The book satisfied me until the end of Augustus's reign. I'd like a good MODERN book covering Imperial history, Gibbon just won't do it for me.

I also want to know what happened after Alaric sacked Rome. A proper history on what I assume must be the Dark and Middle Ages with a focus on continental Europe. I am not interested in learning about provincial English nobles in heavy detail, I'd like to see a bit of Byzantium and Al-Andalus, with a huge focus on what went on in Italy since that's still where the action was, with some idea of how France and Germany transformed from rump states carved out of Roman territory by Germanic migrants.

This question mostly speaks for itself, but I'm going to limit the scope to focus on America/ the United States in the 17^th - 19^th century.

What would happen if a person did not follow the rules of a duel?

I've become curious about some of the major figures from the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, but I don't have more than a cursory knowledge of the political factions that were at play during the time of rulers like Hatshepsut.

Before I go off and do my own research I was hoping somebody could give me some context by explaining who the major power players were in that period Ancient Egypt. The major agendas, the natural allies and enemies, how state functionaries interacted, and how Egypt was governed as opposed to other comparable ancient societies; that sort of thing.

Thanks for your time.

[deleted]

I've heard many call the rulers of ancient Egypt pharaohs but because Cleopatra was many years after Ramses with more Greek influence if she'd called a queen instead.

[deleted]

I've been reading about 'just war theory' and a lot of sources use World War 2 as the definitive example. But from my reading, the idea of 'just war' has been around for millennia.
Are there any particularly good examples of 'just war' from earlier periods? Do these wars still seem 'just' today?

I've seen differing answers, but how seriously did the average mariner take tales from writers like Ptolemy and Pliny of mythical creatures like the Whirlpool, griffins or stories of impenetrable fog, oceans boiling away, etc? Especially after Columbus landed in the Americas and the Portuguese rounded the Cape of Good Hope - it seems like having explored so much they would realize the improbability of them.

I've been thinking about the Gregorian calendar and how it doesn't really make much sense for a secular society and non-religious folk like me to be basing a calendar system on a religious event (meaning Jesus's birth). I figure it might make sense to start a hypothetically secular calendar from the first recorded event in human history that we can pin down to an exact day. What event would that be, and what day was it?

EDIT: Plus, I think it would be cool to have a calendar system that took account of as much of recorded human history as possible, not just a portion of it.

Surely the sight of, for example, Omaha beach right after the landings or no man's land at The Somme after 60,000 British troops were cut down in a single attack would have been shocking enough that at someone would have wanted to document it....

Just seems kind of strange to me.

I'm looking to learn as much as I can about the equipment of WWII specifically weaponry. I can find books on the M1 Garand, for example, but not one on all infantry arms even for just one army. I'm probably just bad at research, but I would really appreciate a steer in the right direction.

For example Edessa and Tripoli were Counties, while Antioch and Galilee where Principalities. And then there's the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Where there any actual governmental differences between these titles, and if not, why pick one over the other?