PTSD was added to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) in 1980, but it has been around much longer. It's been called at various times through recent history "Soldier’s Heart" (American Civil War), "Shell Shock" (WWI), and "Combat Fatigue" (WWII and the Korean War).

Based on my research since the Vietnam War, 10-15% of combat veterans have experienced some form of PTSD. No matter what it's called, it's pretty clear that PTSD has been around for some time and fairly prevalent among those that have seen combat.

I have been able to find accounts of PTSD (or symptoms of PTSD) going back to the Middle Ages and the Crusades. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find anything more than conjecture when it comes to PTSD in Roman or Greek soldiers.

Is there any documentation of PTSD (or PTSD-like symptoms) in ancient Roman or Greek troops (e.g. Spartans). What is the consensus among historians (I know that consensus is asking a lot) regarding PTSD among soldiers in antiquity?

In Bright-sided Dr. Barbara Ehrenreich suggests that neurasthenia (a condition from the 19th Century similar to hysteria) was caused by Calvinism.

Her argument is, essentially:

• Calvinism demands constant work and effort to get into heaven
• In the 18th/19th Century for women, this work was things like soap making
• With increased industrialization in the 19th Century, women had less and less work to do
• The dissonance of women needing to work with less work to do, was developing an anxiety disorder

After looking, I cannot find anyone making this argument independent of Dr. Ehrenreich

Have any historians looked into a similar line of thought about neurasthenia or similar conditions?

I’m planning to take history at university and want to get ahead by listening to podcasts and reading more books on the matter. For my personal statement I’m being encouraged to listen to podcasts by academics (so YouTube channels like Kings And Generals won’t do it) and would love some recommendations. I’m currently listening to Dan Carlin’s “Celtic Holocaust” although I am wondering if his name is credible enough to be listed as an “academic”

Hello, first and foremost I want to apologize for my english as it is not my mother tongue. As you can see in the title, I have a question about Fiesole, which was called Vipsul by the Etruscans and Faesulum by the Romans. I have to write a term paper (maybe it's called seminar paper in English?) about this settlement. My problem is that I can't seem to find information about it's early days. In my term paper, I have to write how Fiesole rose to a prominent city and how it became almost unimportant after Florence's growth. Any scientific(!) and correct(!) sites, book recommendations are greatly appreciated! Preferred language of the source is german, but english and bulgarian work just fine.

With modern medication, we can survive simple illnesses such as the cold, flu and viral infections. But how did ancient people recover from similar illnesses? Especially those in the populated cities surrounded by lots of people, where infection and colds would spread easier. Regardless of your power and influence, it would surely hit everyone the same, right? Nobody would be safe.

The duchy of Brittany operated more or less independently from the French crown and was only incorporated into the monarchy when Anne of Brittany married Louis XII of France and her daughter, Claude, married Francis I. Additionally, the duchy of Burgundy was a constant thorn in the monarchy's side and was only absorbed into the Hapsburg empire when Mary of Burgundy married Maximillian I, Holy Roman Emperor and their grandson, Charles, inherited both.

Meanwhile, in England during the same-ish time, the dukes of Norfolk, Buckingham, Suffolk, Somerset, etc acted as full subjects of the king and several were flat out executed by Tudor monarchs.

So why was there such a difference in agency between French and English dukes?

Peter Wilson, describing the Battle of Nördlingen in Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War essentially says as much:

The Spanish also knew how to deal with the feared Swedish salvo, crouching down each time the enemy prepared to fire. As soon as the bullets whistled over their heads, the Spanish sprang up and fired a volley of their own.

But I don't think he says anything about it anywhere else in the book, like this is just a reasonable thing that reasonably well-trained troops could do and that (presumably) worked reasonably often! And I'm inclined to believe him, but if anyone could add more to whether and how this type of tactic worked in actual cases (that is, distinct from theoretical cases as to what a military thinker imagines well-trained troops ought to be able to do), and/or what other tactics troops were actually able to deploy in this "pike and shot" age that would be much appreciated :)

Does anyone know how the ancient greeks used to build muscle and the average "sportsmans" diet?

Title conveys all. Thank you in advance!

Forgive me if this sounds like a stupid question because I feel that our understanding of war is shaped by our modern perspective of the topic and probably also influenced by our exposure to the topic of large world-wide events of the second World War and later the Cold War as well and the amount of technological inventions that the people brought about to outwit their opponents.

Also, I think our media exposure to the topic is also a factor here, whether it is fictional or non-fictional, and more often than not, the topic is regarded as a large and almost an world-wide level so there is a chance of desensitisation here.

And from my understanding of the first World War, many thought that it would have lasted for a couple of months but it persisted and escalated to the deaths of millions and experimental technologies that brought more damage than expected.

The invention of the first tanks, chemical warfare, early firearms and planes were also involved.

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Though there is a bit of a puzzle here because some technologies have already existed due to the technological boom of the Industrial Revolution like early firearms and machine guns and artillery cannons.

The image that I was given was that it was a huge shock because the tactics had to be changed, technologies had to evolve rapidly, and people were killed in an instant because of machine gun fire or grenades or artillery shells.

But these technologies existed before, even though wars were not exactly in such a large scale that every superpower was involved because from my understanding, wars before World War 1 are small in comparion or the battlegrounds were not as extensive.

Also, the modern conception of war was also developed such as troops before the war were promised honor and glory but came back with shell shock and trauma (even though the second World War is also regarded as a glorious war because of the common goal to defeat Nazism)

So I am finding it hard to understand why the First World War was such a shock for everyone that it eventually escalated to more warfare and more innovation where nobody wanted to back down and where the aftermath led to the paranoia and the hesistance of another world war, and the trauma that this war has led.

I've always wondered, what was un-attractive about South India? How come it was never fully conquered by a Northern Empire, for instance the Mauryan Empire, or the Mughal Empire? What was the reason for them not being conquered?

I'm an American and I know that during the course of US expansion the natives were treated awful. It's discussed throughly in Highschool, but from what I remember we only discussed natives tribes that in habit our now modern day borders and nothing about the ones in Canada. I keep hearing that thousands of Indigenous people were killed or went "missing." It's hard to believe that Canadians would be ruthless enough to uproot tribes from their land just as Americans have. However, this could be the case of attitudes towards natives changing in the last few decades.

I know that African-Americans involved themselves in African politics and Pan-Africanism, but most of the discussion seems to be about the implications on American discourse, rather than Africa itself.

How was someone found guilty of a crime? Like, what systems existed that had the same fundamental function as our courthouses, attorneys, juries, etc. do today in order to prove guilt?

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Hey, guys. This is a question I can’t find much relevant information on after some quick searching around, so I thought to turn here. I hope it’s not a super naïve question or anything like that.

In order to narrow it down, we can go specifically to the regions the English would first begin to colonize on the continent (around eastern New England and the Chesapeake Bay area). Honestly, though, I’m far less curious about specific regions and more so looking to learn about whatever the most detailed systems we know of.

Not asking about what common punishments were or what was considered a crime (I have found info on that), just what we know about any procedures that were used for determining guilt and how punishment was went about being decided.

Thanks so much for your time!

I’m trying form a picture of how the oldest complete copies of The Histories made their way from classical Greece to at least the medieval era.

Let’s say there was a copy written in 400 BCE, we’ll call that an original (understanding that it was as close to the one Herodotus wrote himself as we can get). How would the entire text of the original make it to the 9th-13th centuries?

Were the medieval scribes translating from a Latin copy that had been copied multiple times throughout the span of the Roman Empire? So the medieval scribe was unrolling a Roman scroll from the 2nd century AD, making it something like 8 copies away from the original?

Any insight as to how ancient texts made their way into the medieval era would be greatly appreciated.

Quite a simple one really. I know the White Rose made leaflets and sent them around the country, but how many people did they really reach and did they have any sort of concrete effect on weakening the Nazi's hold on Germany similar to the French and Yugoslavian resistances?

The Japanese Empire of the 1930s-40s definitrly fits that description, but Japan's monarch was called an Emperor when they ruled only the Japanese people. Ancient/classical/medieval western tradition would usually consider that monarch a King, no?

So... what kind of meaning did the Emperor's title have in the Japanese language, and is there a known reason why it's translated into English as Emperor, and not King?