I always heard that Lovecraft was a highly racist man, but when I started reading his work I was shocked by just how deeply embedded the racism is in his work. Since it is so prominent (and, even by the standards of the time, rather ugly), did other writers/readers ever call him out on it within his lifetime?

I’ve often seen it said online that Henry Kissinger in some way sabotaged the Vietnam peace talks under President Johnson, colluding with Nixon’s election campaign so that Nixon could steal the credit for ending the war during his own tenure. Usually this supposed conspiracy also includes Nixon offering Kissinger a cabinet position in return for this service.

I’m not sure exactly where this accusation comes from, i haven’t been able to find much specific online but I’ve often seen it mentioned alongside Christopher Hitchens’ The Trial of Henry Kissinger, but not having read it I don’t know if Hitchens makes the accusation himself. Is there any truth to this claim, or any solid evidence to support the possibility?

As far as I'm aware England doesn't have any pre modern official cultural clothes, unlike say the Scottish kilt. What would you guys say the closest equivalent Is? I was thinking something similar to a medieval kirtle? Or am I going too far back? Would it more likely be something Tudor?

I have a document (a song lyric/ poem from a soldier in Italy written home to family) from World War I. I want to know if it’s of any academic value (not looking to sell, but possibly donate to a museum.)

Where would I ask?

Thx

In the east a lot of furniture is very low or even on the floor itself, for example, shikibuton, tatami, etc. Why the big difference in height?

I'm working on a little personal project of mine. I'm creating a timeline of historical events from the first century to around the year 2000. I am not a history major, but I am a full time student, so I imagine this will take many months. I imagine such a thing has been done before but I believe I would learn more doing the research myself. I'll start by put down the information in a word document, dividing it up by region(europe, asia, middle east, etc,). Then I will find some software to combine the entire thing into one long timeline.
The order of importance for regions I need references from is like this:
Europe: Very well documented of course, I've got several books on Roman history, plus I recently purchased some of the penguin european history books, so I've got the fall of rome to the late middle ages covered, I know plenty about the "art and culture" of the renessiance, but I could use something covering wars and diplomacy from about 1500-1750. (Also any resources on western europe specifically would be great, I know considerably less about the baltic states and westward). Some stuff on the gauls and vandals would be great too.

Africa: I know generally about European colonization, although specially I don't know much about the french in Africa and then the europeans leaving Africa. I need resources on Africa pre european colonization

Middle eastern: I know generally the course of history of turkey specifically(Thanks kraut), but nothing south of that, anything also involving the rise of islam

Russia: This stuff is weird, but anything involving the rise of the russian empire and alot of the stuff that happened more westward of Moscow.

Asia: asian history is weird and complex and I will be getting to this last, anything that makes this long and complicated history easier to understand would be great. I generally know about the three kingdoms and the sengoku judai

The Americas: This will probably not make the cut for my timeline, seeing as most of the events that occured in the Americas pre-colonization were irrelevant to the rest of world history. However, it is a very interesting and under-represented part of history, so if anyone has some interesting reads I'd love to check it out.

I'm taking a university course (in Spanish) about the violent phase of the Mexican Revolution, from about 1910 to 1920, and the professor mentioned that Pancho Villa, despite his famous reputation as a rugged bandit and rebel, was actually an astute military leader with a good grasp of tactics and technology. My professor also said that Villa (often making use of goods stolen from other forces, including the Americans) pioneered the use of hospital trains and using (stolen) airplanes to drop bombs.

I thought this was pretty amazing history, but the thing is that I cannot find any sources on the internet (in English or in Spanish) that verify this story. I know Villa is as much myth as he was man and this kind of story might have its origins in a corrido (Mexican folk song) rather than fact, but my professor is a very reputable guy with a long and published history of research into Latin American Revolutions. I really want to believe him, but I can't without some sort of verification, and I don't have the cajones to ask him!

Did Pancho Villa pioneer military technology and tactics during the Mexican Revolution, or is that idea more folklore than reality?

Does anyone know the conditions that lead to the possibility of Garibaldi joining the Union Army? Was Lincoln way over his head or was this close to happening?

What was Garibaldi to gain? I understand Lincoln’s desire considering Garibaldi was a great military leader and Lincoln shuffled through generals, but why would he think he could recruit him during his campaign to unite and maintain the Italian peninsula? Is there a diplomatic angle to this?

From my - limited - understanding, Native American Communities did not adopt Christianity to the same extent that Slave Communities did. We can see that Christianity is somewhat of a touchstone to the black community, but not to Native Americans. However, in both of their Histories, they were brutalized by Christian forces.

What are the causes, or potential causes, of this difference?

I keep hearing online that Thorium is superior in almost every way, so why go with Uranium?

thoughts on: Blitzed : Drugs in Nazi Germany

So I've always been curious about this book. However, I know this was written by a journalist, and not a historian. I'm not suggesting this makes the book worthless by default. But I'm curious, are there historians on this shbreddit, who either, read the book, or know the book and are familiar with the discourse surrounding its claim.

I'm mainly interested in two things: how convincing is the argument? And should I read it myself. Secondly, if someone knows more academic research into the use of pharmaceuticals among the Nazi elite, or in general. I've heard about amphetamines being used in army campaigns, but have never seen more elaborate stuff about it.

So, drug use for Hitler primarily, Nazi elites in general, and the army maybe. Would somebody like to point me in the direction for some proper academic studies. And is Ohler his book a goor starting point, or to flashy best seller list kinda writing, for a history student to find it meaningful

Thanks in advance!

It's said that the Spartan waged a brutal psychological war against their helot population because they were terrified of a revolt. Young Spartans in training even being required to murder a helot in secret.

But what is true and what did this look like on a daily basis? Athens was also very much a slave society. Would an athenian visitor see Spartan soldiers whipping helots in the field or for minor trespasses?

Did soldiers just stay in their city while the helots stay in the fields? Were the helots also craftsmen or purely farmers and herdsmen?

During the Peloponnesian War, did Athens attempt a helot revolt or was that too close to a slave revolt for comfort?

I'm watching a terrible upstairs/downstairs historical drama (I have covid, give me a break) and the fancy people are always airing their metaphorical dirty laundry or talking shit about all the other fancy people while the servants just stand there. The servants may have their own dramas but what they don't do is go across the street to Mrs. Fancy's house to tell their friends who work for Mrs. Fancy that Mrs. Snooty called Mrs. Fancy a ho and said her dress looked cheap and oh yeah Mr. Snooty pees in the parlour palm when he comes home drunk and he has a big gambling debt and a sidepiece and he and Mrs. Snooty have been fighting about it. Or whatever.

Like I get that if you got caught gossiping about your employer you'd get fired and not have a reference which could easily lead to a life of desperate poverty, but wouldn't Mrs. Snooty still have some reservations about the risk? Or just be embarrassed to be crying about Mr. Snooty's sidepiece in front of the butler? Did employers just see servants as ambulatory furniture while simultaneously servants had some insane sense of loyalty to their employers? Because that sounds crazy.

Are there any historical examples of servants causing trouble (or even preventing trouble) by not keeping their employer's secrets?

How does the existence of paid "slave-breakers", the mourning of separated families that antebellum enslavers obviously witnessed, so-called "drapetomania", and the fugitive slave laws and controversies square with this apparent belief, both before war and since (there's an odd white supremacist/Lost Cause canard I've encountered before that something like 20,000-50,000 Southern Blacks volunteered to fight for the South; my own reading seems to indicate that this number is inflated by at least 2 orders of magnitude, and "volunteered" is very suspect)?

Thanks!

What I'm really wondering about is two things:

1. Did the nature of the southern elite family dynamic create space for white southern women to attempt (however fruitlessly I assume) to regulate their husbands' and sons' behavior and did they comment on it?

2. Did southern religious leaders attempt to publicly comment, whether explicitly or euphemistically, on the social and/or Biblical sins of wealthy southern men? I imagine this is pretty unlikely, given their explicit endorsement of the slave society they lived in and the fact that some of them may have been perpetrators of those same things, but the possibility is intriguing to me.

Thank you

I feel angry from just spelling out the question, but I’m still curious why mass murders was his go-to plan. Why didn’t he displace the Jewish population by force to another country. What was the purpose of eliminating them from the face of the earth? Did he ever express his thoughts on this?

The crusades started with the plea for help of Emperor Alexios I and Pope Urban's call for the reconquest of the Holy Land in 1095/96. But said territory had fallen under Muslim rule way back in the 7th century. So why didn't a crusade happen at an earlier date? Or had there been similar attempts (other than by the Byzantines)? If there was no one interested in a crusade earlier where did the "sudden" enthusiasm in the 11th century come from?

I started playing video games at 3, I'm 30 now. I have always used this term for as long as I can remember; and the fact that everyone else uses it now makes it seem like there was one focal point where the term was used in something that was consumed by the masses and stuck. It's a general term and could have easily been replaced with "leader" or "master." So why "boss"?

I was rewatching Tom Scott's video about the most expensive object in the world by weight — that British Guiana 1c magenta stamp — and it hit me this time, not just what a wonderful sentence that is, but... what is the history of philately? How has the practice evolved over time? Have its methods, standards, aims, etc. changed?

In my reading on the period, I’ll come across the term “Military division”. Not the tactical unit consisting of two or more brigades, but a sort of administrative body overseeing a region of the home country and occupied lands. How did these function? We’re they responsible for any immediate threats (rebellion). Did they oversee the regiments with their native depots in the administrative territory?. Any info and further reading would be appreciated.