Hello everyone, I am currently working on a presentation about Nigeria. I already studied its history (my Bachelor thesis was about Nigeria and Boko Haram specifically), but for this presentation I would like to address the specific topic of agriculture and how the British colonization affected the agricultural sector in the country, both positively and negatively. So, to be more clear: I am looking for materials about this topic revolving about the first decades of the 20th century, but possibily with some reflections on the long term influences.
Thank you very much to anyone that can give some help. Bless

First Post here, be kind.

I've been reading Zinn's 'A peoples history...' and he discusses in depth the economies of the North American Colonies but doesn't address specifically how the currency system worked. Did the colonies just use the home countries currency? Surely this would put them at an extreme disadvantage in terms of trade and valuing thier goods. Or was there local currencies in place that got unified as the American Dollar?

Anyone able to shed some light on this? There seems to be plenty of history of the dollar after 1776 but not much before.

Sources or additional text recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Britain has theirs, Canada their own. When did the American accent form?

Rationing in the united kingdom didn't end until 1954, 9 years after hostilities ended. Were there any other countries (particularly in Europe) engaging in rationing after the second world war and for how long?

Hi there,

One of my spirituality goals this year is to find answers to lots of questions about the origin, psychology and purpose of religion and godly beings in the past and today. Could people recommend some cool ass books I could read?

Coal? Petrol? Pixiedust? I’m aware they used hydrogen for lift, but what about propulsion?

This question may be too broad, so I understand if it's not appropriate here. And, if I can be pointed to any larger or more detailed works, please don't hesitate to do so.

Though war and colonialism certainly play into the time period, I'm curious more specifically on what it was like to live in Norway, Sweden, and Finland in the 17th and 18th Centuries.

Some more focused questions (note: most of these questions apply to non-nobility; I understand that the Nordic nobility is fairly well-documented and modernized at this time): What were their cultures like? How did they differ from other countries at the time? How did religion affect them? Was there tension between Christianity and traditional paganism? How did they approach new technology? Outside of combat, were they commonly using firearms or were bows still the preferred hunting tool? How much did the modern world affect life outside of cities? How modern were Nordic cities? What of city culture reached rural communities and settlements?

Let's assume I am an able bodied man or a woman in their twenties with an university education and speak fluent english. Maybe I left Germany because I am a communist or a social democrat. Could I join the army as an officer or translator? Could I work for intelligence services? What would my experience be?

I've noticed that in texts written decades before the formation of Germany as a nation-state in 1871, authors regularly refer to "Germany", despite the fact that no such country existed at the time. For example, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) refers to "Germany", and Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels frequently refer to "Germany" in their early texts written in the 1840s.

I understand that there was a German language and a German people, but how did the concept of the noun "Germany" become so common before it came into being as a distinct nation? Was the collection of independent states referred to collectively as "Germany" back then?

Let me know if this is more of an /r/asklinguistics question.

When I read about the Native Americans, First Nations people, and Inuits of Greenland and northern canada/Alaska, I just wonder why they endured the cold weather and harsh winds/lack of food and more. Especially for places in the tundra where there is no trees, vegetables, fruits. Were they only comfortable with what they knew? Did they think this is how the entire world must have been?

Wouldn't that have been easily possible?

Is there anywhere I can find sources on how RAF pilots and flight leaders talked to each other via radio during the Battle Of Britain? I’ve watched the 1969 film but idk how accurate the dialogue is.

I'm an archaeologist who is looking at a number of late 19th and early 20th century schoolhouses in the rural American South. Specifically, I am looking at a site where a Rosenwald School was built in the 1920s on top of an earlier school built in the 1880s and having trouble pulling apart which contexts date to which school building. I have certain contexts with a good number of slate pencils and would like to know if I can say with relatively strong confidence that they are from before the 1920s.

I have been doing a good bit of research on this topic, but I have only found general answers that by the early 20th century slate pencils fell out of use. There is a great article from an Australian archaeologist ( that suggests children were still using slates and slate pencils up until the 1930s in Australian schools, but have found nothing comparable in the US.

So far the primary sources I am using have also not been helpful for this question as it does not appear the local school board was providing writing implements or at least was not recording those purchases as distinct budget lines. All my oral histories are from the 1930s or later and most of my other sources are from the 19th century. 1900-1930 is basically a black hole for me. I am also looking at rural black schools in the South and more sources I am finding are white schools in more urban areas in the North or rural areas in the mid-West.

One source ("Technology in American education 1650-1900" by Charnel Anderson for the Technological Development Project of the National Education Association of the United States) suggested that slate pencils were out of use by 1900 in all but "the most remote rural regions," but he only looked up until 1900 and provided no sources.

I know that wooden pencils were patented in 1858 and began being mass produced in 1866, but this did not cause an immediate decline in slate pencils. There was also overlap as younger students were given slates, middling students pencils and paper, and older students pen and paper. I am curious as to why and when this switch to all wooden pencils and pens occurred.

Horror seems like a super popular genre now, was there an "industry" or circulating set of stories that would seem parallel to our horror genres now?

And what were they exactly? How did they become towns, if they were planned like forts? Wouldn't the town expand past the fortification's borders if it were to become a town over time? It's not like the people who built it would have predicted its growth a generation later.

Listening to british history podcast made me curious about this. Thanks.

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Hello Reddit! Genuinely curious if any of you could point me in the right direction to read up on early Christian scholarship from the perspective of a historian during the early Roman Empire. (Anything pre-Constantine whether it’s about the historical figure Jesus Christ’s life or how Christians would go about practicing in a transitioning empire) THANK YOU!

Was it more accepted than Polynesian or Basque theories, or was it totally fringe?

Given the stricture of social mores and class in the 1910's, and that Princip murdered a royal ascendant, how was his sentence so- seemingly- lenient? 20 years in prison, even if it was a neglectful and inhumane imprisonment?