I finished ‘The Prince’ a while ago and I’d like to know the specific texts Machiavelli would’ve read to obtain the information he shares in his book.

I’d assume, he probably read a lot of Xenophon, Herdodtus, and other ancient Greeks and Romans too.

I tried looking this question up but had no luck. If anyone knows about any books he read I’d appreciate the help. Thank you.

I've heard somewhere that Romans used some sort of abrasive, but not much else than that. Media discussing hygiene throughout the ages that I've viewed always seems to omit any discussion on dental hygiene, so I'm curious as to the methods that different people used until modern toothbrushes and paste were invented.

I’m new to civil war history - the dealer wasn’t able to fill me in. It has his three initials and the three leaf clover (2nd corps).

J.N.H are the initials

Going around the British navy to enter the Atlantic was always going to be difficult so why not construct it in a French port and sneak it into the Atlantic?

I’m reading A Little History of The World by E.H. Gombrich and he says “It wasn’t long before their (French Kings) power had become so great that in 1309 they were able to force the pope to leave Rome and take up residence in France”

Thus creating the Avignon Papacy. I’ve looked around and all the explanations I can find are

1. Because Clement V was French
2. Because of “rising political tensions”

Both explanations seem like an over simplification. Why did the French kings force Clement V to move to France? What rising tensions were there?

Pretty much the title tbh.

I had recently come across this podcast and I found quite a few of their episodes to be intriguing, however as I was a layperson I was wondering if people with a little more formal expertise could comment on their accuracy and reliability (to any degree they were familiar with).

I made bread today for the first time. It came out really good and I would highly recommend other people give it a go but it also got me thinking how early man came to combine water, sugar, yeast, salt, flour, etc.; kneed it; allow it to rise; kneed it again; then bake.

Do we have any explanation on when this occurred and what events lead to it? Just the milling of wheat to produce flour seems like a crazy thing to happen.

With regards to the public conversation aspect: in particular, what was the nature of advertising around, say, baby formula in the U.S. around that time? And to what degree did the medical field participate in deciding when was the "right time" for weaning? And how, if it all, did those two things intersect?

My source for the numbers is Trends and Differentials in Breast Feeding: An Update by Hirschman and Butler, in the Feb 1981 edition of Demography. The authors speculate on various factors in that article and also repeat various interpretations that may not be their own, and they offer extensive demographic data, but also note that there are probably multiple possible factors that were difficult to pin down at the time.

Thanks!

Are there any examples of like pieces of iron age Germanic/Celtic or Viking era wooden architecture, like maybe a piece of door or something? I know there are viking ships, but I wonder if there are any buildings?

I'm reading up on Vo Nguyen Giap, and learned that as his influence increased as time went on in the 1930s, there was a point where he had to eventually flee his country. This was at least partially because of the Indochinese Communist Party, which he founded, becoming forbidden. Is there a reason for why this happened? And yes, I've read past Britannica, but still can't find anything. Thanks!

There’s many counts in history of Jews being persecuted against. There’s also a lot of stories of people becoming friends with someone then finding out their Jews and suddenly don’t like them anymore. Like the movie School Ties where a boy in the 1950s is bullied when his classmates find out he’s Jewish.

Why are Jews so disliked? Are there ideas in that religion that other religion’s may consider unacceptable?

For example, when I was learning about WW2 in high school just under a decade ago, I was taught that the movie "Enemy at the Gates" was essentially true, where each man would get ammo or a rifle but not both. I came here and eventually found out that "Enemy at the Gates" is a pretty bad film and very inaccurate.

Now, whenever I lurk around this subreddit or a military subreddit, it seems that everyone knows that Enemy at the Gates is not true and that the Soviets were able to give every man a gun.

Other things I have also been taught but was proved wrong by this subreddit and the other "serious" history subreddit completely contradicts what is available on the r/history subreddit. Just a week ago, I saw a couple of users on r/history claim that Chiang Kai-Sheik surrendered in WW2, when Chongqing was never even captured!

So, how long does it take for serious historians such as /r/AskHistorians to dispel bad historical takes? And how do you guys dispel these takes?

As a preface; I am building a backstory for a DnD character, who was the slave of a rich merchant for the purpose of showing off his wealth.

As such, I'm curious what other sorts of slaves and/or servants a rich merchant would have.

The culture is roughly medieval middle east, but it is flexible, so I'll take any answer that roughly conforms to this, whether it be muslim Spain, medieval Egypt, the Ottoman Empire or whatever else.

If real-life merchants did not grow rich enough to have sprawling estates, then hearing about how the nobles did it will work as well

I'm sure anyone that well off would have private cooks, and likely also some kind of chambermaid or equivalent, as I doubt such people cleaned their own rooms. But what else would one be likely to find?

I hope this is not too general a question. I attempted to google the issue, but it was surprisingly difficult to find information about medieval middle east or even the ottoman empire (... beyond the harem, anyway, which is not what I'm interested in)

I’m reading a few books on the Middle Ages simultaneously (below). They tilt towards Western Europe and Germanic tribes. Could you please recommend books on Barbarian kingdoms (particularly from CEE) and early Slav history?

Wickham in particular refers to tribe names and “the migration” without further explanation. I’d like to understand the origins of tribes and which countries in CEE each settled.

Books I’m reading:

C. Wickham, Medieval Europe B. Van Loo, The Burgundians S. Winder, Danubia & Germania

Thanks!

I am very interested in Ancient Persia but most of what I find is about rulers and lineages and battles and wars. What is the “average” person’s life like? What is my house made of? What do I wear? What do I eat? How do I cook? What occupations are open to me? What are my primary concerns? How does this differ if I am rural or urban? Are there any good accessible sources for this info or do we just not have much on the material culture of this time and place?