Tangentially related question; Did the linguistic transformation coincide with the end of Norman dynastic lines?

How were POWs treated by the Soviets, especially POWs like child soldiers?

It seems highly unlikely that a show like that could be set in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars without significant backlashe from veterans.

It strikes me as very interesting that the various cultures of these islands (Hawaii, New Zealand, Samoa, etc.) have many striking similarities in language, culture, what have you. My question is how much of this is due to a shared origin, and how much of it is due to interaction between the cultures.

Given that vast distances separated each culture, I was curious if they had significant levels of interaction or otherwise influenced how each society developed. The logistics of making that journey at the time must have been nearly insurmountable! If anyone could suggest further reading into the subject that would be greatly appreciated as well!

Throughout my entire life, I've been taught that Hitler was the most notorious villain of our time and that he killed 6 million+ Jews. However, no one ever mentions why Hitler wanted to do this. What was his reasoning that lead him to believe that the Jews needed to be wiped out?

For most of my life I've neglected the study of history. In the past couple years I've read the early Greek historians, three of Will Durant's "Story of Civilization" books, and am currently reading J. Huizinga's "Waning of the Middle Ages".

I'm coming to deeply appreciate the educational value and excitement of works of history, but it seems there's such a vast sea of books to read. I'm not a fast reader, so I'm wondering if I could ask some opinions on what are some of the most edifying, "bang for your buck" works of history. What books do you think are the most timeless, mind expanding, well-written and instructional? Thank you.

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I was speaking with someone who thinks that the negative effects of the cultural revolution are overblown, and his question to me was "Can you actually name any important artifacts that were destroyed?"

I couldn't really though I have to admit Chinese history is not a large topic of interest of mine, but even with further research the most important thing I could identify was some desecration of Confucius' family tomb - which while unfortunate seems quite marginal in the grand scheme of all historical artifacts. The lesson I was taught in school was that in an effort to get rid of "traditional" culture and emerge as a true socialist state, Red Guards destroyed lots of historical buildings and artifacts.

So my questions are - is the reputation of the Cultural Revolution as being destructive to Chinese cultural history exaggerated? Or if not, is there any significant knowledge that is permanently lost due to the events during the Cultural Revolution?

Okay. It's almost a year until I going to need it. But I have an ambition of playing a scholar of some sort in a dark low fantasy setting. And I was wondering what kind of lore, books and scrolls that I might need.

And if I just wanted it to look good its not that hard. But I want it to be somewhat accurate and historic. I have been looking around with a lot of books and stuff about historical astronomy/astrology since I'm really into that normaly.

What are your recommendation's for a hard core scholar in medieval time? What books should I make larp-friendly? What ancient scrolls should I recreate? What alchemical manuscript should I rip ideas from? :)

The who, the Beatles, the Scorpion..... Just realised that I have never heard of a black rock band before.

I have a question on how people historically viewed the phasing out of culture or style.

Think about some of the great styles. They typically dominated an era right? The Victorian era, etc. It seems that today you can tell when an unrenovated home was built just by looking at it's style and architecture. Clothing? Every 5 years you might as well throw out your wardrobe and buy the new trends.

Instead of a decades long contribution to an era of style, we have new home, clothing, and music design being pushed at us every decade.

Historically, is this really because of free market desires, or are advertisers purposefully pushing for us to view our current settings as antiquated in the hopes of us spending more money? If this trend continues how will great overarching styles or unity ever be created when there is such a push for everything to be "different" every 10 years? Instead of a city having an era feel, we'll have cities that look like every decade of trends threw up on the buildings within it's boarders.

Historically, have we ever had a time like this or are we witnessing an acceleration of style and cultural turnover?

Examples:

A person who thinks climate change is a real threat to the world is also likely to be pro choice.

A person who thinks gun ownership should be less regulated is also more likely to believe that affirmative action is wrong.

A person who thinks corporate taxes should be lower is more likely to believe that dinosaurs are a hoax than someone who wants to raise corporate taxes.

An assumption I'm making about the above examples is that they really are totally unrelated issues. In reality, maybe they're related in ways I'm not understanding, or maybe there is (to some extent) a "politically left" personality type and a "politically right" personality type. Even if either of these things is somewhat true, I think it's hard to debate that history can explain at least in part the fact that seemingly unrelated views are held together consistently by people of any political party. Overall, this is a very complex question that probably has a multitude of correct answers. I hope to get thoughts from many different perspectives!

Also, I understand Christianity was a huge factor in the American Right's stance on social issues, so I guess my question is really "how did those social mores get tied up in denying climate change and lowering taxes for the rich?"

Political historians: if your answer is "Reagan's unified the fiscal and social conservatives" please tell me HOW! Also, can you really attribute the differences in the views of the constituents of the two major political parties in the late 20th century to one guy who certainly seemed like he hadn't given the steering of the ship all that much thought? If not, whose idea was it to unite the fiscal and social thinkers under the Republican party? I doubt it was Ronald's...

P.S. Sorry my bias is showing in this post!

The Mongolian empire was very briefly covered in lecture today, and Kublai Khan was mentioned as being a very influential leader that extended the Mongolian Empire dramatically from 1227~ to 1279~. While I have no deep knowledge about the greater details of the Mongolian empire, I'm curious why our culture today is more familiar with the figure of Genghis than it is with Kublai when the dynasty seems to go through more growth under Kublai. Is it perhaps the difference between Genghis uniting and establishing a kingdom that is then prepared for Kublai to expand?
As I said before I am very clueless on this topic so I appreciate any responses. Cheers

I've been reading up about nuclear disarmament and I keep reading that some treaties were not ratified by either the US or the USSR, or both. Did either country actually decommission some of it's arsenal during the Cold War (apart from decommissioning obsolete weapons of course) or did they find some way to get out of it. For instance I understand that the US refused to ratify the SALT II in 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, did this kind of thing happen every time? Thanks

Google doesn't seem to be helping me much here. So, I was curious: what sort of anti-establishment/anti-elite movements existed in those periods? Who were the charismatic 'leaders of the [peasant] masses' that we have since mostly forgotten?