Hello all,

I'm interested in learning a bit more about how China's neighbours have historically interacted with their much larger neighbour (especially Tibet pre-invasion).

How immune were these neighbours to Chinese political and cultural mores? How successfully did they avoid tributary status, if they avoided it at at all?

Any book recommendations in this area would be most welcome!

What do historians today generally think of the lost cause myth? I've been reading about how the lost cause research has mostly occurred since 1980. I think Americans still don't understand the debate and reality of the causes of the civil war.

So many events happen these days, such as the Olympics, the World Cup, G7/G8/ Political Summits etc, that I was wondering if any of that sort of high level, high profile event got cancelled 100 years ago?

Or were they more or less seen as founding fathers, partially covered in mysticism but still fully realized as only humans

Thanks!

Hi everybody!

This AMA is on Okinawa, originally an independent kingdom, now the southernmost portion of Japan. We're going to focus on the history of Okinawa from prehistory to Okinawa's reversion back to Japan in 1972. One caveat, though: we are not willing to talk about Okinawa during World War II. Neither of us are military historians, and we could not do it the proper justice it deserves.

We are:

• /u/chuurakaagi is half Okinawan, half American and currently living and working in Okinawa. They are most knowledgeable about recent history, as well as the Chuzan Kingdom era.
• /u/limetom is a linguistics PhD student who works on Okinawan, as well as other minority and endangered languages of Japan and Northeast Asia, as well as the linguistic history of Japan.

So, ask us anything!

It's quite easy now days to have an extremely detailed map of a city just seconds after reaching it. In the Middle Ages, when all/most maps were hand drawn and quite scarce (compared to modern standards). How would newcomers have found their ways around?

As in people traveling somewhere just to view historical sites.

And how did they find out?

• Did Germans view the Soviet army as invaders or liberators? (<- Main question)
• Were they happy that the Third Reich had be overthrown?
• Did they feel protected by the American/British/French/Soviet Armies after the War?

A few years ago I took university courses about the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. I learned all about how unreliable these texts, and all ancient texts, are. The opinions on r/AskHistorians about these texts seem to be even more critical than I was taught (eg King David never existed, the Exodus is entirely fiction). I think it's called biblical minimalism?

I see the same extreme criticism applied to Greek, Roman, and Medieval European sources regularly on r/AskHistorians.

However, I think I've noticed a lot more uncritical acceptance of ancient texts when the questions and texts involved are about China, Eastern Religions, Islam, or the Non-Western world in general. I also remember reading about how preliterate (is there a better word for this?) societies' oral histories are now being reexamined by historians, when they were previously ignored.

I guess my question is: is Western historiography less critical towards Non-Western texts and more likely to accept the traditional narratives they propose? If so, is there a reason for this? If not, is there a difference in language used in different sub-disciplines that I'm not picking up on?

This is something that I've been thinking about recently because of a reddit thread that was on TIL about two weeks ago.

If you go to South America, you will see the influence of Asian immigrant, African slaves, or the native population on the culture except for in Argentina. In every country that borders Argentina you can see this, so why didn't it happen in Argentina? Why is Argentina so "white" when compared to literally every single one of its neighbors. I just always found it strange.

I'm honestly not sure if this is the right place to post this but here goes. I'm looking for a "medieval" century within Austria's history that could accommodate my story. I'm looking for information regarding weaponry, armor, quality of life, political systems, etc.

To summarize, I'm looking for your opinion, as historians and/or specialists on what a solid time period would be to write a novel set in this time period. I'm basically writing an adventure story centered around a "knight" or fighter of some sort and his involvement with the "kingdom" or whatever may be in place in that particular time.

Perhaps you could direct me toward some quality sources regarding medieval Austria that could help and I'll do the work myself? I know this isn't the most direct or solid question but any help you can provide is appreciated. Thank you.

I was recently in Croatia and found it to be almost caught up, in terms of development, to Western Europe – far more than Russia or other former Soviet/Eastern Bloc countries. Was this all because of progress made in the last 20 years, or was Yugoslavia already significantly ahead of the USSR?

I know she was a US size 12 when she was alive, but what size is she today?