I am very interested in cold war historiography. Many of the top FAQ answers about what the Russians thought use Gaddis as a source, and while Gaddis seems to be highly respectable and has a vast body of work on the subject, but he is decidedly american and seems to be strongly influenced by Kenan. If I wanted to read Russian, or at least communist, accounts of the early cold war period, in English, what is available to me?

If there are no translations of Russian historians available in English what English works on Russian historiography are available beyond those of Gaddis, particularly what works challenge Gaddis?

"Seemingly" in that if two make sense under a specific philosophical idea, one always seems forced in (Example: prohibition covers alcohol and guns, but tobacco?). What was the logic behind this?

I am not sure if this the right subreddit, but I want an answer from the historical perspective more than anything else.

Anti evolutionary groups like to claim that holocaust is all evolution's fault and if Hitler hadn't ever been exposed to Darwin, the death camps would have never happened. That's clearly absurd, but how much did the Nazi party use evolutionary theory to back up their actions? I know they used phrenology and a lot of other pseudo science as well so in relative terms how heavily was evolution leaned on? Was it just one more thing shoved into the propaganda to give them a sheen of legitimacy or was it more core to their beliefs?

For example, the kings of Pergamon and the ancient tribal kingdom of the Maures (AKA Mauretania) left their entire state to Rome in their wills when they died. I wonder why they did that? Did they sense the coming storm and did it to avoid eventual wars with Rome, or were prior negotiations between these kings and Rome involved? Did they leave it the 'the Roman state' or to some Roman politician with whom they had a client relationship? Did they never consult their people or at least their kingdom's nobility before they did it?

Did this happen to any other kingdoms besides Pergamon and Mauretania?

I read that the one on battles in the Heike Monogatari were made up, since none of them were in the oldest version of the source. For other sources, how do historians figure out when a source has something that is too dramatic to be what happened or is otherwise questionable?

Right now I'm reading War and Peace and it is stated there that it is only natural that a wooden city would burn during such times and it was not deliberately set on fire. Is there any truth to this?

I'm doing a project tracing attitudes towards prostitution through three time periods -- Old Babylonian, Sassanian or Parthian, and early Islamic. However, I'm having trouble finding sources for the middle bit. Anyone have any drop dead sources they'd be willing to share?

Normally, conquerors are loved by their own country and hatred by the countries they conquered. This seems to occur even when the conqueror is ultimately defeated. After Waterloo, many French still loved Napoleon. But this didn't happen with Hitler. So, are there any other times in history when a conqueror came to be hated by his own country (excluding other Axis countries from World War II, of course)?

I know that the sale of Indulgences (Essentially sales of paper that promised the buyer to be saved from sins, or relatives rescued from pergatory, etc) were originally thought of by the Church to fund the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City. However, Indulgence sales ended years later following Luther's reformation. What I'm wondering is if the sales of indulgences eventually did fund the church, or if another solution was thought of to help finish the building. Thanks!

I've always been interested in that part of history but know very little about it, especially pre-Western contact. I was looking for some good books and documentaries that give a good introduction, somewhere to get started and get background infomation before I look into the more serious academic stuff.

Or would I just delegate to some underling? ...Or even just let the market control it's self?

I had alway have this questions for I don't know how long. Are people in Iberia more Roman or Germanic? I know that the Visigoths who were Germanic invaded Iberia and settle a new kingdom. But they also accepted Roman culture. It's been bothering me for a long time and I finally got around to ask.

This question concerns both Western and Eastern cultures. For example, would an ancient Greek ever express concern with some sort of "by the power of Zeus!" saying? Are there any writings that demonstrate a similar and commonly used expression in places like China or Japan?

I understand that tannin (from hemlock) was used as the substance that would change the skin's protein structure, but I'm wondering what sorts of hazardous agents would have been used in North America in the late 1800s in the beamhouse of a tannery.

Excluding ballads that involved specific historical events or people, were traditional ballads (especially Child ballads like The Elfin Knight, The Twa Sisters, Matty Groves, etc.) intended to have a sense of time and place for audiences? Were they meant to be contemporary to the listener, set in a specific historical era, or would they have been meant to evoke a nonspecific literary/mythic past?

(To put this in 100% anachronistic modern terms, would they have been interpreted by listeners as contemporary fiction, historical fiction, or as outright fantasy with no particular historical setting?)

I realize this may be too broad a question, given the huge variety of ballads, but any insight is greatly appreciated.