I am looking for books about the history and culture of pre-Colombian Native Americans. Specifically interested in New England area: Narragansett, Massachusett, Pequot, Mohegan, etc., but open to anything Algonquin or related. Thanks in advance!

I know where surname ending with son come from and I guess this comes from something similar but don't know?

Marquis de Vauban created lot of forts to protect France against invasion. Did the forts play a role in defending France in the time of Napoleon or were they already obsolete?

This has probably been asked before, but I couldn't find it.

I am always seeing arguments that the atomic bomb is not what ended the war, but rather the soviets invading and without the bomb Japan would have surrendered anyway.

I have also seen arguments that the entire reason to use the bomb was to scare the soviets.

Is there any truth to this?

Thank you

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We study how much advanced the military warfare of the romans was, but how much good was their care for people injured while a conflict in the battlefield was still going?

Hello! This is my first post here, hopefully it will go well! My niece is working on a science fair project I am assisting her with, and we came across the historical stories that the Aztecs grew food and even trees on floating islands. Both of us wondered what he builders used to keep the rafts afloat with the burden of soil and crops atop its surface - any help or advice would be sincerely appreciated! Thank you all in advance for your time reading the post.

I’m reading Beowulf in Old English and it has accents for its vowels, so I’m wondering when and why English got rid of them? I’ve heard of the Great Vowel Shift, does it have anything to do with it?

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I found it interesting, and he makes some claims that seem bold or that are contrary to (what I understand to be) conventional wisdom.

-The central thesis of his book is that balance-of-power diplomacy keeps the peace far more effectively than the rule/morality/internationalism-based ideas that gained traction after the horrors of WWI.

-That the "balance of power"-type system (defined as one where several states are forced to interact and compete with one another and none is strong enough to impose their will on the others) is historically very rare, having only been seen in Europe and Warring States era China. He instead says that empire-tributary was the principal type of relationship between entities throughout human history.

-That WWI was principally caused by German belligerence after the death of Bismark and secondarily by Britain refusing to send a clear enough signal of opposition to German aggression before it was too late.

-That WWII was almost entirely the work of Hitler's personality and refusal to wait for Germany to naturally grow into the dominant European state.

-That the Western Allies completely bungled the opportunity to counter the Soviets after WWII. Firstly, by not advancing further east and secondly by stubbornly insisting on democracy and self-determination in Eastern Europe, instead of conceding that they were in the Soviet sphere of influence. This supposedly drove the Soviets to take a harder line on controlling Eastern Europe as opposed to settling for a Finlandization. There is also a general theme of Stalin running circles around the democracies when it came to foreign policy throughout his rule.

-That 20th century American statesmen consistently failed to articulate a national interest to work towards in foreign policy and instead pursued the moral or principled course to a fault. As an example, he says that America made a mistake in coming out so strongly against the British and French during the Suez Crisis and against the Europeans in general on colonial issues.

-That the Vietnam Was was was a mistake, caused by American leaders vastly overestimating the amount of leadership the Soviets had over the world Communist movement and by their fear of a united Communist state in Southeast Asia. Kissinger maintains that American leaders were ignorant of or underestimated the degree of the Sino-Soviet split and that China never would have tolerated a united Southeast Asia.

I'm thinking specifically how reliant armies tended to be on local fare as opposed to the provisions they might have with them, and whatever they might have if a supply route was established.

Sources would be great; I've got a lot of reading to do.

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