My understanding of graduate school for history is that several years are spent learning about methods and the general history of your field of study, followed by time focused on a narrow field of study for your thesis. But I've noticed flaired contributors on this sub with seemingly unrelated fields of study and was curious about how this works in practice. So I have a few questions:

• Do historians often have multiple specialties in school?
• If not, how do you gain the necessary background for working in a new field without going back to school?
• How does professional training relate to the flairs on this sub? Do flaired users have training in multiple fields, or are they just interested in multiple topics outside of their professional/educational specialty?

I know that they had lyres and some kind of flute but is there any evidence for how they were used back then or what vocalists would have sung? Greek society definitely seems to value music a lot so I was wondering if we’d discovered/deciphered any ancient music notation or anything to tell us what their music sounded like?

In the book, American Nations by Colin Woodard, he describes the "nation" of the deep south tracing its origins to the slave holders in Barbados looking to relocate to the mainland. How true is this claim?

Why didn't the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir comply with the British demands?

I need to develop armour for a book I'm writing based around Norse mythology, where the main weapons are melee, mostly being axes although crushing armour is somewhat common.

I was originally thinking of scale armour, but it doesn't distribute weight well, so I'm looking into other types as my mc gets plate armour later in the book, but for now they're using a 'basic' more common armour.

I've considered using kikko with a tighter placement, lamellar as they were traditionally used by Vikings, partial splint mail where the stomach region uses splint mail and other styles elsewhere as well as layered plated armour. I was wondering if I could get accurate opinions on what would best suit the combat requirements.

I see this statement repeated uncritically in conservative/conservative-lite circles, and I want to get to the bottom of this. On the one hand, it's almost impossible for Christianity not to have an impact on the moral development of the west (it's been the dominant political/ideological force for hundreds of years). On the other hand, there is the argument that the Enlightenment had more of an impact on the development of Western civ, and much of what we cherish in the west (human rights, reason, liberty etc) are direct descendants from Enlightenment philosophers who were secular and/or anti-Christian. I guess much hinges of the definition of 'western civilization,' 'Judeo-Christian,' and 'values.'

I’m looking for recommendations on any academic history books (as opposed to pop history) that focuses on Medieval Europe. To be more specific, I concentrate on Germany during the High Middle Ages and topics such as the Crusades and Church history. I recently finished Holy Warriors by Richard Kaeuper and am looking for new reads. Thanks!

This question actually encompasses the way all artillery was aimed during the conflict. From what I can gather, the equipment and troop movements of ww1 were heavily hampered by communication systems. I know telephones existed but in a very rudimentary kind of way. So what I'm asking is, how did the troops on the front line tell the artillery where to shoot?

Was it all based on a grid system? That's the only way i could think it would work. And how was the location of targets relayed to the artillery miles behind the line? I guess its just hard for me to imagine how to accurately aim a gun when you are miles away from the target and you have spotty, at best, communication with the front lines. Courriers would take a long time to get back to the artillery, and by the time they did targets could have changed position.

I have recently finished reading Calaban and the Witch by Silvia Federici. She put forth many hypotheses that seemed plausible and interesting to me. However, I am not a historian, and so cannot really check her claims. Are her ideas taken seriously by other historians, or are they easily dismissed?

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I know that, in the moment, these archives must have been as truthful as possible as the situation requires for it... but there is a long stretch of time from there to the final declassification, and there lies my doubt. Please forgive me if I am being stupid by asking this, just understand my doubts.

If you were an aspiring merchant or otherwise in the 14th or 15th century would you have to commission a ship to be built or would there be used ones available? (retired merchants etc...)

From what I understand Vietnam had been fighting for a long time for their independence. From 1887 when France first colonized Vietnam to 1975 when Vietnam was finally unified. For the purpose of this question, I am only concerned with the time after the Communist Party of Vietnam was established (1930). Since the Soviet Union recognized the CPV's struggle to spread Communism, I am under the assumption that this is when they began to provide aid to the party, whether it be through monetary aid or supplies (such as firearms, food, etc).

I consider the main war for independence to have begun in 1940 when Japan invaded and annexed Vietnam from France in WW2. From my understanding, the armed wing of the CPV at the time: the Vietminh, received military aid from the Soviet Union, the Republic of China, and the U.S. through their Lend-Lease Act for the war against the Japanese. Then, during the 1st Indochina War against the French, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China continued to provide support through material aid and advisors. Then the Vietnam War with the U.S. where the both the previous Communist powers continued to provide support to Vietnam. I also understand that this was during the time of the Sino-Soviet Split between the U.S.S.R. and CCP, so both countries were trying be the main supporter of Vietnam by giving the most aid. My understanding is that Le Duan (the highest ranking man in the CPV behind Ho Chi Minh) and Vietnam preferred the U.S.S.R. over China due to a history of the latter conquering Vietnam multiple times. But regardless China still provided many weapons and supplies to Vietnam. This is all from my current understanding and knowledge, please let me know if any of my prior information is incorrect.

For nearly 30 years of war, I imagine that a lot of money had to be poured into Vietnam in order to achieve independence. However, on the contrary to Communist belief, there is no free lunch. My question is how did post-war Vietnam pay back all of their debts to both Communist super powers? Does Vietnam still have debts to the modern Russian Federation since the fall of the Soviet Union? I've heard stories of Vietnam shipping people off to Russia to work in their factories in the 70's and 80's as a way of payment, but never anything concrete.

I'm sorry if this post was a little long winded, but I would really like to know how Vietnam did try to pay its post-war debts and use that knowledge to make my own connections to current politics in the region. Thanks again and I look forward to your answers.

So even though there are evidence of certain concentration camps still exist as evidence for their existence, the photos and films recorded by the Allies during the second World War and even Hitler mentioning Jews in Mein Krampf, people still deny the Holocaust.

So did this come into being and why?

Edit - there is a heavily downvoted comment where I mentioned that I was expressing self-doubt about the evidence of the Holocaust

I was NOT saying that I am starting to deny the Holocaust. It was only a moment of self-doubt and self-reflection after hearing the arugment of the denialists becuase it was not the first time that I was proven wrong about history when I thought of it in a particular way so I eventually start to learn to take history with a pinch of salt sometimes.

So Again, sorry if the comment was sentenced poorly and I am NOT turning into a denialist or denying the existence of the Holocaust. After making deeper research, it is safe to say that there is enough evidence of its existence as it is

The land between Germany and Italy was even connected due to their annexation of Czechslovakia?

Legitimate question, and not just a Life of Brian reference.

I have chosen to write an essay about GW and I am currently struggling to find sources, or historical debates about this topic. Everywhere I look for negative things said against the man I always come to Reddit but I can never find a historical source or a historian that I can reference correctly. For clarification I am writing a 4000 word essay for the OCR exam board and I am from the UK.

P.s I am not asking for someone to write this for me because I want to try and write this independently, I am just looking for assistance with the source finding and maybe ideas I can write about.

Many Thanks Historians

• Both were created as a homeland for a persecuted people who wished to escape those who persecuted them
• Both were "homelands" that displaced someone else's homeland

Other than the 2 points above, I know nothing about Liberia other than it recently had a civil war.

Is Liberia really that comparable to Israel? If so, how come Israel is a political issue, but Liberia isn't? Is Liberia a glimpse of Israel's future?

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