Hi all, I’m interested in doing a bit of work in comparative labor history and I was looking to see if there were any major historians or works that I should be aware of as I make my way into a totally new field. I’m want to do a kind of global comparative history, but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
5 Answers 2020-02-24
I know the nazis had ideological reasons to view slavs as inferior and I know about the belief that the german people needed the land for themselves. But given the hatred for the bolsheviks, the nationalism, and the entrenched antisemitism in the Ukraine, it looks like easy work to play the part of liberator, not steely-fisted conqueror, at least until the war was over.
Why did the nazis not make any serious effort to win hearts and minds in the conquered territories of the western USSR?
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I mean, back in those times, the medical profession knew nothing of female anatomy because it was considered immoral. Heck, even sofas were considered slightly titillating because they resembled a bed more than an armchair, a yet most people had children, especially peers and whatnot. So how did they deal with it? Was the expectant mother banished from society until her baby could be given to a nanny? Or did everyone do the British thing and pretend that they didn't notice Mum-to-be's expanding midriff?
1 Answers 2020-02-24
Hey everyone! I'm taking a class in British civilisation and I have to write a research paper on whether or not Anne Boleyn was truly guilty or not of treason, adultery and incest. But because of where I live (I'm not in an English speaking country) I don't have much informations on her case. I want to write something interesting with informations that are relevant. I need 5 written sources but I can't find anything at the library where I live (there was one book on the subject but apparently someone borrowed it and never returned it -_-)
If anyone could help me I would be reallyyyyyy grateful :) feel free to share your opinions and/or send me titles of books or sources that I could use. I'm open to anything and I really hope you guys will be able to help me out ^^'
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As profesional soldiers without a noble background, how would they join the army? Did the army or noble have something similar to recruitment ofices? Or was the position hereditary in a similar maner to other profesions?
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I live in Utah, honestly not sure where I would look to find archived maps of cities. I'd preferably like to find this information digitally, but i'm thinking there's probably more undigitized maps floating around in archives. Any insight you guys can give me would be great, thanks!
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From Eastern Europe, to the Middle East, parts of India and the entirety of of China, the Mongols had a vast Empire that pretty much included most of the intellectual elite of the world and some of the most highly developed cities. However, modern day Mongolia remains a very poor country that doesn't seem to have profited too much from the Khans conquest. The Khans conquered and lived in cities that were some of the largest of the world. This means these cities had a complex infrastructure and an abundance of knowededge in various fields. Why wasn't this ever imported to their ancestral homeland?
The Roman Republic, in contrast, was marked by how everything that was conquered somehow supported Rome and the Romans. Slaves, gold, wheat, products, Greek literature/culture etc. so many things were imported to Rome to help improve the city. Why did the Mongols never try and develop their homeland? Or am I wrong, and if so, how did they improve their homeland?
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Anatolia was home to many people like the Pontus, Capadochians, Cilians, Lydians, etc. Did the Turks/Muslims wipe them out? Did they immigrate? Are they still there?
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So I’m hoping someone can answer me, because I am so confused over this. I have thinking about it for days now. (I’m in a rabbit hole and can’t get out) In the Netflix Documentary Roman Empire (S3E2) it said and showed Caligula falling ill and into a coma from something called “brain fever.” It went on to say he was in this coma for 3 MONTHS!!!!???? and and then suddenly woke up from this illness.. Immediately I’m like, wait, what did they just say? Did I hear that right? REWIND! Umm? A coma? Is this not a documentary? No it’s gotta be, its historians and professors telling the story. Have IVs been around 2000 years? Of course not! 😂 <<<(this is me trying to make sense of it) ...so bears all the questions...How do you eat in a coma? How do you drink? How do you relieve yourself? They had IVs back then? No, don’t be stupid!(3 months in a coma 2000 years ago and surviving just seemed like something so “dumb” to say, that I noticed it immediately) (I’m very surprised no one else has asked this question, except for one person I could find, but it was no help) Then the googling ensues, and there isn’t much I could find to be honest. However lots of sources also said he was in a coma. So it is, in fact, apparently what record we have but HOW???? Google also says “brain fever” was probably something like meningitis or encephalitis. So here it is, days after trying to understand, I come to reddit. I’m sick of google searching and not getting anything satisfying? Any History buffs able to clear things up for me? How did Caligula survive a 3 month coma???? What am I missing here?
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It follows the story of a young boy during the Nazi occupation of Poland. specifically his attempt to flee the country while being hunted.
However, I am not very well versed in the culture of the nation or how it was impacted by the Nazi's invading. I don't want to pull an r/badhistory and completely misrepresent the time period. So I just wanted to know if anyone could direct me to some reading material because I've been having a hard time finding any.
Not actual studies but more non-fiction and historical-fiction novels, short stories or, movies covering that specific country on a more personal level during the occupation.
If anyone can help me it would be greatly appreciated
Edit: I know this isn't really the best place to ask a question like this. However, after looking at the other subreddits dedicated to history this seemed like the most appropriate place to ask for help.
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I know this question might be "dumb" but I just keep wondering as that would be the weakest point ...
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Hey guys! first time posting so sorry for the ramble.
I have a real passion for history, more as a life-long hobby than a profession, and I certainly would have used this subreddit if it existed when I first started studying it many years ago haha. My real real passion, however, tends to be studying the why behind each fact of history as it is presented. Sure, it's fun to know that Alexander the Great died in 323 BC, but why is the date that number, and not some other number? What is the original sources and calculations that gave us that date? Surely, Alexander's grave doesn't come with a sign in Ancient Greek, "died in 323 BC".
Nothing gives me greater joy than sorting through that paper trail, constructing the web of sources and logic that holds up our understanding of history. Maybe I'm just really weird, but to me a single historical statement doesn't stand alone, but instead represents the chain of sources and logic that makes that statement true.
Whenever I read secondary sources before the 18th century, this kind of pleasure is usually satisfied immediately. Historians back then would always point to the exact classical source they got the information from, as well as how that information is being applied, such as "Xenophon says X, but Herodotus says Y, so we can determine its actually Z". Of course, sometimes the cited source no longer exists, like when Josephus cites the Tyrian Annals, but nothing can be done about that.
Whenever I read sources after the 18th century, however, after the dawn of "peer-reviewed" academics, it ends up filling me with frustration. Instead of pointing to the exact primary sources, they almost exclusively point to other secondary sources, or to some eminent modern historian or archaeologist. And 9 times out of 10, those other secondary sources cited are either not publicly available or are not translated into English. The only time primary sources are specifically indicated, I find, are either when that is the focus of the paper, or if the piece of information is known to be in dispute.
I don't care if Joe Blog from Yale University says when Alexander the Great lived. And if he has read the primary sources to know that then he should just give them, instead of taking up space in a bibliography. It's not like historiography is a hard science or advanced mathematics that takes years of training to understand; if one person can understand it, then he should be able to explain it (as opposed to just citing it). Yet, the implication seems to be that if a piece of information is cited from an existing, credible academic work, then that automatically makes it absolute truth.
The real concern is that Joe Blog from Yale University actually hasn't read the primary sources, but instead has acquired his knowledge of Alexander by reading other secondary sources, perpetuating the cycle. Hunting down the sources by following this chain of citations can be extremely tedious (and often, as I mentioned earlier, impossible). When I finally do acquire the primary sources for a piece of information, sometimes I find myself having a slightly different interpretation, which means that the secondary sources that relied on this information may end up being in error.
This revelation that secondary sources can be wrong, then, fuels my frustration further. If I am capable of having a different opinion on a topic where the primary sources are publicly available, then what about the ones that aren't? In an ideal world, any kind of proof should function like Euclidean geometry, where one can visually see the chain of premises connecting from non-provable assumptions to the argument at hand. But Post-Enlightenment historians instead seem to chop off that chain at the very end, and leave behind any other premises hidden under layers of bibliographies, as if a an iron gate in the 18th century reads "you're going to have to trust us on this one".
Academic papers, from what I understand, are not supposed to be absolute truth, but instead are simply putting together enough evidence to prove a given argument. Even in the most credible sources, then, the argument being proved is not necessarily the truth. Alternate interpretations of the sources could lead to different conclusions, especially if new evidence is discovered that changes previous assumptions. If a paper's source is 30 years old, how do you know that a discovery 10 years ago doesn't indirectly change that source's premise? When the full chain of logic and primary sources are not given, it's very hard to tell.
It's also apparent that secondary sources can't be taken for granted because, in spite of the best academic credibility, they often contradict each other. The usual way people address this, I find, is taking the majority opinion (or whichever opinion makes it to Wikipedia). But wouldn't it be much better to simply cut out the middle man, and cite the primary sources and logic directly?
One example where I find this frustration lies is in Mesopotamian History. You can easily find many secondary sources that describes the history of Mesopotamia, relying on the original cuneiform inscriptions, which naturally trumps all classical sources like Africanus or Berosus that come from centuries later. But here's the problem: the classical sources are usually in the public domain, but those cuneiform inscriptions generally aren't. Trying to determine how these secondary sources came up with these names and dates, on inscriptions that are never published, is often akin to pulling teeth.
Occasionally, the historicity of a certain event in history is itself a field of study, such as the Conquest of the Aztec Empire, and these become a pleasant oasis where I can find my primary sources at last. But woe betide that you try to find the primary sources on the Inca Empire, which is not nearly so obvious. I'm sure such sources exist, but the vast majority of public information falls into this same trap of simply only citing other secondary sources, as I described earlier.
Of course, I can understand there is an issue of logistics. If every historian had to cite every primary source for each piece of information, the article would quickly become very unreadable with all the random tangents of proofs. However, we live in the 21st century. The technology exists where all the tangential proofs and primary citations can be compacted into a single, blue-colored word (or orange in this case, I guess). Thus, readability can be maintained while still cutting out the middle man of secondary sources.
In fact, as it stands the growth of technology will continue to aggravate the problem. This is because a lot of primary sources now are either not digitized or kept in an archaic format, like microfiche or floppy disks. If there comes a time when these obsolete formats are no longer readable, then what do you have left? A rats nest of secondary sources with bibliographies that go nowhere. Imagine, for a moment, if someone like Josephus was enlightened enough to write like a modern academic. Instead of citing Matheno word-for-word, he would just state his own arguments on Egyptian history, and relegate Manetho to a single line in his bibliography. One burning of Alexandria later, and all of Manetho's work would have been completely forgotten.
Alright, I better wrap up this post and boil it down to a single question, so I don't keep rambling and get deleted for violating rules. It basically can be summarizes as follows:
3 Answers 2020-02-23
I recently started reading Caesar's Gallic wars, and after reading about the battle of Bibracte I looked at the wikipedia page to see if there was any more information. Caesar records the number of Helvetii as 368,000 (a figure he got from their own records which he looted) - but the wikipedia page lists three sources for the number of the Helvetii
Caesar:
368,000:
90,000 warriors
278,000 non-combatants
Orosius:
157,000 people
Modern estimates
20,000 people, including 12,000 warriors
This isn't the only time I've come across something like this. I loved reading Herodotus' histories last year, and there's great detail about the number of people who marched into Greece with Xerxes. Herodotus seems very aware that the size of the army beggars belief. He talks of how they drank rivers dry and impoverished every town they came to. He even details the means by which they counted the number of people there were (by having them stand in turn in a circle of known capacity). Yet Wikipedia confidently tells me this:
The numbers of troops that Xerxes mustered for the second invasion of Greece have been the subject of endless dispute, because the numbers given in ancient sources are very large indeed. Herodotus claimed that there were, in total, 2.5 million military personnel, accompanied by an equivalent number of support personnel.The poet Simonides, who was a contemporary, talks of four million; Ctesias, based on Persian records, gave 800,000 as the total number of the army (without the support personnel) that was assembled by Xerxes. While it has been suggested that Herodotus or his sources had access to official Persian Empire records of the forces involved in the expedition, modern scholars tend to reject these figures based on knowledge of the Persian military systems, their logistical capabilities, the Greek countryside, and supplies available along the army's route.
Modern scholars thus generally attribute the numbers given in the ancient sources to the result of miscalculations or exaggerations on the part of the victors, or disinformation by the Persians in the run up to the war. The topic has been hotly debated but the modern consensus revolves around the figure of 200,000 or 300,000–500,000.
Why would modern scholars be so sure that historical sources are over-representing the numbers present? There are three listed contemporary sources, all of which say 800,000 or higher - yet scholars opt for at most 500,000 - a massively lower number! The sources even explain how they came to these numbers and provide accounts believably consistent with the numbers listed. It seems to me that scholars are assuming a lot to think they know better than contemporary writers about something that happened so long ago. Or is there a really good argument otherwise?
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I am looking for a date base online that has a list of the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. In my family I have 2 Polish survivors but do not know what camp they were at. There are no records in my family's heirlooms of where they were. As you can imagine, they didn't talk much about where they were. My family is not Jewish so those data bases are unhelpful to me.
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I found this post here:
https://twitter.com/IReallyHateJade/status/1231246047458013185
And I was wondering, is there any evidence that this device was used on slaves in America? Wikipedia tells me it was a myth, so I wanted to know how true this was.
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Repost of my own post from a week or so ago.
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An infinitesimal is a nonzero number that there is no way to explicitly observe them. (I'm not really a math person so this might not be the greatest explanation).
The infinitesimal Wikipedia page reads:
Infinitesimals were the subject of political and religious controversies in 17th century Europe, including a ban on infinitesimals issued by clerics in Rome in 1632.
What was the background of this political and religious controversies of the mathematical concept of infinitesimals, and how did they become so controversial that a ban on the mathematical concept was issued?
1 Answers 2020-02-23