Firstly, I assume religious historians can be discussed in the subreddit.

As many of you must be knowing, her book titled 'The Hindus' has been found offensive enough by right-winged fundamentalists to be opposed against publication(albeit in a constitutional manner rather than a fatwa),and by ordinary Hindus for the sheer authority with which spicy claims are made without citations, support or relevance to current interpretation and practices...While I don't support banning of any book or idea, I read many ongoing debates regarding the incidence, and the following points struck me the most, which are relevant to this subreddit, and on whom I would like to hear from you folks:

1. Psychoanalysis: How reliable is freudian analysis considered as a means to analyze especially non-western civilizations? From what I have read, freud is considered as somewhat the Galileo of psychology; insightful pioneer, but not exactly useful for detailed analysis.

2. An important question asked to Ms. Doniger was whether she had a degree in psychoanalysis, to which she replied in negative, also affirming the fact that she was never psychoanalyzed...this leaves vast room for personal prejudice to influence her commentaries....so the question becomes: What right do historians, or any rational thinker, have to apply a technique of analysis, especially a field as abstract as preliminary freudian analysis, to something as complex as culture without a scholarly degree to do so? How reliable is such work considered academically?

3. For anyone academically graduating in a particular history, what is the influence of such books? For a layman as me, this book reached me precisely because it had controversial content, any other history publication will go without me even hearing its name.

Again, my question essentially pertains to understanding academic standards one needs to adhere to while publishing stuff via legitimate outlets, and how such work is understood in historian circles. If I publish a scientific research paper based on pseudoscience or outdated science, it would be openly criticized by acclaimed critics, where as in this particular case, I see all critics being labelled as religious fundamentalists, which is certainly not the case...

So he had three sons: Constantine II, Constans, and Constantius. These all sound like slight variations on the same theme, but was there some deeper meaning to them?

Any discussion of names in the Late Empire would be appreciated as well for anyone who has any insight.

I read that after Lenin's death, Trotsky was more popular and Lenin had even declared Stalin was not to remain in power. How is it that he managed to get the power even after this happened?

Forgive me if this has been asked before. I searched for climate related topics and didn't find anything addressing this question.

My limited understanding of cultural anthropology is that the ability to grow more crops makes food more plentiful, allowing people to take on other jobs which leads to technological and economic growth. So why is it that people groups in dryer climates where food does not grow as easily advance and grow faster than people in more moderate climates?

Ok, I collect things. Bottles, canning jars, telegraph insulators, and such, and I've noticed that in the late 19th Century, one often sees stoneware bottles and jars and insulators in Great Britian, while glass bottles, jars and insulators are far more commonplace in the United States. In my study of such things, it seems that the production and use of glass was far more common in the United States, while pottery and stoneware, and later proper vitrified porcelain was more common in England. Is there any particular reason for this? Did England lack the raw materials for an extensive glass industry? Am I missing something entirely? It seems to me that the United States more readily turned to glass for utilitarian objects, where England favored ceramics.

I heard the Vatican was one of the biggest enemies to Communism and I heard the Vatican looked the other way towards Hitler. I want to know if both of these things are fact or fiction.

Hi,
I've been studying WW2 recently and the common listed reason of the WW2 surrender by the French were a lack of political courage, having already lost, Paris being taken.

Before the start of WW2 France and Germany are often described as countries of equivalent force, but Germany's population was 70 millions in 1939 to the 40 millions of France. As I understood it, directly after WW1 Germany started a natalist policy, which France did not. As soon as Petain came to power he started a natalist policy. My thought is:

By keeping on the fighting they could have resisted some more, but the army was desorganized and they probably would have lost more men than the Germans. Therefore how important was the idea of preserving the French population number in order to try to catch up with the Germans for the next war?

Is there any litterature talking about this aspect?v

Sorry for my poor english.

In Taschen's Ingmar Bergman Archive, Bergman relates that during the filming of Prison (1949) both film and electricity were being rationed. What was the cause of this?

Was their reputation deserved? How did they earn it? How did they compare to the Allied generals they faced?

Seeing how it was recently the time of the Winter Olympics, some of the sports' history came up during my social studies class. The Biathlon came into discussion, and I mentioned how it originated. The next time the class met there was a kid who somewhat reiterated what I said, but said it originated during WII in Switzerland. I figured that it could have influenced the sport to some degree if it did originate there, but he then added this 'It was literally a few thousand men on skis that were snipering intruders and keeping them safe from the Germans that were attacking".

I've been told that Hitler never attacked Switzerland due to mountain terrain and the other difficulties Hitler would have had.

I did a quick Google search and, again, read that Hitler never attacked them. Normally that'd be enough for me, but this kid is a pretty arrogant kid that pulls lies out of no where and keeps to them. I figured you Historians would have a good enough knowledge to debunk what he said.

Thanks.

I would be very interested in seeing this!

I'm putting together a little bibliography about "how scholars distinguish between 'global history' and 'world history'." (Full disclosure- this is for a seminar I'm taking. I will of course get into the stacks myself, but no one said I couldn't ask you guys for guidance!)

I wonder if you can recommend any articles about this distinction, as well as maybe different works on the same subject that use either approach with a few words on what makes them different?

My sense, just instinctively, is that 'global' history is the history of a specific topic taken on a global scale. This would make it mainly a study of the networks and pathways of a given thing across national and geographic borders. For instance, is Gabrielle Hecht's Being Nuclear a global history of the uranium trade (at least the first part), in that it traces the economic and political networks that supported that trade? Or is global history a kind of history that shifts our perspective from traditional points of view? Being Nuclear is global in this sense too, as it forces you to locate your focus (and nuclear things) in Africa instead of the West.

World history seems to connote the kind of broad overview, in chronological order, that we get in big undergrad surveys (which, at my school at least, were called "Western Civilization 1&2", which is of course concerning). Is world history just the story of humanity from as far back as possible to the present day, covering all geographies? Or can you write a 'world history' of the 16th century?

I'd be very happy to post the bibliography when it's complete for everyone to use. Cheers!

Pick an indigenous tribe living within proximity to English settlers. Pretending membership in the tribe, describe to several counsel elders the “concerns” your society faces and what future issues may be of contention (1690) I need to hit on all the main conflicts/topics that any specific tribes faced during this time. Please and thank you Reddit

Did Common Japanese people posses books in the mid 1500s? When did it become common for Japanese commoners to read books or posses books?

I am currently writing a story in which my protagonist is a mafia associate. On December 7th, 1941 he is captured by police in Connecticut in the early morning. While in the police station, President Roosevelt comes on the radio and delivers the Infamy Speech. My protagonist is given pardon in exchange for joining the United States Marine Corps. Here's where I need help. If he joins the Marines at the point in time and in that location, where does he go? Where is he sent for training? What ships would he likely be deployed on and to what islands in the pacific would he have been able to go. My big thing is I don't want to have any historical inaccuracies or anachronic events.

Mainly I'm wondering if influxes of gold and silver caused any sort of inflation. Or were any discoveries not large enough to affect the levels of gold in circulation?

I am currently writing a research paper on the opium trade in British India. My (mis)conception was that there would be a fair amount of information on the East India Company's opium monopoly after the Battle of Plassey. I have found numerous articles/books regarding currency, administration, Warren Hastings', and broad surveys of the BEIC in India.

However, I have found next to nothing regarding the opium trade in India. Currently the only true resources I have are John Richards article, "Opium Industry in British India" and David Edward Owen, "British Opium Policy in China and India".

I have not been able to find a single monograph on the subject or anything remotely close to the information I am suppose to be researching with the resources made available.

I may be inclined to completely scrap this topic and pray I can salvage something before the semester ends. Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations?

I read Guns Germs and Steel along with another book, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. Both books present a similar theory, that disease was a major contributing factor in the decimation of indigenous Americans. But Vikings were the first Europeans to arrive in the Americas, did they also introduce disease? Why wasn't it as devestating?

I was in Chengdu's Panda Research Breeding Center and they had an interesting old painting in the hall where panda's were being used in a battle. The caption mentioned that tigers and other animals were also used in the battle. But I forgot when this happened. Is there any information out there on pandas being used in battle?

I dont want to argue that it was ruthless, but was it stupid?