Hi everyone, I am currently doing a PhD in Art History at UC Berkeley and I'm traveling to Spain (Seville mostly) to do site research and hopefully experience some immersion. How can I find someone there who I can talk to about the modern history of Spain and the Spanish Civil War? Other grad students, professors, historians? Anyone in Seville in academia? General advice on engaging with people to talk to in the field?

A few times reading UK-based historical texts about the 18th and 19th centuries (previously in reading about the Grand Tour and Romantic era continental tourism, recently in a throwaway line in an Eric Hobsbawm book), I've run across a mention that, away from the coasts, Italy was depopulated, almost deserted. The context definitely seems to be that there were once people living in these places, and there were ruins of former "civilization", but that these areas had become deserted. It's almost always mentioned that these areas were "malarial", and implied that the depopulation happened because of endemic malaria.

Is this true? And if it's true, is the above context (depopulated rather than naturally underpopulated, depopulated due to some kind of "unhealthful conditions" vs. other reasons) accurate? Are there other historical reasons that this part of Italy was relatively deserted in this era?

Note: I've traveled extensively in Italy and know that interior Italy is largely mountainous, and even today these areas are fairly underdeveloped and remote. So having a smaller population makes sense to me. That it would be noticeable by British visitors 200+ years ago and framed as this land being incompatible with life and health is the part that surprises me.

Not sure if I am wording this right, but I'm interested in what they would have known about their own past. Would they have known they were the first to settle down? Told stories about the hunter gatherer days? Had famous leaders/hunters they would tell stories about? Would they have possession of items thousands of years old like we do today? Or any interest in history at all?

Hello, I've been having an impossible time finding any articles or videos about this subject, but I am 100% positive I've heard about it from multiple sources several times. Essentially, a prehistoric grave from the Ice Age of a mammoth hunter "king" was uncovered, and his grave was filled to the brim with expensive artifacts and mammoth bones from all across the European continent. Archaeologists speculated that he must have been an incredibly important person for that reason. Can anyone link me to information on this? I'm baffled that I can't seem to find it anywhere on Google.

Thank you, historians

A recent Guardian article talks of an Anglo-Saxon burial site which has been discovered and is especially important due to the number of burials as well as the objects found in them. The article mentions beads, swords, shield bosses, jewelry and glass bowls.

Grave goods are something we hear about a lot when talking about ancient and early medieval burial sites but seemingly not more recently.

When and how did grave goods fall out of favour and did it have anything to do with the spread of Christianity and the idea that a person wouldn't take anything material with them beyond the grave?

Question in the title, there are quite rightly fairly strict rules about digging up graves, and yet burial sites from thousands of years ago seem to be ok to excavate. What is the age limit?

It seems to be an incredibly common trope for a noble (usually a king or duke) to state their will to their ministers and either pass the title on or declare their heir while they are actively dying. However in history I have hardly heard stories like that, succession usually planned out years if not decades before hand and often the heir taking up an administrative position within the domain like the HRE’s Co-emperors and the like. Are there any historical examples of such late deathbed successions?

Specifically oldest manuscripts. Is there a website that has scans of the primary sources? I’m using Cassius Dio as an example. I would be curious to know about other sources (Herodotus, Thucydides, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, or whatever).

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi sources are things I would call genuine primary sources. I’m interested in analogues to those.

So, I like having books. Even books I don't really ever intend on reading. There's just something deeply satisfying about seeing them on my shelves.

But that's besides the point.

Yesterday, I was watching a YouTube channel called History Time, and he kept referencing a book called Karoli Magni which is apparently a contemporary biography of Charlemagne. I thought, "Well that's cool. I should buy it".

So I did.

Then I thought, what other primary source history books are there? I should go ask people on r/AskHistorians tomorrow.

I'll be honest, I'm not even too particular about the subject matter. Greeks & Romans? Awesome. Ancient Jews? Even better (I do already have some Josephus). Persians, Chinese, Vikings, Brits, Arabs, Holy Roman Empire.... I'm game to hear about / buy it all.

I'm just kind of in love with the idea of collecting a bunch of books that are 500+ years old. It's an amazing privilege to live in a time when we can even consider doing this, and I'd like to take advantage.

Thank you so, so, so much.

I like learning about other cultures and history and found that it seems most societies even before colonialism had defined roles for men and women by gender/sex. I had never really considered this before and wondered if there was any historical documentation of this? Like we hear all the time that settlers were shocked that women had agency in tribes but we don’t see them discussing other genders or anything like that it seems. And if societies were often divided up by their gender/sex how would gender itself be a colonial construct? Is it the binary man/woman system that was a colonial construct ?

I have recently been exposed to a novel analysis of the Second World War. This analysis is not my own -- I heard it from a family member who attended a lecture by Yale-educated historian Michael Parenti. So far as I am aware, Parenti is a mainstream historian who doesn't engage in holocaust denial or nazi sympathizing.

Parenti's argument (as conveyed to me secondhand) is that World War 2 should be viewed through the framework of the Red Scare, a response to the communist revolution, with the Pro-British Hitler regime playing a role not unlike the role that Pro-American Diem Regime of South Vietnam would later play to the Americans. In this framework, World War 2 is triggered not so much by the Nazi invasion of Poland (the Nazis had been expanding with allied permission) -- but more by the SOVIET invasion of Eastern Poland with Nazi permission.

Some of the arguments advnaced:

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• During the Weimar era, the British explicitly supported the fanatically pro-British,Anti-comunist fascists. MI6 routinely assisted the Gestapo with "the exchange of information about communism" as late as October 1937
• Elements of the British Nobility were fanatically pro-Nazi. Footage exists of the King teaching his niece the Nazi salute.
• The King was forced to abdicate after his consort, one of Ribbentrope's former lovers, got access to secret papers.
• Hitler-Chamberlain pacts expanded Nazi territory with Britain's permission
• During the "Phoney War", Britain did nothing to open a western front again the Nazis
• The Fall of France was shockingly fast, yet the bulk of the British armed forces are intentionally spared by the Nazis at Dunkirk
• Hitler's #2 man gets in a plane and flies a one-way mission to Scotland, where he hopes to meet with British nobles and negotiate a Nazi-British peace.
• Hitler inexplicably turns his back on the brits and attacks the soviets instead.
• The British take years to open a "second Front".
• Truman seems to say the quiet part out loud when he publicly announces "If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible"
• Churchill wants the "second front" to be in the Balkans, right on the border of the soviet union
• Only when it's clear that the Nazis are going to lose to the Soviets do the Western Allies start a serious push eastward, lest the Soviets eat up the entire continent.
• After the war, Churchill is legally deposed because he wants to rearm the Nazis and use a sneak attack with atom bombs to start world war 3.
• The former Nazis live the rest of their lives high on the hog. Werner von Braun of the SS, operator of concentration camps and slave labor, becomes an American Hero.

When I'm presented with a novel analysis of well-known events, I'm skeptical. I would like counter-arguments to this framework -- a reply from the orthodox interpretation defending the mainstream view against Parenti's interpretation. But I'm somewhat out of my depth and unable to synthesize one myself.

I’m watching Pirates of the Caribbean and am curious as to what all these pirates would be drinking. I assume a pretty hard whisky since water doesn’t stay good for long, so it can’t be lesser proof watered down alcohol.

Bonus question: What is the closest thing produced today to old pirate rum?

I'm looking for something introductory and accessible. I know basically nothing. I'm interested in the development of the technology, the most influential films and the different movements, how films became part of popular culture, how they were perceived, basically everything.

Hi friends,

I'm looking into reputable books that describe the Shinto religion. Because it's still theoretically a contemporary religion I'm unclear if it belongs here or in a religious subreddit?

Any help would be greatly appreciated