I have recently read that we have very few informations about the roman kings. Their chronology has some flaws, and the facts often are mixed with some myths. And the notable historians who wrote about them lived much later. Do we have any reliable information about their existence and their actions ?

Today in Bernie Sanders' presidential announcement, he said that Donald Trump is the most dangerous president in modern American history. What event / which presidents fall before modern American history?

Which president in pre modern American history would someone generally from the left consider more dangerous than trump? Maybe Andrew Jackson, but dangerous isn't really the descriptor that comes to mind.

Obviously in Germany you can't say "Angela Merkel is the most dangerous chancellor in history" and would have to use the caveat "modern", but I can't think of a president who is the obvious American standard bearer for "dangerous" such that one would need to couch am assessment of trump relative to only modern presidents.

Unlike the Romance languages (notably French) and modern German, both of which were major influences on the development and history of the English language, English is notable in that it does retains almost no trace of gendered nouns and articles, while gendered pronouns are reserved for animals and people (both of which would have a gender/sex).

Why and how did English drop (or not develop) the same gendered nature shared by several of its historical influences?

American science fiction, historical fiction, and popular media seems to have some kind of morbid fascination or anticipation that the nation will come crashing down around them. This can be seen clearly in the countless "Second American Civil War" settings and stories that have been produced, as well as in historical fiction about a hypothetical lost First Civil War. I imagine Rome might be less inclined toward this thought path simply due to their many real civil wars and rebellions throughout their history. Is there any indication that Romans also had the same kinds of anxiety-fueled fictions about their empire coming to shambles rapidly?

For those who are unfamiliar with the battle, Castle Itter was a fortress in Austria which was seized by the Nazis sometime after the Anschluss and transformed into a VIP prison. Near the end of the war in Europe US, French Resistance, and Wehrmacht soldiers liberated the prison and held out against SS Waffen soldiers for 5 days until reinforcements arrived. My question is about the Wehrmacht soldiers who defected to assist the Allies. Did they revive pardons? Where they still on trial? Did they get awarded? I read about this battle in my world history class, and while I can find sources and videos detailing the battle itself I cannot find any sources as to what happened to the German soldiers after the war was over.

I realize Hollywood probably “Hollywood’s” it up in movies but it always looks so fast and full of action and everyone is wearing armor. How did they not accidentally kill someone on their side?

Hello all,

Something that I really would like to know is whether Historians involvement in the Japan Regime during WWII was seen as a problem after the war.

I know that in Germany there was a big discussion around this topic, because many historians had participated in the Nazi Party or groups like the Hitler youth, SS and so on. During the second half of the 20th century this was repeatedly discussed among historians.

Was there any similar reprocessing / workup in Japan after the war?

I’ve read that the “White Army” was pretty diverse in factions it included and I was curious if they had any clearly stated goals for what was to happen should they win. Reinstall some form of monarchy?

Hi all,

I'm coming down off of a wonderful WW1 book binge (Although Pandora's Box by Jörn Leonhard, sitting on my bookshelf, has me reconsidering another dive into the madness). I'm working through "The Coming of the Third Reich", and recently came across the Spanish Civil War. Considering this happened in between WW1 and WW2, I thought it a good idea to jump into this topic. That said, I'm caught between two of the most accomplished books (it seems...) in this realm.

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The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas and The Battle For Spain by Antony Beevor.

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So, just wanted to see what everyone's opinion was on which of these two I should grab? I'm attracted to Thomas' because of how much I've seen it recommended as the gold standard of Spanish Civil War books and I truly feel it would be a great investment and a wild ride to delve that deep into. Then again, I love Beevor and his books, however I'm a little concerned it might be too much into the "battles" and not enough into what happened and why.

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Thanks!

Obviously the story of a zombie outbreak isn't, but I mean things like the costume, props like swords and muskets, social structure being shown. For example the partly see through hats don't seem like something that could be made without modern synthetic fibers.

There's always new movies, games, etc. coming out that takes place in Nazi Germany or other then-facist countries, but it seems Francoist Spain (or the Spanish Civil War) isn't really discussed in documentaries or anything.

If possible or if it even exists, is there a book that covers from pre-history Indus Valley civilization up to as close to the modern day as possible? Or barring that any books detailing history prior to European colonization?

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This is obviously a hot topic, but I'm curious about the validity of claims about bans/confiscations of firearms in colonial America specifically.

Weren't this region supposed to be good for farming? It certaintly doesn't have that reputation now, to my knowledge. And the same goes for North Africa/Carthage. Did that tiny strip of fertile land on the border of the mediterranean compete with the Italian peninsula as a food producer?

My understanding is that most 17th and 18th century trade companies that traded in Asia traded primarily luxury discretionary goods such as tea, spices, silk, opium, etc. I understand that these are valuable commodities to some extent, but it is amazing to me how big these companies were able to become. From my understanding, the entire Dutch empire and Golden Age was brought about by trading luxury goods and the VOC achieved a peak valuation over $7 trillion, inflation adjusted. This seems to make very little sense to me because:

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1. My understanding is that at the time, there were still very few people who could afford luxury goods at all. Even if all of the nobility of Europe was drinking tea, it isn't that big of a market, compared to, say, the amount of people today who use MS Windows or even buy luxury clothing.
2. Even in the modern era where there is an expanded aspirational/middle class, luxury goods companies are a very small part of the economy. If you look at the Fortune 500, you have to go down to #72 - Best Buy to find a company that deals almost entirely in discretionary luxury/leisure items. Even companies like Apple that make consumer products are essentially making productivity tools. The LVMH and Richemont type companies that sell high end consumer goods are even smaller.

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I mean, from my understanding, the Spanish got wealthy primarily from extracting precious metals from the Americas, which makes sense. How were companies like the EIC and VOC able to achieve valuations in excess of modern multinationals? How were entire economies and nations built on trading luxury goods?

Second try:

I recently finished Holger Herwig's The Marne and I'm currently reading Hew Strachan's To Arms! and the topic comes up frequently, and it made me realize I don't actually know much about what these were actually like. Neither gives a clue as to what the composition of these tests were like (ie, the number of people involved, the kind of people involved), how the outcomes were determined, and how the landscape of another country was simulated for these tests.