Asked a few days ago if it was alright to ask after good books on a particular topic, so here goes: I'm interested in the Qing dynasty, as it coincides with the period in US/European/world history I'm most interested in (I've got this strange infatuation with Queen Anne's War). Plus, we don't seem to get any education in the US on Chinese history, which seems silly to me since they're such a large nation and have been writing things down for years.

There's a book in the sidebar list on the Boxer Rebellion,and I'm currently reading a pretty interesting book on the Taiping Rebellion. I'm more interested in events before this however, maybe pre-1850? Or just a general period/dynasty book. After I feel like I've exhausted the Qing period, I hope to move into Sun Yat-sen and Chiang and Mao and the 1911-1950 period, but it seems like there's a lot of literature on that time which is a lot easier to find.

While reading, I've come across a lot of the US State Department's concerns from the area, where they were convinced the elections would be like elections in a police state, with people being forced to vote a certain way. I also came across the Tito-Subasic Agreement, which was used to only allow Communists to run for office. However, Churchill also seems to have recognised Tito's legitimacy as an interim leader in Yugoslavia after the war, so I'm curious what the relationship of him and his actual election was. Was Tito elected in a fair election? What are some good sources to read more about the 1945 Yugoslav elections?

Say for example, due to lack of interest, popularity, or language problems, but historians still acknowledge the topic itself as important. Another question is if so, what other language has a disproportional amount of academia on this subject? That is aside from the native language, which other language has the most studies on the subject besides English?

This is a slight crosspost from /r/classicalmusic

There is a composer I am quite fond of named Chinary Ung who left Cambodia in the '60s and has had quite a good career with much great music. Shortly after he left, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge rose to power, and (as far as I understand) that was the death of arts, as well as most things that weren't working in the fields, for a number of years. How has Cambodia recovered from this? Has there been a recovery of any of their folk arts? I'm assuming that there is still not much of a classical music community there, at least according to my southeast Asian friends.

Hi r/askhistory! At my (British) school, we do an independent research project, and am thinking of choosing a topic that fascinates me in its under-reportedness- the Long War of 1591/3-1606, and its effect on the Ottoman Empire. My exact (working) title is TO WHAT EXTENT DID THE LONG WAR SIGNAL THE BEGINNING OF TURKISH DECLINE? Unfortunately, this means that research is rather hard. I managed to find SOMETHING, but it wasn't really enough, and I also found a book to buy that I have now forgotten (Somebody Taylor is the author?). I need help! Are there any good (English- I'm afraid I cant speak any other languages well enough to read an academic book) sources that you would recommend? The sources could be about the Long War in particular or just about the general decline, but any help would be much appreciated. By the way, if I am barking up completely the wrong tree, please don't hesitate to tell me- it is just an idea (and maybe suggest other related ideas?). Thank you very much everybody!

I am currently starting a new project examining the construction of forts in the British North American colonies between 1689 and 1715 and I am interested in learning about the actual process of fort building, which was so extensive across early modern Europe. I'm interested in questions like: How did engineers learn to build forts? How did they recruit the labor necessary? Who labored? How did engineers and other officers acquire the necessary materials to build forts? Any replies, including those with sources, primary or secondary, would be appreciated. Thanks!

Did the Aztec and Incan empires actually have that much gold, they never had a whole lot of metallurgical skills, but are still portrayed as having mountains made of shiney metals.

Source for the quote is page xvi of the book, paragraph 3.

I think it's fairly safe to say that a highly educated person from (insert country name) has a pretty good general understanding about their country's history, or at a minimum, could look most of it up. How would an educated Roman compare? Would their knowledge be of facts, or would they "know" that Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, sons of Mars?

Where is this Kingdom? Who were the people? Do we know of its history or what kind of ancient rules?

My understanding is that during the Industrial Revolution, it was pretty common for factory complexes to be surrounded by residential areas that were owned by the factory, and the workers would live in them. They are generally portrayed as the exemplars of authoritarian capitalism, but what were they really like? How did living standards compare to non-company towns? Did workers prefer to live in company towns or non-company towns?

Most of what I read is based on western tradition, such as the works of Homer and other Greek and Renaissance playwrights, storytellers, and historians. But in terms of amount of content, how does western civilization hold up when when compared to Farsi, Sanskrit, and Chinese? Am I just biased because all I've ever read is about western civilization, or is the amount of evidence and heritage from Rome and Greece superior to everywhere else?