I'm reading "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" and it has three statements that caught my interest:

"Many influential Enlightenment thinkers did in fact claim that some of their ideas on the subject were directly taken from Native American Sources - even though, predictably, intellectual historians today insist this cannot really be the case"

"What we're going to suggest is that American intellectuals - we are using the term "American" as it was used at the time, to refer to indigenous inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere; and "intellectual" to refer to anyone in the habit of arguing about abstract ideas - actually played a role in this conceptual revolution. It is very strange that this should be considered a particularly radical idea, but among mainstream intellectual historians today it is almost a heresy."

"Historians are aware of all this. Yet the overwhelming majority still conclude that even when European authors explicitly say they are borrowing ideas, concepts and arguments from indigenous thinkers, one should not take them seriously" (this one had a previous paragraph talking about how books from missionaries were "appreciated largely because they contained surprising and unprecedented ideas.")

It had some sources for the first statement (Some classic statements, especially concerning North America, are to be found in: Chinard 1913; Healy 1958; Berkhofer 1978a, 1978b; Dickason 1984; McGregor 1988; Cro 1990; Pagden 1993; Sayre 1997; Franks 2002. ), but even if all those individual authors said that, would it prove that the majority of Historians believe this, as it is claimed in the third paragraph?

In EU4 there's an event in around the 1500's "The Hansa were once the undisputed masters of trade from London to Novgorod. Now though the fortunes of the Hanseatic League have fallen into decline." What was the extent and value of Hansa trade across europe and in England, and how accurate is this event?

The example that provoked the question was hearing Marco Wyss talk about his book Postcolonial Security: Britain, France, and West Africa's Cold War. Wyss mentions that he faced a challenge because British and French state archives retain an almost unmanageable overabundance of material on colonial and post/neo-colonial policy in Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire respectively, but archives in those African countries themselves suffer from a challenging lack of high quality sources.

It seems straightforward to think of other cases where a power imbalance might lead to a similar situation: the genocide of a demographic minority population by the machine of the nation state, conflicts of conquest between large powers and very small ones, etc.

Wyss says that he adopted a "traditional" method, of relying heavily on British and French sources, but reading them through a critical lens to try and bring out African voice and agency. This would suggest there are other, non-traditional approaches. I would love to hear how different historians handle these challenges in their research.

TLDR: I am a history final year and need help with my dissertation after COVID has ruined my dream

A desperate call for help from a young LGBT/holocaust Historian

Hello everyone,

As already said I am a final year History student in the UK looking to complete my dissertation on the persecution of Male homosexuals by the Nazi Party in Germany from the years 1933-1941. I am in desperate need of some help as COVID-19 is making it impossible to carry out research of almost any kind.

Any recommendations of reading/papers/first hand accounts/English translations of documents/primary sources for any of the below categories would be massively appreciated. I am happy to credit anybody that helps with my project. I am hoping to use it to launch further investigation into LGBT persecution on a wider scale by the Nazis.

I am particularly interested in personal accounts of Nazi persecution/personal accounts of Nazis towards homosexuals.

Section 1: Nazi Society

· Nazi views towards homosexuality and homoerotic society – setting the stage and ideology

· Hitler youth/movements – Hans Scholl – jailed for homosexual activities 1937 (case study?)

· Dispelling the myths of Nazi society and their histories of persecution

Section 2: Policy/Laws and methods of persecution

· Nazi takeover and initial crackdown (1933)

· Röhm purge and expanding persecution (1934–1935)

· Peak of persecution (1936–1939)

· World War II – 1939-41

Section 3: The legacy of homosexual persecution in Germany from 1970’s onwards

· Acknowledgement of persecution through memorials etc

· Efforts to cover up persecution/prevent history being shared

If there is any possible way people could help I would appreciate it massively. Thank you in advance, I hope I can do the community justice.

I'm reading a physical copy of the book so can't link anything but at least 3 mentions have been made of the Spaniards somehow using fat from bodies of natives to somehow treat their wounds. I'm seriously baffled by this

Always been fascinated with the Vikings but always wanted to know more about (especially religion) about proto-Vikings. Does anyone have any reading material they can point me towards Scandinavia back when the Greeks and Romans were knocking about?

I thought Einstein or that other guy, Eisenhower or whatever, created the nuclear bomb, before them there was no way of killing so many people at once and the nuclear holocaust was impossible, countries thought they could exterminate the other side and survive, but because of one of these two people the sudden realization and idea that we could annhilate everyone on Earth was created, that no country would survive the aftermath and civilization would disappear.

Was it just like the same way we can predict and hypothesize about AI taking over even though we're not even close to a dangerous AI yet?

Were Japanese Americans ever reconciled for the homes, jobs, and lives (lives meaning the fact that they lost everything) they lost along with the racism they experienced? I'm reading about George Takei and Pat Morita's experience in the camps, and they say that Morita's family lost their home, and successful dry cleaning business and had to start over with nothing.

Hey all,

I'm an activist and otherwise progressive person, but the more I've listened to and read historical accounts of indigenous communities the more I realize that land acknowledgments do not make much sense, and seem like little meaningless prayers that institutional actors do to ensure their organization's passage into being diverse and inclusive rather than real engagements with the history of white supremacy and settler colonialism. It doesn't seem like many tribes had long historical ties to the land in certain areas.

For example, I'm in western PA, specifically in the Pittsburgh area. The more I look into the more it's clear there were 5-10 tribal groups who historically could call the area their own, some existing prior to the arrival of the Europeans and disappearing, but because of the nature of their settlement and movement many weren't even really sedentary to the area in the first place. The Haudenosaunee (specifically Seneca) were to the north and had access to the area as a result of killing and integrating the remaining Eries, the Mingos who were Haudenosaunee in origin but separate, Lenni-Lenape, Shawnee, among others.

Are these land acknowledgments historically appropriate?

Using Italy as an example, historically you will find that the peninsula was broken into duchies, little kingdoms, principalities, and I believe there were even a few marquistes. Now, I don't know Italian history that well, and if some of them swore allegiance to France, I can understand why they wouldn't be a king, or a prince; but what would be stopping a completely sovereign prince from claiming to be a king? Why wouldn't they want the prestigious title, and just name themselves king?

Additionally, when the peninsula eventually unifies, why didn't the king name themself emperor, like the Germans had?

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Thank you in advance!

Edit: It's Germans, not Fermans.

I was just thinking about how there are tons of towns called Rome in America. Did Romans have lots of towns or cities called Rome or any cities with the same names? And if so how did they differentiate them?

I was wondering if anyone can help.I am more of a military history fan but wanted to start branching out before I start my history degree in october. Long story short, I Started to read about the crusades and the author started to talk about prior empires and how they impacted the crusades and I felt as if I was missing so much context. Can anybody point out to me the absolute pivotal events in history that directly tie into the crusades and give me more historical context to help me understand, I am just looking for the absolute essentials and a handful of books that would help thank you in advance

Hey everyone, my question is kinda vague but let me try to clarify a bit. Nowadays love is precieved and accosiated with romance ideals (talking about most modern western societies). I was wondering if there was a time where the concept of 'love' none-existant.

For example, I can only speculate that in the middle ages marriage was only used as a politic instrumant and there was no 'love' as we view it today. Same with family, perhaps I will take care of my daughter because she'll have economic/political values in the future, but I wouldn't "love" them as I precieve love today. This is just self thinking I had, I have no knowledge on the subject.

Then again, if I circle back to ancient greek I read a few platonic dialogues that describe love fairly similar to the way we view it today.

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I'm just curious about this matter, and was wondering if there are any theories/writings about this topic, or some "love" highlights that I can start do my own study from there (I'm more focused/interested in western orientated thinking, but perhaps I should look at other places for a diverse perspective on love?)

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Thank you for time! Have a great day.

I am currently writing my senior thesis as a historiography of AP US History textbooks and I am a little perplexed. It seems like the context of what the textbook should be classified as may have changed because of the nature of my project, but I don’t really know.

Thanks for any answers.