More specifically Mycenaean Greece.

As an undergraduate history student, I wanted to do a paper on the the Kangxi Emperor's experiments with smallpox. I unfortunately could find no primary sources translated to English. While this is not entirely unsurprising that there may not be enough for a 25 page paper, I was a bit shocked that I could find absolutely nothing. I'm aware, vaguely, that we lost much during the cultural revolution; before that, in various fires over hundreds of years during different imperial eras etc. The pandemic has made me much more interested in Chinese medical history, and I'm wondering if any experts can point me toward sources. If they're not translated in English please give me a summary from your own readings of primary documents / research. I'm not very interested in secondary sources unless they heavily and directly quote from primary documents. This can be from any imperial era, not just the one I was interested in for my paper (I've already picked a different topic; I'm just curious if both me and the librarian I asked for help were incompetent at finding anything).

So I've gotten into history podcasts recently and gotten into Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. While I personally really enjoyed a few episodes and find it very entertaining, I've heard that they are not always accurate and that he couches too much of his own bias into the storytelling. So I'm curious, which podcast does a great job of storytelling without sacrificing historical accuracy?

I've been really curious about Greek Mythology lately.

Pretty much every time I'd hear about a lobotomization being done, the patient is basically a vegetable afterwards. Did this ever work on anyone? As in, actually treat whatever mental issue there was? How in the fuck did doctors back then ever think it was a good idea?

I mean you're cutting up a person's brain. Aka the one vital organ running the whole show. There could be a glowing neon sign saying "DO NOT TOUCH".

I’m most curious about the later periods of the USSR, especially 1980 on, but any period of Soviet history would interest me.

I know Jane Eyre was translated into Russian by the 1840s, for example. Would a working class (not sure if that’s the right term)/average Soviet worker have been able to read Jane Eyre or Sherlock Holmes translated into Russian if they desired to? Could they walk into a bookstore (were there bookstores?) or a library and obtained it? Would a Soviet citizen who was particularly interested in classic or foreign literature know who Oscar Wilde was? Would this look different in Moscow vs somewhere like Grozny?

I’m curious because my late parents were from the USSR and I’m curious what kind of experience they would have had with English lit.

Mainly curious if they knew or thought it was likely that Allied people would be killed, and had they known for certain would that have changed their decision.

The next question is how often was friendly fire part of collateral damage. Was it unusual for strategic bombing to kill POWs? In general how many friendly fire incidents were caused not miscommunication or misfires, but known costs taken to damage the enemy.

Was he a made up character or fill in name for Plato's Socratic dialogue? Or did he walk the Earth?

I mean a historian who has access to libraries of primary sources, whose work is published by universities or other highly-respected institutions, and who adds to the knowledge of history as opposed to simply collecting and summarizing the works of people who do.

Do you need specific academic credentials? What exactly would be the pathway to becoming a professional historian? In other words, to those who are professional historians, what did you have to do to become one?

Thanks.

I'm curious mostly about the historiography revolving around Alexander Mackenzie. Why does he get such short shrift when compared to Lewis and Clark? Was it just a typical case of Canada getting overshadowed by it's southern neighbor, is it all b/c I went to school in the US and if I was in Canada it would be Mackenzie all the time? (I doubt this b/c I go to Vancouver BC from time to time and I don't remember seeing anything with his name on it and Lewis and Clark is all over the place along the Columbia.) Did he just take less extensive journals? Was it the state of publishing in the Americas at that point?

For a guy who beat Lewis and Clark by over a decade, why doesn't he get more attention?

It seems to me like voting the most powerful into office can't be a feature of an oligarchy, by definition. Am I misunderstanding the Sparta government?

Of course it may have never crossed anyone's mind. Latin for Latin, greek for greek and never between shall meet.

I'm aware this may be more historiography, a kind of 'meta-history'...

I was on a volcano kick recently and I reread lots of things about the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius and its destruction of at least four Roman settlements. I know most of our knowledge of the eruption's course, aside from studying the geology, comes from Pliny the Younger.

Is it known how people considered his writings in the time before Pompeii etc were rediscovered? (It was a surprise to me how early it was - I would have guessed at late 1800s, rather than 1784.) Might they have thought the places he spoke of were just little villages, or even stories/metaphorical? I'm aware volcanology was in its infancy as late as the 1900s so would they have known what he was talking about or might they have thought he was writing about some kind of wildfire or bad storm? Would they have NOT read him because he was 'pagan'?

In trying to find the answer myself I found Pliny the Younger has one of the earliest writings of a non-Christian about early Christians in his letters on how to deal with those he found - and his misconceptions about them. I wonder if he might have been studied by said Medieval people for the relevant context despite not being Christian himself, and they may have ignored the writings on Pompeii as irrelevant.

Okay, it's a really weird question, I know. And I hope I'm in the right sub to ask.

But the other day I was listening to the audiobook of "Little House In The Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and she recalled her father playing a tune on his fiddle with some lyrics about a Black man that ended with saying that he "went to where all good d-rkies go".

I guess I was taken aback a little when I heard, so it got me pondering this, wondering if this was literal, just a turn of phrase. Wondering what that meant to someone who would say that. I looked up the phrase ("where all the good blank go") and I found only a few results. Most of them came from archives of old newspapers, so it seems like it was a real phrase used with some frequency at least in the late 1800's. I even saw it used in relation to a real man, which I think is a little significant.

So does the phrase originate from a real idea white people had about the afterlife back then? Or is it just a phrase people threw around without thinking about it? (Perhaps a mixture of both?)

And just to reiterate: the most important question here is, did people believe that the Christian afterlife was different for people depending on their race? Not necessarily the etymology of that specific phrase (though if anyone knows that would be cool, too)

Hi everyone! I am starting my MA in History this fall. I had gained admission with a topic on Early Medieval visual culture and found a supervisor as well. I actually wanted to focus on High/Late Middle Ages but my university did not have a supervisor for that period. After reading up, I decided that since I can't do H/L Middle Ages, I might as well do the 19th century which I am also interested in. I have a meeting with an advisor but wanted to ask this reddit as well.

For any of you who have academic history, how did you decide your topic? I am just scared that I would have to focus on what I pick for my whole career. I am interested in pretty much all of history and would like to know how you guys picked specializations. If I do the 19th century for my MA, can I go on to specialize in the H/L Middle Ages once I go to a university that offers that? Thanks and sorry if this sounded like rambling. I just want some good advice before making a decision.

Hello All!
I am currently in the process of writing a longer piece on the religious schism between Orthodox Lutheranism and Phillipism/Crypto-Calvinism (I've seen it referred to as both - I specifically mean the religious beliefs of Phillip Melancthon and his followers) during the renaissance.
I've had a hard time finding any (English or Danish, the two languages I can read confidently) sources specifically on this topic and I was hoping that the Sages of the Subreddit could provide some guidance as to where I should search and who/what for?
The topic of my text will be the establishment of the supremacy of Orthodox Lutheranism in Denmark in the period between 1534 ( plus a bit earlier to include Luthers reformation) to around 1613, and the general feud between science/religion and faith/reason.
I hope this question falls within the established rules.
Happy Easter.

Pretty self explanatory title, but the question remains. The '45 was only 30 years before the American Revolutionary War, yet quite a few former Jacobites served under the crown during the revolutionary war. Why?

My wife is a MacLean, for example. That particular clan were ferverent Jacobite followers in all major risings that took place, yet they were also among the Highlanders who ferverently served the crown a generation later?

Why? There were indeed former Jacobites on the American side of the revolution, too. Makes a LOT more sense to me.

His birthday is on the same date every year, why would his date of death be any different? Curious how the church explains one with celestial calendar and not the other.