Hey, all, hope this doesn't break any guidelines. If so, I'll be happy to repost in an appropriate thread.

I use Goodreads to keep track of literature I'm interested in (1,970 books is NOT "keeping track"), and I've found the AH Goodreads account to be helpful with short comments on the listed works. Is there any chance it could be updated to reflect new scholarship or new contributors who wish to add works they found useful?

From what I understand, it is said that the bronze age collapse set back the progress of civilization. However were the countries in asian like China and India affected by this at all?

Is that the reason why Asia was able to develop writing and other inventions before the regions where the collapse happened?

Hey guys, so I was googling who the last Japanese soldier to surrender after WW2 was, and ostensibly (according to Wikipedia) it was Teruo Nakamura.

I noticed that the penultimate fellow to surrender, Hiroo Onada, did write a book. I look forward to reading it. I must say it strikes me odd he found the time to write it the same year he returned home.

I digress, Nakamura was apparently Taiwanese, and he held out in Indonesia somewhere. I'd love to read about his experiences as well. Thanks in advance :)

I once visited a castle in Switzerland that had a plaque about how the castle was owned by one family in the Middle Ages, who then sold it to another family, who sold it to another family, until it was finally bought by the municipality. Switzerland has a lot of castles, and it was a minor one, but ever since then I've wondered what the market for castles looked like. What was involved in selling a castle? Who was allowed to buy a castle?

Reading a book where it mentions a soldier was positioned to leave last for the higher chance of survival. How was this order selected and were there any negative reactions from being told to go first?

I was looking at this image of reconstruction of Palenque and noticed there were no maize farms surrounding the city. Is this incorrect? Also did the Maya have irrigation canals like Aztec? How were these farms structured?

I was never really interested in history back in highschool but after I graduated I've gradually became interested in history, but the problems I'm having are

1. I don't know where to start some day modern history then go back some people say I should start from Ancient history

2. I can't find any Biographies,documentaries no matter where I look so if any one could help out suggest what they watch or what they read it will be very helpful

Any help would be very appreciative!!!

I assume a plurality of y'all know that Kaiser Wilhelm and other German elites saw Britain as Germany's main rival. After all, it was Britain who ruled the waves and had the biggest empire. It was Britain (along with France) who prevented the Germans from expanding what little over-seas empire they had. And then there is Russia, a country that desperately needs to play catch-up with the rest of Europe in terms of tech and what not. Russia also has beef with the British empire.

Given this, it is insane to me that Germany and Russia did not team up in the latter half of the 19th century. I mean with Germany's engineering prowess and Russia's oil, population, and agricultural power (Ukraine was the breadbasket of Europe) it would seem to be a perfect match. It seems like an alliance between the two would have led to both of them controlling the world.

So why didn't a German-Russian alliance form?

I recently began researching into the "civilizing mission" and one of the major factors in support of this is that European powers spread the knowledge of industrialization to the countries they colonized, or at least sped up the process. I recently learned however that the first place to show signs of Industrialization was in Mughal Bengal, and that this industrialization was stopped when it was conquered by the British in the battle of Plassey in 1757 as part of the 7 years war. But does the fact that Bengal was going to industrialize before the British invalidate the idea of the civilizing mission, or at least in this particular aspect of industrialization. Furthermore, if the British managed to acquire the wealth necessary to Industrialize from Bengal, wouldn't it actually be the opposite? That the European powers acquired industrialization through the countries they colonized.

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I'd appreciate any insight, thanks.

Was there any science fiction literature before the Age of Reason and what was/is it like?

Was this a merely a turbulent time in Western Europe that prevented an organized/unified effort to provide military/naval assistance? I have understood many rumors about a Venetian fleet and potetial Catholic crusade to relieve the siege circulated during the time but never really materialized into any meaningful response from the West to this major event. Was this an intentional delay/lack of response or a matter of unfortubate timing to other world events/power struggles in Western Europe? Have always wondered why they seemed to have been abandoned outside of a few mercenaries. Was the rift between Orthodox and Catholic Christianity a factor?

Thank you!

Basically as the question asks, I am interested in when /how this practice became labeled as counter culture as it is seen and theorized to be used quite prominently in ancient cultures. When was the fall out with the practice? Why was the fallout? Many thanks!

From virtually the moment of partition, unifying Vietnam/conquering the Republic of South Vietnam was paramount to all other considerations, even if it took decades, even if the DRV leadership never lived to see it, even if 10% of their population was killed in the process. There seems never to have been a thought for pausing the war or postponing the goal of reunification to focus on domestic life in the DRV. Is it as simple as this: they had a nationalist, collective, and longer-reaching outlook that is tough to understand in the West?

My friend pointed out that I'm a Civil War historian and that this is similar to the Union invading the CSA. But they're not similar and that's what gives rise to my question: Support for the war waned considerably in the Union states, peace Democrats had notable victories, and Lincoln had a tight race for re-election against a peace candidate which could well have gone differently absent concrete signs of progress. It's less than four years of actual fighting from Bull Run to Appomattox. The CSA could do little to bring the fight to the Union (Unless you lived in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and only then briefly and with disastrous results). Compare that to relentless US bombing of the DRV. Union war deaths are estimated at 365,000, while DRV+VC deaths at 1.1 million (from what I can quickly find online, the Union was more populous than the DRV at the start of the Vietnam war and less populous by the end).

For example, Prussia had territory inside and outside the HRE, as well as some of the possessions of the Habsburgs. Was there a significant difference in legislation between the land inside and outside of the HRE? Or was it a question of taxation and nothing else? Thanks in advance

William the conqueror replaced the English nobility with normans, how genetically Anglo Saxon are the royal family and others? Is the queen more related to some random guy in Hannover or Someone the West Midlands?

I'm reading Neil Oliver's memorably titled, "Vikings, a History," and he argues against the idea that overpopulation and fixed socioeconomic hierarchy drove young men away from home. To quote, "They simply looked out from their own fjords and bays, saw how well the neighbors were doing in thier marketplaces, and set about claiming as much as possible for themselves."

It seems plausible enough to pass the smell test. But the author's only supporting evidence is a shallow overview of continental politics. Can anyone shed more light on how historians would assess one theory vs the other?

After reading the Wikipedia page on the Troubles period of Russia, and the transition into the Romanov dynasty, I noticed all associated pages that mention the False Dmitry convey an absolute certainty that they were actually false. I am not claiming or hoping they weren't, but I got curious as to based on what exactly were people really sure? Thanks in advance for any pointers. I just found this period of time so fascinating due to its shifting inner and foreign policies in Russia during this time, as well as of course, those strange characters that were the False Dmitrys.

I've been reading a decent chunk of Chinese webnovels in my free time. They're largely, well, terribly written power fantasies. But I've noticed a trend where when the military shows up, they often seem to be depicted as a sort of entirely different power that's barely related to the Communist Party. Obviously, these sort of books are going to simplify and be skewed in favor of telling a story, and will not be accurate. But with enough books painting a picture of a military with its own companies, compounds (that read different from a military base) filled with mansions for old generals and guarded by privates, and a disconnect from the general workings of normal civilian life, it makes me wonder how true it might be, and how that came about.

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To give an example, in these sort of stories, say the protagonist makes a friend with the child of a military leader or grandchild of an old veteran who fought in the Civil War. When they get into a conflict with a rich fuerdai (which seem to be a catchall for all rich sons and daughters of Chinese business elite) or a princeling (same as above, but with politicians) and are in trouble with either the police or some such, they can go to the compound and enjoy a nice dinner with their friend's family, and the police can't interfere and members of the civil service can only shrug their shoulders. The sons of PLA officers are expected to go into the military themselves where they become the next generation leaders of the PLA and establish their own separate power base.

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That sort of thinking seems pretty alien to me as an American, whose cultural experience with military kids is that of military brats who keep moving around the country, and whose parents identities as soldiers would be irrelevant in most cases.

So when I read about the decline and fall of western Rome, most stuff (even summaries of Weber surprisingly) focus on "why did the state fragment?" and tend to talk about people primarily in the sense that they are needed to keep the state running. So one question always lingered in my head:

If I'm an average person in the provinces or even a citizen (but not part of the political elite) during the 5th century or so - would it really feel like there is a big decline happening? Or would I experience it more akin to brits or canadians experiencing decolonisation?