What about for the CIA?

Hi all if this is the wrong place to post this I am sorry but this is one of my favorite subs so I figured I'd ask here. I am a lover of history but a novice in every sense of the word. If I had to pick a "specialty" It would probably be early american history but even then I am probably woefully understudied. A topic that has always struck my interest was Rome. Most books and sources I can find cover Empirical Rome and the fall of Rome. I know there is google But I was wondering what your suggested sources were for learning about early Rome? Thanks in advance and if there is a better place to post this please let me know!!

I see lots about culture and social structures, not politics.

For instance, if a normal person had the foresight to what land there would be worth in the future, would they have been able to claim a copious amount of it for the benefit of future generations of there family?

I have gotten hooked on this book and wanted to see if experts thought it was an accurate book.

If so do you happen to know of any other books that reveal hidden historical stuff as well?

Thank you for your time

Hi, I recently started watching Game of Thrones, and through that fell into a phase of wanting to learn phycology, philosophy, and actual tactics of Medieval War. I was wondering what some not crazy difficult book recommendations "I'm a Highschooler" would be on Medieval War Strategy that is a good fun read "or audiobook preferably", and is not so much of just a historical standpoint on the topic but more so of, why they did this, the phycology behind it, the philosophy behind it, and everything in between. Thanks!

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So I was watching The Last Samurai and the conscript fumbling with the rod made me think wouldn't it be faster to have it hanging off a lanyard around your neck or something? where there tricks for quicker loading we don't see on films?

I've been reading a lot of Central Asian history but the period I've become interested in, the 17th century, seems very scantily covered in all of the sources I can find. Lots on the Timurids and lots (or a fair bit) on the Russian invasion, but relatively little on the Uzbek khanates in between.

Does anyone have any recommendations for reading? And why is it that this period seems to have so little scholarship by comparison? (Unless I'm consistently missing it, which is possible!)

I'm curious as to why the treaty of Sevres didn't fall through. I know it's mostly because the Turks were very pissed at this proposition, but weren't they able to enforce it?

I went to Crete for a short vacation last summer, and one thing that stood out for me after binging on museums and sites, was that there is practiclally no mention or depiction of rulers from the Minoan age at all apart from recollections of Mynos from Greek sources.

No statues, none of the famous frescoes of Knossos seemed to specifically relate to a ruler, only some items that people assumes has to be from a person higher up in the hierarchy.

Is there a theory why, and is there other early bronze age major civilizations with the same trait?

There are many accounts of Viking contact with Native Americans and the plague-type diseases of Europe could have been transmitted during these encounters. Why were these not sufficient to transmit the spread of diseases that were present in Europe at the time? Did the Vikings not have enough exposure to mainland Europe to acquire the diseases? If the diseases spread so rapidly and easily following Columbus's voyage, why not by Leif Erikson's voyage?

Hi all,

It's been a while since I've been here, so please forgive me for any hiccups in decorum. I'm currently an undergraduate study of ancient history, with a particular interest in the ancient Near East. Ideally, I would love to pursue a graduate degree and teach ancient Near Eastern history. However, I've spent the past few years of my education doing a sort of cost-benefit analysis of being a professor of Near Eastern history, and it just doesn't seem feasible for me, given the extensive training and the limited job market.

However, a professor recently suggested that I could potentially do Near Eastern antiquities law. She pointed out that this would likely be a fruitful career, given that various groups in the Middle East are unlawfully trading Near Eastern antiquities to fund their war/political efforts. I was wondering, then, if you all had any advice on this topic. Is Near Eastern antiquities law really a fruitful legal field? What are the requirements to practice this kind of law? My professor guessed that an MA in Near Eastern studies combined with a JD might be necessary, but neither of us are particularly sure. Any advice you guys can give would be extremely helpful!

I took a tour of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in the UK (the English West Point, essentially) some years ago, and the guide showed us an old cannon that he said a group of cadets filled with explosives and tennis balls and fired years ago, I think in the 1960s, and it was played off as good fun. The tour group chuckled, and then began murmuring about how that would be turned into a much bigger deal today, how people would be arrested, etc. I've also heard stories in the military of the shenanigans that people got away with even as recently as the 90s and, I'm left thinking the same thing - man, you'd go straight to jail for that today. Beyond that, you hear stories about WWII or Vietnam vets meeting their wives while deployed, swimming in the ocean, getting into trouble on the town; meanwhile, my deployment, which was years ago, was little more than a paid prison experience. No alcohol, no mid tour leave, highly supervised MWR trips to museums or dry restaurants. You literally had to write your name on a whiteboard every time you went to the bathroom. Why does my father-in-law describe Chinooks delivering pallets of beer to them in Vietnam? Why were WWII Marines in the Pacific able to just jump into the ocean and swim around with the locals whereas today you'd practically be dragged before counter-intel officers if you wandered off base and into the ocean?

I'm particularly curious how they looked in terms of number of men, ranks, and organizational breakdown, both on paper and in practice. How many officers and NCOs would a company or regiment have? What were their duties?

We often think of the civil war in terms of big battles like Gettysburg, Antietam, etc, where huge armies of soldiers fought shoulder to shoulder with rifled muskets. How accurate is this picture, especially in a small-scale skirmish? Would men who purchased or were issued fancier weapons like the Henry rifle be fighting in line too?

I hope this topic isn't too big or broad. Thank you for your responses!

What I mean by this is that, absent the particular da Gamas, Columbi and Magellans who led European voyages of discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, there would no doubt have been others. But if not for Henry's particular interest in trade and exploration, how likely is it that European sailors would have got south of Cape Bojador (and subsequently round the Cape and across the Atlantic) in the 15th century, or indeed ever?

In film and television quite often you see the trope of blackmarket nukes that got lost or stolen after the Soviet Union collapsed (and the same goes for other kinds of biological and chemical weapons, munitions etc). Is this accurate or even plausible? What did happen to the U.S.S.R.'s military technology and was it even similar to the kind of cannibalisation and theft that is sometimes portrayed?

I also posted this on r/chess.

I'm doing a group project on the Lewis Chessmen for an anthropology class and I'm in charge of background research. I've been trying to find a description of what the most common rules of chess would have been in the 12th century in Scotland (where they were found), Norway or Iceland (where many researchers believe they were made), and/or Europe in general. Basically, how people would have played chess using the Lewis Chessmen. I don't really understand modern chess rules very well either, which is making it more difficult to find this information. The only things I've found so far are that the queen was a very weak piece and there were different rules about the movement of pawns.

I'm looking for information about the number of pieces, the size of the board, and rules about movement of pieces. I would really appreciate any answers to these questions or even just links to sources that could help me find this information, as I really haven't been able to find much. Any other historical information about the Lewis Chessmen that isn't very well known or is more about the historical context of these pieces would be welcome as well, but I'm finding a good amount of this type of information on my own. Thank you!

Ive been in a few arguments between friends over US involvement in the war, and it's a common circlejerk that the US didn't do much at all in scale to the Soviets or even the British, and i'd like to know historian's viewpoints on the matter.

Like can most Roman historians effortlessly converse with each other in Classical or Vulgar Latin? Or only those that translation work might be a speciality?