If you were to swap countries and imagine that Japan had dropped the bombs on the US, what cities best stand as substitutes? Would dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been closer to demolishing Los Angeles and Chicago (the 2nd and 3rd most populous cities in the US)? Or would it be more analogous to Silicon Valley and Detroit at its economic pinnacle (two incredibly important economic centers)?

Not looking for anything having to do with the theological development of the Catholic Church, what I'm interested in is how the Church accumulated and exercised political and economic influence. To some extent that's probably inextricably tied up with the theology, but I'm looking for a book (or podcast or documentary or lecture) that is primarily focused on explaining the political and economic side of things. Basically, looking at the Church as an institution, but looking past the fact of it being a religious institution, and considering it as a political and economic institution (like a nation, empire, or multinational corporation). I thought it would be easy to find something along these lines, but I've failed so far!

Like I get that there’s a one massive plot of land, and the king “owns” that. But to better rule it he gives 1/3rd to a duke, and another third to a different duke.

Now there’s 1 ruler and 2 lesser rulers.

Then the dukes split their land up to better rule them, and this continues indefinitely, but all are technically ruled by the king.

But my question I guess is, who were these dukes, and the people beneath them?

Did the king name his brother the duke, and then if he had multiple sons, one would take his place and the other could be a duke or baron?

Was all of the land truly the kings? How did noble families expand their power?

Say, a duke has six sons, but limited land. They aren’t all gonna build their own manor on the same land. Are all the sons pretty much nobodies? How many different manors and land plots could / did powerful families have?

After the fall of the city Acre became the chief city of the Realm, often called the Kingdom of Acre instead but beyond theological importance, How vital was Jerusalem?

King Richard famously (or infamously) chose not to attempt retaking the city. Did it add anything trade, and industry wise or did it’s location and importance just sap Crusader strength?

I am one of many former AP Euro students that was assigned William Manchester's A World Lit Only By Fire when I was in high school, and my journey with that book might be a bit amusing to those of you that probably suspect the end result: I devoured that book over the first week of summer vacation, and was disappointed there was no more work to do in connection to the book. For a few years after the class, I remembered it fondly as a rather lively (if somewhat shocking) interpretation of the middle ages.

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Fast forward a few years: I'm studying my history degree, and I decide (on a whim) to look up the book because I remembered it and because now that I had an understanding of historical and scholarly review, I wanted to see how it held up in the eyes of historians who actually have a knowledge of the topic matter.

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It, uh, doesn't.

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This concerned me because if I could get suckered by a lively narrative that has more holes than Camp Green Lake, how many other kids were reading that book and getting the wrong impression?

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So fast forward a few more years to now. I'm about to start teaching high school history this fall. 11th grade US history. (Basically covers the breadth of the continent's history from indigenous people to now) I'm ecstatic to get started, but I also don't want to give my students texts that are full of it.

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What are some books that you would recommend as reliable supplemental texts in my class?

Hi /r/AskHistorians, I'm trying to find what kind of handheld weapons would be used by marines of the Elizabethan navy- and of Renaissance era naval forces in general. I can't seem to dig anything up through internet search. I'm curious as to what scholarly sources say, if anything. The main debate I'm having with my friend is whether or not Elizabethan marines would carry crossbows, or if that didn't happen.

I've read that it could have been attributed to the an increase in mass media, and subsequent induction of said masses into the political sphere, or that it could have something to do with the proliferation of easy to manufacture firearms that could arm a populace.

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But as far as I know, throughout history, ideology wasn't used as a justification for war by leaders of countries/national entities. And yet from the 20th century, you have the Boer Wars, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Civil War, the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War, the Indochinese Wars, the Mau Mau uprising, FMLN in El Salvador and FARC in Colombia and all the other Latin American insurgencies, the Bambatha Revolt, heck, the whole Cold War.

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Why were these wars for ideology suddenly popping up all over Europe and within European sphere of influence by the turn of the 20th century. And why *not* before?

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Thanks for any answers you can give.

Edit: Thank for you the silver kind stranger!

I was listening to the podcast, “The History of English” and the author mentions England declined significantly after the Romans withdrew support in the fifth century. I don’t understand why, though. Why didn’t the native people in the colony know how to maintain the infrastructure set up by the Romans?

This idea is passed off as a conspiracy theory but there is some evidence suggesting it. Stalin said himself they never got his corpse. It is well known thousands of Nazis escaped to Argentina. Does anyone have information about this?

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Ambulances are certainly a common method prior to modern CASEVAC methods, and continues to this day. But what about when that was unavailable?

As in, books, podcast, videos about global human history.

I don't know where to start.

Mali is not a country that comes off as rich or first-world. And everyone knows about Mansa Musa's tale. So, with this (hopefully correct) 'beginning' and 'end' point of Malian history established, what fills the middle? How did the kingdom with the 'richest man on earth' end up as a not particularly powerful or rich country in the modern day?

Did colonialism plunder them of all riches? Was misfortune and/or mismanagement prior to colonialism to blame?

For example, did people living in Ancient Rome think of its culture, fashion, and traditions as relatively static or did they realize how these things have changed and will continue to change? I know that the republic itself was a symbol opposing the monarchy of the past but to my knowledge, those kings were semi-legendary, so this seems somewhat similar to a creation myth.

On a broader timeline, during the Italian Renaissance, when people were revering the greatness of Ancient Rome, how anachronistic were they in their world views? Did they ascribe their own contemporary cultures to past societies?

The word "soviet" (сове́т) means "council" or "advice." So one translation of Союз Советских Социалистических Республик could be "Union of Socialist Council Republics" or - at a stretch -"Union of Wise Socialist Republics". What do we know of any deliberate choices made by English speaking press and governments to adopt "Soviet" in its untranslated form as part of the English translation? I can't think of any other countries whose names are only partially translated into English like the USSR.

I recently read on here (don't recall the post sorry) that the Spanish colonies in the western hemisphere weren't allowed to trade with one another, only Spain itself. How was this enforced and why? What good came out of this policy for Spain?