I've read through the book list, and while it's fantastic, all the sources listed are in English and predominantly by Western authors. I was hoping some of the China specialists on here could help me find Chinese-language books on Chinese history - any period/focus is fine, I've learned Chinese to a fairly advanced level and now I'm looking to deepen my understanding of the country. Modern books would be preferred - Sima Qian and the like, while great, aren't really "hard" history.

On a side note, it might be worthwhile for the sub to compile a list of foreign-language sources to add to the book list. It certainly couldn't hurt to add more perspectives!

And do you find yourselves more equipped to recognize patterns that tend to repeat themselves in civilization? I find history is becoming more and more familiar with each post on this subreddit, and feel the best 'futurologists' would surely be historians. Do historians ever find themselves looking the other direction in time?

Edmund Burke, in his Reflections on the French Revolution, claimed that the Revolution will go on a terrible course. According to some sources, he predicted the Reign of Terror and the other atrocities attributed (rightly or wrongly) to the spirit of the French Revolution.

Thomas Paine's highly positive understanding of the Revolution seems to have been discredited by history — after all, the Revolution didn't necessarily produce a stable American-style republic but rather a republic that bore elements very similar to modern totalitarianism — the Reign of Terror and the other elements, for example.

So, was Edmund Burke's view right and confirmed by history, that the French Revolution was a deadly and ghastly mistake that has made us worse off? Or was he right to some degree, with Paine's positive view being ultimately confirmed in the long run?

As is my understanding that anyone involved in the French Government at the time of invasion was either killed or fleed the country.

So after it was liberated, how was it decided who would run the country?

Surely if all the French politicians were killed, and that left the common man. So they would have no formal education on how to run a government.

Enlighten me, would ya?

Iirc, the collecting of bottle tops to make spitfires was more a method of making people feel like they were contributing, rather than actually achieving much. I imagine that the same wouldn't quite be true here, but was there an element of that or not? How much of one?

So I've been reading a bit on the Welf Dynasty and I see that there's a distinction between the Elder House of Welf and the Younger House of Welf, from what I can tell, the last in the Elder House to be alive married into another family and formed the Younger House. How does that work? How did her descendants inherit the Younger House and not the Este dynasty, and why is the distinction made?

Or any other ancient civilization that still exists like greek, chinese etc...

Given what we know now. Also while this is pushing the 20 year limit , the crime clearly happened 20 years ago so I think it is allowed.

Was the view that it was about states rights and all that jazz prevalent during reconstruction? If not, when did it first start to pop up?

Was the concept always present? I can't imagine that slaves, serfs and peasants had days off.

Surely, especially with the tribes (is this the correct word?) in northern America such as Canada or Alaska, why didn't they venture out into Asia?

I was playing Total War Shogun 2 and I watched this little miniclip that talked about the Christian influence in Japan taken in by nanban trade, and how they introduced matchlocks. When were these guns first used? Were they immediately adopted as new technology or did it kind of trickle in? What were the effects?

If they thought they were in India or Indonesia, would they have tried speaking languages from those areas? and in the end, how did the different languages compare in structure and words? And how did they cope with having to learn to speak many different regional languages like the Muscogee or Hitchiti?

I am currently reading a biography of the German mathematician Gerhard Gentzen and I have noticed that some, but not all, of his letters are signed off with a variation on "Heil Hitler."

How common a practice was this and did it have special significance compared to other ways of ending a letter?

I've heard it referred to as the 'black legend' or something like that which implied few people were tortured or killed by the Spanish Inquistion which seems to have been put in place after Spain finished conquering the Moors in 1492. In popular imagination the organization seems to have killed and/or tortured 100,000s or millions of people, forcibly converted people. My guess is if really was so brutal we'd find mass graves.

What evidence do we have?

What did the governments of the European and Asian countries think or the people of the US, the Japanese and the Russians? Did they welcome it or did they realize right away the should never use these kinds of weapons again?