Why is it that when we talk about the greatest Roman generals, we think about Julius Caesar, Augustus etc. but we almost never mention Belisarius even though he reclaimed almost the entire West-Roman empire in service of Emperor Justinian I? Has it anything to do with that he got accused of treason by his former secretary?

Like MCXIII or something like that. Did they have to translate them in their minds first or were they like 'oh, look one thousand one hundred and thirteen'.

Hi guys, I have a quick question about this. I get the general idea about how the North's economy was better than the South's economy, but I can't find any primary sources on this. There are many articles talking about industrialization and other stuff, but no primary sources. I've tried the library of congress, gilder lehrman, jstor, ebsco, and Google, but I can't find any primary sources! If you guys have any suggestions or links, that would be super awesome. Thanks!

With how far it is and how primitive they are how would they make the journey and then somehow end up living in such remote areas.

My professor told me he was in his mid thirties, but wouldn't this mean that Dante considered 70 years to be the lifespan of a person in the 13th century?

So I really like books that deal with mysteries of ancient civilizations. However, most of these are full of pseudoscience and complete innacuracies. Can anyone recommend any that are not full of pseudoscience and put forth some probable theories? Egypt, Sumeria, pre Spanish colonization Americas, places like that.

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I just looked a map and I saw how Alaska was so close to Russia. Im not saying its LITERALLY CLOSE but its relatively much closer to the Americas then the European powers.

So this sorta was strange how they had no strong presence in the Americas.

Is there a political reason? what was the reason?

By we I mean the USA. Like James Bond, or Roald Dahl anymore. The cool, classic movie spy type.

A rather specific question, and I apologize if it's the wrong sub for this.

I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable in pirate history, and I'm doing an article on my blog about ten pirates that deserve more recognition in Hollywood and television. But when I went to double check some facts, I ran into some discrepancies.

Basically, I understand that Long Ben captured the Ganj-i-Sawai, Levasseur captured Nostra Sonora de la Capo, and Sam Bellamy captured the Whydah. But whenever I try to figure out which of these pirates was the richest, I get conflicting numbers.

Forbes for instance, says Sam Bellamy was the richest. Meanwhile Long Ben's wikipedia page says he was the richest and gives the number of 54,000,000 pounds for his haul. But Levasseur's page gives a number much much higher for his own capture.

Is there a consensus richest prize then? Or are the real numbers not actually known?

Thanks in advance.

I have just began reading 1421 and have been surprised at the information concerning the Chinese knowledge of the world and the influence of Chinese maps on the journeys of European explorers. I don't know if this book is exploring history that I have never encountered but has been understood for some time, or perhaps it is truly exploring new discoveries, or perhaps it is an account of half-truths that make an interesting tale. How do historians rate the this work?

I can only imagine in my head parents took their kids into the voting booths. Since this amendment has only been around since 1971, I would assume people would know by then how it could be abused. Is it just an amendment to unify the voting system vs old state laws which would prohibit children from voting?

And how did they come to this conclusion?

I'm currently preparing a campaign for an old school tabletop game called "Lamentations of the Flame Princess", for those of you who are at all into tabletop role playing I highly suggest it, the campaign is set in the early 17th century with the campaign beginning 1619 in , specifically Europe but there may also be some vignettes throughout the rest of the world. Because the setting is not some made up pseudo-medieval continent with pseudo-English kingdoms but an actual place in a fairly well documented part of history I'm looking for some resources on making the campaign more authentic, and more importantly make it feel more alive by having historically notable events occur around the Player Characters. To that end I'm looking for resources that I can turn to in order to have a stronger familiarity with the setting I'm placing my players in to. I'm looking specifically for three things...

Resources covering key political, military, and cultural events in specific regions Books/academic papers ideally but documentaries, web articles or anything that could provide references and context in terms of major world events and how they would influence the lives of a traveling band of mercenaries... Also how would I justify a traveling band of 4-6 mercenaries in 1619? Was that something that even happened, could happen?

Resources dealing with the daily life of a person Things to read up on lower, middle and upper class life during the time period particularly with respect to how the Thirty Years War affected the lives of most people. How the witch hunts and invasions would have driven people to emigrate, where, and the general economic landscape of the time.

And this one may not be quite within the purview of this board but I have no idea where to ask it

powerful yet secretive organizations, real or otherwise, that existed during the time period Just some flavor for antagonists, no need for this to be 100% historically accurate.

Did some try to keep fighting? Was there ever an attempt to retake a coastal city or take on the german navy?

I'm currently working on reading through both Richard J. Evans Trilogy on the Third Reich while simultaneously reading Ian Kershaw's two volume Hitler biography. This is the second time that I've attempted to go through Kershaw's biography. I put it down after around five chapters or so due to what I perceived to be annoying moral evaluations polluting what is otherwise an engaging and well-sourced biography.

This perception hasn't changed and with the juxtaposition of Evans's work, Kershaw's emotional laziness and perfunctory neutrality has become even more grating. I understand that Kershaw's thesis is a reaction against Hitler as great man narrative, but I'm looking for something a little more detached from moral judgments and what strikes me as bad faith speculation.

To give a typical example of one aspect of what I'm talking about, here are two excerpts concerning Lanz von Liebenfels and Ostara:

Kershaw:

Whatever newspapers and periodicals he bought beyond those that he devoured so avidly in cafés, it was probably from this kiosk. Which exactly he read of the many cheap and trashy magazines in circulation at the time is uncertain. One of them was very likely a racist periodical called Ostara. The magazine, which first appeared in 1905, was the product of the extraordinary and warped imagination of an eccentric former Cistercian monk, who came to be known as Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (though his real name was plain Adolf Lanz).

Evans:

To be sure, for all the discussion and debate over these issues, the effect that such ideas had on government policies and their implementation before 1914 was not very great. Beyond the scientific establishment, propagandists for the breeding of a blond, Aryan super-race such as the self-styled Lanz von Liebenfels, editor of Ostara: Newspaper for Blond People, appealed only to an underworld of extremist politics and tiny, eccentric political sects. Nevertheless, despite all these qualifications, the emergence of these ideas, together with the increasing role they played in public debate, was a significant element in the origins of Nazi ideology. Several fundamental principles united virtually everyone in this motley crowd of scientists, doctors and propagandists for racial hygiene.

I get the distinct impression that Kershaw is subtly moralizing here, whereas Evans is expressly avoiding doing so. In fact, Evans in his preface says (and to which I agree entirely):

[I]t seems to me inappropriate for a work of history to indulge in the luxury of moral judgment. For one thing, it is unhistorical; for another, it is arrogant and presumptuous. I cannot know how I would have behaved if I had lived under the Third Reich, if only because, if I had lived then, I would have been a different person from the one I am now. Since the early 1990s, the historical study of Nazi Germany, and increasingly that of other subjects too, has been invaded by concepts and approaches derived from morality, religion and the law. These might be appropriate for reaching a judgment on whether or not some individual or group should be awarded compensation for sufferings endured under the Nazis, or on the other hand forced to make restitution in some form or other for sufferings inflicted on others, and in these contexts it is not only legitimate but also important to apply them. But they do not belong in a work of history.

Whereas Kershaw says tangentially in his preface:

A feasible inbuilt danger in any biographical approach is that it demands a level of empathy with the subject which can easily slide over into sympathy, perhaps even hidden or partial admiration. The pages which follow must stand witness to the avoidance of this risk.  Perhaps, in fact, it is even the case that comprehensive repulsion more than the possibility of sympathy poses the greater drawback to insight.

I feel that the second risk—that of repulsion—is still coloring Kershaw's interpretations. And frankly, when it comes to biographies of individuals and movements that already suffer overwhelmingly from “comprehensive repulsion,” I would prefer works on them that slide into sympathy rather than the opposite.

So with this, to those who specialize in this area, are there slightly less authoritative biographies of Hitler that are more in the vein of Evans's stylistic approach? Or should I just stick through it for the sake of Kershaw's comprehensive research?