In Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”, Ebenezer Scrooge is not explicitly said to be Jewish, but he is referred to by various stereotypical descriptions of the time, including having a “pointed nose”, being “tight-fisted” and being a money-lender. Both Ebenezer and Jacob (Marley) are Biblical names. The story also reads a bit like a conversion narrative, though admittedly more like a conversion of a non-believer to Christianity.

If Dickens’s portrayal is antisemitic, it is admittedly somewhat light in its touch, and I don’t mean to read into it with too thick a modern interpretive lens. Is there any consensus in scholarship about Dickens’s intent, or about the likely interpretation his readers would have had in the 1840s?

Every source I see states that the usual 4-7 million range is from Germany and it’s allies , with a large portion coming from Russia and Romania which had persecutions separate and independent from the Nazi state. So there a source that provides just the number killed by Nazi germany directly?

Hi all! I’m a graduate student in history at a middling state school (I have a good record, but attended here because they gave me great funding/personal reasons). The title is something my adviser said to me after asking if I’d considered going for my phd. I had not, because I have no desire to go into academia and think it’s generally a dumb idea with the jobs being what they are. However, he told me that if I was serious about working in the field, I’d need a PhD to be competitive (and he NEVER tells people to get a phd—in class he always discourages it, so it’s not like he’s out of touch with the state of things). I want to go into public history, ideally government, and I’ve got an MLIS with a specialization in digital curation. I’m afraid that adding a phd will make me unemployable and be an overall bad decision, based on all the warnings I’ve seen on this and other subs regarding history phds. however, that’s all about the state of academic jobs—since I’m not interested in that, I’m wondering if I should go after a phd, if I can get into a good school. Anyway, what I’m ultimately wondering from any practicing historians is: will not having a phd put me at a disadvantage when it comes to government/non-academic history jobs? Thanks for any insight!

The trans-Saharan slave trade transported 11-17 million Sub-Saharan Africans to Islamic lands further north, yet none of these countries have a black population of descendants of slaves like the US does. What happened to them?

EDIT: So i found a book in French that sets out to answer this specific question: the veiled genocide by Tidiane N’diaye. Going of summaries I found online, black slave ‘reproduction’ was tightly controlled in Muslim lands (relative to western colonies where slaves forming families was more tolerated). This ‘control’ was done mostly through castration of males (of which only 30% survived the process). Women condemned to sexual slavery or house service, on the other hand, were subjected to such horrifying conditions that any children they had died young.

On any long journey or voyage or via long-distance message the notion of hours is probably not conveyed right? At some point people in Japan and England were probably unaware that they were experiencing sunset a quarter-day apart right?

I know John Wayne gacy had a part time gig as a clown and Stephen kings famous creation popularized scary clowns, but when exactly and how did clowns become scary?

For context, I'm fostering my first cat and he meows for me whenever he wants wet food or sometimes while playing. Curious, I was looking up why cats meow and adult cats don't meow with each other, only at humans. This is fascinating since it means they've evolved to adopt (no pun intended) this behaviour. Cats have interacted with humans for thousands of years, if not more, so this phenomenon has me curious.

Do we have the first (written or otherwise) record of a "meow" at humans? Has there ever been a time when cats haven't meowed at humans and then they evolved to do so? When did we figure out they only do it to humans and not other cats?

Maybe this is the wrong subreddit for this question, but it has often provided fabulous answers to curious questions.

Now I know why the Southern states, mainly being states rights to own slaves, but why did the Southern states of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas not secede immediately like the other Southern States did until after the attack on Fort Sumter? Shouldn't the attack on Sumter pushed the states to stay in the Union given the aggression from the Confederacy? Their states also had (unpublished) secession documents that also lay out slavery as the main cause of seceding from the Union, yet didn't secede immediately until after the attack. So why did they wait until after Fort Sumter to secede?

I am reading a recent-ish book on Greco-Roman history where the author makes a couple short remarks along the lines of (translated) "The Germanic conquerors themselves also kept a racial distance from the Roman citizens and emphasized their own racial superiority." Now, I can assume that "race" here is being used in a contemporary rather than modern sense, in the way that e.g. Tacitus would describe the Germans as a distinct ethnicity and culture. However, that still sounds surprising to me. Due to being basically a primer on all things Greco-Roman, the book obviously summarizes a lot, and does not really elaborate on this particular point.

So, did the Late Antique Germans of Theodoric et al. really see themselves as "racially" superior to the Romans they had conquered, in such a way that they'd try to avoid intermarriage for genetic or cultural rather than simply political reasons? Distinct from the way that the Romans (or basically anyone else) saw themselves as superior to people they conquered? And if yes, were those perceived racial traits just the same "tall, strong and rugged" stuff that the Romans themselves mentioned, or something different/more elaborate?

For what it's worth, the author mentions in a condemning tone that the Antique Germans' belief in their racial superiority would come back to fuel 19th-century ideas along the same lines, so I expect him to be critical on the subject – but he still depicts it as a fact that said beliefs existed at the time.

The thrust of the book is that Josephus, Philo, etc are pro-Roman and contrive the story of Jesus so as to undermine the possibility of a Jewish rebellion.

I’m going to be honest this seems deeply unroman. Romans love conquering people and battling rebels.

Additionally the Roman emperor wanted to proclaim himself the messiah. Why would he want to proclaim some random guy the messiah?

I would like to further my knowledge on ancient civilizations (Greeks, Romans, Persians, etc.) how would I begin studies on that? Any tips on that would be greatly helpful. I wish there was some sort of study guide or punch list to go down on how to so.

Listening to Behind the Bastards podcast about Napoleon III and they have fun going into how Napoleon III shot a random soldier in the mouth during the chaos of the attempted coup, which kind of ended any chance of success. But they don’t mention if the source goes into how intentional it was. Like was it a goof?

Was he trying to like make a point? Was it a misfire? Was it a possible self-defense or accidental offensive injury type of thing? Did he mean to fire and if he did did he mean to shoot a random guy in the face? And how drunk was he?

Were they in like a weird yesmen cult type of environment and it just spiraled out into kind of a manic 50 person foliex a duex or whatever? Was he actually just kind of delusional and chaotic and ambitious and also prone to choking under pressure? Could/Would a more competent Napoleon have pulled off peacefully taking over Cologne or wherever and actually starting the uprising he wanted to? How much was the second failed coup an example of Napoleon III kind of getting a perfect layup for a slam dunk and drunkenly shooting it in the face?

Context: The Arabic name for Germany is "Almania". And there was a Germanic tribe on the Upper Rhine called the Alemmani. I've been wondering this for a while, and decided to come here to ask.

This may be obvious but besides the obvious Christian allusions in his works, do historians know how much of what he wrote was true to their pre-christian beliefs and what was just made up?

How far out do my preparations start? How much assistance do I need in the kitchen? How sophisticated are my methods and logistics? What's the latest and greatest in cooking technology that I'd use to impress such a powerful figure? I'm a little curious about the menu but mostly I'm wondering about the work.

My apologies if this is the wrong sub to ask this question. Can one of you recommend a good book on the History of the early (as in, in the 80’s) AIDS epidemic? I was a little kid back then and I remember being very impressed about what was going on with the epidemic back then. I already read “And The Band Played On” by Randy Shilts, but I wonder if there is a more recent book with more information about the first years of the epidemic. Thank you very much!

I'm struggling to find information about how a standard merchant or diplomatic retinue may have travelled by sea during the early middle ages. There's plenty of information out there about naval combat over the centuries - and Viking longships, obiviously - but it has been difficult to find any information about just going from place to place, especially travel from Anglo-Saxon England to the continent. To be specific, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that Alfred was sent to Rome in 853, and while I have no doubt he would have had a protective guard, I don't think the retinue would have been outfitted for invasion. Essentially, he was just on a boat crossing the Channel. What would that have looked like?

In the new Will Ferrell movie "Spirited", there is a scene was Scrouge describes how saying "Good Afternoon" to someone was a bit insulting. Is this historically accurate? Are there any actual historical references to how telling some "Good Afternoon" led to an altercation?