I can't remember where I read it, but I've not been able to find a source to support or dismiss the claim.

Note that I'm not asking about 'British' soldiers, but soldiers from the United Kingdom itself.

After a few late night drinks I ended up in a discussion with a friend about how sexual acts have changed over of the course of time. We argued for about an hour about whether or not we humans were more or less sexual in the past. After a lot of words we realised that we have absolutely no idea what we are talking about so I decided to try and track down something to read. My first batch of googling came up with "The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault" as a good book to check out, but I'm concerned it my be a bit wordy and too scientific for the casual reader. Also it's a reasonably old book, I was wondering if there might be a newer book with a more concise history of sex that would be worth reading? Or is Foucaults work the best place to start?

Obviously America has various allies around the world, but the connection to Israel seems unusually strong. It seems like no serious presidential candidate, regardless of party affiliation, dares condemn Israel. Even under the current conditions, Obama insists on defending Israel's actions.

Historically, is Israel of strategic importance to the US? What gives?

Today, Germans are very open about what happened, even if it's embarrassing, but the Japanese seem to go on like they didn't commit any war crimes/crimes against humanity. Why?

Basically, im teaching a class about a theatre practitioner (bertolt brecht). and in the lesson, i also have to include a short game that demonstrates what his style was (epic theatre). Now i plan to divide the class up in groups of 3/4 and give them a topic present in brecht's time. thing is, i can only think of 3, and i need at least 5. So if anyone has any suggestions, about ANYTHING (brecht, epic theatre, issues) then please, dont hesitate to comment. thanks.

p.s. the issues i have are war, capitalism and dictatorship.

We hear a lot about the French collapse, resistance and Free French contributions, and something of the eventual French occupation of postwar Germany. I know much less about in between.

How enthusiastically did the French join their own, or Allies', units, how well were they able to reorganize if they did, and how much of a relative contribution were they able to make to the eventual defeat of Hitler and Japan?

i.e., was it seen as:

• Something trained warriors but not bored nobles could do

• Achievable, but Olympic ability

• Somewhat superhuman

• Absolutely mind-blowingly good?

The city of Geneva is surrounded on all sides by France. The people here speak French, and seem to have much more in common with the French Alpine cultures than with the Swiss Germans. This could be a massive misunderstanding on my part, but as an outside observer I see very little cultural difference between places like, for example, Evian-les-Bains (France), Mont Blanc (France), Lausanne (CH), and Geneva (CH), while this region in general feels very different from Zurich or Bern.

I understand some of the history with the formation of the Swiss Confederation 500 years ago, but it seems strange to me that Geneva was never just swallowed up into France at some point in the last half-millennium. Was that ever an option? Would the Genevois have favored it at any point in their history?

I'm reading Plato and he states that God must be represented as he is: good (part 3, book 2, education). I realise that Plato used 'God' and 'Gods' interchangeably so he isn't referring to monotheism. However, is Plato really saying that the Greek Gods were inherently 'good'? And therefore the stories about their misdeeds are false? If so, was this a common view among the Greeks?

Apparently the electors of the German States asked him to be emperor... Given his ongoing conflict with France, surely being able to attack them as England and the Holy Roman Empire would be much easier?

I realized while playing a game of Wargame that Soviet and Warsaw Pact tanks have anti-tank missiles far more than their NATO counterparts. I'm aware of the advantages and disadvantages of gun-launched ATGMs, but why exactly did the Soviets decide to pursue them far more than NATO's brief and problematic flirtations with them (e.g. the M-551 Sheridan and its Shillelagh missile)?

I've heard that the US imported grain in exchange for gold. I also recall reading about a British (possibly American) capitalist who had factories in the Soviet Union and was friends with Lenin through Brezhnev.

As far as I remember, some of the examples are:

1. The sun disk from Egyptian priest is used as halo for Catholic saints
2. The image of Jesus is similar to image of Zeus
3. Sunday as a day to honor Sun God Ra
4. The story of Jesus's birth, burial, and awakening is similar to Mithra

I know it is a novel, a work of fiction, but Dan Brown sometimes mixes facts with fictions (the artworks depicted in the novels are all real arts) that I get confused with differentiating which is fact and which is not.

Did our ancient ancestors suffer from acne like we do today and if so how have we not become immune to its effects?

Firstly, excuse my English grammar etc.

I don't exactly know should I ask this here but let me do out of my curiosity. I'm from Japan, and Japanese history class for high school curriculum is divided into national history which exclusive for Japanese history and world events involved our heavy presence from our perspective, and world history which is supposedly covering the history furthering down to each regions and also deal with worldwide intrications. My question is related to world history part, which most of the textbook has its emphasis over European history (from ancient Rome and Greek, throughout medieval ages, dismantle of ancient regime and bourgeois revolution and progress of industrial revolution, world wars and modern ages), while history of other regions including India, Arab, Central Asia, Africa, South-East Asia, Australia (and Aborignie), and Native Americans having less particulars or being supplementary of whole development of European centric history. Even inside Europe itself the "quota" can be dig down into like 45% Western Europe(Britain, French, German, Netherlands etc), 35% Southern Europe (mostly Rome, Greek, Byzantines, Italy, Spanish), and the rest for Eastern Europe/Balcan/Russia/Scandinavia etc. While my conjecture of the reasoning is the amount of historical bibliography and scientific research of European history exceeds that of the rest (which also could explain the reason why Chinese history is being significant part of history class exceptionally; there are tons of Chinese bibliographies we can find), I'd like to hear your answer from historian point of view. This question raises when I had my Indonesian friend showed me his world history textbook and it was almost the same thing with European history being the "protagonist" and the rest of the world are at the supporting role. But, there could be different textbook with different perspective, highly, so please correct me if Im wrong and Im eager to hear that.

The Soviet Union seemed to stay in direct competition with the United States for roughly 40 years; was this because they had a powerful economy and Communism actually made them into a wealthy nation, or was it more of an empty bluff of military and space investment?

Also, just out of curiosity, how did the Soviet Economy compared to independent Russia before and after the USSR?