something I am missing?
Enjoy your day :)
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Hi historians of Reddit! I’ve got a question on how British units were reinforced in WWI.
In the movie 1917, Blake had no idea Schofield was a Somme veteran despite being in the same unit until Schofield mentions his trading away his Somme medal.
It doesn’t seem like their current unit fought at the Somme, so seemed likely to me that Schofield was reassigned.
I know the US Army replaced entire depleted battalions with new ones during WWII to maintain unit cohesion and only sent fresh soldiers to reinforce existing units in Vietnam due to a lack of manpower, but what was the reinforcement policy like for the UK in WWI?
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And more broadly, was there a conscious effort to differentiate the semantics of government from the British following the Declaration of Independence? Or was this simple linguistic drift?
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I apologize if this is the wrong subreddit to be posting this, looking through google results it seems like people were asking similar questions to what I'm about to post.
I'm currently in a higher level history course at my college about the history of the crusades, and I have been assigned a 12-page paper. when required to pick a primary source for the paper I chose Christopher Dawson's A Mission to Asia. This work contains the two letters (bulls) that Pope Innocent IV sent to Guyuk Khan and Guyuk's responses. My main issues are that I'm not entirely sure how to even start this. I had a class last semester revolving around the writing of historical essays (it was called Historian's Craft), but the teacher wasn't very effective, so I didn't learn very much from the class. is my thesis supposed to be directly related to my primary source? how broad is my topic supposed to be? if you guys could point me in a good direction to start it would be much appreciated!
MY CURRENT THESIS:
Historians have often considered the interactions between the Mongols and the Crusaders merely failed attempts that yielded little to no results throughout their multiple interactions. However, this paper will argue that through their common goal in the middle-east and other military and religious agreements they maintained good relations and cooperative results throughout the 13th and early 14th century.
edit:
I would like to make this paper more about the effectiveness of the Franco-Mongol Alliance, but I'm not sure if that's too broad.
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I've seen people try to bring "victor's justice" when it comes to Allied bombing, but as far as I know, most commanders were charged with their complicity with the Holocaust, not the bombings of Allied cities. Am I incorrect that no one was charged on the Axis side for bombings?
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We've all seen the movies and seen cowboys meet outside the saloon or something at high noon and everyone runs away to watch the duel and then it happens.
Im aware of it happening once (if I'm remembering the history channel show I was watching a few years ago) but did it happen on a regular basis?
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Hi Reddit historians, I know you're smart and dont waste time, so let me explain.
My history topic question is: "How has the Anglo-American alliance during WW1 and WW2 affected America today?
My answer to that and the theme to my paper is: "I will argue that Britain's alliance with America through WW1 & WW2 is a big reason for America's strength today, using information from(books I chose) and (websites I choose), despite what other sources say.
I just need links to websites or other books that can help me out with this, if you know any. Otherwise, you can debate or discuss it which helps equally as much. Sorry if I'm in the wrong subreddit. THANK YOU!
EDIT: Just so I dont get flagged for asking you to do my homework, I have done research for this. I have been working on it a lot for the past few weeks, I just cant find specifically what I'm looking for anywhere and was wondering if there is a place that has this information. I hope I'm not sounding redundant.
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