The topic of human interaction with (and mental categorization of) the spaces around them has become something of a hot topic in the history academy.

For our experts: has this topic been expressed in your work? For the period and society you study, are the peoples conceptions of spaces radically different from a present-day Western conception of spaces?

How do/did the people you study conceive of the local? the regional, the national or the global? Is there a distinction drawn between social space and personal space? Between public and private space?

What sort of evidence do you rely on to tease out your conclusions on peoples understandings of spaces?

Can you recommend any essential reading within your field on the topic of spaces?

I'm just wondering if anyone has found any good books or resources on the Republic of Ragusa. There are a few books out there on the history of Dubrovnik. That's fine, though my primary interest is in the independent republic. One thing I'm not interested in is top sights, walking tours, and Game of Thrones filming sites. It's getting difficult to sift through the crap.

So if anyone has any good resources, or knows that a more popularly-oriented resource has good information on Ragusa, please point me in the right direction. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

I just a random thought. I couldn't produce one off the top of my head and it seemed like any instance of it would be interesting.

I'm an English major; as you may know, oftentimes, it is valuable to connect a work of literature with its historical context (either the context in which the author wrote it or the setting for the work itself). That being said, I'm hopeful that someone can point me to some good history texts that are neither too general—a book on the history I would have learned in high school, nor too specific e.g. a book on the Punic Wars. Having taken in a few college history courses, I have a moderate feel for history; I want/need more. An example of the historical knowledge I lack: I was required to read Conrad's Heart of Darkness; I knew very little of the Congo Free State or King Leopold.

Any texts that will expound on continental/political movements such as imperialism and the like, while giving sufficient historical exposition would be ideal.

I am immensely interested in learning how old civilization survived, what they did for food, what we know about their housing and their weapons and so forth and even politics. As for what civilizations I am interested in, pretty much everything from ancient Mesopotamia to say the Renaissance. Huge gap I know, so I guess I'll prefer the older ones for now.

Thank you for any help.

Both of those countries have large ethnic groups from neighbor countries, Belgium has a large French and Dutch speaking communities while Switzerland have Italian, German and French.

Why didn't those ethnic groups stick with larger France, Germany, Netherlands and Italy?

I hope you understood my question.

Pre-Christian paganism ended up becoming the basis of a lot of Christianity and seems to have been greatly absorbed by it. However, it seems mostly anything today that I see that is Pagan is just new age mysticism and doesn't appear to have any roots to traditions and practices of the past. Is that a fair assumption?

My question is for any modern war (ie: with gunpowder, rifles, etc.), but I'll use the battle of Smolensk in 1941 to further illustrate my question.

I've read / heard that the Germans captured 300,000 Soviet soldiers. At what point do the Soviets know that they've been defeated? Does their leader just decide at some point to communicate to his men to all surrender and they just throw up their hands and hope not to be killed?

Now that the Germans have captured 300,000 men, what do they do with them? That would take a lot of logistics to bring them all to a prison of sorts. Do the soldiers who won the battle take care of this?

Edit: I only played the Eastern games up to the early 2000s. I did a google search and apparently the newer ones are now in line with the western ones. Still the question remains.

Just to be clear, I'm not asking about game design but tactical philosophy.

I've been confused about the legend and books of King Arthur. It seems to me that a number of authors wrote books over a several hundred year period. Could anyone who wanted to just pen a book about the gang? How was established canon decided on. Is it possible to compare this to say, the Star Wars expanded universe of books?

I'm thinking specifically of the idea that Lancelot was having an affair with Guenevere (Spoilers?), Wikipedia says this was invented in le Chevalier de la Charrette, did other writers just decide to pick up on this? Finally when the books were written was it the authors making up new stuff and writing it down, or did the legends already exist as part of the culture?

Hitler was brown-haired and not very aryan looking. Did he ever adress this in a speech?

Charles Hope in his book "A Horseman's Manual" claims that early Assyrian horsemen rode near the rear, a claim that is repeated on wikipedia as "However, these riders sat far back on their horses, a precarious position for moving quickly, and the horses were held by a handler on the ground, keeping the archer free to use the bow. Thus, these archers were more a type of mounted infantry than true cavalry"

Were there any major differences, beyond the lack of stirrups, in ancient horseback riding?

All the old pictures I see have every guy wearing a suit and tie as well as a hat as the norm. What happened?

If Spear men have an advantage against Calvary how were Philip/Alexander the Great able to use them against Greece so effectively.

Considering that Greece mainly used Hoplite formations that used spears it shouldn't have been an advantage for the Macedonian army to use horseman. From what I have heard the use of Calvary was one of the main reasons Greece was able to be conquered as a whole. Also, with Greece's hilly and rocky landscape it would not have been an ideal area for Calvary to be effective.

I am looking for detailed information on the evolution of European armor in the 14th century, specifically the transition from partial- to full-plate and the concurrent use and abandonment of shields. I am concerned primarily with armor used in actual warfare, NOT in tournaments or jousting.

I know some basics of this evolution, from the addition of small solid steel plates over a coat of mail in the late 13th century through the basically complete full suits of plate armor by the end of the first quarter of the 15th century. What I am specifically interested in, if possible, is a detailed decade-by-decade coverage of the transitional period where the number and complexity of steel plates increased.

As a corollary to this, I am also interested in the evolution of shields alongside this transition in armor styles. In the early 14th century, if I understand correctly, the standard knightly shield was the "heater" shield, commonly seen in heraldic escutcheons. By the end of the century large heater shields had largely given way to smaller bucklers or targes, or had been abandoned completely as the protection from a full suit of plate made use of a shield rather redundant. Again, though I am aware of the beginning- and end-points of this transition I am particularly interested in understanding this change in the scale of decades rather than centuries.

There is a huge profusion of books listed on Amazon about medieval armor, but most seem to cover a far larger timespan than my specific interest in the 14th century. I am also more interested in an academic-style work with detailed sources and terminology over a more "pop-history" introduction-level coverage of the subject. Any suggestions on an appropriate work to acquire for such in-depth coverage would be greatly appreciated.

I'm curious as I've been recently playing a lot of medieval games like Mount and Blade, and of course it being a game it's not going to be the epitome of realism (but I do think M&B is pretty close on medieval gender roles), however I would like to know if it would be possible in medieval times for peasants, or merchants, or low-born workers to ascend the hierarchy and become knights, counts, barons, or even kings. I know it could have happened in Rome (like with Justinian, and to a lesser extent Caesar), although it was harder in the Republic, but I'm curious about Western Europe in particular.

To be clear, I'm not asking for an alternate history here, where the French have successfully defeated the British on their home island, which was, of course, very unlikely to have ever happened.

What I'm asking is what plans did the French have when they drew up their plans for invasion, were they to have conquered the British? Were they going to merely dictate an end to the war, or were they going to overthrow the House of Hanover and establish a client state? Or did they not really have a plan ready to go?

"Good" as in effective, of course it was.

But was his leadership good for Germany, aside from the nasty things he's remembered for?

I'm pretty sure I've read an article about Benito Mussolini being gifted a specially made fasces by the esoteric circles of Rome sometimes before the Lateran Treaty, but at the time I was to busy to care.

Were foreign ambassadors typically stationed in other countries? Would they live in the King's castle? If not, then where?

So I was wondering. What caused some civilizations to associate a funeral with a somber gathering while others treat it as a celebration of a past life? Especially with the widespread concept of an afterlife I'm wondering if there were shifts in cultural opinions and what caused them.