I suppose this question is more or less inspired by Richard Evans' Third Reich trilogy. A lot of official German propaganda as well as private citizens' thinking at the start of the Second World War played on the idea of restoring 1914 borders and vaguely "restoring" Germany to its rightful place as a power.

It makes me curious: how much of this was based off of feelings of grievance, versus an actual decline in relative strength. I'll stress relative instead of absolute, because pretty much every European power was better off materially and technologically in 1939 than in 1914.

Or does it even make sense to try to make this comparison?

Both areas started with a Native population and were colonized by Europeans. Yet today, North America is predominantly white and South/Central American is predominantly mestizo. Was there less interbreeding in North America? Were Native populations lower or the colonization process more violent in North America?

Like was there anyone that wrote about technology that didn't exist but could exist in the next 30 years in their time. Like in the Roman empire was there any stories describing technology that didn't exist in the time it was written but did exist later? Or is science fiction truly a modern concept.

In WW1 and WW2 horses were used alot, for transporting of people, guns and pretty much everything, but they were also used for cavalry. Has horse cavalry played a role in any war after WW2? Or have horses been used in logistics?

i know that he was key to increase production, but obviously Germany still lost the war. How key was Speer in forestalling the Nazi defeat and counterattacking the Allies. Could the manpower and fuel shortage by the end of 1943 made his problems worse and if so to what extent?

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Thanks :)

If I was in Ancient Rome and wanted to go see gladiators in the Coliseum, how would I buy a ticket? Would I simply line up at the “box office,” or were tickets mostly held onto by organizers and given out to the upper class? Was there a secondary market and promotions, or was it very different than buying in demand sports/concert tickets today?

I'm confused.

63 BCE - The Battle of Magetobriga happens, allowing the Suebi to take over a bunch of Sequani land and everyone does terrible things to the Aedui. The Aeduan, Diviciacus, survives the battle and absconds to Rome where he is a guest of the Consul, Cicero, and addresses the Senate (including Gaius Julius Caesar) requesting military aide.

At this point the Roman ally, Aedui, is a tributary to the Suebi and the Sequani. Not a good look for Rome to have their allies submitting to foreign powers, yeah? That can't inspire confidence in other allies.

And yet, Rome does nothing.

58 BCE - Ol' Jules Caesar hears rumors of the Helvetii migrating through the middle of Gaul and plotting all kinds of monarchy with a couple of other Gauls. He then proceeds to stamp the Helvetii mushroomly. Afterward, Diviciacus shows up again and asks Caesar to deal with the Suebi, which he does despite the fact that the Roman Senate said that Ariovistus and his German bros were "cool dudes" (direct quote) the year before.

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My question is this: Why didn't the Roman Senate act in 63 BCE?

It has to be more than just the crappy, realpolitik answer of Aedui simply not being worth committing troops to, right? Am I missing something? Thanks!

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I have always wondered what battles with sword and shield looked like. Obviously the depictions in the movies cannot be completely accurate but it is hard to believe that each member of an army was engaged in one on one fighting.

It seems to be one of those stock phrases in military history books (I'm thinking about WWI but it applies to almost any period I've read about). An army would retreat and end up fighting "desperate" or "sharp" rearguard actions, presumably involving small groups of soldiers fighting to keep the enemy from catching up with the main army. But I can't really picture it:

1. What does the rearguard actually do? Do they setup machine guns and hold the enemy off? How does it differ from a regular engagement?

2. How are the soldier chosen for this task? Are they the most elite, the least blooded, or just the most unlucky?

3. How many soldiers are usually in the rearguard, relative to the whole force? How do they manage to fight off a numerically superior enemy without being immediately overwhelmed?

4. And most importantly, how the hell does the rearguard manage to get away from the enemy? Do they start their mission with the idea that they are likely to die to the last man, or is there a plan of further retreat? If a small force could fight off a significantly larger force in those circumstances, why not stop the retreat entirely and deploy the whole army in the same sort of position?

I am a relatively new high school economics teacher with a graduate background in history. I am drawn to the idea of teaching economic principles through an extended historical simulation/narrative. Lately I've been sketching out the possibility of having all my students next semester participate in a simulated agricultural village in northern England (Lancashire, selected for a supposed personal ancestral connection). The sim would start somewhere in the 1400-1700 range; students would choose fictitious names, draw their farms on a map, and learn about household production. I might pick a few to be gentry, miller, and iron smelter. Later they would be introduced more complicated economics concepts through the growth of the wool and cloth industries and, of course, the Industrial Revolution.

I've got a handful of inspirations such as Tim Dye's Urban Game and Melanie Weser's Weserville. I've also a few books with relevant broad overviews, but I'm short on useful details specific to time and place, and a lot of the material focuses on towns rather than village settings. I am looking for answers to a constellation of related questions such as, how were villages socioeconomically organized in the late Middle Ages forward? How common were village markets, and was currency much employed there? How did subsistence households acquire currency with which to pay taxes prior to the rise of manufacturing? How did villages transform socially and economically during this time period? When and how did financial institutions start to penetrate the countryside?

I'd like to get recommendations for specific resources in book or article form as well as expert summaries, but I'm also happy to spread the net broadly for advice about the project and the history involved. I would imagine a microhistory, if any exists, would serve me well. I'm not sure how ambitious I can afford to be, but I'm still in the early stages of planning and open to any thoughts or concerns.

If you're approaching history tangentially from a hard science, which provides the best job opportunities and/or is most needed? Statistics (is that still a hard science?) Biology? Chemistry? Something more specific?