Hey guys, I am a huge fan of history and the classical world in particular. I have a read a huge amount about the fall of the Roman Republic but I am trying to get into the Late Roman Period. I am learning more about and I find the stories of people like Flavius Aetius, Attila the Hun, Zenobia and Diocletian immensely fascinating. I genuinely do not know a lot about the period. So I have a couple questions:

1. What caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire? I know this is big question but I would to get at least a historical overview as I moving to learn more about the period.
2. Any good books, documentaries or movies on this period? I have checked out the History of Rome Podcast and am listening to the Fall of Rome Podcast currently.
3. Could the Fall of the West been avoided and why is the Eastern Empire (which survived till 1453 not talked about as much)

After reading up on modern art, I found it a bit odd that Germany, a nation which had been key in the creation of avant-garde films and paintings, suddenly seemed to do a total 180 on it. Why did the Nazis go to such lengths to demonize modern art? When did this start?

After looking at the different methods of execution that developed through the years (I.e. hangings, Guillotine) I can't help but notice how complex and slow these methods could be. Why is it not more common place that executions were carried out by simply shooting people in the head? Would that not be more humane and quick?

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I was watching that movie The Pianist and there's a scene where the German administration in Poland decrees that all Jews should wear armbands so they could be barred from parks, theatres, park benches, etc.

But how exactly does one enforce this? As far as I know Jews have no specific physical characteristics like black or Asian people, so how would the Nazi goverment go about punishing offenders and discovering Jews who didn't wear the armband? It wouldn't be immediately apparent in the street. One character in the movie even mentions he will refuse to wear it, but the details of this are quickly glossed over and the movie fast-forwards soon after.

I've always hated history at high school because I didn't like memorizing dates and names. Now I feel pretty ignorant and I'm searching another way to acquire a general knowledge in history. I watched some historical documentaries and I found them interesting but they are always too specific (they usually focus on a person or an event). Should I begin studying on school books? Any tips for me?

(Sorry for the mistakes, english is not my first language)

I know that a lot of Native American languages didn’t even words to express ownership of property and this seems contradictory to me. Sorry if this is an ignorant question. I bring this up because I got into a debate with a friend claiming Americans “didn’t steal Native American land” because they never showed proof of ownership, which I disagreed with completely.

Since Rome was such a dense city, there definitely wasn't enough land for everyone to work. How did most peasants get food to survive? How did they make money to pay rent? Were there city jobs they could get, what kind of jobs were there, and which jobs paid the most and least?

Would peasants be able to afford food sold by street vendors? Could peasants even purchase raw ingredients and cook somewhere or was this difficult to do in the city for most people?

Is peasant even the right word to describe these people? Did they enjoy a similar standard of living as medieval peasants?

Thanks

I learn from CGPgrey video that the Royal family is the direct descendant from William the Conqueror which would make it a recorded line stretch back a thousand year which is pretty impressive for most of us who know our allegedly direct ancestors at best 3 or 4 generations back. I say allegedly because with modern DNA technology people starts to find out left and right that they are not descent from whom they are supposed to be even as few as two generation back (grand parents). I realize a cheating female descendant from William won't broken the line, the line can only be broken is by a cheating consort. So what are the chance that they are related and if not at which point that the recorded line was broken by a cheater?

The Colloseum is still standing today. It was in use at one point as an arena, and then it wasn't at some point. When was its last use as a a typical Roman arena? And what did medieval Italians think of it? Or during the renaissance for example? Was there some kind of active preservation through the years? Are their paintings of it that show it's erosion?

My criminal justice systems professor, when talking about justice in ancient civilisations told us that: "Trial on a boat - evidence heard, with further exile or death as punishment". I was wondering how much validity there was to this statement and what the reasons were for this practice.

I sometimes see accounts of the Holocaust from survivors of the camps, but I don't know much about how people who weren't involved, as victims or perpetrators, felt about the situation. Did they even know what their government was doing? Did most people support it, or did a lot of people just not care either way?

Specifically talking around the time of the Great Famine.

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While the recommended reading list is a fantastic resource, it has an inevitable anglophone bias. There are many classic history books written in other languages, and some of these have not yet been translated. I'm thinking of works such as Michelet's 'Histoire de France' or Montanelli's 'Storia d'Italia', etc. Could anybody recommend me some non-english works of history?

Of course he's not a historian or an international relations specialist, and the book has been severely criticized (rightly) for its racist depiction of Japanese characters, but I'm just curious to know if in general it would have seemed plausible whatsoever to mid-90s audiences that Japan and the US could go to war. What were the Zaibatsu like in the popular imagination back then? Was that a term a news-literate person would know? The scenarios in his other books are much more easily imaginable - nuclear terrorism, war with Russia, Colombian cartel violence, etc. (ok, maybe not Rainbow Six).
For those who haven't read it but know the history: [SPOILERS] the basic plot hinges on US economic retaliatory measures on Japan for a car manufacturing defect, and that the zaibatsu (industrialist billionaires who patronize and thereby effectively control members of Japanese parliament) somehow manipulate the government into seizing the Mariana Islands and sinking several US warships, then threatening the US with nuclear missiles while planning to take over eastern Russia (so it gets pretty far-fetched). The zaibatsu and government also plan to incapacitate the US financial system.
Essentially I just want to know whether there was a sense in the 90s that Japan was anything other than a close and trusted ally of the US. Were there fearmongering senators? Anti-Japanese sentiment? The thought of conflict with Japan now seems absurd a couple decades later.

I was looking into how flags of convenience work today, and was struck by the small proportion of merchant shipping controlled by major naval powers, and by how contemporary debates about the practice seem to revolve around labour conditions and safety standards rather than strategic concerns. While I've not found any historical figures on shipping ownership, the trend seems to date back to the mid-20th century. Especially during the Cold War, it seems odd that there wouldn't have been any public debate - let alone action - about letting shipowners use flags of convenience to potentially avoid wartime obligations. If not, when, when did shipping cease to be of strategic concern?