During the Cold War the USA and USSR has massive intelligence and counterintelligence apparatuses set up to spy on each other. When the Cold War ended, how did these programs change? Obviously the KGB was disbanded, but was there still a massive focus on the other as the "enemy"? Were there captured spies that were traded, or known cases of spies or assets being left in country with no orders or contacts?

I am writing a paper for a university class, and was wondering if anybody knows any good books about romans and wine. It can be about anything from the cultivation to how wine was integrated into the culture.

I apologise if this was the wrong subreddit to post this in. Thanks in advance.

Hi all, I was hoping for some recommendations on the best and most up to date books on ancient Mesopotamia. Specifically I was hoping for books that focus on the earliest period of civilization and urbanization and its emergence. 'By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean : The Birth of Eurasia' by Barry Cunliffe provided a very interesting, but brief, overview of early civilization in Mesopotamia and it got me wanting to know more! Any help would be great, thanks

Update: Thankyou everyone for their responses. I had speculations that wooden frames were used in construction. But in the end i though it was just stone that supported the whole structure. I knew stone didnt burn, but i didnt know if something like a house fire wouldve been hot enough to compromise the structeral integrity of the building.

Countries with a history of successfully removing the right to bear and own firearms, how was it possible? I'm more curious about

1. How the regulation system actually came into place, what incited a massive general agreement to forbid the bear of arms without the massive opposition of the citizens
2. How the implementation of the regulation took place. How were the firearms collected by the government forces? Were there compensation? Were there resistance by the firearm owners and the gun sellers, lovers and manufacturers involved? What happened to the black market? What were the consequences for the government? How long did it take to strip arms off its citizens?
   Yes, I do know that these raw information can be easily acquired through search of Google and academic papers. But I am more interested about the societal dynamic aspect of how the regulation took place in the countries' history. Such as how the individual citizen and society at large were perceiving this, and how a general consensus toward the restriction of arms could have been established, without violent and fierce opposition. Thank you in advance!!

You see blind people portrayed in movies that take place long ago, but never deaf people. I assume it was a mixture of random gestures that may have been localize. Considering writing is out of the question. I am curious if there is a history about this or research done.

Are they not the same thing? From my understanding' the Byzantine empire was an extension of the Roman empire into the middle ages.

Hello,

I was looking through the book list and found the section on American Revolution. I started searching on Amazon for the The Glorious Cause and found two versions. One was by Middlekauff (as listed in the list) and the other by Jeff Shaara.

I've recently become interested in learning more about the war. Both descriptions seem pretty solid and Shaara seems to have his own volume dedicated. Should I just stick with what's on the reading list?

Thanks for the help!

I know that the Korean nobility (Yangban) were expected to know Chinese characters, but I can't seem to find information on whether they spoke Mandarin Chinese or only Sino-Korean. Additionally, what would they have spoken in their daily lives? Did they speak Chinese, and if not, how heavily was their speech influenced by Chinese (compared to, say, commoners)?

[deleted]

For example the Tibetan Government in Exile as well as New Qing Historians downplays the Chinese-ness of the Qing. The current PRC government does not equate China with Han. Why is Chinese automatically equated with Han when both the Qing and PRC emphatically equated Chinese with ALL the peoples of Daicing Gurun/Zhonguo? Why does the word Chinese imply Han-ness in English more than the world Zhongguoren imply Han-ness in China itself? Why is the "Chinese" moniker more ethnically/racially? rigid in Western Historiography compared to Historiography within China where the concept of "Chinese-ness" was much more encompassing in the last 300 years? Why does the Chinese identity have to be fixed and immobile? Is there a barrier to accepting that "ethnic groups" in the PRC can have multiple identities (i.e. a person can be both Manchu and Zhongguoren etc. and not be contradictory) in Western Historiography?

So I've been toying with the idea of getting a history degree (ancient/classical such as with greece or rome) because my true passion is that and I'm coming to a close with my senior year in college. I am to graduate with an business advertising bachelor's and I recently got a student job in that field, working for the government.

However, the more I do it, the more I yearn for ancient history (I'm also taking an ancient Greeks philosophy class so it doesn't help the urge). Should I look into getting a second degree or masters? Money is tight and I know the job market is tough but perhaps some input from people working in history can help me see reality and not some fantasy bubble. Will my advertising degree help me at all? I do have background with writing, also.

Note: the reason I didn't go for history as a freshman was because I knew I wouldn't make a lot of money. Now... I'm more okay with that idea.

[deleted]

I know this question is very broad, and I apologize for that. I'm going to try to specify a bit more here.

In modern days, I see fantasy maps all the time. In books, games, movies even, and more set in fantasy worlds, there will often be a map made along with it. I've even met people who just make maps with nothing to put them to out of the joy of the act.

Since I play D&D and other such roleplaying games with varying settings, I often am looking for maps that resemble cartography anywhere from the 10th to the 18th century. But I've always looked either for modern fantasy maps resembling those periods or historical maps from those periods. I'd never seen a fantasy map from before the 20th century.

So I suppose what I'm asking is if any of you who have studied historical art or literature or fiction or cartography from almost any time period know of the history of making maps of places that don't exist within your studied field. I know this is a very broad question with a very broad period range, but I'm not certain how to make it any more concise. I have been told that many map makers would put fictional locations or landmarks in maps of real areas so they would know if their work was stolen, but what about maps of purely fictional places? And if it is rather recent, is there any known record of around when the art of fantasy map making became popular?

I don't post here very often, so I'm sorry if this question is poorly worded. I will try to clarify my question as best I can. If you have any questions or comments or critiques about my question, please let me know, and I will try to address it.

Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to seeing any responses I may get.

As far as I know, countries such as China and Japan made extensive use of matchlocks and cannons and were not extremely far behind the Europeans in the 17th and maybe 18th century.

But while armies in Europe developed improved versions of these weapons, eventually rifling them and improving metallurgy, armies in other parts of the world did not really match this. At some point they started relying on bringing in foreign technology.

0. Are any of my premises mistaken/oversimplified?

1. If it can be estimated, up to what time period could European firearms technology could be considered "equal" to that of other firearm wielding nations on other continents?

2. Why did Europeans eventually develop superior firearms? Was it natural resources, technical know-how, more wars, doctrine, or some combination of this? And why was this effort not matched elsewhere?

It seems as if the topic of PTSD, shell shock, combat fatigue, etc. is mostly addressed in literature from WWI onward. For example, I haven't heard of any popular accounts of ancient Roman conflicts involving mentally scarred veterans, yet they had to use close-quarters weapons to kill their enemies. Why is this the case? Was PTSD less common due to cultural values glorifying war? Were accounts of such things less publicized? Am I just uninformed?

I know that homo sapiens were around during the last Ice Age. Was knowledge of the Ice Age prevalent amongst ancient civilizations, such as the Romans, or did it not become known until much later?

Oregon was the only state allowed into the Union with a race-based exclusion included in their founding document. Would they use the infamous "brown bag" test? The "one drop rule"?

Do we have any written accounts of light-skinned African Americans moving into the state during the ban? When and how was the ban officially ended?