They had the money, they had the fleet, so why not?

I'm mean works that take a long view of human history, focusing on the factors influencing human actions across different times and places. In a sense, I'm looking for a well-articulated "theory of history," so to speak.

I'm open to writers from a variety of traditions and approaches, I just want to make sure that what I'm reading is deemed reliable by people who know more about history and historiography than I do.

edit: I mean to focus on human history, not natural history, as "big history" might imply. I don't need to start with the Big Bang, more like primitive societies beginning with anatomically modern human beings. But beyond that point in time, nature has obviously played a big role in history and should included in the discussion. My apologies for any confusion.

I had a brief introduction to cultural competency training for native americans in California.

I have some questions that might all deserve their own stand-alone question in askhistorians, so feel free to pick which ones you'd like to answer:

1. Approximately how many groups were there pre-contact? How many are there now? How many of these California groups are federally recognized? Is it a sore point amongst Californian Native Americans over who has federal recognition and who does not?

2. What is the state government of California's track record for relations with the Native Americans? Is it true that the foster care system has damaged Native American communities?

3. How are LGBTQ peoples treated in Native American communities? I heard the phrase two-spirited: does this mean that Californian Native Americans consider these people to be both male and female?

4. Historically, did Native Americans in California have only two genders: male and female? Did they have any class of people that existed outside of male/female?

5. Is it true that roughly 2/3 of Native American communities were matriarchal? What does this mean in practice in the context of California?

6. What are the issues surrounding disenrollment from? They briefly touched upon the power of the group to disenroll members, but we didn't go into detail.

7. What is public law 280 and why was it passed?

8. What meaning does the (English) phrase "medicine" or "good medicine" mean in Native American culture? The speaker used these words a lot. Does this have a direct translation in different Native languages in California? How far does its usage date back?

9. To what degree to Native Americans in California have a shared culture as opposed to regional affiliations?

Monks were prolific copiers, scribblers, and writers so I would expect that they would leave some record of the internal workings of their monasteries. I am aware that break away orders would form due to ideological differences (Benedictines -> Cistercians, for instance). I want to know if we have records of similar political splits within individual monasteries. Would they compete to try to get one of their own appointed abbot? Would they recruit like-minded men to their monastery?

I was wondering. After Ford made the Model T and farmers and other blue collar workers stared buying them, did they know how to change the oil or a tire. If not, where would they get this and even more major maintenance done? As far as I know there were no mechanics to bring a car.

I have been reading about Mengele and also unit371 and often the articles give details about bone transplants and vivisections etc where the doctors would not use anesthesia... was there a legitimate medical research reason for this?

Surely on an operating table a sedated person or one who has been given a local anesthestic would be easier to operate on without the victim screeaming and squirming in place.

When Ukraine, Georgia, and Belarus, for example, belonged to the Soviet Union, they were managed as semi-independent nations. Did this form of administration occur during the time of the Russian Empire?

In "The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History" (p. 198), Peter Heather reckons nearly 100,000 people crossed the Danube with Radagaisius (including women and children), and that probably just as many Vandals, Alans, and Suevi crossed the Rhine a few months later.

How would they have crossed these rivers? Would they have boarded barges, or would they have built a pontoon bridge? Would they have crossed in small groups or all at once?

I gather from what Heather writes (p.199) that the Roman frontier garrison troops (the limitanei) wouldn't have had enough men to be able to stop such massive influx of people. How might they have behaved in such a circumstance? Would they have died to the last man, trying to prevent the enemy from crossing, or would they have strategically withdrawn into their towers?

How did scholars produce dissertations when specific texts may not be readily available? Flipping through books is one thing, but it's much easier when one can get the book he needs quickly if it is not online.

The title speaks for itself; from 1440 to 1806, with a brief interruption from 1742 to 1745, the Habsburgs held the office of Holy Roman Emperor. Though it was an elective monarchy, this made it a de facto hereditary monarchy like most monarchies at the time. So why specifically were the Habsburgs so consistently elected to the office?

To clarify a bit more, were there any places where ordinary citizens (or nobles, etc.) could look at or read old documents or statues, pottery, paintings, etc.?

Please note that I don't mean museums in the sense of private collections that the owners only had access to, but rather that the public could see.

Thank you for your time.

I was reading a blog, and I came across a series of references to the idea that Cuba fought in Angola as 'payback' to the Soviets in lieu of funds. Yet, this doesn't quite seem right, since I've also read that the Cubans were more interested in fighting in Angola then the Soviets, and intervened without Moscow's permission initially? What's going on?

Also, if you have any book recommendations for the Angolan War I'd love to hear them! Please!

Please note, this is a question about the practice of history. Not historical events.

So I completed my MA in History in August 2013. I enjoyed the experience in a sadomasochistic way. Researching whatever the hell I wanted was cool, being the creator of new knowledge was cool, and the experience of being immersed in a culture of academia and knowledge was a very cool thing.

The natural progression would be to go on a do a PhD at this point and make a career of it I suppose. However...

I took a year off after finishing for a few reasons and since then my life has been absolutely terrible. I bounce from one lousy job to another (when I have one that doesn't have periodic layoffs) and the only job I've had that has paid enough to move out of my parents house has been working at the lousiest job on the oil rigs, which is as satisfying as a toothpaste sandwich.

Although I did my MA in Canadian Labour history, turns out I actually can't stand labouring in Canada but I digress... Although this might be awful at 26, I can't imagine how bad this would be in my early thirties after I finished a PhD.

So my question (finally) is, what did those of you who didn't take the final step towards becoming historians do to find satisfying and interesting careers? How did you manage to stay immersed in academic culture?

I know this is a pretty broad question, but things have gone so far off the rails that I'm kind of grasping for straws.

I mean how some languages can be generalized by a fluency of sounds and how the words are projected, did the cultures choose how it would be when it was developing. Like how the Japanese language and French language have very distinct sounds and words to their language.

So I know that the idea that people use to believe was flat is an annoying myth, but what did people think was there? Did they just have no clue and didn't want to risk finding out?

This is a general question so if you know info about Asia or Europe, I'd like to know.

I've always wondered this and was wondering the historical basis behind this.