I got to know of atrocities done by Imperial Japan against many countries, especially Korea and China and many old folks in those two countries hate the Japanese and vice versa.

But what about Korea and China? Were they having a friendly relationship in the past? Any wars? War crimes against each other?

Sry if I made a mistake, first poster here :)

Hey everyone! I just finished reading Dostoevsky's The Double, and met yet another Titular councilor who works as a copier for a government ministry. This seems especially interesting to me considering the vast majority of the Russian population was illiterate at the time!

This seems to be a very common trope in Russian literature. Two other examples that come to mind are the protagonist in Gogol's The Overcoat and the protagonist in Dostoevsky's Poor Folk.

The "vibe" the reader gets from these stories is that the copying itself isn't all that important -- it seems like busy work. While I'm sure some of this is for effect (the poor, sad bureaucrat with a meaningless existence) but I imagine it must be based at least partially on reality.

So, my question is: What are they copying, and why are these characters so prevalent in Russian lit?

Thanks!

I was donated a book titled “The Sqaw Man” published in 1906. The binding has a swastika on it. I can’t find anywhere online why this book would have it in there. The book appears to be about an English man who marries a Native American woman. Published by Harpers & Brothers New York and London.

Acting on the assumption that the general public is unfamiliar with the Song Of Roland and wanting to emphasize how well known it would have been, I commented on another sub that “late medieval French fanboys would have argued about whether Durendal was better than Excalibur.” Is anything about that accurate? Is there evidence of any kind of “fandom” that developed around the characters in the various chansons de geste? Would Lancelot partisans argue with fans of Roland about who would win in a fight, the way they argued about whether Superman could beat the Hulk when I was a kid? Is there any indication that stories and characters from different mythologies were combined to meet a demand like this?

I'm surprised by how widespread this superstition is. I've for example heard that Romanians traditionally believe it attracts death, according to Turkish and Japanese traditions you invite devils or demons into the house, while Indians believe it attracts (supernatural?) thieves.

This is one of those folk superstitions I just can't wrap my head around. I'm wondering if it an excuse to scare annoying kids or if there is something else going on here. Are the superstitions connected? What could be their common source, if any?

I know that there are some Roman's Gods who are unique, such as Janus, but what about the Major Gods, such as Jupiter (Zeus), Mars (Ares), Neptune (Poseidon)? If they know, were there debates between Greeks & Romans about "who is the true God" or the Greeks just accept the Romans's version of their Gods?

I'm a tabletop wargamer and I've always had an amateur interest in military history. Recently I've started doing some research into The Crusades. Because this is an area I've always had a casual interest in, but I've really dug into it with any depth.

I started off gathering some books and documents about the origins of The Crusades. Initially I wanted to learn about the political and religious structure of Europe during the late 11th Century. Obviously the Eastern Roman Empire is a major player in Europe and Christianity as a whole at this time so I decided to look back a bit further to really understand what was going on with the Eastern Empire during these events.

You can't really understand what's going on with Rome at the time without understanding how Rome got to that point, so I guess I need to read up on late antiquity and the fall of the Western Empire to really understand what caused the Eastern Empire to go in the direction it did. And the history of Christianity is intimately linked with the history of Rome so in order to understand the Crusades as a pivotal moment in Christianity I need to understand the other pivotal moments in Christianity first.

Well of course you can't start a story at the end. It's gonna be difficult to understand the world of late antiquity without understanding the history that shaped late antiquity, so I guess I need some books that are going to give me an overview of Roman History first, so I can truly understand where the Eastern Roman Empire found itself in the 11th century.

Right, that's all good. I'm about to sit down and start my journey into the history of the First Crusade. The first book I'm going to read is....Plutarch.

Hmm.

That's not to mention that Rome is only one player in the history of The Crusades. The Islamic world and Western European Christendom have centuries of history that positioned them where they were in the 11th century so I guess I need to read into the Carolingians and the Arab Conquests and maybe even the Sassasinids and....you can see where this is going.

And obviously this applies to every major historical event. How can you truly understand the Second World War if you start in 1939? The war "started" in 1939 but it didn't really did it? The Sino-Japanese war was raging for years before that and could arguably be considered as the point that hostilities truly broke out, and then the First World War is crucial to understanding the nature of Europe in 1939 but to understand the First World War you really need to look at the formation of Germany as a nation and you can't truly understand that without going back to Napoleon's time and even before that!

Where do you draw the line?

History isn't a sequence of discreet events. It's a long, interwoven and interconnected tapestry leading back to the origin of man. And each point in time is influenced by and connected to thousands of points in time that each played a part in shaping the fabric of history. As historians. When you sit down to write your paper or your book or whatever it is. Where do you place the arbitrary point on the line where you say "this is the start of my topic"? How do you avoid completely getting lost in the rabbit hole?

What happened to the bodies of everyday gladiators that died in the arenas around the empire were they buried with proper rights of the time or just discarded

I know they also killed criminals and Christians and there bodies were delt with in other ways

I've been reading a lot about the romans. And the whole romans vs parthians/persians etc is very exciting.

Also the whole "Romans 'never' met Chinese" after expeditions from both sides were staggered by Persian obstruction etc.

This because persians feared what Romans and Chinese could do to them if they ever aligned.

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But how was the persians/parthians relationship to the chinese (and then indians?) throughout all of this?

This event is becoming a hot topic in my circle of friends, and you probably know why – if you can read between the lines, but I digress.

I assume that the Serbian narrative is probably something along the lines of "bad west bomb country", but I am interested in nuanced perspectives of the conflict.

If you can answer this question: Why did the NATO countries care about Yugoslavia? Who were the other geopolitical stakeholders, aside from NATO? What was in it for them and how did these interests align with the peoples of Yugoslavia?

I'm looking forward to reading your answers. I do not expect you to answer them all 1 by 1, but feel free to do so if you find that easier.

Cheers and thank you for your time.

For example, look at salt pork. 1 oz has only 200 calories, but 30% of your recommended daily sodium. Assuming a diet of mostly salt pork (which I understand was common, especially among certain professions), that would be 10 oz per day, or 300% of your daily sodium every day. If people are working hard (and of course they were) then they would have to eat even more. Sailors apparently need to eat up to 6000 calories per day. That gives us a whopping 900% of your daily sodium intake per day. Throw in pickled vegetables and other salt preserved foods, and I'm struggling to understand how people weren't dead within a week from kidney failure.

Why did the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire not have the same impact on the world as the fall of the Western Empire? The world hardly cared about them and no one rushed to help them with their war with the Turks when they asked for help! What's so different about the Western empire that makes her more important?

I would imagine not every pilot/crew chief is a great artist, so who would make the well done nose art on aircraft? Would there be one "artist" pilot/personel member who did the art on all the planes?

Im doing a hisory course and I justthought i'd ask reddit for some good sources (Be it books or other sources) about the reign of Nicolas the second. The essay im doing is on

'' To what extent was there a genuine attempt at socio-political reform during the reign of Nicholas II 1894-1917?''

If you know any sources to help with this I'd greatly appritiate you help me

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P.S

Obviouly i'll verify the sources authority myself so you don't need to lecture me asking for sources on reddit, Im also looking for sources independantly.

In the present day, American professors (at least most of them, I think) get their jobs after obtaining Ph.D.s. I've been trying to do some research for a writing project that's set circa 1900, and it seems like the requirements at that time were much more fluid—in some sources I find, there are few professors at a given college that have anything higher than a Master's degree. My main questions: Have the requirements for becoming a professor become more strict/streamlined since then? Did degrees work differently? What was the path to professorship around that time? Was it considered a respectable job like the law or was it on the same level as other educators? How did tenure function? Were professors, like now, expected to conduct research and publish in order to obtain job security?

Any information, even tangential, is much appreciated.

Romans mined asbestos from all over the Empire. Because of all its good qualities, its fibres were incorporated into all manner of cloth items, as well as vuilding materials for insulation.

Her's the thing. We are aware that lead products in Rome caused problems with health, but what about asbestos? Is there any records that look like cancer or asbestosis? I've not heard anything like that, and I'd just like to know. Thanks!

In reading a few books about the HRE, I see repeated mention that a territory’s or corporate group’s rights were “reconfirmed” by an emperor, treaty, pope, etc. Is this because rights, effectively, had to be personally guaranteed (i.e. enforced) by the current authority, and risked being revoked by the next regime change or political settlement, unless explicitly assured? And did such “reconfirmation” occur throughout the continent, or only in the irregular political amalgamation of the HRE?

I was interested in reading this book next ( opinions welcome) but my general understanding of WW2 history has never lead me to think of Hitler as a brilliant military leader. Was he or will Keegan come at Hitler's generalship in a different angle than how i am assuming he will with the other three?

Edit: U.S. Grant for clarification

I often consider how today, many little-known books from the 1800s or early 1900s can be found in secondhand shops, discarded and decaying with yellow pages. Nobody cares about most of them and many get thrown out or lost, because they're not worth anything.

Yet books only survive from one period of time to a distant future by somehow having people decide not to discard them when they're worthless, until so much time has passed that they become historically rare and valuable and people begin to care for them and reprint their contents.

I can scarcely imagine how a text from 2300 years ago has survived to today. Do we have any records of the lineage of how ancient Greek texts made it to the present day? Who kept a copy, who transcribed it, who kept it safe in times of war and over centuries of changing culture?

I am aware there exists a "half-life of facts" but I do not know what it is for ancient history. I have a 1957 copy of "A Brief History of Ancient Times" by Breasted, and I'm wondering how reliable and worth my time it would be to read over 60 years later.

I have had a real fascination for Ancient Japan and the samurai. From movies to video games it’s always fascinated me. I’ve had a real tough time learning about it though. Whenever I try to use the internet to find real historical information about them, I typically come across anime. I think it has to do with me residing in the US.

Is there any recommended books, websites, or documentaries to learn more about these times?