I'm currently teaching history at a public high school in Beijing, and I'm looking to pursue graduate study in history both for professional and academic reasons. Professionally it will obviously give me a hiring edge. I also want to keep the option to go into a PhD program.

My question is, would a PhD admissions committee look down on an online MSc from the University of Edinburgh? I understand that an online degree from an unknown or for-profit university is basically worthless, but the University of Edinburgh is a pretty prominent school. What are your thoughts here?

Another question. Does anyone know of equivalent grad programs in history delivered online from top universities? I can't seem to find any others.

And when were there public voices saying "for God's sake people, go take a bath!"

Thanks!

I know that in colonial America it was generally a rule that people had to go to church on Sunday. But were these rules actually enforced? What was the punishment for truancy?

I'm particularly interested in the southern or Caribbean colonies where things were different than in New England--for example, the high numbers of slaves and indentured servants. Did they have to go to church just like their masters did? I know that lots of indentured servants were poor people from Ireland, many of whom I assume were Catholic, but colonial America was pretty hostile to Catholicism. Did they attend Anglican (or Dissenter) services? Maybe they went but didn't participate fully (in communion, etc.)? (Of course, some of them probably converted.)

Another quirk of the southern plantation system was how far apart people lived from each other. Did planters simply have private services in their homes? Again--how could the authorities "keep track" of this? I know some planters in South Carolina had a second house in the city, so would they go into town every week? (But if that's the case, what about their slaves and servants?)

I don't expect answers to all these questions, but I would welcome suggestions for further reading. :)

I was listening to classical (well, baroque) music earlier and it occurred to me that for J. S Bach, for example, we divide the movements and suites of his solo cello music into songs, sub-albums (which used to be disk 1, 2, etc., and tracks.

I imagine, however, that for Bach the whole piece of music was a cohesive whole, and he wouldn't have imagined that people would listen to bits of it on their own, or out of order, because no performer or ensemble would do that.

So when did we develop the concept of an album, consisting of discrete songs? Moreover, did this occur before the development of technologies to record music?

Additional question:

Based on the movie, one might view Japanese Christians as being naive and almost deluded in their trust for the Jesuit priests. They seem to be absolutely fixated on their beliefs and devoted to the Christian life. How real was this?

The antiwar movement, civil rights, and rock and roll all were destabilizing to the United States. Why didn’t the USSR support these movements more, considering if these were painted as communistic that would have galvanized a significant yourh population towards the east?

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For a fairly wealthy family in the 19th century. I know the job of a nanny is hard when it involves changing diapers. And from what I gather the nanny was also the child's first teacher. But as the child got more independent did the work of the nanny change to take on other estate duties? Assuming that there wasn't an endless stream of younger siblings to take care of. How long would a nanny expect to work for one family at a time?

It seems every other democracy in the world uses a parliament and prime minister.

I was thinking about how Black History Month sometimes neglects the “less sexy” portions of the African diaspora, and asked “I wonder what historians think isn’t getting enough attention” across all of historical studies.

From my studys, on its start, the Armenian Empire was very successful, but where did it all go wrong exactly? PS: Why is there all this Russians with tanks there?

Several weeks ago, I watched Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War, and noticed that many prominent officers on both sideshad attended west point, and had known many of their enemies during the war. During the time leading up to the Civil war, as well as the Mexican American war, which many officers were educated before, what works of military theory would they have read and been familiar with at West Point? Were there any differences in preferred influences in terms of theorists for officers that would go on to either the north or the south? What would potentially be some examples of readings that would be accessible today that would have been read at the time?

I understand that, well, it depends on which phalanx, so if the question meant for Ancient Greece is still too broad, someone let me know and I will focus the question on a concrete age.

Was it on Earth? Did they think it was on a different plane? A third option?

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Obviously they fought in trenches, but how did this trenches get there? Do both sides send people out to dig trenches, then a battle would break out there in the near future? How did they decide where to put the trenches?

As to the first part, I seem to recall reading that bare-knuckled boxing emerged in the 19th century as a way for gentlemen to settle disputes without the danger of a duel with sword or pistol. Is this right? And as the second, I get the impression that it remained culturally acceptable in the west for two men to engage in a "fair fight" until fairly recently: say, the last thirty or forty years. When did this begin to change and why?

I was wondering if anyone had any good resources on the portions of the German population that did not support Hitler or the Nazi Party, and what eventually happened to them (since he was elected after all, by the converse there had to have been people who did not vote for him, and saw the Nazis for the bad news that they were). Did they ever form any sort of organized opposition (which I suppose would have been quickly suppressed later on), or were they just individual citizens ineffectually grumbling to themselves? I'm assuming the Communists had some clout (until they were shut down and sent to camps) but how did liberal democrats and old guard imperialists do?

Basically, the common portrayal seems to be that a switch was flipped in 1933 that turned every German into a Nazi, which common sense seems to argue against.