Reading the recommended /r/askhistorians book list, I noticed that for almost all of the books I was interested in, (From Dawn to Decadence, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, etc.) they were only available in a physical copy. Are there any alternatives to books like these that are available on a kindle paperwhite?
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Do we have any reactions from Europeans or Asians to this new import?
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Whenever I hear (hear also read) something about Ancient Rome, it's almost always has to do with the city Rome or people coming from the city Rome and every other place is unimportant. Unlike Ancient Greece, which seems to by very decentralized in its importance. I mean many holy places and important people are not coming just from one place/city as it seems with Rome. At least that's the way it seems to me.
Than there is the fact, that it seems like there was only the Roman sentate and nothing more. Were there smaller regional or urban senates? How was their political life/system like? I'd like to have some answers to questions with this kind of spirit.
Thx in advance
EDIT: As the Ancient Roman timespan is rather large, I'd like to know the situation around the time of Caesar coming into power. Was there a big change with him coming into power on a regional/urba level, except in the city of Rome of course, as they are rather obvious and easy to find out.
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More about the Great Mosque of Xian - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mosque_of_Xi%27an - as you can see no one will think that it is a Muslim mosque - it looks more like a Shinto, Buddhist or Confucian temple.
More Chinese mosques examples -
This caught my curiosity that China seems to be the only place I read of in the world where mosques and Muslims, instead of using the usual Islamic architecture like domes, crescent moons, arabesque styles adopted instead the style of Buddhist, Daoist and Confucian temples or the existing native architecture.
Why did the Chinese Muslims in the particular time periods chose to build their mosques like this - something not replicated in other parts of the world? What exactly is different with Chinese Islam or Chinese Islamic architecture.
3 Answers 2017-06-26
I'm taking an class on the history of the ancient Near East, and there was an inscription that mentioned one of the Assyrian kings, I believe it was either Assurnasirpal II or his son, Shalmaneser III, had received walrus tusks as tribute, among other things. This would've been somewhere between 883 and 824 BCE. Where would something like this have come from, and how would it have arrived in the Near East?
1 Answers 2017-06-26
Obviously, the success of Hamilton the musical has garnered a lot of attention on Alexander Hamilton and the Founding Fathers.
Prior to the show, however, Hamilton wasn't as "well-known" of a FF as Jefferson, Adams, and Washington- at least to the average American.
Is there another FF who is regarded as relatively obscure to the American public but whose life and contributions are well-regarded among American historians?
Edit 1: grammar and phrasing.
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I understand that "Republic flight" was a crime in East Germany. So if someone managed to escape to West Berlin, could they then travel freely to West Germany (ie crossing East German territory from West Berlin to West Germany) with a new West German identity, or would they risk being apprehended at the border by the East German police as they were technically an East German citizen that has commited a crime?
1 Answers 2017-06-26
Now and then, we like to host 'Floating Features', periodic threads intended to allow for more open discussion that allows a multitude of possible answers from people of all sorts of backgrounds and levels of expertise.
Today's topic is 'Crazy History'. In every field of study, there's a story that makes you shake your head and say "what?" In this thread, we invite users to share what weird and wild stories they've encountered in their study of history, and hopefully give us some context as to why it's unusual!
As is the case with previous Floating Features, there is relaxed moderation here to allow more scope for speculation and general chat then there would be in a usual thread! But with that in mind, we of course expect that anyone who wishes to contribute will do so politely and in good faith.
For those who missed the initial announcement, this is also part of a preplanned series of Floating Features for our 2017 Flair Drive. Stay tuned over the next month for:
7 Answers 2017-06-26
I was surprised when I noticed this, and even more surprised when I discovered nobody really talks about it in historical analysis books/forums/etc. I've collected a few names and ages below, set at the point at which Hitler became chancellor in 1933:
Hitler - 44
Hermann Goering - 40
Heinrich Himmler - 33
Joseph Goebbels - 36
Reinhard Heydrich - 29
Albert Speer - 28
Joachin von Ribbentrop - 40
Martin Bormann - 33
This is crazy! People like Himmler, leader of the entire SS, were just entering their 30s when they took power. Heydrich - widely considered the chief organizer of the Holocaust - was 29. This is the age when most dudes in America are figuring out how to live alone in an apartment without roommates.
Compare this situation to other countries like the US where the average age of major political figures (presidents, congressmembers, cabinet secretaries, etc) is in their 60s or higher.
Why was the leadership of the Nazi Party so young?
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I've recently become interested in the age of sale and would like to look into a more extensive account than what Wikipedia can provide.
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Hello! Welcome to another installment of Monday Methods! For today, let's discuss a key component often found in scholarly works - a literature review.
A literature review can come in several different ways. When a graduate student, researcher, or scholar prepares to conduct research, they typically research what they are going to research. They find all the relevant work they possibly can on the subject and then compile it, analyze it, and relay it through a section of their work, usually referred to as a "literature review." Literature reviews can be stand alone articles (Benford & Snow, 2000); they can be included as part of research proposals (Arias, 2007); they can also be included within the research articles/books themselves (Wilson, 2008).
Literature reviews can be highly extensive and should strive to include all the relevant work that has possibly been done around a subject or area of a subject. The goal of the literature review is to identify a "gap" in the research that has been previously concluded. The researcher is then able to fill this gap and supposedly expand the body of knowledge.
Along with this, critiques of previous works are usually included. These critiques observe where the previous works failed to fill the identified gap and how they could've improved upon the areas they highlighted as far as it is relevant to the current researcher's work. And this is where I would like to begin.
When conducting research, I attempt to follow an Indigenous research paradigm (IRP). I have previously written about this in a different Monday Methods post, which can be found here. However, I will reiterate parts of it for this installment.
An IRP is based on two vital theoretical concepts: relationality and relational accountability.
Relationality refers to the relationships that we all have with everything. People, animals, places, objects, even thoughts and ideas. In some way, shape, or form, we have a relationship to anything and everything. These relationships form the basis for understanding and engaging with knowledge. While some relationships vary in intensity, the ones we form to gain knowledge need to be personal and have meaning. Otherwise, we have a harder time grasping that knowledge. So an Indigenous research paradigm places the emphasis of understanding on the actual relationship between two things, whereas Western concepts typically place the emphasis of understanding on the actual object rather than the relationship (Bear, 2000; Wilson, 2008, pp. 73-74).
An example of these two styles: ethical standards of many Western researchers, both in the past and the present, dictate that a researcher should have a fairly strict observational role when conducting certain research methods. They stay distant, watch from afar, and have as little contact as possible to what/who they're observing. The idea is that this maintains objectively by avoiding a bias. However, an Indigenous research paradigm would have the researcher engaged in a participatory manner with what/who is being observed. They would strive to have contact, form close relationships, and even become part of the research being conduct. The idea behind is that with established relationships, the researcher can better understand the context and nuances that exist within the subject and have more authentic results (Chilisa, 2012; Wilson, 2008).
The second concept is relational accountability. This refers to the accountability of the researcher to act respectfully, responsibly, and accurately regarding both the relationships they participate in and the knowledge they gain through those relationships. The idea is that because you have formed relationships with whatever is being studied, you now have a personal stake in the research. This stake is more than just the fact you are putting your name on the final paper. Those you interviewed are now your friends, you have been accepted by the community that you have connected with, and the journey you went on took years and involved a lot personal effort. Because of all these things, you now have a greater stake in the research you have conducted and are now about to present to others. If you care about these things, then you will be bound to treat not just your research, but them with dignity because your relationships are dependent on you being responsible.
This type of mentality is what exists within many Indigenous cultures today (Bear, 2000; Battiste, 2005; Medin & Bang, 2014). Because many of these communities operate on a more collective ideology, there is personal investment in these relationships and your life and the lives of all those you care about depends on maintaining those relationships. And this is the case with knowledge as well.
Typical literature reviews today can follow rigorous sets of guidelines and work toward critiquing the references. However, a literature review written under an IRP would follow a slightly different course. As noted by Wilson (2008), literature reviews written this way will not attempt to critique works, but build upon them. He comments:
Criticizing or judging would imply that I know more about some else’s work and the relationships that went into it than they do themselves. . . That being said, a mainstream literature review could be seen as taking all of this literature out of its context (p. 43).
Therefore, a literature that has been written under an IRP, or one that has been imbued with Indigenous qualities, thus "Indigenizing" it, acknowledges the existing relations of authors' works and contributes to the body of knowledge that exists on any given topic rather than assuming the perceived gap is to blame on any previous research or researcher. This method preserves relationships and can strengthen author ownership of their own work by having them highlighting the limitations of their work on their own. A critique section would likely be removed and negative points of literature would only been pointed out if their work was particularly detrimental and this detriment were relevant to the proposed research. Otherwise, it can be assumed that the fact of referencing the work establishes credibility and that there is some value to the literature so as to build off of it for future research.
References
Bear, L. L. (2000). Jagged Worldviews Colliding. Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision, 77.
Chilisa, B. (2012). Indigenous Research Methodologies. 1st ed. Los Angeles: SAGE Productions.
Medin, D. L., & Bang, M. (2014). Who's Asking?: Native science, Western science, and science education. MIT Press.
Wilson, S. (2008). Research is Ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Black Point, N.S.: Fernwood Pub.
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I've heard this story many times before in musician's circles. It's always been framed as either, "His harmonies were too dissonant for his time. The common ear took his piece as an insult". Or, "it was too pagan". I feel there might be more to this. Was Stravinsky an otherwise controversial figure? What was the scope of this "riot"?
1 Answers 2017-06-26
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Civilization_and_religion_map_1821.jpg
This map gave me quite a good chuckle at the delicious chauvinism of painting (almost) all the western world 'enlightened', while the rest of the world is on the various lower levels. But it also got me thinking whether the classification system on this map was something the author made up, or whether these categories of civilisation level were actually commonly accepted and had definitions. What would distinguish a savage people from a barbarous one? Why are the Two Sicilies, Greece, and (former) European colonies other than the USA considered civilised, rather than enlightened? Why is Russia considered almost entirely barbarous or savage? What was the distinction between the native Americans and Africans marked as barbarous and the ones marked as savage? Additionally, I notice all non-Abrahamic religions are marked simply as 'pagan'. Would such a monolithic view of these religions have been common in the western world at the time?
EDIT: Just noticed the map is actually from 1821.
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If it's any help, my grandfather was half German, half Polish. He was captured with Wehrmacht and later joined General Anders Army (Polish).
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Here are some of their claims:
Greek scholars saw black Africans and their superior intellectual prowess as a result of their higher melanin levels.
The vampire fascination came from rabid cannibalism in Europe during the Medieval Period.
Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a black woman
Charles II of England was black
There was a prominent black presence in Scotland including a black king named "King Dubh".
Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo were taught their insights by black Africans.
Italy became known as a fashion mecca because of the moors.
Mozart was taught to play by a black teacher.
Beethoven was half-black and when he went dead his melanin "kicked in" and he became a better musician.
A black man named Alexander Pushkin invented the Russian language and because of him the Russians don't speak French.
Black Africans established the first dynasties in Asia.
The founders of the "samurai system" was a black African
The founders of the "ninja system" was a black African
There is a consistent conspiracy throughout history by white people to hide all of this and "European historians" purposefully omit this information to uphold a system of "white supremacy".
Edit: Beethoven went deaf. That was my bad, they didn't say he was blind.
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Was the design advantageous for close quarter formation fighting? It seems that a straight short sword like the gladius has greater potential utility. Additionally, I'd imagine straight swords would be more easily produceable. Those thoughts are pure conjecture though.
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I was recently watching the Tokyo Trial on Netflix (haven't finshed it yet though) and something struck me. The Germans were tried for Crimes against Humanity, and so were the Japanese, as they should have been. My question was however if anyone ever considered putting the US on trial for these same crimes, seeing as the definition used in the TV show certainly fits the atomic bombs.
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During the election of 1864 did Lincoln ever run a negative campaign and talk about how Mclellan was a terrible weak general ?
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Could somebody just point at a person and shout "He/She's a Witch!", or was there some form of due process?
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I know in the Holocaust, some German soldiers would differentiate Jews from Christians by ordering men/boys to pull their pants down and if it was a circumcised, they assumed they were Jews and took them away...now it is a universal practice for most Christians (In USA at least) to be circumcised. When did this happen?
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I've been listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, and there he mentions that some of the Crassus ligioners, with units intact, became mercenaries after their defeat by Parthians. Some of them might have reached China. He mentions that there are some mentions of mercenaries that fight in the fish scale formation (i think he puts it). Is there anywhere where this is mentioned in more detail? how likely is it that some Romans were fighting as mercenaries in China?
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