I know that, after the 3rd Jewish war, the Romans banned Jews and Christians from living in what they then called Palestine. Presumably this rule was overturned at some point. I know that some Jews lived there in the Middle Ages, so presumably some had gone back. But why were most Jews still living in other places? Of course, you can argue that they didn't want to move, having found new homes, but as they faced persecution at various points, having to move around to different countries, why not go back to Israel? Especially as the Caliphate was, generally-speaking, more tolerant than Christian Europe.

To put this in context, I wouldn't consider myself a history buff at all, although I know basic dates and events. However, for the last two weeks, I've been reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and having gone through almost a third of it, I must honestly say that I'm blown away. Not necessarily because I feel I understand a lot about the Roman Empire by reading it - I'm sure that by now, modern historians must have superseded Gibbon's views, having access to more sources and so on. But I'm impressed by its literary beauty, the magnitude of its epic scope, and Gibbon's astonishing erudition and vivid communication of his values and view of history, no matter how different they may be to a modern reader.

In short, I feel that I've developed as a general scholar, intellectual, and person by reading it. It's such a good work that I've become motivated to learn more about Roman history, although I was never particularly interested in it in the first place.

I wonder if there are any other classic history books by which professional historians recommend as a "must-read". Not necessarily because "X is the best book for knowing the history of Y" but more of like the above reason: "X is a book that should be read even if you're not particularly interested in period Y, because it's just an amazing work." I understand that reading such works will not necessarily make me a good historian - because I am not, for example, reading Gibbon in a proper context such that I can critically analyze him and so on. But if there are any other works like Gibbon's I think it's worth it to read, just as a literary and intellectual experience.

I've scoured the past threads in this subreddit, but most of them are focused on the "what are the best books for learning about Y" perspective - which is fine, but not quite what I'm looking for. That being said, I've noticed a comment in the Master Booklist about Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence:

From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life by Jacques Barzun: A magisterial work of cultural history, an end-of-life summa penned by one of the most civilized men ever to exist. It's both scholarly and accessible, narrated in gorgeous prose, and deserves a place on your bookshelf next to Thucydides, Tacitus, Gucciardini, Gibbon, Macaulay, and Burckhardt.

Based on this passing comment, I've noted down these works as representative of the "classics" I'm looking for:

1. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides

2. Histories, Tacitus

3. The History of Italy, Gucciardini

4. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon

5. The History of England, Macaulay

6. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Burckhardt

7. From Dawn to Decadence, Barzun

I wonder if anyone can add to this list or correct it? What, in your view, are the great masterpieces of historical writing, similar to how Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and Bach's Mass in B minor are masterpieces of Western classical music? For example, I probably wouldn't count popularized outlines like HG Well's or Asimov's. But are works like Toynbee's A Study of History and Durant's The Story of Civilization regarded as classics of historical writing? Or perhaps, like Gibbon, there are works which focus on a particular period but are masterpieces anyway.

First of all, is oral sex a modern invention? As far as I know, in western/european society, its relatively new (as in, over the past 1000 years or so). Is it the same in non european societies? Second, is oral sex a western invention? Was it practiced by non europeans regardless of european influence? How was knowledge of oral sex spread throughout the world?

EDIT: thank you all for your answers! I hadn't expected there to be such a wealth of knowledge available about the sexual practices of ancient societies! :)

I work in a kitchen and we sharpen our knives fairly regularly. I know swords tend to be lower in hardness than knives as they needed the extra toughness, so I would assume the edges would either roll or dull after battle or two. Did they maintain their blades themselves or did they have specialists? Or did they simply replace the sword once it was completely dull?

edit: I'm mainly curious about Middle Ages Europe. Sorry for the lack of specifics in original post.

Charles Martel lead the Frankish (among others, I believe) troops into victory over the Muslim advance at the Battle of Tours. If Islam began in the middle-east in 620-630, how did it go all the way through the Iberian Peninsula and into France in roughly 100 years? How does a country (Caliphate) expand so quickly?

If you listen to the right history is an Marxist Obama conspiracy intent on covering up what the past was actually like.

And if you listen to the (far) left wing historians sit around all day trying to figure out ways to make the soviet union look more evil.

It seems generally historians personally lean more left (liberal) but I'm not sure.

In you're experience how politicized is history? Is it easy to remove your biases from things you write about?

I dont wanna hate on France or England, thats how it was back then after all. Everyone was doing wars to expand. But why is only Germany seen as bad and agressive when the British Empire as an example was fighting wars to expand its Empire even more than Germany. Again, i dont wanna hate on these countries, its just weird that people always only see the bad agressive expanding German Empire when France and England certainly did the same prior to WW1.

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It seems like each decade in the last century can be 'defined' by the style of clothes that people wore, or the music they listened to. Is it fair to say that culture changes that drastically between decades, and if so, has that rate of cultural change increased more than in previous centuries?

I've experienced two different answers to this question over my years of combing through various 'realistic fiction' depictions of the Age of Sail. Some take the benevolent route, painting sailors as ordinary, hardworking men who enjoy rum and sea shanties, miss their homes, and know how to have fun while getting a lot done. Others depict the life of a sailor as one dominated by dirt, stumbling barfights, and abusive flogging, and the sailors themselves as being demoralized to the point of mutiny. I assume that neither of these viewpoints are entirely correct. Is one more accurate than the other? Would the life of an 18th-century sailor be an exciting adventure, a living hell, or somewhere in between?

I'm trying to come up with a project topic/question, and think/hope this will be the right place? I'm really interested in exploring the response to HIV as it first emerged, and perhaps focus on whether/what the extent fear or attitudes towards the groups most affected shaped health policy (or something similar).

However, I'm not quite sure how viable it will be. I'm wary of the medical aspect, and the timeline given it'd be the eighties/nineties. I'm not sure how much would realistically accessible? I'm in the UK, and can access at least three of the biggest cities so if its available there shouldn't be an issue getting there, but would it be likely there'd be enough to produce a decent paper that answers the question?

Hollywood seems to always make it over race and to end slavery, but I've always heard thats not really the reason we had a civil war

This is roughly about 1400 years ago, in present day Mecca/Medina metro areas. Did they have running water? how often did they bath? was there a concept of regular showers? Did they have proper bathrooms, or was it like the rest of the world, in terms of going in a ditch?

Most anti-tank weapons from WW2 up to today primarily aim to destroy a tank by penetrating the armor and damaging components and/or killing the crew, through techniques such as shaped-charge HEAT shells. It occurred to me recently that a tank could be effectively disabled by damaging the cannon barrel: even if only slightly bent it would at best be very inaccurate, and at worst cause in-barrel detonation of a fired shell. Was there ever any research into such a weapon? I'm picturing some type of net with an explosive charge that would wrap around the exposed barrel, but I'm sure there's many techniques that could be applied. It would seem to me a much easier solution to disable an enemy tank, especially given the difficulty US/UK medium tanks had penetrating heavy german armor earlier in the war.

This question is mostly directed at WW2 due to the rapid evolution and experimentation of tank and anti-tank technology at that time, but I'd also be interested if there was any such research up to 1996.

Where they concious the Empire existed? Was more like a legend? Did they know they adored "pagan" gods before being christians? The title "King of Romans" went throught until 1800's I think, but did people remember the time of a more unified Empire than the dismembered pieces that came after it?

I've seen responses about medieval armour and weapon smithing that seem to make the Milanese guilds (specifically the Missiglia) out to be leagues ahead of their competitors. Thanks for any responses!