It seems that even during the first world war, many of the officers carried handguns into battle. When did this change?
1 Answers 2014-10-12
As an undergraduate student taking some 100 level history courses, I'm not used to the amount of information being thrown my way. Right now I'm struggling to remember all this information for my upcoming midterm. So I wanted to ask, how do learned historians manage to remember so much? Any tips for me?
9 Answers 2014-10-12
The Taiping Rebellion was a major millenarian religious movement in 19th century China that seized control of a fair part of Southern China and fought a war with the Qing Dynasty. It occasionally comes up on Reddit as an example of an extremely bloody conflict the importance of which is underestimated. The figure for the death toll which is often cited here is 20 million people total, which seems to come from this wikipedia article.
This strikes me as an extraordinary claim, for a couple reasons. First, 20 million people is a lot of people: the upper bound for all deaths during WWII including deaths from disease and famine, and the Holocaust, is about 80 million.
Second, there's the question of who was doing the statistics and demography. The Qing dynasty was not politically stable, obviously, and had reasons to exaggerate the death tolls.
Third, there are reasons to continue to do so. A 19th century Christian religious movement in China is not going to have many defenders, least of all on Reddit. Conversely, the CCP today has reasons to emphasize the destructiveness of the conflict in order to underscore the importance of controls on religious freedom, much of which are in fact directed at designated 'cults' like Falun Gong. There's also a tendency in official Chinese historiography to cite the extreme upper bound of death toll estimates as settled facts, sch as with the Nanjing Massacre.
As against this, it's not totally clear who compiled this statistic. According the wikipedia, Mao also praised the Taiping Rebeliion. The wikipedia article where the number comes from simply cites the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which is difficult to evaluate as a source.
2 Answers 2014-10-12
Considering that during and after its war against Spain, actual Belgium used to be part of the Netherlands. How did that region became two different countries and why?
1 Answers 2014-10-12
I know he died, and that the aftermath of WWII was intense and distracting for many world governments, but it seems odd to me, as an American, that it is rarely mentioned in primary and secondary education, and usually only in college/university history courses, and rarely spoken of if ever as a viable option for the US Federal government to adopt.
Did it face much opposition when it was proposed? Did FdR's immediate successors kill it? If not, what happened to it, and has it been seriously brought up since the 40s in the US government as potential real policy?
2 Answers 2014-10-12
What I mean is, has a hegemon ever peacefully allowed another state to split global influence, or let them become dominant outright? Is there any reason to believe that future power transitions will be more peaceful?
As a related question, do you consider the United States to be a hegemon?
1 Answers 2014-10-12
So there is really two parts to this question.
While watching an episode about Chinese junk ships, my father and I started discussing what happened to the Chinese when they seemed to have been the technological superpower early on. Recalling that the ships were still used during the opium wars with the British we wondered if the British stole many of the Chinese technologies. So the first question is what happened to the Chinese when they seemed so far ahead of everyone else?
This turned into a discussion about Churchill apparently offering technological secrets to America if they agreed to help with the war. Is this true? If so, what secret technology did America receive?
1 Answers 2014-10-12
Hello there, I am a 2nd bachelor's degree student in Modern and Contemporary History and I need just a little bit of help from you guys.
I know this is not like other questions that are in this subreddit, but I believe they're not against the rules.
So here's my problem:
As a student I have many 15-page paperwork to deliver in different classes and I love to do them, the investigation is by far the most fun thing I can do in classes and is what I want to do in the future. but I have a huge amount of trouble finding primary sources, aka sources written in the period of time about the subject I am studying.
I don't want to ask my teachers all the time where to look or what book to read. I have come many times to this subreddit and /r/History to check FAQ and Book List in here - amazing work guys by the way - but aside from that... how or where can I get some sort of list (or knowledge) saying where those books/documents are?
To be a little more specific - just to show examples - I am doing right now two papers, each 15 pages:
Crime during the French Revolution - Where I want to compare the moral code and laws regarding crime before the French Revolution and what happened during the Revolution (IF people didn't abide the moral code etc).
The Industrial Revolution and the beginning of the Capitalism Model - Straigh foward title
So where or how do I find primary sources? Is there any databases where I could check etc?
Thank you so much for your time/help!
2 Answers 2014-10-12
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Is there any evidence that these catastrophic floods ever happened or is it simply a psychological phenomenon.
1 Answers 2014-10-12
1.) Did colonial America celebrate Halloween? Did they have any Halloween-like celebrations?
2.) What about the antebellum South?
3.) What about the North?
4.) When did events such as dressing up in costumes and trick or treating come to be associated with Halloween?
1 Answers 2014-10-12
Was the Chinese system of property management and social relations really inefficient and the European system that much better? Also I'm curious as to what school of thought that Pomeranz comes from as this would help me understand his argument better.
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What do you think was the main impact of Ranged Weaponry during the Battle of Hastings? Are there any resources that talk about it? I've heard the Anglo-Saxon chronicle was quite useful. (By ranged weaponry in this case i mean bows).
1 Answers 2014-10-12
I'm basically hoping to interrogate the claims of a Wikipedia article, here. It seems to be presenting a very stereotypical view of the Victorians as a harsh and stodgy people, but all of this seems rather far-fetched to me -- especially in an American context.
Who can tell me what was really going on here?
1 Answers 2014-10-12
How is it that ancient China came up with the idea and so did medieval Britain etc? Seems like most major civilizations have their own version of what we would call Dragons. Why?
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