Today:
Welcome to this week's instalment of /r/AskHistorians' Sunday Digest (formerly the Day of Reflection). Nobody can read all the questions and answers that are posted here, so in this thread we invite you to share anything you'd like to highlight from the last week - an interesting discussion, an informative answer, an insightful question that was overlooked, or anything else.
Hot blooded young folks are taking over our sub, but I was a bit disappointed that this question about hot-blooded young Victorian women didn't get an answer. I too, am interested in whatever gin palaces our heroines visit and whatever havoc they raise.
I am going to post my own answer, to the question: "Imagine two merchants in Persia, one operating in 810 and the other in 850, twenty years either side of Muhammad ib Musa al-Khwarizmi's famous work on algebra. Is there any big difference? Does the "invention" of algebra actually change the way business math is done or problems are approached?" by Ellikichi. I know that's rude, but it's rare we get a good history of mathematics question that I 1) notice and 2) can answer. Also, I've been studying Al-Kwarizmi recently, so this was a rather perfect question. This one had some nice stuff on what algebra is, and the context of Islamic mathematics in the Abbasid dynasty.
I hope that we get more questions and answerers on the history of mathematics in the future! I'm really just an amateur, so hopefully more knowledgeable will come along, but it really is a fascinating topic!
Let’s look back at the theme of the week! What did we learn about trauma? /u/sunagainstgold and /u/rimeroyal wrote great posts about historians’ treatment of trans-generational trauma
/u/G0dwinsLawyer and /u/Klesk_vs_Xaero tackled the question of the extent to which you can blame the fact young men joined fascist organisations in Italy and Germany on the trauma of fighting WW1
There were many great overlooked questions this week. Here are some of them.
u/grapp asked Did the Taino eat dogs?
u/handsofmoore asked Has birthday celebrations always been a part of human tradition?
u/riverstyx80 asked How were Christians treated in Japan during WW2?
u/gothwalk asked Where did Medieval monastic silence come from?
u/AclockworkWalrus asked I am a traveling musician in 1500s central Europe, what instruments am I likely to be skilled with?
u/grapp asked Did the Taino eat dogs?
u/Redremnant asked Were presidents in the past portrayed as controversial...as Trump is? Were they actually as bad as the media said?
u/GreenLitGatsby asked Why do black pastors speak with a particular cadence when preaching to their congregation?
/u/cleopatra_philopater answers all about Afrocentrism
I'm going to toss in an answer I gave as well, as I only responded to it several days after it had been posted. I expect it was well buried by then.