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All through the 18th century, European wars might end with a state losing territory, giving up claims, handing over colonies, changing its King to one the winners approved of, etc. But after the War of the Third Coalition, Emperor Francis of the Holy Roman Empire (also seperately Emperor of Austria) just... dissolved the Holy Roman Empire. All the statelets that had previously been part of it (weak as it was) were granted independence. This seems a very dramatic solution. Why did he do this?

Under the Treaty of Versailles, Austria was forbidden to join Germany. By 1938, with Austria merged with Germany under the Anschluss by Adolf Hitler, Austria was part of Germany. What reason made political union of Austria with Germany impossible?

I think the idea was to try and unify the world to ensure no great war ever again. Sounds insanely difficult, but I think theoretically, speaking the same language would make the world more unified.

Was it just an idea? Did they get anywhere?

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Dear Historians

I am doing my history extension majorwork on Manchukuo. I was just wondering if anyone here knows any reliable sources regarding the controversial state and how interpretations of it have changed over time? Preferably it would be amazing if there were English translations of Japanese sources or interpretations on this... Japanese, Chinese and Western sources all welcome!

Thank you so much for your help!

Audio lectures are also of interest, but a book is ideal.

I'm really interested in a history that examines Roman Britain in detail. I'm both interested in a technical understanding (information on population centers, what political and social entities existed and how the Roman invasion and colonization affected them) and a cultural understanding (native identity and lifeways and how they resisted/accepted/merged with Roman ones.)

Seminal works are appreciated, but really strong niche books are also of interest.

So I've been watching some old history videos and I noticed some odd parallels between the histories of France and Britain.

Predominantly Celtic territories, that were subjugated by Rome and had large settlements of latin-celtic mixed peoples (Gauls in France and Brytons in England), lost to Rome during the collapse of the west, only to soon after be invaded by powerful Germanic raiders/lords (the Franks in France and Anglo Saxons in England).

So with such similar histories, why is English so much more definitely Germanic and why is French so much more definitely Latin? Where did the Frankish parts of French go and where did the Brythonic parts of English go?

I was watching the first episode of Greatest Events of WWII In Colour on Netflix. At about 22 minutes in the narrator explains the Allies have positioned their forces in Belgium to fight the Germans. Meanwhile, intelligence reports through scouting planes that the German's are planning an attack in France through the Ardennes, however according to historian James Holland (the show credited him as the author of The War in the West) in this show, the French refused to believe it was credible. The show doesn't go into any reason why the intelligence would be believed to be untrue, however. Do we know why this information would have been unbelievable and ignored?

Hoping this question doesn’t attract the sort of folks the internet has become notorious for hosting. That said, as a follow up, I’d like to know what Historians think of this phenomenon of academic criticism being appropriated by anti-intellectuals to promote their ideological leanings. How responsible, if at all, is academia for its critical methods being propagated onto such nefarious movements? In law, when a statute or ruling becomes a breeding ground for actions that contravene public policy, despite initial good intentions, the legal system has the opportunity to strike down the law for unconstitutionality or overrule the ruling. Does a similar apparatus exist within critical discourse? Has critique run out of steam, so to speak?

I’m not looking for any specific topic/era but rather a general survey of the subject. I have read EH Carr’s “What is History?” and am now reading Evans’s “In Defense of History”. I’m looking for further resources.

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Hi all,

so I am currently revising my doctoral dissertation in the field of history into a book and the most difficult part to revise/rewrite is the introduction.

My original introduction is the typical dissertation introduction with a long literature review that tries to cover every remotely relevant piece of scholarship. I know that this literature review part has to be shrunk for the book. That also seems to be what most people I have shown my intro to think. However, I am unsure how to go about that, as I also don't want to be criticized for not covering this or that book properly but dont know how to cut the intro without risking that:

1. One thing people have suggested to me is to simply move parts of the literature review to footnotes/end-notes and only give groups of literature a sentence or two in the main text. That would mean though that I have to summarize groups of literature in a sentence of two in the main text instead of giving each book/article a sentence in the main text. In my view, that almost inevitably leads to generalizing/misrepresenting of groups of literature. Moreover, this obviously leads to very long footnotes/end-notes.

2. Something else that seems obvious is that I simply cover less literature. In my dissertation, I would track down even the most remote piece of scholarship, which, I guess, is not all that important to include in the literature review. But is it okay to just leave out works that are only remotely relevant and not cover all the relevant literature? I am just afraid that in this case the book will be criticized for not acknowledging all the relevant literature. This is especially so as at least theoretically people could go and compare the lit review in the dissertation with that in the book and criticize me for not including all relevant books I mention in my dissertation.

So I am still quite unsure as to how to go about revising the introduction. I guess, at a deeper level, this also is about my understanding of how academic writing should work. For the thesis, I was told that I should try to find and acknowledge all relevant literature in the introduction and show how that scholarship is different from mine. Is that not necessary anymore for the book?

It seems to me that general consensus outside of the UK sees no particular association between Arthurian legend and Brythonic culture (I may be wrong since I don’t ask everyone I meet what they think).

Notably I’ve meet some anglophiles (for lack of a better word) that would go as far as claiming that Arthur is in fact English and a subject of their own national pride.

Other more reasonable anglophiles have suggested to me that although he was a part of Brythonic (ancestors to the Welsh, Cornish and Bretons if I’m correct) myth, the legends have changed too much for them to have particularly relevance anymore to those cultures. Arthurian legend is therefore a British myth and not a particularly Welsh or Brythonic one anymore.

Some more extreme anglophiles that I’ve meet have gone as far as suggesting that there isn’t much particular of Brythonic culture/myth that isn’t simply shared with the English, and if there is, it isn’t notably enough to be recognised worldwide.

Now although I’m not sure if I should believe my mother or these anglophiles, something does speak true of the later. Most individuals I’ve meet in an international level don’t tend to immediately think of a place such as Wales when thinking of Arthur, they think of England or don’t distinguish between the two.

What is more accurate?

It's a bit of a trope in war movies that we see dented cigarette tins that saved the life of some lucky soldier who was carrying it in his pocket and it deflected a snipers bullet.

Is there any basis for this in reality and would a tin actually deflect a bullet from a World War 1 weapon?