This might sound like a dumb question, but when historians read old texts, I assume you have to know some cultural context behind it to put it into perspective.

Considering there are thousands of tweets a second, how will anybody in the future process how common people felt today, especially in the context of memes? Again, dumb question, but if someone a hundred years from now wants to see how commoners felt about the election, and sees a reference to Harambe, or a much lesser known meme, how will they know theyre referring to the meme and not the actual concept of harambe, since that is used pretty frequently as well?

edit: TWEETS! TWEETS! I'm sure the historical connotations of breastfeeding are fascinating, but I am looking for answers on social media and internet posts.

Hey. As the trailer for Dunkirk released and as someone who has no idea what happened and why, can someone please explain all that went down? Don't worry about spoiling the movie. I want to know. And if you could, recommend some good books to read about the same.
Thanks.

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Or any other precious metal. As a specific example, say a jeweler needed gold to make a ring or a bracelet or something. Would they go out to a marketplace and purchase the gold they needed using gold coins, or would they simply smelt down those coins they already had into a usable form? The idea of destroying currency by melting it down feels like it would have a bad effect on the economy (using 1 gold coin to make a ring worth 1.5 gold coins seems dangerously easy to exploit), but the idea of trading gold for gold also just sounds innately ridiculous.

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Hi all,

What is the best (in terms of most authoritative) biography on Otto Von Bismark? I've grown fascinated by the man, he was a seeming walking contradiction almost without ideology.

Looking for some books on the study of ancient cultures, especially religion, of the peoples in America before Columbus's arrival. I've read books on the Incas, Aztecs(Mexica), Toltecs, etc and Mann's 1491 but I wanted to see what research there was out there about time before that, even Clovis and PreClovis eras.

As a bonus question, has anyone read The Great Paleolithic War by David Meltzer? Can't seem to find any reviews on it and just wanted some thoughts on his work, thanks!

Anybody have any good recommendations? I'd take anything from any period from around colonization up until now (or 20 years ago so as not to break the sub's rule). I often feel sorely under-informed about my country's history and am hoping to change that. Thanks!

Hi, I'm currently doing a coursework essay about the rise of hitler and whether it was mainly due to the weaknesses of the Weimar. I was wondering if anyone knew of some good books/historians that talk about this topic. I have already found a few such as books by Ian Kershaw, William L shirer, AJP taylor and a couple of other historians. If anyone does know any other books or historians that could be useful that would be great(preferably accesible for free online).

Thanks for reading

Having just returned from South-East Asia I have been made aware of the absolute carnage that de-colonization brought to the region. Was there any backlash from the Western Powers (USA, Britain, Canada) re. the reinstatement of the Colonial Empires of France and the Netherlands so soon after they themselves were liberated? Did this view change overtime as the Independence Wars continued?

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This is strictly for Europe and anatolia. It seems that we have collectively identified this distinction between the two eras and I'm curious why. What made the medieval world so different from the classical world that it became its own seperate era?

Hi, I´m making a documentary project for university and I´m focusing on the 23-F. I´m interested in knowing the details of the coup and the role and importance of the media during it, but also before and after the coup failed. I'll appreciate if you could answer me and link me to some sources (in english or in spanish as I understand both). Thank you in advance.

It is sad in alt-history circles that there was a great city at the river mouths of theese four rivers and that people moved from there during the great flood (circa 7500 years ago). It is believed that all four river ended at the same spot at the area now covered by the Black Sea. Cross on the sigil represents the rivers and letters S represent four Serbian tribes that relocated from the area using nautres highways - river valleys. Sorry if my grammar is bad, English is my second language.

Why did the Nazis fight so hard with the USSR so close? Why not just abandon the city to the Russians? Especially as they ended up destroying the city anyway.

Why did the Poles eventually surrender when they were going to be executed anyway?

When we think of "ancient philosophy" in the West, we tend to think of ancient Greeks and Romans (e.g. Socrates, Plato, Euclid, Cicero, Pliny, etc.) or perhaps Chinese philosophers like Confucius and Laozi. I'm also at least aware of an ancient Indian philosophical tradition, even if I can't name any ancient Indian philosophers.

But what about another major site of ancient civilization, Mesoamerica (and South America, while we're at it)? Do we know anything about major thinkers of ancient Mesoamerica? Is there an Olmec equivalent of Socrates, or a Mayan Confucius?