I’ve recently gotten into the ancient Mediterranean and I’m reading “Phillip and Alexander” by Adrian Goldsworthy. Early on he describes the hoplites formations and states that their generals would work from the front. How were they not absolutely murdered immediately? Or were they? If not was it avoided by a warrior code of sorts to not seek out generals?

P.S. Any good book recommendations that go over Greek tactics or just ancient tactics at all would be much appreciated as well.

With all the amazing culture and architecture and poetry it seems like most ancient romans and greeks could read is this true ?

They say he's a fascist but in what way? I heard his speech address the Filipinos in the 1950s and as a Filipino it was quite heartwarming actually. He said something like, he is happy to see Philippines take the road on its own, and that "Old Mother Spain" is happy to its child grow. He said that we are bounded by faith, blood and 300 years of common life. He encourages Filipinos to work hard for the glory of the Philippines. He also welcomes Filipinos to go to Spain.

Hey..what's so fascist about that? He welcomes brown people to his country, he even considers Hispanics his brothers.

What did he really aim for? He wasn't racist like Hitler based on his statements.

​

Thank you.

One thing I've never understood about the cambodian genocide is how it managed to function for 4 years, often with genocides you can kind of see a strange kind of rationality and social function with them - The Holocaust spun a narrative of Jewish evil and used that for slave labour to benefit a ruling class of Germans, similarly in Bangladesh there was a 20 year political and ideological prelude culminating in action that once again served a ruling class. All of this meant that the outcomes of the social structures and attitudes of the time were omewhat predictable.

In Cambodia however it seems like the genocide started instantaneously despite there being a completely secretive leadership structure, and that there was simultaneously no prior planning yet a stunningly organised evacuation of civilian centres.

How did this even manage to function? From what I understand urban centres were deserted for the entirety of Khmer rule, how did the country survive without administrative function, how was a genocide carried out without administration and if there was an administration, how did they survive without beng labelled as intellectuals for murder?

It seems that all the structure and order of the country was completely gone, yet it was increidbly organised, could someone please shed some light on how it all worked?

Writing in Novum Organum (published in 1620), Bacon claims the following:

“For out of twenty-five centuries, with which the memory and learning of man are conversant, scarcely six can be set apart and selected as fertile in science and favorable to its progress. For there are deserts and wastes in times as in countries, and we can only reckon up three revolutions and epochs of philosophy. 1. The Greek. 2. The Roman. 3. Our own, that is the philosophy of the western nations of Europe: and scarcely two centuries can with justice be assigned to each”

Is it true that at the time of writing there were only 3 periods of advancement in science? Over those 25 centuries were there really only 6 which provided any further understanding?

What did ancient and medieval and early modern science (from anywhere) think about certain scientific phenomenon? For example when salt dissolves in water what did they think was happening? I can't myself think of a way to explain it without bringing up chemistry, but they didn't have our understanding of ions and atoms. Likewise what about something like static electricity? What did they think happened when someone out of nowhere just zaps a person. There are some others as well, did any ancient scientists try to determine why oil and water don't mix? I just want to understand how people would've rationalized things like this. Thank you so much if you take the time to answer

I have a friend from Mississippi who told me about a conversation that he had with his grandfather in the early 90’s. Grandpa was telling him about the post war south and how the aristocratic, rich white people not only conspired to keep Black people poor, but to keep poor, white people poor too. The way Grandpa put it, they were peddling the lie that “You may be poor, but at least you ain’t Black.”

Is there any kind of record of rich, white southerners conspiring like this?

I'm from MD but spent a lot of time in rural PA. It's always seemed so weird to me that going there is almost like heading into the south.

I've kind of become really interested in Appalachian culture and folklore recently, and I've been noticing a lot of similarities. Like, a lot. Is it the mountains, or the mining maybe? Just seems like there might be something there. But if not, then there must be some other reason for sure?

So I’m a Brazilian guy doing engineer, so I’m not the most study one in history books, but here in América Latina Che is a very controversy figure, you hate or love him. I saw some people saying he is everything I wrote above, and some saying he isn’t, i remember this debate fired here in Brazil when a homossexual congressperson dressed up like Guevara, the criticism I saw the most was that he was an homophobic and even shot gays because he thought they where “weak and sick”, but again I never read a book about it

My intuition would’ve told me that since flintlock muskets replaced matchlocks, they must be technologically superior. Field cannons that use linstocks are essentially large matchlocks, but many naval cannon use flintlocks; why is that?

If we look at Indian historical sources carefully, then Ancient and Medieval Indians, atleast the Aristocracy and the Business class were pretty open about Sexual Practices. Kamasutra and the Temple at Khajuraho is a good example of that. Even during the medieval period in many, both Hindu and Muslim aristocracies, there was an open sexual life.

Fast forward to the current day, Indians are pretty hesitant to talk about topics related to sex and sexuality. I am not very good at biology so my mother explains biology to me. She explains the other topics without any hestitation but when it came to Sexual Reproduction in Animals, I could tell that she was pretty uncomfortable with it. How did it happen? Is it something new or was it simply present only amongst the aristocracy and normal people were pretty much the same as they are now today?

Not sure if this breaks the rules because this question references today's culture somewhat. However, there seems to be a common thread of the progressive anti-government and anti-war movement of the 1960s and the limited government movements of the Reagan/Thatcher administrations in the 1980s. I'm wondering if there is a connection between these political eras, and if the brand of conservatism of the 1980s found traction with former anti-establishment youth of the 1960s and 70s. Or is this simply a matter of public perception focusing on singular aspects of a generation when in reality these representations highlight only vocal minorities of this age group?

The one thing I don't get about the Battle of Stalingrad is the kind of odd way it was won.

As far as I understand is that the Reich had captured most of the city, but them Zhukov had managed to encircle them afterwards.

The question is, how did that happen, how did the Germans not see that coming? I mean were the German commanders just stupid not to see that coming (which is a very poor explanation)?

I'm doing a bit of internet research and I'm after publicly available original copies.

The Nova Scotia archives have them on microfilm but they don't have digital copies of this particular newspaper. I can't get to Nova Scotia to check the microfilm.

Thanks in advance.

I apologize if this has been asked about before, feel free to delete it if I've violated any rules. Also, apologies for any formatting issues, as I am on mobile.

I'm currently reading "A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution" by Orlando Figes. He's currently talking about the disconnect between the crown and the aristocracy, and the peasantry, and how the emancipation of the serfs in Russia led to the beginning of a capitalist approach to agriculture. (I hope that's clear, I can go into more detail if needed.)

At one point in the text, Figes makes this comment: "Most of the squires...proved incapable of transforming their landed estates into viable commercial farms once the Emancipation had deprived them of the prop of free serf labour and forced them into the capitalist world." Okay, that makes sense. But then he continues, "They could not follow in the footsteps of the Prussian Junkers."

That's it. No further explanation or context given. I'm sure many of his readers are familiar with the agricultural systems of the Prussian Junkers, but I'm definitely not. Google searches led me to random papers on paywall-restricted sites like JSTOR, but no concise explanation for laymen like me.

So my (long-winded) question is this: what did the Prussian Junkers do re: emancipation of serfs and adapting their agricultural economy to a more capitalist system? And why could the Russian landed gentry not follow in their footsteps?

(Not sure what citation method you all prefer. My quotes come from the first American edition of Figes' book, from Viking in 1996. Pages 46-47.)

Thank you, everyone!

How was it taken?

just wondering if streakers are a modern phenomenon or if people have always done this type of thing.

So was just watching some historical documentaries and suddenly had this idea why didn’t medieval people ride bulls to battle? Wouldn’t it be awesome to ride something that has horns and built for ramming make great charge cavs?

If elephants were used in battles then why aren’t bulls? I mean they used bulls to pull carts the same as horses so why didn’t they used bulls in battle? There was also that scene in the Zulu war where the British unleashed a herd of angry bulls on the Zulu to great effect, so why don’t they use bulls more?