It appears the current zeitgeist in the historical field is that the notion that history is the story of great men is a relic of a bygone era and that that approach to viewing history is reductive and inaccurate. And so it seems that the current focus is more on how people lived and looking at history through a lens in which these great men are seen as a product of their time. It seems as though the Great Man theory has fallen out of favor. My question is whether this falling out of favor is justified or have we swung too far in the other direction? Do contemporary historians give these historical figures their due?

why is the byzantine empire known as the byzantine empire? like why do we call them by that name? just because the place where they placed their capital was placed had that name? but wasnt the city renamed Constantinople? please help.

So I’m currently reading a book about King Arthur and the Round Table (author: Daniel Mersey) and the book didn’t answer some of my questions. To what extent there’s actual evidence of locations such as Camelot or where the inspiration for the place comes from to an apparent existence of “Excalibur” being found in Croatia for instance. How much do we know to date about the Arthurian period? That’s my main question and also I think this helps to have a better understanding of these Arthurian legends.

Anyone have any good resources for photos of 1920s Harlem, NY apartment decor?

When Atatürk reformed Ottoman Turkish to get rid of a lot of foreign loan words how did he get people to actually change their speech? It seems much easier to do theoretically but to get the entirety of Turkey to drastically change they way they talked seems like it would have been impossible

Prior to the common adoption of things like machine tools and assembly lines, how similar would two sea fairing ships be in build and design?

Ships have classifications based on a number of factors like length, rigging, number of masts, etc. I’m trying to understand how two ships in the same class would differ.

Would two ships built by the same company be largely identical? Would two ships built to the same specs by a different set of ship builders look or function with significant difference? How pronounced would this difference be across large geographic distances (I imagine a ship built in London would look different from one built in Valencia).

Given that Crassus was annihilated by Parthian horse archers and that Marcus Antonius also suffered heavily at their hands, how do we get to a place where Ctesiphon is almost casually sacked at the whim of emperors during the 2nd and 3rd centuries?

In the Russo-Japanese War, Japan quite famously destroyed two of Russia's fleets — the Pacific and the Baltic. The Mediterranean fleet was spared merely because it was unable to exit the Black Sea. To make matters worse, the Baltic fleet was entirely destroyed in a single day at the Battle of Tsushima. Despite this, I remember reading in A.J.P. Taylor's The Struggle for Mastery that the Japanese were exhausted by the end of the war, and couldn't have a gone on much longer. A cursory glance at Wikipedia indicated that Nicholas II could have continued to send more troops to the Far East, but because of the specter of revolution, he decided to end the war, and focus on political threats at home. In 1900, the Russian Empire's GDP was about three times the size of Japans, and although logistics is never everything, that seems to corroborate the claims I just cited. In the end, from a strictly military standpoint, how decisive was Japan's victory over Russia in the war? Could Russia have continued or won if there had been no political constraints? Of course the Japanese obliterated Russia's navy, but how decisive was its victory on land?

Following Joseph Stalin's death in March 1953, the Soviet Union was led by a triumvirate of Beria, Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov.

In June, Beria was removed from power (having served as First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs). Eventually, in December, he was put on trial at the Supreme Court on charges of treason, terrorism and "counter-revolutionary thought" during the Russian Civil War, found guilty and executed (all on the same day). During the trial, Beria's various rapes were brought up.

Pravda did not announce the arrest until July 10 and stated it was for "criminal activities against the Party and the State".

If I were an average citizen of the Soviet Union during this time, what would I have heard about Beria's removal from power, actions (both confirmed or likely and alleged), trial and execution?

During the Gothic War, the Eastern Roman Army consisted of all kinds of troops, recruits and mercenaries: Heruli, Isaurians and others. Did all or most of these soldiers wear armors and uniforms of late Roman design (like comitatenses with standard/uniform armor, shield and helmet) or was it more a ragtag group of "Barbarian" soldiers with many different uniforms, mostly indistinguishable from e.g. the Ostrogothic or Frankish army?

While today weatherproof materials are commonly used, how were structures(forts,palaces,houses and forts) built at a time when such materials were absent? Could a small spell of rain ruin months of construction?

How did anti-semitism, persecution of Jews, and public hatred against jews evolved in Nazi Germany ? I am especially interested in the beginning of this process. What kind of policies were introduced initially, how people reacted and how their view changed toward Jews? Thank you.

I mean Japan counted on Kwantung Army in China (700.000 soldiers) so dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did almost nothing damages to japanese army and only when USSR declared a war to Japan in August 9 1945 (japanese ambassador in Moscow was informed about it in August 8) and started quickly defeating Kwantung Army (from August 9 to August 22) in Tokio understood that they had no chances. So dropping atomic bombs was more an act of intimidation for USSR, show to Moscow what USA had and what it can do, while japenese were just a victims for demonstrating American power.

I saw that Buddhism makes up less than 1% of the Indian population and about the same in the rest of the subcontinent. But most Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian and some South Koreans adhere to Buddhism. Buddhism is one of the Ancient Indian religions but is still a lot more prevalent in East Asia than in South Asia. Why is that?

I recently learned just how long time the ancient Olympics were held over and how many sports results are known in fact-dropping style, like winners, disciplines etc.

Surely, there has to have been someone that have accumulated all the sports results of said games, just like we do sports statistics today, right?

So if yes, where can I find the complete results of the events (that are known ofc) over the 291 games that took place?

It seems to me that almost all major sources of Norse mythology, as well as a lot of sources of history in general, are from icelandic authors. There don't seem to be many manuscripts from Norway, Denmark, Sweden etc. What are some of the reasons for this?

The nature of combat seems so much more brutal compared to modern times, but at the same time, violence seemed more acceptable compared to today. Soldiers also seemed to have been part of armies for a longer period of their life compared to today. How did this play a part on the psychology of those who fought in medieval conflicts?

Was that a thing throughout Europe / Colonizing countries? How did the general public react to those places? Did visitors actually view the African People as monkeys / animals? Was there a moral outcry at the time?

The Declaration of Human Rights was implemented in 1948 - in the wake of the atrocities of WWII. How was it even possible for Belgium to keep those Human Zoos open for another 10 years? Was that the reason it was finally abolished? What happened to the Congolese people afterwards?

How and when did political and social awareness start to kick in? Shockingly it's only very recent history. In the span of a lifetime it turned from something that was probably perfectly legal to something we can't even fathom anymore. What did Belgium do to make things right again?

I saw some previous unanswered questions here that I could probably respond to but they're more than 80 days old, can I still go ahead and do my thing? Is there an expected "waiting time" for answers?

Hi there, I'm struggling with the book some. Often she will make a claim, and I'll see a number at the end of the paragraph for a citation, but when I look at the references section it's for something else in the paragraph. Therefore I'm left wondering where to read about the claim, and even if the claim is true or not.

This is confusing because a brief look at her background as a historian suggests she wouldn't make eronious claims, and I get that the book is less for historians and more for laypeople, but I'm trying to read it more from a historian's perspective.

The most recent example is the claim that the US military currently uses "Indian Country" to describe being behind enemy lines, that it shows up in US military manuals. The reference from that paragraph has nothing to do with military manuals though, and when I tried googling it, all I got was a general referring to an operation to rescue someone in Iraq as going into "Indian Country." However, a spokesperson said that this is not in any military manuals.

So I'm left seeing that clearly the phrase is at least likely used unofficially, but the claim was that it's in manuals. Very long story short, how do I go about not even necessarily checking the claims made in this book, but simply finding more reading on them? Is the book good history?