I'm not a history student nor a historian, but I found out how marvelous the history is! I'm looking to learn more about far east history, like the dynasties and all of that, but I haven't got any knowledge about the far east world. It is different from the western history, since I learnt back in school some basic history which now is really useful to me for studying more deeply many western historical periods. In eastern history doesn't apply since I don't know anything, not even the basics. So what advice could you give me? Should I start learning from a specific historical period of China, for example? Or simply could I start learning from any historical period? Cheers to you all, and God bless you!

Just wondering if anyone here could recommend some good literature (books, online articles, podcasts, anything really) on Mongolian society during/before the time of Ghengis Khan? Anything on roughly contemporary central Asian steppe nomads would also be really interesting. Anything comes to mind would be appreciated, thanks!

I've recently come across David Irving and had a look at his qualifications to see where he gained his degree from and my first thought was - 'he's not even a historian!'.

I can understand that my initial thought was probably not right but I was wondering if people agree on what the baseline is for a person to be considered 'professional' and if there's any way to argue that history should only be written by those who meet the baseline similar to the sciences.

Was there an uproar when leaded paint was banned? My dad does a lot of circuit board assembly and swears by using lead solder. I’ve tried both lead and lead-free solder and the lead stuff IS much easier to use. We’re there any qualities that made leaded paint better or easier? Was there an uproar when it was banned?

I realise that Microsoft wanted a way to show off their GUI, however what in particular made them pick Solitaire over another card game? Was solitaire already popular at that point? Or was it quite obscure?

I hope this is a valid question for this subreddit. I didn't see anything wrt source requests in the rules.

I'm looking for some books, videos, or podcasts that go in depth into royal court life in Western Europe in the Renaissance and early modern periods. I'm looking for something that doesn't require in-depth knowledge.

If you know of something on courts in China, Japan, India or other countries, I'd also be interested, though I'm primarily looking to learn more about Europe.

For the past few months, there has been headline after headline talking about the "west"'s collective action to support Ukraine and counter Russian aggression. One thing that stood out to me is, despite the country essentially being European (technically Eurasian, but the majority of the population is European and lives in the European part), it is not treated as part of the "west."

My understanding is that the terms "west" and "east" were European terms to divide the Eurasian continent between themselves and everyone else, essentially (which is why terms like "near east", "middle east" and "far east" exist, as those regions have nothing in common with each other), adopted from the older terms of "Occident" and "Orient." Today, European offshoot colonial states are also considered western like the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel.

I know that the Cold War and the Iron Curtain shifted geopolitical realities a lot, with all countries east of Germany being referred to as "Eastern European" as they were part of the communist bloc. "Western", at least politically, has come to mean classical liberal and libertarian ideals, far from the socialism that was practiced in the other half of the continent, which I suppose made it more "eastern", along with other communist countries like North Korea, China and Vietnam. Though I am not sure if this meant they stopped being considered "western" altogether, or ever were.

My question is, has Russia ever been considered part of the "west", and if has, when exactly did it stop being considered so? Does this extend to the rest of the soviet bloc, or just Russia? Where exactly is the line between East and West, has it shifted over time and why was it drawn in the first place?

Hello everyone! I am an history student, and I plan on doing my master and research on subject like the Navy, traditions on the sea, musicology and culture of shipmens on the modern period (1453-1792)

Or even on colonial nations and population and their links to the sea and sea trades

If anyone could help me find some books, historians or good sources that I could read to help my research, I would be really thankfull!

Thanks a lot for your time

(I did go check in the page book list, but if you have anything more I'll take!)

I am currently reading a 1930's diary of life in England. The family were wealthy merchants. It surprised me to see that people visited each other in their bedrooms, often after having had breakfast served to them in bed by a maidservant. A typical scene would be for a houseguest to be visited in this way by a member of the host family, all being still in pyjamas. I cannot imagine this being acceptable today. Any comments please?

Since 1788 the British Empire used Australia as a penal colony. Most of the Natives like the Aborigines where killed. Excluding immigration of the past decades, most of the Australians must have got criminal ancestors?

I am doing a research paper relating the poem Ozymandias to the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Are there any "1421" types of authors that I need to avoid when doing my research?

From the fact that it was the strongest climatic shift during the Holocene, one can only be skeptical that it was all coincidence

Alexander the Great supposedly wore a cloak.

Mithridates supposedly had this cloak in his possession and wore it both for fun and for appealing to potential allies.

According to Plutarch, Pompey supposedly got the cloak after defeating Mithridates, and allegedly wore it during his Triumph in 61 BC.

Trouble is, I can’t find any more information on what happened to the cloak? If anyone has an idea, I’d love to hear it

The first three atomic bombs were used at Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. After that, where did they put the new bombs? Did they stockpile them in the continental US? When did they first deploy them to Europe?

It is said that the ideal body type of an Ancient Greek male had a small penis. It was even comically mocked in art when men had larger penis's. What was the reason for this?

I'm writing a dissertation on responses to the Paris Commune of 1871, and noted the way that its opponents exaggerated the role of the Internationale and tried to present the Commune as the work of a small, shadowy cabal of international terrorists. This struck me as very similar to later antisemitic conspiracies and also the antisemitic rhetoric of both the left and right in 19th century France, though I have not yet seen any historians make the same connection. Frankly, given the prevalence of rumour and conspiracy during this period and the ambient antisemitism that existed in France during this period (even before the Dreyfus Affair), I'm a little surprised not to have found anything.

Am I missing something, do we have any historical accounts that blamed the events of the Annee Terrible on the Jews from either the Communard or the Versaillais side?

Much has been made of Europe's reliance on Russian oil and gas in recent years. However, I take it Europe was not buying that much oil or gas from the USSR during the Cold War. What resources was Europe relying on during that time, and how did it become so reliant on Russian resources in such a short time after the Cold War?

Have heard about it twice from completely different sources and is not something that would be randomly made up. When did this event happen/how did it happen?

I am currently working on an RPG that I would really like to use this period of time as a reference for what im writing. I would like to try and learn more about Greek City states, their governments and the history of that. I honestly dont know where to do that and if anyone could point me in a direction that would be amazing.