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They seemingly lived a constantly brutal life.

I was recently reading a book that suggested it was possible that large roman plantations and estates survived into the medieval and even later world. The book suggested particularly in areas such as southern Italy and southern Spain. Are there examples of this?

Quote:

"It is not impossible that in Sicily and Andalusia several of these [estates] were the lineal descendants of Roman latifundia, whose slaves and coloni had turned into the characteristic landless day-labourers of these regions." - Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution.

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I have read on Quora (not the most reputable source i know) and elsewhere that in 2000 at the Camp David negotiations PLO leader Yasser Arafat refused an offer from the Israeli prime minister for full withdrawal from 97% of the West Bank, all of Gaza, a return to pre 1967 borders (mostly) and even the return of East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

It seems like there are a variety of intrpretations as to why Arafat turned down the deal and this would seem to be coloured by what side of the conflict people's sypathies lie.

But from reading pro Israeli writers it would seem like this was not the only instance of a deal being offered and rejected by the Palestinians.

So I would love, if possible if we could unpack this, what were these offers, to what extent were these offers (including Camp David) a reasonable opportunity for Palestinian statehood and what was the reason they were rejected?

I am very interested in this field, although it is not my life or career.

What sort of questions should I bring to office hours or ask when reading history in general?

I tried asking r/asklinguistics, but it's pretty much a dead sub so here goes.

Why is the lexicon and grammar of modern Mandarin Chinese so markedly different from that of old Chinese, while apparently so much is preserved in, for example, Cantonese and Hokkien?

Korean and Japanese also seems to have preserved archaic Chinese vocabulary pretty well, though of course bearing no resemblance to old Chinese in grammar as they are from different language families altogether.

Taken altogether, it seems that Mandarin Chinese is a glaring abnormality in the evolution of sinitic(-influenced) languages in East Asia, in that it has experienced such accelerated changes.

Does the preservation of archaic Chinese in these languages have anything to do with the fact that they are not 'really' Sinitic languages? Cantonese and Hokkien are somewhat Austroasiatic, while Japanese and Korean have their own language families. I don't know anything about Vietnamese, but I would bet that it has retained more qualities of archaic Chinese than modern Mandarin.

I'm engaging in a world-building project, and I'm wondering what daily life was like for the average resident of international port cities like Nagasaki up to and including the Meiji era? I'm using Nagasaki as an example, but any relatively cosmopolitan port city around the world before 1900 would work well too.

In particular:

• Were there any types of characteristics that were conducive to the growth of bustling port cities/trading hubs? My basic research indicates that sheltered ports to protect ships was one common factor. Were there any others?
• What types of social, economic, or governmental forces were the most influential?
• What were relations like between trading merchants and local residents?
• How were foreigners in these city kept "under control" e.g. ensuring that they obeyed local laws, did not stray from areas they were supposed to stay in?
• What types of divides tended to afflict these cities? E.g. were there large socioeconomic divides between the rich and the poor?

Anything else that you think may be interesting to point out, or which people commonly misunderstand, would be really helpful as well.

Thank you in advance!

Hey, I looked at the book recommendations in the FAQ, but they all deal with Soviet Russia. Anyone have recommendations for Imperial and Tsarist Russia. An overview would be nice, but I'm specifically interested in the late Empire. Something historically accurate, but accessible for a casual reader of history.

Early Roman history includes the list of kings starting from Romulus. I assume modern historians consider Romulus legendary rather than factual, but was the last king any more historically verified than the first, and if so, where "down the list" does legend turn into history? How much of the earlier history we attribute to classical Roman chonology (overthrow of the Kings, Rape of the Sabine Women, early Consuls, Plebeian seccession, etc) is actually based in historical fact, rather than an origin legend? And how much details do we know about said events? (for example, it's one thing to accept that at one point the Romans overthrew their monarchy, and another to accept the classical historical narrative of how and why it happened).

From what I've been reading, I got the impression that the one of the earlier hard historical evidence of Roman activity was the Pyrrhic War, in which Rome established itself as a major power. But how much we actually know of Rome before then?

I listened to an audio lecture by historian/ political scientist Richard Baum in which he described a painting that ostensibly seemed to portray a happy harvest in the form of socialist realism but upon closer inspection was anything but: the "hills" in the background were the corpses of Lenin and Mao, a broken red flag lied on the ground which symbolized the failure of the people's communes, and "randomly" scattered wheat stalks in the foreground spelled out in Chinese "Long Live Jiang Jieshi".

Unfortunately, the artist is unnamed and I've tried searching for it online but with no success. Can anyone help me find this. I really want to add this picture to a powerpoint presentation I'm working on.

I have often wondered what the circumstances were that surrounded the changes to the organization of the US Army near the turn of the 20th century. Like what led to changes in recruiting or mobilization led to units having new styles of names. To give an example, during the Civil War and Plains Indians Wars, you would see a unit listed as 3rd Illinois Infantry. By the time of WWI and the involvement in the Mexican Revolution, units are listed as 10th Cavalry.

Hi. I was just wondering if there was ever a point where a large group of those imprisoned in death camps during the Holocaust rose up and killed a few Nazis, or at least died trying. I imagine it must have happened, but I'd love a primary source to back up such a story. Thanks!

just recently, in another subreddit, i saw a post where one guy made fun of a movie poster that used IIII for the number 4.
then another poster claimed that "The Romans did use IIII and IV is a relatively new phenomenon"
the only results Google is giving me are clock-related, so i don't know if that counts, though wikipedia seems to corroborate the claim, but doesn't go into detail.

did they start with IIII and then move on to IV, (if so, is there a specific point in time) or were both used whenever they felt like it?

I often hear the corpus juris civilis talked about as the foundation for modern civil laws but how close is it actually? Was it truly 1500 years ahead of its time or was it just a fantastic building block?

Also, if there isn't anything as substantive, what resources can I look to while reading Gibbons' work to counterbalance his views? I'm looking through abridged versions which contain commentary on Goodreads, but they have reviewers criticizing the jumps in timeline.

Thanks.