My workplace (a large research laboratory) has a number of "old timers" that are likely retiring soon. Several of my colleagues have suggested I take some time to talk with them and preserve some institutional memory.

Does anyone have any resources they can point me to for instructions on how to do this well? I'm particularly interested in resources that are appropriate to the specific context of workplaces (or, even better, labs).

I saw the series Vikings and Athelstan (catholic priest) sais that there is no music nor art. Is that true?

I'll preface this by saying that I know very little about the American Civil War and might have the complete wrong idea, so sorry about that. I'm also aware that the Confederacy can be a touchy subject and some people choose to try and adapt history to fit their view on the subject. I'm from the UK so have no opinion either way, I'm just trying to better understand it!

Now, as I understand it, many areas fought for the Confederacy that really had very little to gain from slavery due to the terrain and scale of farming being employed meaning that the use of slaves really wouldn't have added anything to their economy. I believe that Tennessee had many such areas, while other parts of the state benefited more strongly from it.

To take that example, as it seems a tragic one, how did they end up siding with the Confederacy, especially with the large amount of destruction that happened on their land? How were they able to not only drum up enough support from those with nothing to gain from it, but also keep them on side while it was so heavily damaged by the fighting there?

It seems that the support for the Confederacy should have been tenuous at best, and the danger of counter-rebellion along with the destruction they faced must have been seen as an unsustainable option, or at least would have considered surrender when things started to stack against them.

So the Red Scare was motivated in part by the Soviets gaining the tech to make Nuclear Bombs, in part, thanks to its spies. From that point on there were fears of "Secret Commies" being everywhere and terms such as "Fellow Traveler" were allegedly used to denote hidden Communist Sympathizers.

While the Red Scare was likely exaggerated (extraordinarily so) I've got to wonder, is there any evidence of known attempts at secret "Communist Indoctrination" by, say, School Teachers and Hollywood Writers and the like?

It doesn't have to be effective or even all that big, but do we have any evidence of, say, a Writer slipping "the Internationale" into a Children's Cartoon? A teacher handing out copies of the Communist Manifesto to their students?

As a followup, did the Soviets make any attempt to infiltrate the Hippie Movement?

One thing that always jumped out at me when reading about the Meji Restoration and the Boshin War is that, as far as I have gleaned, the Imperial supporters were very supremacist and xenophobic (their motto was "expel the barbarian and restore the emperor) while still being in favor of westernization, while the Shogunate supporters were more open to western relations but not to modernization. This is only my shallow knowledge Of the subject, however.

This attitude, specifically of the Imperial faction, seems contradictory. Like they were saying "Our culture is the greatest and westerners are barbarians" while at the same time enthusiastically adopting not only western technology and military doctrine, but also much of its culture as well. Did anyone ever point out this hypocrisy? Were these fiery attitudes about expelling the barbarians just propaganda to stir up gung-ho samurai to fight for the emperor, even though their class would later be destroyed by the the people they were fighting for?

I'm reading Tocqueville for an assignment (Ancien Regime and Revolution), and he's mentioning how the feudal order in Europe, which heavily enforced social differences, was built on the ruins of the more egalitarian Roman system. Is this true? If I were a plebeian wronged by a patrician, would my rights in a roman court have been enforced? Was it considered a sacrilege for a patrician to chat with a plebeian on the street or in a shop?

Trotskyists and anarchists frequently accuse the Stalinists of the PCE - and each other - of being responsible for the ultimate defeat of the Spanish Republican forces during the Civil War. How true is this?

More generally, the impression one gets is that the left was far more popular in Spain than the right, with Franco being supported mainly by aristocrats and clergy - how did his regime build popular support, and how did it avoid an insurgency?

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The latter is just as violently anti-monarchical/revolutionary as the former, yet it was popular in the First Empire.

I was vacationing in the British Isles this summer and visited a few medieval castles in that time. Each time this question came to mind.

I can see how they are good for short term protection of people and possessions. If your enemy shows up you can pull everyone inside and keep them safe. You can store your food, supplies, valuables, etc. in the castle so that your enemy can't just walk off with them.

But it seems like this is ultimately a bad idea. What if the enemy runs through and destroys/takes everything left behind? Heck, what if he brings his own people and just squats on your land outside of arrow range.

Does this make sense? I think I have a misunderstanding about the use of castles and how they helped rulers maintain control over their land, but I'm not sure what it is.

I am currently writing an essay on King and Malcolm X and was wondering if I could paraphrase some of his words (I already have more than enough quotes) and include the word negro in it or if I had to change it to something more acceptable. Thank you

That is: what was the consequence of it becoming possible to record particular performances of music and then sell copies of them to the listening public? Did this change how music was produced, or what sort of music was produced? Who were the early adopters of this technology?

I'm writing a text where I discuss where our modern democracy has its roots, and when writing about Athenian democracy I figured I needed to find out the dates on when the sources of the Athenian democracy was found. But I can't find anything that is "early enough" to be considered an inspiration to our modern democracy. So basically I'm looking for the first sources that say something about how Athens was ruled.

Someone offhandedly told me that Japan went from Knights and swords to cars in the space of a lifetime. What was it like for somebody who was born during their isolationist period and lived through it all up to World War 2? Were things like public education already in effect before the West made contact, or was it totally knew?

A friend made the claim this weekend that were it not for the American Revolution, the French Revolution wouldn't have happened. After he said this, I realized that I had always taken this idea for granted, i.e. that the French Revolution was directly influenced by the American one, and that somehow they were necessarily linked. I think a teacher may have said something to that effect at some point in High School, and the idea was never really challenged again.

But it seems quite silly when I think of it now, as it assumes an American-centric role in history. Both were certainly liberal revolutions, but the French Revolution was a response to French problems, and the American Revolution to American problems.

Nonetheless, is there any truth to the idea that the French Revolution was directly influenced by the American one?

A professor of mine insists that the USSR was, for essentially all of its rivalry with the US, at a significant disadvantage. He makes the case that the Cold War was "already won" by the time Reagan assumed office, but I feel like he may be biased by hindsight.

Did any respected scholars predict that the Russians would win the Cold War? If so, why? Did the prevailing international scholarship say that the United States would emerge as a dominant world power?

I'm especially interested in academics who are neither American nor Russian. The thoughts of somebody from a non-aligned state would be amazing.

The conception of the war as I've described is something that had always seemed obvious to me and the idea of 'Vietnamisation' being anything other than a farce, ridiculous.

I've been wondering though, this view of events casts the North Vietnamese as the Goliath force and the Sourh Vietnamese as the helpless victims who without the support of their western allies never stood a chance and who, when the support was no longer forthcoming, buckled almost immediately.

But why didn't the North Vietnamese require the overt presence of USSR advisors and regular fighting forces and air support to be able to achieve reunification under their banner in a timescale drastically shorter than the war until that point had dragged on for with all the support for South Vietnam had enjoyed until that time?

I understand that there was a great deal of material support from allies of North Vietnam, was it comparable in scope to that received by the South though? Was it really a near certainty that the events that followed would unfold as they did?