I've always been fascinated by syncretic religions, especially the combination of two wildly different belief systems. Recently, I've been fascinated by Santeria after reconnecting with an old friend (a Dominican-American) and introduced to his grandmother, who was involved with Santeria in some capacity. On the same hand, I've also been recently replaying an old, classic video game (Gabriel Knight) which gives a very interesting and, as far as I can tell, well-researched background on the various strains of voodoo and vodoun of the French-African diaspora, and it doesn't take a genius to see there's a lot of similarity between these practices and Santeria.

I am coming at this from a position of almost complete ignorance, from a few wikipedia articles. Can someone please tell me the difference between these religions' strains? What do they focus on? What do they omit? What differing relation to the original African religions do they have?

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What would people drink in North Africa and the Middle East, from 700-1500? Did the ban on alcohol create a demand for sweet drinks or teas?

What would medieval Muslims drink in poor rural villages, in wealthier urban homes, and in royal palaces?

Were there any known cases of high-status Muslims "sneaking in" alcohol? If so, was there a black market for liquor?

If I was a middle-class urban citizen in 10th century Damascus and really wanted something hard to drink, what could I do?

Did many people brew their own beers during this time? Was Ancient Egyptian beer (the solid and almost oatmeal-like food) still brewed and drunk after the arrival of Islam?

The Levant and parts of Anatolia were famous in antiquity for their wine. Did the wine industries collapse during the periods of Caliphate?

Crete was renowned in antiquity for its wine, and presumably wine production was the primary economic activity of ancient Crete. Under the Emirate of Crete, what happened to the wine industry? Did Crete lose all its economic and international importance?

Lastly, do we know what any Muslim scholars thought of the drinking culture of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Byzantine Greeks?

What was each side more proficient in on an individual basis?

How did each's specialty soldiers (ie airborne troops, special ops, sniper crews) stack up?

Note: late Cold War is (in my book) late 70s to end of the Cold War.

It seems like every major character in GoT is an incredibly skilled, battle hardened warrior. In medieval times was this common? Did royalty enjoy a sheltered existence or spend their time training with the best teachers money can buy?

Obviously I know of his responsibilities as Secretary of Defense. I don't really know where to begin on researching him outside of The Fog of War.

While reading about the history of Italy around the 1000s I noticed references to the Counts of Tusculum and how that family wielded extreme influence and power for about ~100 years. Can somebody give me an overview of this family and how they came to power, in particular how the women in the family had influence?

The Americans (this is all from wikipedia) had around 60,000 Marines engaging in an amphibious landing against 20,000 Japanese soldiers with fortifications. As far as I understand, 20,000 entrenched troops should in theory hold fairly well against 60,000 attackers. How did Japan lose the island?

I was watching some footage of Chomsky where he was talking about the October Revolution, and he brought up that, in his view, it was more of a coup than a revolution. He also brought up that the Bolsheviks were in fact a very vocal minority when compared to the other popular movements that were springing up in Russia at the time. What was the political climate like in immediate post-tsarist Russia?

Why waste resources and soldiers ferrying Jews and others across Europe to camps? Why not carry out their horrific plan after the war was won?

Was there a suspicion that the tide of the war was turning against them and they wanted to deal with the Jews while they still had the means?

I'm sorry if this question is inappropriate or based on incorrect assumptions! Please point them out!

The title pretty much explains it. History is just so incredibly vast and varied with so many nuances in even the most remote of subjects. So with that in mind, what makes a text a good text for teaching say...basic world history? How do you make sure that you do enough justice to the importance of certain trends, events, people, regions, etc. while still making sure that people understand the bigger picture?

With Basque Country so close to Catalonia, Valencia, Spanish speaking municipalities, Portugal, and France; all of which have Latin influence on their language, why is Basque so different?

A secondary text I use relies a great deal on Arturo Escobar's 1995 Encountering Development, but I'd be very interested to know how the conversation has evolved since then. Critiques of Escobar or other key sources to look at would be very much appreciated!

So I guess war bring captives. Captives are brought by Roman generals to their farms, their estates in Italy. And those farms become really important commercial operations. So I assume what happens then is that slavery is so succesful that it of pushes a lot of the Roman small farmers, the Italian farmers into Rome and other cities . And to some extent that dynamic happens in other parts of the empire as well. And that, in turns create an urban proletariat. An urban proletariat that, in some cases, makes manufactured goods but in all cases consumes goods. And those goods come from all over the empire. Thats why I call them proletariat

Am I right?