Hey r/AskHistorians, had a question I was really curious about. I watched the documentary video adaption of "Douglas MacArthur: American Caesar" based on the book by William Manchester. Near the very end of the documentary (around 3:53:28 of this youtube video upload https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv1hKcp6qII ) the narrator states that MacArthur changed his mind on the use of atomic weapons. This is the only mention of this position in the biography, and I didn't find anything about it with a quick google search. Given how infamous MacArthur's willingness to use nuclear weapons was, this feels like a fairly significant reversal. Was the documentary playing loose with the facts or can anyone corroborate these allegations in more detail?

Thanks for any info.

The Meditations is a book of stoic wisdom purportedly to have been written by Marcus Aurelius that is popular in self help circles.

While certainly a popular read, what proof do we have that this book was actually written and published by Marcus Aurelius?

If it was published after his death, how was his journal discovered, and consequently distributed to those who wanted to read it?

Is there an existing original copy in Marcus Aurelius’s own writing?

I know most Germans fought in the Thälmann Battalion, and I’m aware of Herman Bottcher who would fight in the US Army - but I haven’t been able to discover if any German volunteers ended up conscripted or enlisting in the forces of Nazi Germany.

Previous weeks!

Please Be Aware: We expect everyone to read the rules and guidelines of this thread. Mods will remove questions which we deem to be too involved for the theme in place here. We will remove answers which don't include a source. These removals will be without notice. Please follow the rules.

Some questions people have just don't require depth. This thread is a recurring feature intended to provide a space for those simple, straight forward questions that are otherwise unsuited for the format of the subreddit.

Here are the ground rules:

• Top Level Posts should be questions in their own right.
• Questions should be clear and specific in the information that they are asking for.
• Questions which ask about broader concepts may be removed at the discretion of the Mod Team and redirected to post as a standalone question.
• We realize that in some cases, users may pose questions that they don't realize are more complicated than they think. In these cases, we will suggest reposting as a stand-alone question.
• Answers MUST be properly sourced to respectable literature. Unlike regular questions in the sub where sources are only required upon request, the lack of a source will result in removal of the answer.
• Academic secondary sources are prefered. Tertiary sources are acceptable if they are of academic rigor (such as a book from the 'Oxford Companion' series, or a reference work from an academic press).
• The only rule being relaxed here is with regard to depth, insofar as the anticipated questions are ones which do not require it. All other rules of the subreddit are in force.

The following is a quote from her (pulled from the wiki, source; Joseph Esherick (1988). The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. University of California Press. p. 289. ISBN 0-520-06459-3.):

"Perhaps their magic is not to be relied upon; but can we not rely on the hearts and minds of the people? Today China is extremely weak. We have only the people's hearts and minds to depend upon. If we cast them aside and lose the people's hearts, what can we use to sustain the country?"

​

So there does seem to be some awareness on her part the potential imbalance of power in any upcoming struggle between China and the foreign Western Powers. However, the quote does also seem to capture her need to ride the wave of sentiment in her country.

​

I was wondering if anyone had come across any firm long-term goals Cixi had hoped for or set in motion, what were the plans to keep China free of Western interference and stand resilient against any potential repercussions?

​

Thanks all.

This led me to think about the changing role of free labor domestic servants in rich households in the United States. How rich did you have to be from late industrialism on to still have domestic servants in the house? I know there was a thread four years ago about the general decline of household staff in the United States (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/88emhp/why_were_livein_domestic_servants_so_much_more/) but my interest is in the changes as to who CONTINUES to use domestic staff. Was it the same general coterie of the extraordinarily wealthy, or did it narrow in numbers of households?

And if (as the previous thread suggested) the changes in material culture suggested by Frank Trentmann (like dishwashers, etc.) changed the general interest in hiring domestic staff, did it also change the desirability of hiring certain types of domestic staff? If you were rich, did you first hire a butler or cook or chauffer? Was the rise of agencies of maids, au pairs, etc. making some types of servants less likely to be live in? And when did personal security become a type of domestic servant in these households? (I assume the Lindburg kidnapping may have had some cultural impact, but this is pretty far away from my own knowledge).

Just a weird random question that made be think of everything from Mitt Romney supposedly bringing his cook with him while he was on mission in the 1960s-70s to what it says about the creation of the fictional Batman that Wayne still has a single domestic servant in Alfred and it specifically is his butler.

I promise I am not trying to ask this as a present day question, because as an academic I have no expectation of ever being in the position of having to prioritize hiring domestic staff!

Let me preface this by saying that I think that r/AskHistorians is already doing an excellent job by providing us with an enormous amount of research material including link to great database and a great booklist. That's said I think that the sub would be even more helpful if it were to suggest stuff like podcast ( other than the great askhistorian podcast) and good documentaries or college lectures freely available online. There is so much content like this online but the quality of historical research can vary a lot so I think that the advice of experts in the field can really be beneficial to avoid misinformation.

Here is the article containing the full letter in question: https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/05/18/beethoven-emilie-letter/