I have heard there is a derogatory for a historian as being described as Whiggish. Is it really bad to be called a Whig Historian? Is the historical approach of Macaulay and Whig history valuable at all?

Also, was Ethiopia or the land that modern Ethiopia occupies or the civilization from which a line of continuity can be drawn back from modern Ethiopia towards into pre-Christian times a Jewish or Jewish-influenced state?

Clarification: When I meant choosing statutory law over common law, I meant pure common law.

I can see arguments for both sides. For instance: judge made law is not law based on the will of the people. But, can't you just have representatives create statutes to amend judge made law, as a check and not create preemptive statutes.

My main argument against statutory law is that it is political and so tends to go towards the extremes. See: law like three strikes, high minimum sentences, gay marriage.

So tell me if you please, when and why did we choose one over the other?

Let's say I shark up a list of lawless resolutes, then we hire ourselves out as mercenaries. We get inside our employer's city and loot it, then run off, change our name, and do it again to some other poor sap. Did this ever happen?

I didn't find this question when I searched, so sorry if this actually came up before and I didn't see it.

I'm currently reading Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi and I came to the part in which Levi gained the "right to forty days' isolation" in the hospital. My question is why would they want Jews to have rest and get better? I thought if a prisoner is sick or unable to work they were automatically killed.

EDIT: I understand the part about Mengele. Nevertheless, people wanted to go sometimes for medical problems and they got relatively better and then released. Talking about avoiding hospitals isn't related to my question.

I realize the risk of this going over the 20-year rule, so please limit your answers to events that took place pre-1994.

My understanding is that Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (the LDP) has been in control of Japan's Diet for virtually all of post-occupation Japanese history through the early 1990s, even though Japanese democracy was functioning reasonably well during that period. Why were they so popular -- or were they? Thanks!

What happened to the embassies or consulates in enemy countries like the Russian embassy in Berlin when Germany declared war on Russia? Where they allowed to leave or were they held prisoners?

I just have some lingering thoughts over this subject, especially after having done some research in it.

The Thermidorian Reaction was the event in which Robespierre and his allies were overthrown by the more Moderates, arguably ending the Reign of Terror begun by the former group in 1793. During the Terror, some very very radical measures were undertaken by Robespierre and co., such as the Law of 22 Prairial (that I remember off the top of my head), that were opposed by a lot of the Convention.

So I guess my question would be, what caused this lashback against Robespierre? Can it be linked to one event, or is it an accumulation of events? Also, how much can we blame such events on Robespierre, the Jacobins, the Committee of Public Safety, etc?

When the battle over interracial marriage in America was fought, how did it happen? Was it made legal all over the country with 1 ruling? Did it happen in a piecemeal manner similar to how gay marriage is currently being fought? Was there a DOMA that they had to overcome, or was the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the constitution to where any state that legalized it would be an interracial Las Vegas, in that people would go to that state to marry, and then come back to the state they lived in still married?

During the Spanish Civil War, The Winter War and Israel's War in 1948, foreign Volunteers were allowed and welcomed by countries. Why has that notion changed?

It's a funny word.

For example how widespread was this problem from medieval to, say, Napoleonic times?

Is the idea largely a myth? I can imagine that the truth of the matter is that the aristocracy did indeed take up most of the powerful ranks in a European army, but that they were far from useless due to being the only part of the population with any sort of education.

Do historians in other parts of the world use the same historical periods than the western world? For example, Pre-history, Ancient History, Middle Ages, Modern and Contemporary periods. I understand that they don't focus on the same stuff depending on their culture and own history, but do they have the same great periods as a reference or is it totally different?