I want to have a broad knowledge about the major events in western civilization, but it's such a big task that I don't know where to begin. Are there any good books that encompasses the totality of western civilization in a way that gives you a general idea of what the different time periods were and how they developed? I'd also be interested in listening to recordings of good lectures on the subject. Thanks in advance!

As stated in the title, I am very interested in the Indian subcontinent and the associated cultures. I am just curious what was life like in the region before European involvement.

Also, were there any sound recordings made of the speech of the surviving members of the antebellum aristocracy?

How many of them would live there and what were their living conditions like? Also, what would they do when their master was "out of town"?

For years I assumed (thanks, fiction) that marriage during these periods (edit: by which I mean from the HMA through the Renaissance, sorry) was generally between an adolescent girl and a middle-aged man. I've gradually learned through reading up on individual royal/aristocratic couples that it seems to have been more common for families building alliances and sealing peace treaties to betroth their children to each other rather than giving a daughter to a patriarch, unless there was no unmarried son on one side. But is this impression correct? And is it relevant to people other than royalty and the top tier of the nobility?

I went looking for previous questions in the FAQ and with the search function, and didn't find it. So hopefully this isn't an annoying repeat.

in hong kong on one of the outlying islands they have these caves called the kamikaze caves. the story goes that these were made by the Japanese during the occupation and were used by them to launch kamikaze attacks on shipping but it doesn't seem to make sense to me.

Though I understand that a light armoured train would be useful for protecting railways from raiding forces I am curious as to how the heavier armoured trains were used. Wouldn't it be extremely easy to stop one by simply breaking up the tracks?

As a side question I get the impression that the designs for armoured trains were never standardised instead you have a large variety of different models. Could anyone shed a light on this?

All the barbarian peoples and groups who migrated to the West at fall of the Romans, vandals, visigoths, franks, lombards, burgundians as examples, do we know where they first originated or came from?

If we do, how accurately and do we know why all these tribes seemed to migrate in a similar time period?

And why?

Thanks!

I'm watching Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States and he mentions that the U.S. had dropped napalm on Greek villages. Knowing what I know about the Vietnam brutality, is there any corroboration to this magnitude of disgust?!

There are several names that come up in this sub, of books written by non-historians, and people mention how these bring different perspectives to usual narratives . So which of these do you think are the bes written and the most interesting?

A relative is claiming that the women could own land, become the monarch and were basically treated as equals. How much truth is there to this?

Thank you for any efforts to reply!