So as the title says, Today I was told that my Uncle was captured at Monte Casino during WWII. The story goes that he was a POW for almost a year. Out of the 4000(?) or so prisoners only 47 survived, he being one of them. This is all 2nd and 3rd hand information, so was wondering if anyone knows the true story or where I could find it… Thank you all…

I understand the differences in terms of Dubois’s Pan-African ideology and Marcus Garvey’s back-to-Africa movement. But is that liberation or ideas of Africa?

Am I wrong? Is it something different?

Thanks to anyone who can help.

Long time lurker, occasional poster, and using a throwaway for obvious reasons.

So I was in class at a pretty well-known university on the East Coast earlier this week, in a history class, of course, and the topic of "buff history" versus "academic history" came up. The consensus (including the Professor) seemed to be that while "buff history" wasn't bad, per se, it tended towards more obscure topics like what types of weapons/tanks/airplanes are used during combat or to incredibly specific groups/locales/institutions (here the best example was histories of military units like the 3rd cavalry or something) and that it tends to be practiced by people who are not trained in history, people who do not have graduate degrees in history. (The point was asked why graduate degrees, and the Professor was quick to point out that there is a large difference between undergraduate history and graduate level history. The latter has a lot more theory, methodology, and other such concepts that undergraduates don't deal with as much but are important to the academic discipline). Also, buff history does, according to the professor, very little actual research, relying instead on the research others have done. When we pressed the Professor for more details, they said it was the difference between doing secondary source research and primary source research. Academic historians do primary source research, while buff historians mainly use secondary sources for their research. Academic History, on the other hand, is defined more by the method used than the topics. Are primary resources used? Is the historian using methods that are current in the field? Is the historian in conversation with other historians in the same field. Is it published in academic journals and at academic presses? The list was longer, but that's all I can recall at the moment.

While the Professor was clear that there wasn't anything wrong with buff history, I came away with the distinct impression that they looked down on it from their position as a University Professor.

So my question is: where does /r/AskHistorians see itself? Or is maybe the distinction between "buff history" and "academic history" an unfair dichotomy? Or is this just because my Professor is lodged in their comfy Ivory Tower and unwilling to admit others as equals to the party?

In Swedish history when we read about the Vikings we often focus on the Norse Mythology. We are also told and given some of the Sagas to read. But it never explains why the Vikings all of a sudden turned to start raiding in the west.

The saxons at this time also followed the norse religion. So connections between the Norse people and Saxons was understandable.

Japanese seems to use Western/Latin names for days of the week (e.g. Sunday = 日曜日 lit. sun weekday) which I assume isn't just a huge coincidence, so I wondered what they used beforehand, and whether there are any examples of calendars without seven-day weeks.

I know it was coined by Eisenhower during his farewell address. After watching his speech I was wondering if someone could expand on exactly what the Industrial Military Complex is?

I've heard a lot about rationing and the entry of women into the workforce in America, enduring the blitz (and rationing) in Britain, rationing and preparing for invasion in Japan, and the progress of ever-more-pervasive propaganda and the advent of Total war in Germany as the facade of the invincible third reich cracked.

But I know little of the home front in Soviet Russia. How were displaced civilians treated; what were the cities created or grown from displaced civilians and transported industrial equipment like? How severe was rationing during the different periods of the war? And what was the post-war period like with vast casualties, the return of enormous numbers of victorious, experienced soldiers?

I notice that in maps that are both published in the early 1900's or maps that refer to that period but published in the modern day have this label. I can cite some examples if that is necessary. I thought that when the Ottoman's conquered Constantinople, they renamed the city immediately so why is this reference made? I have tried to look through wikipedia and couldn't find an easy/obvious answer, could someone give me a reason as to why there was a lack of naming cohesion?

I'm looking for well written and in depth books on many people from WWII, the Cold War, and I suppose the Manhattan Project as well. Books written about the Manhattan Project, its aftermath on the people involved and especially the spying scandals (Fuchs, Hall, Greenglass, Rosenburgs) are great too.

People like Curtis LeMay, Leslie Groves, Robert McNamara (to a lesser extent), and J. Robert Oppenheimer fascinate me. LeMay and Groves are the two I'm really wanting to know about right now, but pretty much anyone high in the chain of command of the US military in that era would be good too. If you know of any others like them that you think would be interesting to learn about please mention them as well.

I'm not against any books written by someone with a clear political bias, so long as they remain factual with the presentation of their material. Thanks!

I don't know much about Japanese history, so forgive me if I make any inaccurate assumptions.

I recently read, in fiction, of a child talking about their love of meat and the lack of chances to eat any. The author describes it as "a reaction like that of children in the Showa Period (昭和の子供達のようにリアクション)".

This seems to imply that Japanese people (at least the middle- to lower-class ones, I assume) didn't eat meat often. Is that accurate? What are the circumstances that led to those living conditions and later impressions of that time like the above?

Thanks in advance.

I know François Hollande, as the president of France, is one of the chiefs of Andorra. The other one, I think, is the bishop of Andorra La Vella. Why he instead of the Spanish king, chief of the Spanish government, the other country with strong cultural and political connections to Andorra?

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What commodities made the Black Sea so valuable that Genoa and Venice would go to war over their colonies within it (Tana, Caffa, etc)? Looking at a map of the silk road it would seem that it does not go through the caucuses which I can only assume results in the region not trading in the commodities purchased from India, China, South East Asia or the like.

I have been binge watching Breaking Bad. In an episode the wife mentioned how the whole Watergate scandal was uncovered by a piece of tape. What's the truth behind that?

I'm having difficulty finding resources, particularly source documents. A contact at the US Army war college has been able to get me a few old term papers and such, mostly about the Polar Bear expedition. Other than that I'm stuck at the bibliography from the wikipedia pages. I'm not a historian by training, I'm an engineer so this is pure amateur territory for me. Can anyone point me in the right direction or provide some insight I may not of considered?

This new history channel show has "expert investigators" looking into the possibility that Hitler actually escaped to Argentina. I know this is a common conspiracy theory and that history channel has not always been straightforward in presenting more outlandish theories and instead presents them as facts for enterainment purposes. My question is the show at least credible in the investigation as I am finding it interesting.

I know a bit about their role as local law officials for the Shires, but how did their position stack up against other landed nobles? Were they landed themselves? Was it any more of a distinction to be a Sheriff? Did they have any authority over other landed nobles? I guess in short, what was it like to be a Sheriff in Medieval England?

I know France lost Louisiana/New France during the Seven-Years war, but what was the effect on the other American colonies (Haiti, Lesser Antilles, Guyana) and the French Indian possesions?

The Soviet Union tried extensively to forge some kind of a Soviet "new man" identity, trying to tie together the different ethnic groups of the Union together. However, as 1991 demonstrated, this was a failure and different nationalities went their own way. In the end, Russians in Moscow did not feel as though a Balt was the same ethnicity as them (and vice-versa).

However, if you look at the 19th century, you see western European nationhoods being forged from disparate ethnic and linguistic groups all the time.

France in 1789 was a mish-mash of ethnic groups from Celtic Britanny to Occitians to Cosmopolitian Parisians. Italy similarly created an Italian national identity when in 1860 someone who lived in Naples or Sicily would have viewed a Piedmontese or Milanese as foreign as a Frenchman, and what was the become the Italian official language was not spoken outside a small percentage of people on the peninsular. However, governments in both countries successfully created a national identity which subsumed regional ones in the 19th century despite those challenges.

So what was it about the success of those nationhood building projects and the failure of the Soviet one?