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Nebuchadnezzar and Barack Obama

Montezuma and John Trudeau

Etc

In countries such as China, Japan and the Ottoman Empire there are examples of modernisations being successful and unsuccessful. How could implementing obviously more effective military tactics be unsuccessful and controversial in a country? The same goes for industrialising the economy. Was the move towards modernisation seen as being a surrendering to western culture, or is there a lot more to it than that?

Has there been any research done or records found as to why Germany didn't use chemical weapons during WW2, particularly when they began to struggle on the Eastern Front?

I know there was pretty large-scale White settlement in places with similar climates like the highlands of Madagascar and Kenya, and places like Da Lat are known for having very temperate climates highly suited for habitation by Europeans. Was this ever the case though?

Thanks to /u/georgy_k_zhukov for the suggestion.

A subset of Historical Fiction that enjoys perennial popularity is Counterfactual or "what if" history, that relies on the premise of different choices in key decisions adding up to wildly different historical timelines.

In the same spirit, AskHistorians frequently receives questions asking why historical figures made the decisions they ended up making.

Today's Monday Methods centers around how we gather information to understand the mindset of historical actors, to understand why they choose one option and eschew another.

What sort of sources can we use to shed light on this information? In the United States since at least the 1950s, there has been the genre of the political memoir, where a public figure will frequently give "behind the scenes look" at the hows and whys of notable decisions they made. But are these memoirs reliable, or should (some of them) be seen as self-justification?

Do historians of the recent past have greater resources to explore the decision making of recent historical actors than those who study the ancient world? Did ancient leaders like Diocletian feel the need to justify his reasoning in announcing his reforms? Or must scholars make educated guesses about his decision-making?

I'm interested both in (1) what policy makers thought of it in terms of its effect on the Cold War and the ability of the Soviet Union to exploit the cultural shift, and also (2) how the movement was interpreted by Soviet scholars of Marxism.

I've been reading this book, and I'm fascinated. Just wanted to know if askhistorians could provide any insight into these letters.

Modern Russian serfdom is completely outside of my wheelhouse, but I have done some limited reading about the so-called "second serfdom" that was implemented during the early modern era in Eastern Europe. I have read some explanations, largely by Marxist or Marxist influenced historians, and am genuinely curious what consensus, if any, historians have reached as to the origins and structural causes of modern serfdom in Tsarist Russia.

Thanks.

To add to this, how much has Latin changed since the fall of the Roman Empire? English has changed incredibly over the last 700 years, was Latin the same during the days of Rome?

Just was thinking about the upcoming election, and what it would mean if Obama endorsed a candidate prior to their being nominated for their party. Is this even allowed?

To my surprise, I've seen mods casually mention that there was not a sense of hostility between the French and Germans in the buildup to the First World War. Did the War of 1870 or Franco-Prussian War prompt the French army, government and populace to seek vengeance? If so, can this be sited as one of the contributing factor in the causes of WWI? Or is this just a common myth?

David Watson, in his article Britain, France, and the Russian Civil War, infers that Britain paid a much higher price during the intervention than France did, a notion I'm sure is true. However, he gives the sums as the French paying 700 million francs, to Britain's 69 million pounds, and I'm unsure how to convert between the two to accurately gauge how much more Britain paid.

my understanding is that edo (tokyo) was a small fishing village, why did the shogun move his court there even though kyoto was more advanced? was it for strategic reasons?

Hi,

I'm wondering if, during a siege, people would really run to the wall and try to climb it with ladder or assimilated? It seems like a suicidal attack for me, at least for the front line and the peasant at the front must have known that he would die, so I wonder if things like that were really possible.

During the Middle Ages, charcoal was the main fuel used by Eurasian society. However, charcoal production caused massive deforestation, and so coal supplanted charcoal due to scarcity. Why couldn't sustainable forestry be practiced during the Middle Ages? Coppicing/pollarding were widely known practices, I believe. Why was there massive deforestation if they had known about these methods?

There are still WW2 pillboxes all around where I live in he South of England. What was the point of these? Was it just 'theatre security'? It's hard to imagine one tiny little brick structure in a valley stoping an advancing army.