I know that now, it is nearly impossible to join the US Military with any sort of criminal record. I've seen several movies and read several books where either the main character or a supporting character committed some sort of major crime, and was given the choice by the sentencing judge of "jail or military service". How did this work? Were military standards just less strict in the past than they are now, or was this actually an official arrangement or program between the courts and the military? If this was an officially sanctioned program, why isn't it used anymore?

I am thinking of groups such as the Tanka in southern China and Kazakhs in the USSR. I am aware of James Scott's explanation that it is largely a way of exerting control and making the groups "legible" to the central government, but I am curious about other explanations. Also, how did the programs work in practice, and how much coercion did they use (the carrot:stick ratio)?

I am looking to learn more in regards to financial history / history of money (an example would be The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson or The Battle of Bretton Woods by Benn Steil) and did not see a financial history category in the wiki book list.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I word as a medical transcriptionist, that is my job is to listen to audio dictations where doctors report on a patient's care, i.e. detailed logs of an operation performed on them, and transcribe it to text. Lately I've been thinking about the history of this practice. Today the process is completely digital, but just a few decades ago doctors dictated on analog magnetic tape and people in my profession typed the records on paper using typewriters. In the pretty near future this process will probably be mostly automated through speech recognition.

But what is the history of this practice in general? Did hospitals before the prevalence of audio recording equipment keep detailed records of patients' medical history? Because the doctors sure as hell probably didn't have time to write it them selves, and dictating in real time to a secretary seems clumsy, though who am I to say it didn't happen? And what about before typewriters?

wasn’t the Zapruder film originally just some guy’s amature home movie?

If so, what other kinds of ideas have there been?

EDIT: In addition, were scientific breakthroughs heavily stressed during the war effort of these two nations, or was the focus mainly on increasing wartime production?

Bill O'Reilly has released a series of historical books recently, Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy etc. I am wondering if he got the history and have any of the books done anything to advance our knowledge of what happened?

My general impression is that the Grimm brothers took a bunch of German oral folktales and published them. In their original form the stories were extremely sexual and violent, which the Grimms toned down a bit. As the stories became embedded in the cultural consciousness and filtered into the Anglosphere they were toned down even further and restructured to have tidier, more Christian morals.

Is this outline accurate, and if so, can you provide a more detailed account of the process? How old are the stories the Grimm's collected? What did they change and why? What was the reaction to the first publication? Which later authors were responsible for further popularizing and bowdlerizing the stories? Why did people want the stories changed? What are some specific ways the stories have changed?

I was listening to NPR last night and they were talking about establishing democracy in Myanmar (Burma), and I wondered if there was any controversy in popular opinion with establishing democracy in the United States post-Revolutionary war? Was government difficult to establish? What was the transition like for "common folk"?

It has often been mentioned that Germany felt pressured to attack when it did because it was fearful that Russia would have economically and militarily surpassed it in 10 years or so. Now I have heard some things of the Russian military reforms which were supposed to be very promising. But what happened in this reform? And on economic terms, what were the expectations of Russia's growth? Where did this seemingly sudden growth come from?

My girlfriend and I were arguing about oil recently, and we decided that we want to read a book about it's history, as well as role in the modern world.

I am not looking for a book that paints one side of the picture, but something that can give us a good understanding of oil's benefits and costs (human and environment).

Thanks in advance!

Hi askhistorians,

I recently completed Mao: The Untold Story and found it absolutely fascinating and thoroughly referenced. It depicted China as a country on its' knees as Mao died post-cultural revolution, with almost all policies dictated by Mao and for his benefit - whether it grandiose personal visions or lifestyle, with no consideration for the welfare of the common man. My question is in the title; in what ways were China's economy 'liberalised' and in what ways did this allow it to become a model for the liberalisation of previously planned economies while preserving the political class in Asia (a la Vietnam)? How did these reforms improve the quality of life of those within China?

Also, if anybody has any books to recommend on post-Mao china I would really appreciate it, I'm finding it a little difficult to find one that focuses on the economic reforms of the late 70's.

A lot of media representations of life in Rome, like Gladiator or Spartacus makes the Empire appear cosmopolitan. Not all non-Romans are slaves, some are merchants, some are seemingly in a upwardly mobile or in a minimally socially comfortable position for the time.

The formation of race (and of chauvinism and supremacy) today was due to factors related to colonialism, surely that dynamic was present in Rome, albeit of a different form. What were race relations like in Ancient Rome?