I am very interested in social stratification in England/France over the last 1000 years. I have a premise that revolves around the modern narrative of the middle class comparing it to previous middle classes and I'm trying to read as much about stratification as I can.

I remember reading about a 18th C. Sociologist who divided England up into seven classes ranging from the destitute to the truly rich while comparing their income levels. (I read this when I was around 10 in Horrible History's Gorgeous Georgians.)

If anyone knows the name of this English guy I would be really happy.

Also, I'm especially interested in relative incomes of peasants, knights, barons and upwards in Medieval England. I know it's a long time range, but anything will do.

Was there an etiquette for engagement with medics in the field? Were medics treated like regular POWs?

What was the origin of cuss words in any language/region? How did they develop? Did people start saying a certain word during a bad circumstance and so everyone else started associating it as being a "bad" word? Like when someone stubs their toe and automatically says "s&!t" or "f*%k".

Didn't know if I should put it in askreddit or askhistorians

I'm talking about reddit gift exchanges, the occassion "need money for _____operation/wedding/bill", and the "too poor to buy 'x'".

Also how were they exploited?

The programme called America Unearthed investigated evidence that there was a cultural connection between the Maya and Creek Native American peoples. This was in the form of language, architecture, building styles, art and cultural practises. However the programme was obviously more interested in entertainment instead of fact.

The programme did constantly point out that the idea was being dismissed or even suppressed by the academic community (they were also apparently refused access to the archaeological site that has the most evidence by the government), but all "experts" that they had on said that yes, there was a connection in some form or another.

Does this theory have any actual truth behind it? Or is it as historically accurate as Ancient Aliens?

I understand that it's not really possible to compare prices from one period to another, so please don't think I'm asking for that. That said, given what we know about the yearly income of, say, a soldier in 16th century Italy (which is to say a city like Florence, or Rome), do we have any record that would indicate the relative cost of a large musical instrument like a harpsichord? Or a small one like a flute? I'm just trying to get a sense of how accessible such an instrument would be to someone who wasn't wealthy, since instruments nowadays are brutally expensive.

Or, if there's not really a way to work that out, can we talk about that? I've seen references to records that say something along the lines of "a soldier would receive four pounds of bread and 2 pounds of meat a day," or something like that. Is there a way to roughly translate that to the cost of labor/etc for something like a harpsichord? I don't know much about pre-capitalist economics, so I'd be interested to hear exactly why a question like mine is impossible to answer.

In the late 80s and early 90s the USSR broke up and most of those countries embraced capitalism. Generally the idea was that communism had been discredited. Why then have the Asian communist countries (China, Vietnam) survived and actually thrived?

I'm currently in Kanachaburi where the bridge over the river Kwai is, amazing place and the museum and speaking to people here has taught me so much already but I have a more in depth question that I haven't had a satisfactory answer too.

I've read that Thailand and Japan had a cooperation agreement, even going so far as for Thailand to declare war on the allies. What was this pact borne out of? An already friendly alliance, the need felt to preserve Thailand from the atrocities other Asian countries felt or something else? Who brokered this deal? How was thailand viewed by other nations at the time for doing so?

It seems so strange to me being here that such a thing would have taken place so if anyone has any more details

Cheers

I understand that Republika Srpska is made up of Bosnian Serbs, but seeing as the majority of Bosnia-Herzegovina is made up of Bosniak Muslims, why wouldn't Republika Srpska become part of Serbia? For the most part, Srpska borders Serbia (and part of Croatia). Is this because the Bosnian Serbs want to stay part of their nationality, or did Serbia not want Srpska?

In Beyond Belief, Robert Bellah argues that the institutions that brought up by Islam in 7th century was relatively modern in its time. He notes the degree of commitment, involvement, and participation from the community, emphasizing an egalitarian character of Islam (how Islam expects all Muslims to be equal). John Esposito in his books on political Islam also shares similar argument.

My question is: how much truth is in this claim? Was the institutions brought up by Islam back then truly modern compared to other societies at the time (Byzantine? Sassanid? Tang Dynasty? Asuka-period Japan? Srivijaya Kingdom? African societies?), or compared to the pre-Islamic Arab?

I have this quote from Fanon

"From all these continents, under whose eyes Europe today raises up her tower of opulence, there has flowed out for centuries toward that same Europe diamonds and oil, silk and cotton, wood and exotic products. Europe is literally the creation of the third world. The wealth which smothers her is that which was stolen from the under-developed peoples.

The ports of Holland, the docks of Bordeaux and Liverpool were specialised in the Negro slave trade, and owe their renown to millions of deported slaves. So when we hear the head of a European state declare with his hand on his heart that he must come to the aid of the poor under-developed peoples, we do not tremble with gratitude. Quite the contrary; we say to ourselves: 'It’s a just reparation which will be paid to us.'"

How accurate is this?

Wikipedia only yields a cursory overview of the events leading the Velvet Revolution, but it doesn't really give an idea of what day to day political life was like for the average person. How accessible was party politics? Why couldn't the people simply vote in new delegates and reform it?

allow me to explain. none of these things are my thoughts or views i have no opinion on any of this, this is just a discussion. every year at my uni there are hispanic protestors gathering around campus protesting the fact columbus day is a celebrated holiday and they go on about things like he was a rapist, a murderer, a thief, he didnt discover north america there were people living there, he almost wiped out the native society and stuff like that. the general idea behind it is history is written by the winner. kind of like how in the US we think of General Washington as a brave hero but if he had lost society would have remembered him as basically a terrorist rebel.

well, my sister and i were just in south africa doing a volunteer program a couple weeks ago and the general idea in south africa with a lot of people is a lot of people dont like nelson mandella and said he almost caused a civil war and and he was a bad guy and that this whole idea of history being written by the winner and there being two sides to every story applies to him too, but nobody from south africa that we were with (people running the volunteer program) wanted to tell us about it bc they said it isnt appropriate for them to talk about race and politics in the volunteer setting we were in even though all the volunteers who were from the states or england wanted to know bc this is all news to us, though nobody in the volunteer group was particularly pro or anti mandella, we just thought it was interesting to hear.

so historians, i have no stake in anything he did, im neither black nor african. im actually a white Spaniard (what up columbus protestors!jk) im just looking for a calm discussion and dont want anyone to be offended. i just want to know for my own general knowledge. cheers!

What kind of things would actually occur during a medieval siege? What would the besieger do all day? What would the besieged do? Would the tactics differed widely from the time of Charlemagne to the siege of Constantinople?

I recently got the game Silent Hunter 4, and while I have some familiarity with land based military during that period I don't know a lot about naval warfare.

1. When firing a torpedo in the game, the captain needs to take a bunch of measurements and make estimations before firing. Was the captain really responsible for the following figures or were these split into different roles

• a) Identifying the target ship class (e.g. Ise-class battleship vs Mogami-class cruiser)
• b) Estimating target range using the stadimeter
• c) Estimating target speed
• d) Estimate target's angle of bearing
• e) Inputting all the above estimates into the Torpedo Data Computer

2. The game manual says that ideally torpedoes should explode right underneath the target's keel - as opposed to a contact triggered detonation on the target's hull. Based on that description, it sounds like ideally the torpedo should not hit the hull, but be right underneath the ship when exploding. Why is underneath the keel the ideal position? And given the magnetic detonator's unreliability, did most US submarine captains try for the magnetic detonation under the keel or fallback to contact detonation against the side?

3. Under what situations would a US sub opt to use the deck gun instead of torpedoes?

4. If using the deck gun against a steel-hulled ship like a troop transport or a merchantman, would they use AP or HE rounds - or what determinants would favor one over the other? I'm assuming that HE would be preferred against wooden hulled ships.

5. Which planes would the Japanese use to try and sink US submarines - did they tend to use single engine fighters, double engine bombers or dedicated flying boats like the PBY Catalina?

6. When traveling long distances, such as to get from the base to its patrol point, would the sub generally travel most of the distance completely surfaced, partially surfaced (i.e. only the conning tower visible), or something else? Would a submarine only submerge when it made contact with an enemy vessel or would it submerge as soon as it reached the enemy zone of control?

7. After launching a torpedo attack on an escorted convoy, would the sub stay and observe to confirm the kills, or would it normally begin exfiltration as soon as it fired all of its torpedoes?