I'm not referring to any physical aspects of a document such as age, type of paper, and the scientific methods used for authenticating those things. What I mean is the content itself.

In other words, if I were to write a first-hand account of the Battle of Fallujah in 2004, and 2000 years from now His Righteousness, Grand Emperor Zygbod IV's jet-pack-flying data-mining monkeys find it, how will they know whether or not I'm telling the truth?

Assuming their methods are the same as someone examining a supposed Roman legionary journal entry today....

Some scholars claim that Tacitus held republican sympathies and Robert Graves makes the Emperor Claudius seem like a closet republican. Was there a longing among intellectuals or the public for a return to the Republic? How vocal or popular were republicans, and how long into the Empire did these feelings last?

I've been looking for some sources for a research paper I have to write and I can only find one or two credible sources and also can not find any primary sources.(need at least 1 for the paper) I'm also curious how a country as large as Spain both economically and geographically can stay out of a war when they fought a civil war that had Nazi and Italian forces fighting for the Nationalists.

Is the term too vague to be useful? Is it so eurocentric that it can't be considered a useful analytical category for comparing types of state across world history? Would historians want to do this? Thanks in advance!

Why did Nazi Germany, a nation that ostensibly had a large industrial capacity that only increased when they annexed more and more land, still leave their armies to rely mostly on horses for transportation? We know that the nazi german state could produce large numbers of vehicles made evident by the large number of tanks they produced throughout the war and we know that they did build some infantry transports like halftracks yet still used large numbers of horses. If someone could explain this choice of transportation that differed from the other major nations involved in the war that would be great. Thanks for any replies!

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I was fairly surprised to find out about how Americanized some Cherokees had become during the early 1800s, and looking at New Echota, it's clear that all Cherokees didn't live in tipis. But how common was this? Were there distinct "classes" like urban and rural/house and tipi? Additionally, I know that farming, plantations, and slaves had been adopted--was there a similar division? Thanks!

Particularly ones about France from the 1890s to before WWI. I'd especially like to learn about life for the working class in Paris and other large cities as well as the socialist, anarchist, and other leftist movements of the time. But of course I'd be perfectly happy with things of a broader scale!

I'd also be interested in primary sources from the time, or other sources that aren't necessarily books. I'd even look into works of fiction if there are any that you find particularly well-researched.

Total War: Attila depicts Latin Christianity of the West and Greek Christianity of the East as 2 separate religions, but I know that the 2 churches didn't formally split until 1054. How historical is this depiction of Latin vs Greek Christianity at this time?

I know that the frescoes were found, but was there anything else left behind in the rooms? Like furnishings or documents? Or did Julius II have it cleared before sealing the rooms?

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Hi all,

I've been reading and watching a few different sources on the Pacific War and have what's kind of an overarching question based on a line of thinking that I've gathered (but that I haven't found explicitly addressed).

From what I can gather, the combatants in Europe started WWII as a tactical extension of WWI. That is, it picked up right where the previous war left off with an emphasis on combined arms (especially mechanized and air support), squad and platoon tactics over massed lines, and on intelligence gathering.

However, due partially to geographical realities but also military cultural knowledge and history, the tactics (mostly) used by Japanese forces were less sophisticated, like bayonet charges, and hampered by a poor understanding of the logistical challenges of a sustained air and naval campaign. That is to say, they failed to learn some of the lessons of the Great War, which severely impacted their chances of success against the United States.

I'm generally hoping to see if this is an accurate assessment, but more specifically whether there are instances of the Japanese ignoring or adopting Western tactical advice that might back up or refute the way I'm thinking about it. Thanks!

I'd always been exposed to the definition of Early Modernism as roughly "between Westphalia and the French Revolution," or maybe starting with either the beginning of the English Civil Wars or the Restoration if talking specifically about Britain. ~1648-1789. This definition meant that the period focused on, among other things, the near-constant Great Power warfare in that era, the global expansion of European power, Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical art forms, absolutism, and the rest of the list.

I'm seeing more and more definitions of "Early Modern" that are hailing back as far as Martin Luther's 1517 defacing of a church door that made a few people upset. Bringing the entire 16th century and the Thirty Years War into the Early Modern period is deeply confusing to me because the periodization I've always been familiar with treated the end of the Thirty Years War as the start of that period. Are Calvin, Hermes Trismegistus, Paracelsus, the Schmalkaldic League, the Battle of Alcácer Quibir and union of Spain and Portugal, and Lepanto now "Early Modern" topics?

I know all periodization is arbitrary, but it has been throwing me for months now to see references to "Early Modernists" studying the 16th century. Am I just behind the times here?

Today's topic was suggested by /u/WARitter, and they ask specifically about how we should talk about the middle, middling or liminal social classes in previous eras.

They have problematized the question of class in this way:

The term 'middle class' is a socially and politically loaded one, particularly in America - identified as it is with an ideal whereby most people own most of the wealth, and can participate fully in consumer society. How do we talk about classes in between the true elites and the poor in other periods of history, where those 'in the middle' were a smaller fraction of the population, or didn't have the clout they do today?

I guess we could broaden it to how to describe classes in general in ways that a) aren't anachronistic and b) acknowledge the differences between the ways that class is thought of and the realities on the ground.

I would tack on the additional question, how do we grapple with notions of class in non-western societies? If we grapple with the issue of anachronism when talking about class, must we also be wary of the baggage of describing social structures in non-western contexts with traditionally European terminology?

What would that lifestyle/occupation entail, economically, socially, professionally? I feel that if anyone has a conception of a turn-of-the-century artist, they are likely thinking of a Frenchman, so what was the American equivalent like?