Hey historians,

I'm working on an assignment that requires me to describe the common peasants life in feudal western (european, more specific nordic) society. I'm sure some of the information I'm asking for has already been uploaded, but the search function is 'orrible, so if anyone will link me to some reading I'd really appreciate it!

It is a question that intrigues me

Generally people say that Jazz is part of the African American musical tradition, evolved from Blues and Gospel.

This makes sense, since most influential Jazz greats were blacks from the great migration generation, but the music sounds very different from delta blues, gospel, country, Chi-town blues and rock and roll, what are the precursors to Jazz?

In Gender Studies the term "patriarchy" has a certain meaning, which we probably all know.

However, I've also heard the term patriarchy used in the context of Latin American history. As used, the term seemed to refer to specific features of Latin American society which weren't shared with, say, the United States. So I was wondering if the term had a specific meaning in Latin American (or Roman, or Byzantine, or....) context. Also, is the term "patriarchy" an ancient term or is it a modern coinage? When did it first start to get picked up by feminists?

Thank you in advance for any thoughts.

There's a lot in the sidebar about books, but not a lot about documentaries, so I am curious.

E.g. When Christopher Columbus first met the Native Americans, before anyone had a chance to become bilingual in both languages.

I have three questions: Usually, a totalitarian government will exalt it's history. Why did the CCP decide on the opposite? If all written register of Chinese history was burned, how can historians study pre-revolutionary China? If the CCP wanted to erase history prior to the revolution, why does it allow the excavations of the Warriors of terracotta?

Edit- cultural revolution, not Great Leap Forward. Thanks for the correction /u/cordis_melum

The Greeks did know about all three places

I also wonder about stringed instruments eg. guitar, why are the bass notes positioned higher than treble notes, not vice versa? As a person who is playing piano and guitar it's of course logical that they are positioned this way, but why exactly, I don't know. Thank you for answering!

Were they all commanders during WW1? If so, why didn't Britain, France and the US have similar staffs?

I was just thinking about how insanely synchronized the entire world is today in regards to time. In every single time zone on earth people use the same minutes and even seconds. But before computers how did people keep track of that? When Europeans colonized the Americas were they on the same schedule, even across the sea? Have two different groups (countries, regions, universities, etc.) ever contested what time it is?

Hope I articulated this right.

Do we now when the guitar as we know it came to be?

Hello,

I'm a History undergrad and for a long time aimed to go the graduate study route and one day hold a post in a History Department at a major research university. But after reading a lot of the standard texts on theory and historiography along with the thinkers who have impacted the discipline the most over the past forty years, I'm less confident about why or what I should be doing in history. Chiefly, I am searching for an epistemology which would allow me to defend history to an external critic - if I were cornered and someone demanded to know what I studied and why, I wish to give a good response.

Why do you study History or teach it in a university environment? Why should the general public care about it? How is History different from ideology or fiction (a crass oversimplification of the postmodernist attack on academic history in the 1990s but you get my drift). Is History even worth practicing given the generational shifts in historical consensus?

If you have any perspectives to any of these questions I would love to hear them.

Thanks

I'm curious how US planners expected nuclear artillery would have been used. Once it had been decided to allow tactical nuclear weapons, who would have been responsible for approving individual fire missions? Would they use spotting rounds? What sort of targets would they look for? How many rounds would be needed for a single fire mission?

I have been reading Shogun by Clavell, and I have seen or heard of similar descriptions. Japan, and its culture, during the period before Meiji is almost described as a near-perfect culture. Supreme self-discipline, perfect architecture, 100% focus on manners, beautiful buildings and landscape everywhere, and so on. I am wondering how much of that is true.