Are there any records or known writings of knights and foot soldiers suffering with PTSD? I know the concept of PTSD didn't exist, but was there a way for these people to deal with the mental issues that came with fighting/killing in battle?
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It occurred to me this morning as I was getting dressed for work that a suit is a rather arbitrary clothing item that has somehow taken over western dress and now expanded worldwide. At what point did someone decide that what we consider the modern suit was to be the formal wear? Why do our suit pants and shirts have creases down the legs or arms? It just seems so random a thing to have taken off and become so popular.
Thanks!
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More specifically, how do I make sure that people will understand me along the way, how will I be able to plan my journey with my period's knowledge of Asia, and how will I deal with currency?
You can assume that money is no object, and that I'm proficient in Latin and in the two most popular European tongues of the time.
1 Answers 2017-05-22
I recently read a Wikipedia article on the Ogaden War, and it claimed that African countries have an unspoken agreement to not alter national borders in fear of inciting ethnic conflict. Is this true? If not, why haven't the borders changed since African independence?
2 Answers 2017-05-22
Welcome to Monday Methods – a weekly feature we discuss, explain and explore historical methods, historiography, and theoretical frameworks concerning history.
Today's topic concerns special episode of our podcast 86A where this week's host /u/annalspornographie and /u/tenminutehistory discuss post-modernism, it's impact on history, and how we will write history and approach history in the future.
Brian and Doug already discuss some of the important context in the episode of the podcast from Friday but for those who (for some reason that is beyond me – because you really should) refuse to listen to the podcast, here is a quick primer on post-modernism and history:
Post-modernism is a major philosophical movement of the second part of the 20th century, that has massively influenced virtually all humanities and social sciences. Post-modernism as advanced by theories of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and others holds (simply put) that categories such as ethnicity, nationality, gender, and culture are not eternal, unchanging, and natural but are the result of the process of social construction. What this means is that these things do not exist divorced from the way we talk about them, how we describe them. How we describe culture, nationality, ethnicity, gender constructs them in the first place – and they only exist in relation to how we describe them. In practical terms, this means that in relation to gender e.g., what Foucault, Delueze and others theorize is that there are no behaviors or traits that are "female" and "male" in the natural sense, they only become male and female because we as a society describe them as such. We inscribe certain behaviors and traits into the category gender that we then impose and perpetuate in our reality.
For the historian this is useful and not useful at the same time. It's useful because it lends itself very well to certain things we do. Because we are aware that e.g. thinking about what are male and female traits, what is culture, what it means to be German, American etc. are subject to massively historical change because society's view on what being American etc. entails changes and with it the behavior associated with these categories changes.
On the other hand, it presents a problem with historians because despite historians writing narratives about the past, we always operate under the assumption that our arguments are based on facts. How these facts are interpreted and connected are all things we argue about but in the end, we always rest on the assumption that what we write about is not mere fictional narrative but has at it's basis things that through our sources we can trace did indeed happen.
How history engages with post-modernism has and still is a topic that is relevant to many discussions in our profession. Richard Evans tried to so in his very recommended book in Defense of History where he writes:
We know of course that we will be guided in selecting materials for the stories we tell, and in the way we put these materials together and interpret them, by literary models, by social science theories, by moral and political beliefs, by an aesthetic sense, even by our own unconscious assumptions and desires. It is an illusion to believe otherwise. But the stories we tell will be true stories, even if the truth they tell is our own, and even if other people will tell them differently.
But additionally to the question of how we as historians write history in the age of post-modernism is also the question, should we move beyond it and if so how? How can the writing of history in the future look like? Will we continue to engage with post-modernism while grappling with it? Is there an alternative that doesn't take us back to models of interpretation of our subject that are outdated?
Give the podcast a listen and add your questions and comments below!
4 Answers 2017-05-22
Dear AskHistorians,
I'm not sure this is the right place to ask, but here's to hoping.
I'm very interested in the history of storytelling.
I've read some history, and I can sort of piece some stuff together. If we look at when humans began abstract thought, and began creating gods and stuff like that, is to me, the very beginning.
But I'm no scholar, I've just read a bunch of different stuff, but I'd really love some sort of analysis of storytelling throughout history, or something like that. Pretty much just looking to learn about how we tell stories.
Not sure if anyone can help, but suggestions are welcome! Thanks!
2 Answers 2017-05-22
Okay, so I recently learned about the Taiping rebellion, and I figured it'd be best if I came here and asked what the most recommended (english) books on the subject are. I find the idea of a chinese christian theocracy to be very intriguing, and I'm not sure what to make of it.
2 Answers 2017-05-22
I figure that the Second Punic War was probably the WWII of its day, in terms of death toll and magnitude. I could certainly be wrong. Did Romans portray Hannibal as the sort of ultimate villain who commit unimaginable atrocities? Or was he more of an admired but defeated adversary of Rome, the way we see him today?
1 Answers 2017-05-22
I've read about how the US used propaganda in Europe to convince the populations in the european countries that the american way of life was superior. I've also heard about how the soviets used supported the expansion of communism in other countries.
Did these two countries use propaganda on their own populations in order to keep them from getting influenced by the opposition?
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Kind of hard to find information about this. All I can really think about is that Sumerian culture influenced Babylon through its cuneiform writing but other then that there isn't much I can think about. Can any of you guys give me some help on this question?
1 Answers 2017-05-22
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The title says most of it. My grandfather told me his dads name once but they have a very generic surname so looking on any ancestry site is akin to trying to find a distant relative called John Smith
4 Answers 2017-05-22
In 1829, George Finch-Hatton, the Earl of Winchilsea penned a letter to Kings College accusing Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, of "the introduction of popery into every department of the state." Playing out against a backdrop of Wellington's support for the Catholic Relief act, the Earl's withdrawal of support for King's College and the Earl's needling opposition to the act, Wellington seems to have been quite bothered by the Earl's words and demanded a duel. The Earl refused to issue an apology to get out of the duel, and so the two met to fight one another. When the duel began, the Duke of Wellington shot first, but the bullet didn't hit the Earl of Winchilsea. The Earl then pointed his gun upwards and fired into the air, and right afterwards went up to Wellington's group and handed them a letter of apology!
What in the world motivated the Earl of Winchilsea to refuse to apologize before the duel, but not actually shoot the Duke of Wellington? Did the Earl genuinely suspect Wellington of being a crypto-catholic, or was there some other reason for his opposition to Wellington's connection to Kings College? The King's College website on the duel suggests that the outcome was predetermined, as shown by the Earl already having prepared an apology for after the duel. While this seems to suggest that Winchilsea didn't plan to shoot Wellington, it doesn't totally clear up whether Wellington was actually trying to shoot Winchilsea! Is there any further knowledge about whether this duel was a 'sham,' or is the story simply too apocryphal to be sure?
Sorry for the flurry of questions. I'd like to know a lot more about the story of this duel and the context of why it even happened in the first place.
1 Answers 2017-05-22
To be more clear, people had first started farming and domesticating animals around 8000 BC and written language first occurred around 3,000 BC in the Fertile Crescent. It seems like people would have some written and or word of mouth evidence that people had existed there for much longer than the Bible says. Was there an ulterior motive to what was documented in the Bible?
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It's my rough understanding that most tobacco was grown in the New World. What makes Landa's cigarette German, and how would tobacco have arrived in Germany against the backdrop of WW2?
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This question refers to the massive border adjustment in Europe after WWII
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Or on the contrary, was it well-known enough to the average Englishman for Shakespeare to make some obviously absurd settings?
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I have never been able to find an answer to this, I don't think there is an answer.
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I know javelins remained somewhat relevant all through out the Medieval era, but I wonder why the specific style of Roman javelin, the pilum, went out of fashion? I would think that a javelin that essentially renders itself useless upon impact would be much better than a normal javelin?
Thanks. :)
1 Answers 2017-05-22
We all know that the Nazi persecuted the Jews. However, I read in todayilearned post that jews were banned in Sweden until 1718 and were restricted. I think, I've also read persecution of Jews other than these 2 examples before. Can someone explain why? What is the root cause of such hatred?
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