If you look at the data about the income gap between rich and poor in the West and the rise of the social state in Europe, you'll see that it corresponds in time with the boom of the Soviet union and the other socialist countries.

To what extent was that coincidental and to what extent was it promoted consciously by the western governments to lessen the appeal of socialist ideas?

Conversely the widening of the income gap and the collapse of the social state in Europe and elsewhere coincides with the collapse of the socialist countries. Is this unrelated?

As a communist myself I've always heard by fellow communists that the social state has so particularly flourished in the Scandinavian countries because of the proximity to the USSR. Is there any grain of truth in this?

There doesn't seem to have much informations on Internet, so I'm wondering if historians could point to some books worth reading ?

Or more than three sides, even. Reading over the topic it seems that there were a number of different factions involved - the Wehrmacht, the Chetniks, Ustase, the Communists.... and not only all with different aims, but often directly contrary ones, so there seems to have been a lot of fighting between all of them. Was the situation more one that saw brief alliances of convenience to focus on a common enemy, or more one that truly saw multiple factions all engaging each other?

Assuming that there were said temporary alliances, how did ethnic tensions dictate those arrangements? Were there groups more willing to cooperate for a time, and others who always would say "hell no"? Also given those ethnic tensions, what sort of involvement in the Holocaust and other ethnic cleansing carried out by Nazi Germany do we see from groups who were opposed to occupation, but not particularly against the killings being carried out by Germany?

I've been reading "Peregrinação", by Fernão Mendes Pinto. While one needs to read it with a pinch of salt, I have no doubt that ship-based bombardments, port blockades and stepping on local conflicts did happen, as well as full-on piracy and backstabbing. So, it got me thinking about how fast and how deep the arrival of the portuguese (and later, the dutch and the spanish) shattered/ reconfigured the local politics and centers of power. So my question is this: how did local sources register the arrival of these disruptors and how much did they actually disrupt?

Could the governors appoint just anyone to the post, maybe in an ad hoc basis, or was there a formal educational requirement that confined the profession to those apprenticed in it?

E.g. Mississippi River, Kaskaskia River, Des Plaines River, Missouri River vs. River Thames, River Tiber, River Nile, River Jordan?

...I really hope the answer is more interesting than "someone conquered part of it and got bored."

Can anyone recommend book, articles, and documentaries on The Crusades from beginning to end and also aren't biased?

In 19th and 20th century, there were many national movements that demanded independence from their overlords. Many of them eventually achieved it and have their own countries today, but were there any such movements that were successfully suppressed and assimilated?

So I came across this article (REMOVED BECAUSE APPARENTLY PEOPLE GOT MALWARE? 0_o) while searching for the Lost Roman legion in Britain and thought it was super interesting but probably not super accurate.

Thought I'd ask anyone here if they know more about this :) I searched it on Reddit's terrible search function and the only result I found had comments saying it was probably busted but not much conclusiveness.

Thanks guys and gals :)

Edit: I didn't get any malware or virus when i went to it sorry guys :/ it's on the first page of google so it shouldn't be anything risky...

I've been reading the David Talbot book 'The Devil's Chessboard' which focuses on the 1950s CIA director Allen Dulles and his milieu. It got press for arguing that Dulles was behind the assassination of JFK, but I'm curious about Talbot's claims about the pre-Kennedy era. Reading it (as I suspect might be inevitable with anything written about the CIA), I'm obviously not an expert enough to tell what's a conspiracy theory, what's politically motivated misleading spin, and what's simply true. So I'm curious what the learned historians here have to say.

Firstly, in terms of generalities, are there historians who've read it have any opinions on what it does well and poorly?

Secondly, in terms of specifics: Talbot's basic hypothesis with Dulles is that his loyalties were not to the U.S. people, per se, but instead to an international class of capitalists; he was sympathetic, for example, towards German capitalists who went along with the Nazi regime because he felt they were 'one of us'. With this in mind, he makes the following claims or implications about Dulles. How many of these are basically true, or misleading, or hard to verify one way or another, or just false?

*Dulles, as a Wall Street lawyer before the American entry into World War II, played a role in hiding the American assets of German companies in shell companies so they wouldn't be seized/frozen.

*Dulles, in his post as the representative of the Office of Strategic Services in Switzerland after the American entry into the war, deliberately delayed passing on word of the Holocaust to his bosses until as late as possible, failing to pass on stories from two German industrialists who came to talk to him, and when there was information he could no longer ignore, deliberately sent it to people within the OSS headquarters who had previously shown antipathy or apathy to Jews.

*Despite Roosevelt's orders that the only acceptable surrender terms was unconditional surrender, Dulles was negotiating with representatives of Himmler to try and end the war.

*Dulles played a role, post-war, in preventing several Nazi officials from being prosecuted for their crimes.

*Dulles played a role in funding Richard Nixon's 1946 run against Jerry Voorhis, who Dulles disliked for his association with Roosevelt's New Deal.

*Dulles deliberately caused the Soviets to capture the U-2 spy plane in 1960 in order to derail Eisenhower's negotiations with the Soviets at the time.

(I gather from looking through this subreddit that Dulles having a large role in the 1950s coups in Iran and Guatemala is uncontroversial).

For Christianity, the European Wars of Religion originated due to the translation and the hegemony of the Church.

Is there any similar occurrence in Islam due to the translation to another language?

How did non-Arabian Muslims understand Quran without getting any grasp of it by themselves? In this case, was the endeavour of learning language of Quran was in the monopoly of Imams or Sheikhs (or any other religious figures)?

The text of the news report, which was featured in the documentary "Bigger, Stronger, Faster":

The Iron Sheik had been arrested recently along with wrestler Hacksaw Jim Duggan while driving along the Garden State Parkway. The Iron Sheik was charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana. What has interested most wrestling fans in this case is that the Iron Sheik and Hacksaw are known to be adversaries. So why were they traveling together?

But in most movies about the twentieth century wars, it always seems divisions are most important. Was this a real change, or just a change in the way it's presented in writing? Was it because of the increased size of the Armies?

Also, if it doesn't violate rule 2 (or just talk about the 1990s), a what unit level do military personal identify in the last twenty-five years? (Does a transfer overseas mean they lose their unit identity forever.)

I guess this is mostly about the US military, because it's so big, but I won't mind hearing about other countries.

I cannot imagine a reason why Hitler would want to bring the Americans into the war. It doesn't align with his racial policy, the US was an industrial powerhouse, etc. Why on Earth would he declare war on the US, even if an American declaration against Germany was almost certainly coming?