I was thinking of the Mesoamericans (except the Maya), the Incas, and the various states of West Africa (currently reading the UNESCO General History of Africa). How did kingdoms and empires like them do things like long-distance communications between local officials far from each other, or maintain accounts to note the taxes and tribute being collected?

You often hear about Christian witch-hunts and how hundreds of thousands of people were executed over those kinds of accusations. Was it a phenomenon which was isolated to Europe, or did other cultures also do similar things and at a similar scale with regards to accusing and executing people accused of witchery, magic, and sorcery?

This is maybe a bit broad, but I'm curious how in Western clothing in the 20th century we've arrived at a place where a lot of mass-manufactured women's clothing doesn't seem to have "real" pockets.

Hi there,

I am in search of a primary source on famine in China to assign in class. Curriculum is in English. I normally rely on the Fordham Uni primary source depository - but nothing on famine.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

European countries had significantly greater military and economic power than African peoples for decades before the actual "Scramble for Africa" in the 1880s. Where there technical limitations that discouraged conquest before that, or was it more to do with a change of policy/priorities amongst the colonial powers?

Was there a law against or for it? If for, how did they get people to participate? If not, was this ever notably abused?

I was wondering this when my European history teacher was talking about ancient Athenian government and he didn’t have an answer, so I though it would be a good idea to ask here. Thank you!

In Pride and Prejudice, Lydia’s elopement was literally the end of the world before Mr Darcy’s intervention.

Why elopement such a bad thing as portrayed during the that time period?

Secondary question (leaning more to the polisci side): was the True Whig regime the first one-party state in modern history? To what extent was its rule authoritarian?

(reposting this question due to its relevance to this week's theme as well as due to lack of response earlier)

My understanding of this is poor, but it seems that horses in Medival Europe and other Agrarian economies were expensive because of insufficient pastures for horses which begs the question how were the Mongols able to field such large cavalry and reserve horses (like 5 horses per person by some accounts) Also I'm told that the Mongol army sustained it self on campaigns by hunting how was there so much game around towns???

I am very interested in the early medieval Frankish way of life and their history, from Clovis to Charlemagne to all of the Pepins. One thing that seems very mysterious is much of their language and identification. I understand that many names of Frankish leaders are clumsiness of Frank words for things like spear or light or warrior, but those seem to only be first names and mainly for nobles. I am curious about the family names of Frank people, whether peasant names had significant differences from noble names and if noble houses had some kind of symbol or banner like a proto-coat of arms that represented the family.

Ok so please bear with me if this question sounds stupid, my economic understanding isn't that high.

In a normal market economy the state implements taxes to siphon off some of the money circulating in the economy and use that to finance its budget, right? This works because the money is a universally accepted exchange good, both domestically and foreign, and if the state were to try and print more money it would cause inflation, so they dont really control it directly, more indirectly. It has real value.

In the Soviet Union however, everything was state owned and money for private individuals only served to control demand, for example by making consumer goods very expensive so that the demand of them plummets and the state can focus on more "important" areas of industry. And money for enterprises only existed to bookkeep the inputs and outputs and pay the workers, whos wages were set by the state. And as far as I know the Soviet Union also has taxes which it then uses to finance its budget.

So if money serves no other function than the one described above and the value of the money is entirely controlled by the state, how did the budget work then?

The money, because wages, prices and the money itself is entirely controlled by the state, has no real value, be it domestically or foreign. If their state budget needs 200 million more roubles to meet their needs, why not just make the wages bigger and thus your tax income? See my point? In fact why a budget at all? The state controls every economic aspect. They dont have to buy tanks from a private supplier, they are the supplier. Just... build them.

I dont know if anything im writing makes sense. I hope you understand what I am not understanding.

When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, it freed all slaves in the confederacy. If the Confederacy were their own thing, why did they listen to a rule from the federal, union government? Sorry if this is a dumb question

How long did they have to be trained before they were deployed?

How long were they trained in musketry, swordmanship, lancing and hand to hand combat (if any)?

What kind of diet and exercise regiment were they put through?

It just seems too ridiculous. Do we have any evidence that it was real? Or is it considered to be made up or an embellishment?

What was the fate of co-operative and un-cooperative Jewish ghetto leaders after the ghettos were liquidated?