Hey all, I’d love any recommendations for books on Early Celtic Ireland or the Irish kingdoms (basically Ireland pre-Normans).

The only resource I’ve found in the wiki is an older book from the 70s, so I’m hoping somebody has read something that they could recommend?

Thank you so much in advance!

How did Soviet system of ‘free’ housing work,

Is this the unique form of governance UK gave to its far flung colonies? Like minimal governance from London?

Marx is quoted as saying "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary" -- do we know if he armed himself and what with?

Were actors as famous as their modern counterparts or less famous (I’m guessing less famous, but I might be wrong)

In documentaries about 9/11, they always have a part where fire and police dispatchers put out a call for all personnel to get to the World Trade Center. Did this literally mean all personnel, leaving firehouses and police precincts with just skeleton crews, or even unstaffed? If so, how were fires elsewhere in the city handled? What about police matters? How long did this distribution of personnel go on this way?

How did the fall of the Roman Empire (western, cir. 476 CE) affect those living in northern/northeastern Europe? Did the end of the threat of Roman legions lead to more peaceful lives for the inhabitants, increased commerce, development, etc?

When the British and Polish perimeter at Arnhem and Oosterbeek collapsed during the failure of Market Garden, thousands of paras became POW. Most sources I can find (online) just state that they became POW. Is there anything known about the soldiers that became POW.

To my understanding, the German army was, despite the victory at Arhnam pretty much already running on its last legs and barely able to gather the recources for what would become the Battle of the Bulge, during which atrocities like the massacre of Malmedy happened, because of frustration, and a lack of time and resources to treat POWs well. So what happened to all those POWs? Where were they brought to? And assuming that many of them were wounded, how? And after that? How did they fare as POW? How and where were the wounded threated as a POW? And what did happen to the Polish soldiers? Were they treated different than the British and American POW's?

I listened to an audiobook, the Great Courses Plus, that claimed that the Western/Formal Han dynasty in the western area of their empire had a more centralized government (including the capital) with commanderies but in the eastern portion they allowed semi-autonomous rule with kings. With this narrative and kings being a potential threat, why in the world would they allow kings to rule in the first place, when they very well could have expanded their centralized government?

Hi everyone! I’m doing research for a smaller video game set in a small town/village in Feudal Japan and I could really use some help ti better understand the structure of and the daily life in villages/towns in Japan between the years 1400-1600 CE.

I have a couple of more specific questions on the subject that I quickly thought of but essentially I would like to know about as much as possible of a “normal” person’s life and the villages/towns they lived in.

1. What type of artisans and craftsmen would you commonly encounter in smaller towns?
2. Daimyo controlled a province(s) right? But did appointed samurai oversee single towns and villages for the daimyo?
3. Do someone know of any good resource where one can see the layout of feudal Japanese villages/towns online?
4. What type of entertainment was available for the peasants and artisans for when they did not have to work?
5. And finally, as I understand it taxes was paid in rice. Is this true ? And if so, could for example a fishing village pay with fish for example instead of rice?

Thank you for taking the time of reading and hopefully be able to answer some of my questions. Much love to everyone.

What was the attitude of various socialists in Italy towards Mussolini?

Hello askhistorians subreddit, not knowing this forum until recently I asked some scholars by email how a non-expert can evaluate the academic quality of a book, I received different answers is what I understood is:

• Publisher: There is very important research published without peer-review and very bad things published with peer-review.
• The author's credentials: a respected scholar might publish a mediocre work while a self-taught one might publish a masterpiece.
• Scholarly reviews: a reviewer might have an axe to grind or out of haste not have read the whole book
• Citations: The book may be cited frequently for criticism not necessarily because it is seen as useful.
• Read the book by yourself and make your own judgement: I was answered even so but for a non-expert this is impossible because the author of the book could have done cherry picking, not really consulted the sources cited or used them in a biased way.

So I can't figure out how I should proceed, what do you recommend?

Hello everyone, I’m very interested in the lesser known things about WW2 as I’ve studied it deeply and know most of what’s out there. However, recently, I learned that hitler tried many times to get Poland to ally with him and even respected Pilsudski very much, even attending a church service when he died (only time hitler was known to attend a church service as Furher from what I understand). Was hitler sincere in these attempts? Is there any reading material on this matter, i cannot find any of any real value or in depth information. I feel like hitler would of loved to avoid a war in the west and allying with Poland to destroy the Soviets seems very logical to me to avoid war in the west, and with the French-Polish alliance, I know this gets very complicated and Poland was in a tough spot. Obviously, they ultimately trusted the French and British more because of what happened in history, Poland received no real assistance from the French or British and then was abandoned to the Soviets afterwards but was there really a true attempted alliance by Hitler? . I just assumed hitler hated the poles because of territory issues and being “subhuman” to the Germans, I’ve never put much thought into it until I read a small article about it. Any information is much appreciated, thank you very much in advance!

I often try to look at historical revisionism as of us to re-evaluate and understand the data that we have so far and with the emergence of new data. I believe that this is also related to historiography because whatever data we have, is also dependent on how we interpret the data and how it is distributed to the public.

And from my understanding, the subject of history can potentially be misinterpreted which leads to inaccuracies or the need for further analysis of certain eras (such as inaccurate impressions or ideas about certain eras or historical figures like the Medieval era or the Roman Empire. The analysis of Edward Gibbon's book comes to mind); or history can be utilised, sometimes with the wrong intentions to fit certain agendas or ambitions which are usually political

(such as how Nazi Germany came up with the idea of the evolution of the Aryan race which is more pseudo-science than realistic; or the interpretation of the Greco-Persian war which was made where the Greeks are portrayed from a more positive light)

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And when we mention historical revisionism, it often involves some people's intentions to look into revise our understanding of WW2, the Holocaust and everything else related to it.

Very rarely do I find mentions of the need to revise history in other eras or other controversial events.

My question is why?

Is there any legitimate concern of the data that we have so far about the era or where there are certain gaps of knowledge in the data?

Is there a clear agenda in mind such affiliations to fascism or Nazism or another ideology or nation?

Or is it because of something else such as misunderstanding the information and how the era came into being, or because of another psychological phenomenon such as the disbelief of the sheer scale of the war (such as how some want to deny the existence of the Holocaust or the sheer scale and say that the numbers are exaggerated)

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I am asking this because I am a psychology graduate so I am more inclined to understand where these ideas come from and why because my understanding tells me that there is a reason behind this mentality, even if the mentality is flawed or biased

Surprisingly I don't believe this question has been asked yet in this sub.

I know that some Christian literature predates the suspected birth of Christ, while most well-known accounts of jesus of nazareth were written by people who indirectly knew of, or heard stories of a man people claimed was the messiah, but date after his death.

Is there not even a single appearance of this character in any writings that coincide with the years he lived, from authors who claim to have been in his presence? Or even any statements from figures who don't allege to have personally known or been in direct contact with him, written during this short period — or does he not appear in any preserved literature until after the date of his presumed death?

By which I mean, was there any kind of public health issue? Was there any percentage of the population going through withdrawals? And if so how was that handled? I did a small bit of poking around and I could easily find sources about there having been cocaine in the soda and why they stopped doing it but so far nothing I've found talks about the aftermath of removal.

How do historians view the above title? I just finished reading it, and I certainly enjoyed it and felt I learned a ton from it. But I’m a hobby-historical reader at most, and would like to know how members of the historian profession judge this book.