I remember from my US history class that there was a famous economist who believed that either lowering taxes or raising wages would benefit the American economy somewhere in the 19th century.

I've been wondering about this for a while, so let me elaborate:Why did soldiers during for example the Victorian era and the reign of the British Empire wear such impractical-looking uniforms? Were they as impractical as they look? They seem to be very restrictive in terms of movement, so why were these worn? Did they offer good protection?

During operation Barbarossa their was a large scale relocation of Russian industry west of the Urals; how was this accomplished and how did it effect populations and economy after the war.

Reading the posts about the performance of the Red army in the Winter war, one of the main causes of their failure was that the individual soldier was allowed little to no initiative compared to the Finns. It was also mentioned that by 1945, the soviet warmy was 'entirely different beast'. I assume that it means several of the problems had been sorted out. But when we get to the cold war, we again hear about how the individual soviet soldier was allowed little to no initiative. and was almost a drone carrting out the last orders he had received. Is this cold war propaganda from the west? Or did the lack of initiative carried through the world war ? Why did the soviet army go back to such a rigid command structure inspite of their experience in the winter war?

What are some really good biased and unbiased sources on the Spanish Civil War. I have already read George Orwell's book on the subject. Documentaries and books are welcomed.

Were any of these specific practices started, or explicitly banned, in attempts to conform to the demands of papal bulls such as the Ad Extripanda or the the Ad Abolendam. And to make this question just a little more unpleasant; what exactly would be done for those who went through tortures that, intentionally or otherwise, permanently crippled them and were yet allowed to live?

I recently watched the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? because I heard good things about it. I also have read "The Historical Film as Real History" by Robert A. Rosenstone in my APUSH class, which talks about how we should analyze historical film in the context of different events and how it addresses the historical eras perennial interpretive issues. I was wondering how OBWAT portrays the New Deal because the was one of the big issues during the Great Depression. For example the movie "The Grapes of Wrath" portrays the New Deal as something good because Tom and his family go to the government run camp and have food, toilets and lots of things they had not had before.

I was a baby when the Soviet Union broke up, so the version of history I got in school was very hazy and unclear since it was too recent. I know you guys get a lot of questions about what caused the downfall of the USSR, but that's not quite what I'm asking.

When did the world realize the Soviet Union was done? The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, but Gorbachev didn't formally disband the USSR until 1991. I always hear that few if any experts predicted the downfall, but presumably they knew what was coming by the time Gorbachev made his announcement. Was there a date or an event that caused public/expert opinion to shift?

I realize there isn't an easy answer to this question, but I hope it's something people have researched. A potential answer to my question would be quotations from world leaders (for instance, when did George HW Bush first publicly declare victory in the Cold War)?

I'm curious as Namibia was German Southwest Africa, and, it seems to me (a non historian) that the West was pretty in charge of South Africa.

To start, I want to apologize if this is in anyway insensitive or juvenile. The question stems from a crude joke I made in a history class in which I compared the loss of American lives to Soviet lives during the Second World War. Afterwards, I reflected on the idea and I actually became rather intrigued. History is all about intrigue about the past and knowing little facts that help us better understand those that came before us. So to this, I pose this question.

To elaborate, I was curious how many kills (Essentially combat motivated deaths caused directly or indirectly by opposing forces) were totaled compared in a ratio to that country's own combat related deaths. As a simplistic example if say the United states lost five hundred men in the European Theater, and in response they killed one thousand Axis soldiers, their ration would be 2:1.

In a way, this would hypothetically determine how "efficient" a country's soldiers were during the war, with the understanding that this "efficiency" would be affected by a multitude of other factors. In general, I'm just curious on a statistical level.

The nature of the statistics, such as whether they include civilians, one specific country's losses compared to another specific country's losses, and what should be counted as a combat inflicted death is purely up to you historians. Thanks for helping me out with this tedious, slightly sadistic question!

Maybe not Maine, but some northern state.