My piece on what Truman knew (and didn't) about Hiroshima as a target it published! It is chapter 3 in Michael D. Gordin and G. John Ikenberry, eds., The Age of Hiroshima (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2020). 5 years in the making, easily! And my first publication of the new decade. I think this my most historically contentious and interesting article I've ever published, and I'm quite proud of it.

If anyone wants a PDF of my article, send me a PM and we'll make it happen.

I'm now the new mod of r/writinghistory. Join us. I hope to make this a solid place to discuss researching and writing history.

How hard is acceptance into MA programs? I’m trying to do near eastern language and culture and I don’t really know how much published research I need to be a competitive candidate for admittance

I have a question.

The Serbs in 1995 wanted three enclaves or "islands" of ARBiH control in the middle of Republika Srpska control: Srebrenica, Žepa, and Goražde.

They then imprisoned 20000-25000 muslim women and children along with like 10000 muslim men.

Why did they choose to genocide them and not use these prisoners as leverage or bargaining chips to get the three enclaves they wanted?

It seems like every other genocide I explore there's a clear provocation or underlying reason behind it but this just seems incredibly stupid from a military standpoint and I can't find a reason why they would deviate from their goals just to genocide a group of people.

What sources do you historians think are under-used or under appriciated in your field of study? What can they bring 'extra'?

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Are there any other William Gibson fans out there? His latest book, Agency, just came out this past week. I'm currently about halfway through re-reading The Peripheral, but I'm hoping to start Agency early next week. Anyone else excited for the new book? Anyone already finished it?

I’ve made a few disparate references to this before, but over the last few months I’ve been doing dramaturgical research for my school’s production of The Birds. For those who don’t know, being a dramaturg (as I like to describe) essentially means being a history/research consultant for a play: we research the context the play was written in, the context that it takes place in, production history, and other related themes and topics about the play and related to the specific interpretation you’re going with, and create materials for both the cast and crew, so that they better understand the role they are inhabiting, as well as the audience, so they can better grasp the theme of the play, and understand content that might not be clear from the text (like if you’re doing a translation of a play written for an entirely different culture, explaining things that would be obvious to original audiences but unclear to yours).

This is my first time really serving as a dramaturg, and it’s honestly been some of the most fun I’ve had working on a show in years. I got to do a deep dive into Greek history, both theatre and not-theatre, which has been fascinating. (I have over a dozen books about Ancient Greece in my apartment, and it’s great.) And this sub has been a big help, scrolling through a lot of old threads trying to dig up information and book recommendations. On Sunday we have our first rehearsal, and I’m doing a presentation for the cast to essentially lecture them about Ancient Greece, and will soon be sending out a 30ish page packet with a ton of information for them, so that’ll be exciting!

I think this is the biggest research project I’ve embarked on in college, which is interesting since this isn’t even for a class (though I do get academic credit for it, so there’s that). I suppose this also partially says something about my other projects, that perhaps I could’ve done better on. But this was something I was really passionate about, and some of the stuff that I want to do career-wise, so naturally I would put a lot more effort into it. (Plus I had winter break, and therefore time to do work.) Honestly makes me wish I had thrown in a second major or minor in history… alas, it’s my last semester, so a bit late.

In American dollars, how much would a Norse raider profit from a fairly average raid in England or Francia in the early Viking age?

Also in dollars, how much would a typical kit(weapon, armor, etc) cost a Viking? Would going raiding reliably pay off the investment?

What amount of profit from a raid would be considered a good haul? How was loot divided amongst the participating marauders?

HS teacher here.

Hoping someone one can point me in the direction of some easily accessible (i.e. short and easy to read) sources/historical fiction on non-Europeans in WWI and/or the Spanish Revolution.

TIA

does anyone know how to cite census data? I specifically need to cite (and find) data for the US population (and of the slave population) between 1790 and 1860. Thanks!

So about a month ago, I wrote a thing about the history and philosophy of science and Dr. STONE. I wrote it all in one day because I was trying to time it with respect to the final episode of Dr. STONE so I could submit it while it was hot.

Since then, someone else tried to x-post it to /r/philosophy, but the mods there told them they should just get me to post it, so they contacted me.

Since it's not really hot anymore, I can take my time with the research and stuff now. I feel like it's too long to be a cohesive question for the subreddit. I considered breaking it down into several questions and asking the subreddit over the course of days or something, but that seemed obnoxious. So I decided to just wait for another Friday FFA.

If anyone would be willing to help me make any part of this more accurate (with due credit, etc.), please let me know. I looked through the flaired users to see if anyone had an appropriate expertise but I don't think I was ever able to properly identify anyone.

I'd also appreciate just pointers at how to figure out how accurate this is, I really don't have much of an idea. I just sort of summarized what Larry Laudan said is historically the case.

Thanks for any help anyone's willing to provide me at all.