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{ "a_id": [ "ci6ewsa" ], "score": [ 38 ], "text": [ "Was it possible that someone from West Africa crossed the Atlantic before the late 15th century? Sure it was, just like it was theoretically possible that Chinese ships crossed the Pacific. It is however extremely unlikely, first of all because there was no *reason* to do so, second of all because the rich islands off the coast of Africa that were not visible from shore remained inexplicably uninhabited (which would make no sense had there been a major ocean-faring capacity in the general region), and third because we have absolutely zero evidence (besides oral history about the departure of a one-way trip) to suggest this was the case. There is no unexplained presence of African ecological or biological markers in American societies from that early a date, and no evidence of influence or borrowing aside from artifacts that extreme Afrocentrists have elected to analyze based on the conclusion they already believe. The historical consensus is such a firm \"no\" that most serious academic writers on precolonial Africa (Ehret, Thornton, et al) don't really even address the prospect beyond noting that the story exists.\n\nOne can never prove with certainty that something *did not* happen, especially when there is no evidence that authoritatively confirms or denies it. But the preponderance of evidence points to a negative conclusion--even though I would absolutely *love* for it to be true, because of the prospect for tracing elements of African society and culture that may precede the great shocks of the Atlantic Age." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ca415gx" ], "score": [ 46 ], "text": [ "I'm sure somebody will be able to come along and expand. But I'll pull some information from the Native American history class I took. \n \nFor several centuries, the Spanish tried really hard to keep horses out of the hands of Native Americans, recognizing that horses were one of their biggest tactical advantages. And they succeeded really well for a couple hundred years. It wasn't really until the end of the 17th century that horses fell into Native hands. During the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, the Spanish were basically forced to flee New Mexico. When the surviving Spaniards retreated to Mexico, one of the things they left behind in the chaos was their livestock, including horses. \nComanche people were the first group to become a real \"horse society.\" By 1710, they were moving eastward at a rapid rate and came into major conflict with their Apache neighbors, who they virtually pushed out of their homeland over the next fifty years. They built a pretty massive trade empire in the Southwest, even treating Spain's New Mexico territory as a colony of the Comanche empire and forcing the Spanish to pay tribute or suffer increased Comanche raids. \nBy the 1750s, their trade network extended pretty far north. One of the more valuable trade goods was horses. The climate in the northern part of the Great Plains isn't really the best for horses, so it was the southern Plains tribes, like the Sioux, who became the really dominant horse powers in the area. \nAlong with altering inter-tribal dynamics (things like increased raiding/warfare and altering trade networks) the introduction of horses also fundamentally changed intra-tribal social dynamics. The most powerful guy in the tribe was now the guy who had the most horses. In the Sioux, dowries for brides were paid in horses. A system of horse \"rental\" was invented, leading to a kind of capitalism wherein one of the poorer members of society could \"rent\" some horses to use for a hunting trip in exchange for things like buffalo pelts. \n \nHope that helps. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cgrldov", "cgrmskh", "cgrmtdh" ], "score": [ 14, 5, 4 ], "text": [ "Vannevar Bush, who conceptualized information technology in the 1940s (as opposed to mere _computing_: computers then were just meant to perform calculations). Douglas Engelbart, who invented the graphical user interface as we know it. Cf. [the mother of all demos](_URL_0_) from 1968, ([watch](_URL_1_))\n\nWhat I find interesting is that few science-fiction authors came close, if at all. Some did, but rather more recently. In fact it's rather telling that David Brin is considered prescient for his novel _Earth_ that predicts a number of things (such as blogs) rather astutely ... but that was in 1990. \n\nTake the mobile phone as a more specific example. Almost nobody thought about it. Except possibly Star Trek. Star Trek TNG invented the iPad. I find it interesting that it took that medium to come up with practical inventions, probably because, unlike book authors, its writers had to ask themselves how it would look like when people would interact with higher technology. \n\nWe could ask a more general question. Who in history predicted technological progress? The question is historically more profound than it may sound, in that it requires a concept of _progress_ that is so pervasive to our culture today that we have trouble relating with those in our past who did not have it. Instead, the common theme was that of the long lost _golden age_. ", "Luhn's seminal paper from 1958, \"A Business Intelligence System\", predicted in many ways how information is disseminated today. From the abstract:\n\n > An automatic system is being developed to disseminate information to the various sections of any \nindustrial, scientific or government organization. This intelligence system will utilize data-processing \nmachines for auto-abstracting and auto-encoding of documents and for creating interest profiles for each \nof the “action points” in an organization. Both incoming and internally generated documents are automati- \ncally abstracted, characterized by a word pattern, and sent automatically to appropriate action points. This \npaper shows the flexibility of such a system in identifying known information, in finding who needs to know \nit and in disseminating it efficiently either in abstract form or as a complete document. \n\nIt's a bit hard to say if he predicted these systems or made they happen because of his work at IBM, but I think it does count, especially since his ideas are still relevant and fruitful.\n\nSome sources:\n\n- \"A Business Intelligence System\", LUHN, H. P., 1958.\n- \"Information Platforms and the Rise of the Data Scientist\", HAMMERBACHER, J., from the book \"Beautiful Data\", 2009.", "[Nikola Tesla](_URL_2_) did predict something very similar to the Internet in 1900, with the World Wireless System.\n\n[Huffpost article: \"Did Al Gore Invent the Internet? No, Nikola Tesla Did\"](_URL_1_)\n\n[World Wireless System Wikipedia page](_URL_3_)\n\n[DamnInteresting article](_URL_0_)\n\nExtract from a 1908 article published in \"Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony\" magazine:\n > \"As soon as completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction.\"" ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY" ], [], [ "http://www.damninteresting.com/teslas-tower-of-power/", "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/w-bernard-carlson/did-al-gore-invent-the-internet_b_3581391.html", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wireless_System" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cylea51" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "You might be thinking of the Ostrogoths and the first Kingdom of Italy. The Lombards are the gold standard of not having their shit together, but not all of it was their fault. \n\nAlthough the Ostrogoths had been given lands in Pannonia in exchange for the defense of the upper Danube, the eastern emperor Zeno came to the conclusion that the Ostrogoths were more trouble than they were worth (fighting with him, fighting with each other, and in a general sense just being another nuisance to deal with) so he convinced their King Theodoric to go conquer Italy. This way, they would stop annoying him, and he could also get rid of Odoacer, another potential opponent.\n\nWho was Odoacer? Flavius Odoacer, the de facto leader of the Foederati or ethnic \"Barbarians\" fighting for Rome (who by now made up most of the army) had deposed Romulus Augustulus when the emperor lost the majority of the army's favor (this was no cakewalk. Odoacer had to fight several pitched battles against armies commanded by Romulus' father and uncle). After coming to power, Odoacer openly admitted that although he might rule Italy, he was powerless beyond the alps, and consequentially didn't call himself Emperor. Instead, he sent the imperial paraphernalia to Constantinople and asked to be recognized as \"Consul\". Odoacer kept all of the functions of the Roman Administration in Italy intact, although there was a big political upheaval, there wasn't much of a cultural upheaval (Flavius Odoacer himself was so romanized historians aren't sure which \"Barbarian\" ethnic group he belonged to).\n\nOdoacer initially played lip service to the previous emperor Julius Nepos (whom Romulus' father had deposed), even minting coinage in his name, but may have been involved in the plot whereby he was murdered. Regardless, after the murder of Julius Nepos, Odoacer asked to be given the title of Patrician by the Eastern Emperor, and be recognized as the ruler of Italy under the wing of a single Roman Emperor in Costantinople.\n\nWhen Zeno sent Theodoric on his mission, he could afford to lose Theodoric's army as the bulk of soldiers in the eastern empire were still \"Romans\", as the large recruiting grounds of Anatolia and Armenia were not yet subject do destabilization (using the word \"Romans\" as they themselves would have: to denote citizens of the empire).\n\nTheodoric the Amal, King of the Ostrogoths, had been raised in Constantinople. His had lived within the Eastern Empire's borders for centuries. When Theodoric defeated Odoacer and set up the first Kingdom of Italy, he did his utmost to further maintain the Roman institutions, law, and judicial system. However, he did not rule from Rome, rather, he ruled from Ravenna, seaside city conveniently defended by swampy surroundings, and easily supplied by ship.\n\nSo here we are, soon after the \"Fall\" of Rome, the first Kingdom of Italy was established as a client state of Costantinople. Including Odoacer's rule, we can say that the First Kingdom of Italy lasted between 476 and 553 as a political entity no less stable (if not slightly more stable) than the late Roman Empire. Why did this kingdom end? Justinian decided to reconquer Italy. And he did. \n\nHowever, under Justinian we start to see signs of the Byzantine Empire's chronic manpower problem, and consequentially lost Italy in less than a generation. Although Justinian was definitely a great wartime politician (who was particularly good at picking the right man for the right job), his conquests stretched Byzantium's resources too far, and even sympathetic chronicles criticize him for being unable to defend what he conquered.\n\nThus, the sparsely defended Italian lands were easy prey for one of the last great \"Barbarian\" migrations: that of the Lombards. [The Lombards would contest Italy nearly continuously with the Byzantines from the 6th to the 8th centuries](_URL_1_). The Lombards moved into the Northern Italian Plains with relative ease, while the Byzantines would hold onto the Pentapolis (the five cities along the eastern coast of Italy near the mouth of the River Po defended by swamps and easily supplied by the sea), the city of Rome and its surroundings, and the easily-reachable Calabria and Puglia regions of Southern Italy.\n\n Between founding the second Kingdom of Italy in 568 and Charlemagne's conquest nearly two hundred years later in 774, the story of the Kingdom of Italy was one of near-continuous warfare with the Eastern Empire. The Lombards \"Went Native\" very rapidly imitating the Roman Imperial customs, establishing Mediolanum (modern Milan) as their capital. They subdivided Italy into various feudal subdivisions. Had things gone differently, perhaps Italy would have survived as a medieval state, and centralized as the rest of Europe did over the course of the renaissance. As those bizarre historical turns of events would have it, the Kingdom of Italy would again be dismantled just when the [Lombard King Desiderious (d. 786) got very close to finally kicking the Byzantines out of Italy](_URL_0_). A successful offensive saw the encirclement of the Pentapolis (that to this day are called \"Romagna\" since the Byzantines were the last \"Romans\" to leave) which allowed Desiderious to march south against Rome unopposed. With the Byzantine army cornered in the Pentapolis and fearing a loss of independence for the bishop of Rome, who had been pretty much guaranteed a free hand to rule the \"Duchy of Rome\" (modern Lazio) in exchange for nominal Byzantine rule and military access, Pope Adrian cried \"Uncle\", excommunicated Desiderius, and asked Charlemagne to come to his aid. Charlemagne, even though he was busy conquering what would later become Germany, was immediately flattered and marched for Italy.\n\nCharlemagne marched down from Germany in two columns, one under his personal command taking a westerly route, through the Valley of Susa, and another under his uncle, Bernard, through the Valley of Aosta.\nAn ancient system of walls called the \"Lombard Locks\" (Chiuse Lombarde) sealed off the valley of Susa, and defenses personally commanded by King Desiderius held fast against Charlemagne's assault. However, the Valley of Aosta was guarded by Desiderius' son, Adelchi, who had been entrusted with a much smaller force. Pushed back by the enemy at Ivrea, Adelchi was forced into a disorderly retreat. Desiderius withdrew to avoid encirclement, and barricaded himself in the ancient fortress of Pavia, while Adelchi withdrew all the way to Verona. Soon, Desiderius capitulated and would spend the rest of his days in a Belgian monastery; Charlemagne was crowned king of Italy, and Adelchi fled to Costantinople (which, in adherence to the principle, \"The enemy of my enemy is my friend\" saw the Byzantine emperor welcome the deposed prince now that Charlemagne was claiming the title \"King of the Romans\").\n\nBut Charlemagne, although crowned \"King of Italy\" had gone no farther south than Rome; he still had to subjugate the other half of the Italian peninsula. Or did he? Seeing Charlemagne and his army at the gates of Salerno, Duke Arechi of Benevento, a powerful and fiercely loyal vassal of the deposed King of Italy (he had married Desiderius' daughter) came to an agreement with Charlemagne. Sending his son Grimolado as a hostage to Charlemagne's court, he secured the right to continue ruling as Duke in southern Italy; and was even elevated to the rank of Prince.\n\nOn the death of his father, Grimolado was allowed to return to Benevento to claim the throne, on the condition that he mint coinage in the name of the Emperor, and demolish the fortifications that dotted Southern Italy. On his arrival, Grimolado immediately began strengthening the fortifications at Benevento and Salerno. Having made his intentions clear to the Carolingans, he then constructed a church dedicated to St. Sophia in Benevento; a direct challenge to the Byzantine empire, just in case they were harboring any thoughts of subjugating him. It looked like the Duchy of Benevento was independent and planning to stay that way.\n\nThe next hundred years would mark the ascent of the Principality of Benevento, and perhaps of Lombard culture as a whole; marked by the monuments constructed in Benevento would lead it to be called, \"The Second Pavia\" (which had been the capital of the previous Kingdom of Italy), and the great wealth of the city of Salerno, which became major mediterranean entrepôt, and become home to a renowned school of Medicine. Successive aggressions, both by Charlemagne's successor Ludovic and his vassals in Italy were successfully repealed, either by force of arms or diplomacy. However, instability would be a hallmark of the principality; as successive invasions by the Byzantine Empire would again reclaim the regions of Calabria and Puglia, while dynastic infighting would split the kingdom three ways by the mid 9th century; the Duchy of Benevento, the Duchy of Salerno, and the Republic of Amalfi (ironically, each capital is within an hour's drive of each other, although the individual territories stretched far in different directions).\n\nEdit: Holy shit, there are a ton of inconsistencies caused by copy-pasting. I've done my best to fix these. " ] }

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[ [ "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Aistulf%27s_Italy-en.png", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Alboin%27s_Italy-it.svg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "chcov0b", "chcrg21", "chcyu9w" ], "score": [ 3, 7, 2 ], "text": [ "You may want to have a look at _URL_0_ which has some comments (and videos) with examples.", "It depends on the circumstances and the production. Specific shades or colours would sometimes be used because they would read better with particular types of film (This is especially common later, in television, because early television cameras had really odd colour properties). Sometimes sets would be painted in black and white, and other times set dressers would use off-the-shelf fabrics and paints.\n\nIt's important to note that even if you dress a set entirely in black and white, it won't look exactly the same on film anyway, and colour choices can help tune the contrast and highlights of a monochrome image. The norm has generally been to not make \"grey\" items specifically for film and television production, simply because it's more intuitive, but there are plenty of exceptions.", "Nope, they were in color. Sometimes, the colors were chosen less for actual aesthetics in person, and more for how they'd look in black-and-white. For example, here's the [Addams' Family set](_URL_0_)." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1tyawh/while_filming_bw_films_did_they_use_specific/" ], [], [ "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/addams-family-photos_n_4316085.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cd4pium" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I always enjoy pulling out my copy of Manjo (1975) *The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World*, because despite being almost four decades old it continues to deliver.\n\nManjo asks a similar question: How could it take so long to understand something so simple -- in concept -- as turning off a faucet? He then goes on to identify some key barriers:\n\n- Lack of knowledge of circulation stymieing the concept of \"turning off a faucet\" in general. I'll just note here that it wasn't until William Harvey in the 17th Century that Galenic and Pre-Galenic ideas about circulation were finally refuted. Those refuted ideas could best be summed up as \"blood in the veins doesn't circulate and arteries carry air.\" Although in Galen's defense he posited that arteries held both air and blood, although he did accept that the venous and arterial system with separate and non-overlapping.\n\n- More for ligatures than cautery, but without an understanding of germ theory, attempts to staunch bleeding might merely trade a quick death by exsanguination for a lingering death by other means. Same with non-sterile stitches and sutures, though either introduce a pathogen or give give existing bacteria in the wound a new substrate for growth.\n\n- Wounds requiring cautery might be fatal themselves. Your perforated colon is not going to care if you managed to stop bleeding out. \n\n- Returning to incomplete ideas regarding circulation, Manjo notes that if \"the blood lost is only that which was contained in the wounded part, [this] deprives the event of some of its urgency. Again, if you don't know that that blood is a constantly circulating substance that can only be replaced at a finite rate, but instead see it as a relatively stable medium, a nick to the femoral artery might not seem like that big idea. He cites Celsus as saying bleeding can be stopped with a red hot iron or by applying a \"[suction] cup to a distant part [of the body], in order to divert thither the course of the blood.\"\n\nThat said, Manjo identifies several pieces of historical advice where cauterization if called for, even if not explicitly intentionally. A passage in the Ebers Papyrus, for instance, advising knives for cutting open cysts/abscesses should be heated and avoid blood vessels. Regular, if not particularly focused, use by Ancient Greeks. Allowing cones of incense to burn down to the skin to seal ulcers in China. And as part of the regular training ayurvedic vaidya. The technique wasn't completely absent, it just wasn't in wide use or always used for what we associate with cauterization today, nor does the term \"cautery\" in historical usage -- simply meaning the application of heat -- exactly match up with the modern idea of searing and burning.\n\nHippocrates, for instance, recommended that applying \"irons that are not red hot\" to the inside of the eyelids of a person about to undergo eye surgery. He also recommends using cautery on the lower back and buttocks for more general ailments. These actions were based around humoral theory though, not actual biological processes. As [this paper](_URL_0_) puts it: \n\n > The drugs most commonly utilized by Hippocratic physicians were purgatives: emetics, laxatives and nasal insertions, the common aim being to eliminate noxious matter, by diverting it to a bodily orifice or, if necessary, to an opening created for the purpose. Cautery and cutting fulfilled broadly similar functions, the aim being to reduce unwanted bodily moisture or to eliminate fleshy tissue." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2629169/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d02196y" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I know it's a bit late, but if interested, there's a lot of reading to be done for (some sections) of life under the rule of the Livonian Sword Brothers and Teutonic Order. These groups were operating in the Baltic territories from (roughly) the 13th century until the 16th century, and you can trace that back to earlier years in some cases, such as the border skirmishes going on between Poland and the Old Prussians.\n\nThere are a few things to note, and one of which is the degree of control that these holy orders actually had over an area. In many cases, especially involving the Teutonic Order, the earlier phases of pressing into territory involved actions that we might find similar to today's interactions between western military advisers and local Afghan or Iraqi populations. While the first wave of \"settlers\" into these pagan areas tended to be missionaries, the Pope wasn't too hesitant to grant military orders the right to protect the interests of these Christians, and these Order knights were often vastly out-manned and certainly out-gunned (one can find many examples, such as the Battle of Saule, among others) that demonstrate the effectiveness of the Prussians, Curonians, et cetera, operating in their native territory and utilizing hit-and-run tactics with their skirmishing groups. To establish any real foothold in the region, the knights worked with local nobility and collaborators to construct things such as garrisons, bridges, and roads, all with the intention of settling the area and fostering a sort of alliance with the locals. In many cases, these Order-friendly settlements were besieged by fellow pagans, who sometimes coerced the converts to return to paganism (as in Mazovia during the early 13th century). Again, without drawing too many parallels, you can imagine how the Taliban treated Afghan collaborators with Coalition forces. Many of these raiding groups didn't care about the ethnic makeup of the peasants - they were striking at the Christian infrastructure and Christian-aligned garrisons, as well as any pagan groups that opposed their interests. Peasants, which includes a rather wide sample of ranks and duties in these areas, were often the ones closest at hand during raids, since they generally lived outside of keep and garrison walls.\n\nAside from the obvious in-fighting going on here, there's a much darker side to the actions of groups like the Livonian Sword Brothers. The Papacy itself issued charges against them for doing things such as extorting money for conversions, taking slaves from the local population, executing ransomed hostages, and even abusing the local Christians (typically German by birth). We also need to remember that these are only the charges that they were formally accused of - there could be many more that were either ignored or unseen by Papal advisers, or were never uncovered, since the locals had little recourse in grievance matters. A 1249 document called the Treaty of Christburg outlines some of these issues in more detail, since it actively guaranteed rights to Christian converts among the Prussian clans. These rights prevented the Teutonic Order from abusing property sales and inheritance laws, and also forced the Prussians to submit tithes to local churches and aid in their construction. So, in essence, the peasants in these areas could be either German or locals (Prussians, Estonians, so on and so forth). The Germans settlers were Christian and typically received land as a result of settling there, and as such, they might be subject to raids or other dangers, but their customs, laws, and personal rights likely weren't violated to the same extent as the pagan Balts. There are some truly hideous stories about the fighting between the Balts and the Teutonic Order, but also stories about the Balts enslaving or massacring neighboring tribes during this period, all because of the in-fighting and the constant shifting of power between the collaborating and opposing tribes. Peasants, if defined as being non-fighting, non-noble locals of the area, had varying chances of prosperity and safety depending on their region. If you're interested in further reading, here are my sources, which delve much further into each region:\n\n\"The Northern Crusades\" by Eric Christiansen.\n\"The Prussian Crusade\" by William Urban.\n\"The Livonian Crusade\" by William Urban.\n\"Teutonic Knight: 1190-1561\" by David Nicolle. \n\nAnd, of course, the primary sources, which are the Treaty of Christburg, and the Livonian Sword Brother charges, found here: _URL_0_\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCES/SOURCES/baltic1.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cjygcvy", "cjzea9u" ], "score": [ 26, 3 ], "text": [ "According to Gorbachev, Baker did make this pledge; according to Baker, he was never referring to anything other than Germany. Within Baker's personal handwritten notes of his meeting with Gorbachev he put exclamation points next to this statement regarding the expansion of NATO:\n\n > \"End result: Unified Ger. anchored in a **changed (polit.) NATO**--whose juris. would not move **eastward**\"\n\nThe bold represents the words and phrases that Baker put stars by.\n\nA few days later, on February 9th, Gorbachev repeated to Baker that he couldn't accept a NATO that would expand eastward. Baker said that \"we agree with that.\"\n\nMary Sarotte analyzes the diplomacy between Baker and Gorbachev particularly well in her book *1989: The Struggle to Create post-Cold War Europe*. You'd probably get more from me copy and pasting the main part of what Sarotte says on the exchange between Baker and Gorbachev rather than me trying to summarize it. It begins on p.110:\n\n > [The agreement between Baker and Gorbachev] formed the nucleus of the controversy that remains unresolved to this day. Unwisely, Gorbachev let the meeting end without securing this agreement in any kind of written form. Emerging from a political culture in which the word of a leader overruled the law, hoping that he could still find a way to disband both military alliances [NATO and the Warsaw Pact] entirely, and hesitating to agree to his end of the bargain (a unified Germany), Gorbachev did not try to resolve the matter there in writing. In the future, once NATO started expanding, he would therefore leave the Soviet Union's successors empty-handed when they protested against NATO enlargement. Later, Russian presidents would assert that this meeting had given them assurances that NATO would not expand. The United States would remember this meeting differently: as one in a number of conversations and negotiations limited solely to Germany, and until the final documents were signed, changeable.\n\nTo put this meeting into greater context, you may want to see if you can perhaps read all of chapter 3 in Sarotte's book, of which the above quote is a part of. Or you can just buy the book and read the whole thing; it's an absolutely fascinating read. \n\nEdit: Clarification", "This comment may not belong here (it doesn't answer OP's question, but rather tries to take the discussion to another level), but I will try.\n\nI'm always hearing from pro-Russia folk like Stephen Cohen at The Nation that because of this \"broken promise\", Russia feels like it has been treated as a defeated nation. People like this usually go on to argue that Russia deserves its own sphere of influence and is right to object to NATO's eastward \"encroachment\".\n\n To this I say: beyond the real politik concern of \"poking the bear\", why should we care? If former Warsaw Pact nations want to join NATO, why should Russia be given sympathy? IMO, too bad; so sad. I guess a half a century of Soviet control wasn't enough to engender fuzzy feelings for the Russian state. Does Russia's sphere of influence mean the west should let it dictate to former client states? \n\nFinally, with respect to Russia feeling \"threatened by NATO\", **does anyone, Russians included, honestly believe that NATO has any desire to invade?** I just can't believe that one of the Baltic states is just going to wake up one morning and decide to attack." ] }

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[ "http://dialogueeurope.org/uploads/File/resources/TWQ%20article%20on%20Germany%20and%20NATO.pdf", "http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cem7nu0", "ceof1vk" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Do you have a picture with less glare?", "The painting is supposedly a Sano di Pietra Madonna and Child with Four Saints." ] }

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[ "http://imgur.com/GoleLl6" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "detu3t1" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Hi there. I wrote [an answer](_URL_0_) sometime ago that might provide you with the insight you're looking for. Your question is a bit broad, so the linked comment is talking mainly about my tribe. It shouldn't be taken as sweeping generalization.\n\nAdditionally, the book *Removable Type: Histories of the Book in Indian Country, 1663-1880* by Phillip H. Round is a great source of information for the spread of Christianity and the Bible throughout Indian Country. Vine Deloria, Jr., a Native American scholar and author, has a book entitled *God is Red* and details interfaith between Native American religions and Christianity as well." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4xjrei/why_were_the_many_nations_introduced_to/d6gvj9o/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c4s4isj", "c4s4wy9", "c4s6bn4", "c4s6h2x", "c4s7lus", "c4s9966" ], "score": [ 7, 11, 11, 5, 11, 3 ], "text": [ "The conception of a uniform India was the result of invasion in the first place.\n\nIf you mean outside of current borders or past Pakistan or Bangladesh, it's happened before. If you're unfamiliar with just how often, this template showing all the past kingdoms and empires in the area should give an idea: _URL_0_", "that's a bit like saying Africa has never invaded another country. True, but not a really meaningful statement.", "Kingdoms in India have all along conquered each other's territories. For most part, there were several thousand kingdoms ruling the different parts of present day India. It was at very few times in history (like during the reign of Asoka Maurya, Mughals,etc.) when most areas of present day India was under one ruler. And then again, when the Brits invaded India, they made it one entity for their administrative convenience. \n\nSo while it is true that the kingdoms in India have not conquered regions outside the area encompassed by the present territory for most part, it is not true that no kingdom ever expanded outside its own. \n\nA few south Indian kingdoms (like the Chola kingdom of South India) have had their kingdoms stretch outside South Asia to countries like Indonesia, Singapore, etc. Indonesia is today a muslim country, but a lot of words they use are still heavily influenced by Sanskrit. Their leader used to be Sukharnoputri. In Sanskrit, it means, daughter of Sukharno (which she is). Their airlines is Garuda airlines, and Garuda is the name of a mythical Hindu bird. \n\nAgain Singapore in Tamil literally means Lion City. But I am not sure if this expansion to South East Asia was done via invasion or merely by cultural means (After king Asoka converted to Buddhism, he sent several emissaries to South East Asia to grow followers there). \n\n\nEDIT : I was just looking deeper into the Indonesia-India relations. Apparently the influence of Sanskrit in Indonesia has got more to do with [ancient trade relations](_URL_1_) and not invasions by kings. Again, the Chola dynasty had strong trade partners in South East Asia and were [not really part](_URL_0_) of the Chola kingdom. ", "I don't understand how people are missing the obvious here. The city of Goa had been part of Portugal for 451 years. In 1961, India invaded another country's sovereign territory, and annexed that territory.\n\nOne might say, yes, but Goa is properly part of India.\n\nOne could also say Thrace is properly part of Greece, but if Greece suddenly up and invaded Turkey and annexed Istanbul, we'd still consider that an invasion of another country.", "This actually isn't true; Chandragupta Maurya acquired most of eastern Afghanistan from the Seleucid Empire in a treaty following his conquest of the Seleucid Empire's Indian territory, and possibly a loss in battle, in return for war elephants. The part of what is now Afghanistan was at the time called Arachosia. Between Chandragupta and Ashoka the Great's reigns of the Mauryan Empire, the Mauryan Empire extended control even further west into Arachosia. Greeks had already settled the region in quite high numbers before this conquest, and this is likely to have been the area of the Mauryan Empire containing the most Greeks.\n\nOne of the reasons we know this is that one of the famous Edicts of Ashoka was actually erected in what is now modern Khandahar, and what was probably Alexandria-in-Arachosia at that time. The Edict is in Greek and Aramaic, and is written in excellent Greek considering a) the Mauryans were not Greek speakers and b) there's only so much you have to bother with administrative inscriptions.\n\nI would assume that nobody here thinks Kandahar is within the traditional boundaries of India.", "The Indian Army was a vital part of the British empire, and participated in campaigns in Africa, New Zealand, and central Asia. In those cases, there were definitely people from the Indian sub-continent invading other places." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:History_of_South_Asia" ], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rajendra_map_new.png", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Indonesia_relations" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dnbo5m7", "dncua67" ], "score": [ 6, 2 ], "text": [ "According to [this 1991 Department of Justice study](_URL_0_), in 1926 blacks were admitted to prison at 2.94 rate that white people were. By 1986 they were admitted at 5.43 the rate. Time served per conviction has been [pretty equal between the races, and hasn't changed much](_URL_3_). \n\nBut this question is sort of orthogonal to questions of systematic racism in the justice system. We cannot know if either the present or past system is biased against black people solely based on the imprisonment rate. We'd want to know if they are getting equal justice for any given crime. It does seem though, that the higher imprisonment rates historically and in the present are generally reflective of higher crime rates. Here for instance is [W.E.B Du Bois in his 1899 book *The Philadelphia Negro*](_URL_1_) (p. 259):\n\n > It seems plain in the first place that the 4 per cent of the population of Philadelphia having Negro blood furnished from 1885 to 1889, 14 percent of the serious crimes, and from 1890 to 1895, 22 percent. This of course assumes that the convicts in the penitentiary represent with a fair degree of accuracy the crime committed. The assumption is not wholly true ; in convictions by human courts the rich always are favored somewhat at the expense of the poor, the upper classes at the expense of the unfortunate classes, and whites at the expense of Negroes....It has been charged by some Negroes that color prejudice plays some part, but there is no tangible proof of this, save perhaps that there is apt to be a certain presumption of guilt when a Negro is accused, on the part of police, public and judge. All these considerations somewhat modify our judgment of the moral status of the mass of Negroes. And yet, with all allowances, there remains a vast problem of crime. \n\nSimilar findings elsewhere in the country are reported by other authors of the early 20th century, such as Ray Stannard Baker's [Following the Color Line](_URL_4_) or Raymond Fosdick's [Crime in America and the police](_URL_5_). \n\nAnd when looking at the present day, FBI data the racial breakdown of convictions [matches the racial breakdown of offenders from surveying crime victims](_URL_2_).", "Let’s take a step back here and think about how statistics like these have been used over the past century. The first time these kind of figures became relevant was after the 1890 census, when Frederick Hoffman, an accountant in New Jersey, calculated that blacks accounted for 30% of the nation’s prisoners but only 12% of the population. The conclusion that Hoffman drew – and that many others have drawn, even into the present – is that African Americans have an innate predisposition toward criminality, whether cultural or genetic. \n\nW.E.B. DuBois countered this assertion with a study of black crime in Philadelphia, which he argued was the result of sociological factors – particularly urbanization and industrialization – rather than some innate character trait of black people. Yet the assumption stuck, and even to the present a belief that criminality represents proof and cause of black inferiority remains very strong in American society. (Khalil Gibran Muhammad discusses this at length in his book, *The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America*; [here’s an interview]( _URL_4_) in which he discusses the 1890 census.)\n\nYet the higher percentage rate of imprisonment among blacks in 1890 was to a large degree the result of a conscious effort by Southern whites to reduce blacks to a captive, servile labor force through the use of the criminal law. Remember that even though slavery was abolished after the Civil War, most white Southerners did not view its abolition as legitimate and did everything in their power to install a racial order in which blacks would once again be a servile laboring class without political rights – essentially slaves in all but name. This was accomplished in part through [the Black Codes]( _URL_0_), which criminalized African-American behavior that was deemed contrary to this order. For example, many states passed vagrancy laws, which required blacks to sign work contracts for fixed periods – if they were found without these contracts, they would be arrested for vagrancy. \n\nOther states and municipalities passed what some call [“pig laws”]( _URL_3_), turning forms of petty theft from misdemeanors into felonies, allowing for heavy terms of imprisonment for blacks who committed offenses as trivial as stealing a pig – hence the name. (And in many cases, it was not even theft; blacks were engaged in work disputes with landlords and employee, and claimed property they believed was rightfully their own – only to be arrested for the same.) \n\nLaw officers were granted a large degree of discretion in enforcing these statutes, and the police were virtually without exception whites with a strong racial bias. What’s more, black prisoners were put to work through [the convict lease system]( _URL_1_), which gave landlords, corporations, states, and municipalities access to very cheap labor, and which played a central role in the industrialization and urbanization of the South at the turn of the last century; about 73% of Alabama's entire annual state revenue came from convict leasing in 1893. So the entire criminal justice system had a vested interest in securing higher rates of arrest, conviction and imprisonment among blacks, both as a source of profit and a means of reinforcing white supremacy.\n\nThe heavy involvement of blacks in the criminal justice system, in turn, fostered racial ideas about their inferiority. As Muhammad puts it:\n > “Defining black criminality through racial and cultural markers of inferiority was at the heart of post-emancipation race relations. Black Codes, Pig Laws, convict leasing, chain gangs, and lynching were direct consequences of inventing new ways of thinking about blacks and using criminal laws, criminal justice practices, and violence to target them—all tracked by statistics, reifying racist presumptions that blacks were an exceptional and dangerous criminal population.” (p. 284)\n\nSo starting this discussion in the 1950s is misleading, in that it fails to account for why this association of African Americans and criminality exists - an association that has its origins in Reconstruction and the beginnings of Jim Crow segregation.\n\n(See also the PBS documentary, [Slavery By Another Name]( _URL_5_), based on Douglas Blackmon’s book of the same name.)\n\n(For more on the use of statistics, crime, and race, see this video: _URL_2_.)\n" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/125618.pdf", "https://archive.org/details/philadelphianegr001901mbp", "https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=256035", "https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/hcsus5084.pdf", "https://archive.org/details/followingcolorli00bake", "https://archive.org/details/crimeinamericaa00fosdgoog" ], [ "https://goo.gl/gU7r5k", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convict_lease", "https://youtu.be/2xuo32Z2EMA", "http://m.video.pbs.org/video/2177178501/", "https://youtu.be/1z_A1ediUWY", "http://m.video.pbs.org/show/slavery-another-name/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c9a76k9", "c9a7iji", "c9a9t9j" ], "score": [ 2, 5, 2 ], "text": [ "That's not the case. Counter-Reformation was not only book burning but also a big, positive change in Catholic Church. People saw degeneration of the Church and it was one of the main reasons why Luther and others stood up against it. There were some positive trends even earlier (e.g. stance on slavery, Pius II called it a great crime back in 1462!*).\n\nBut to overthrow your thesis - there were plenty of great catholic scholars in those years and situation in protestant countries you've mentioned wasn't as good as you write. Let me remind you of great Matteo Ricci, a jesuit, founder of Far Eastern Studies. Or a great Polish Jesuit, [Michał Boym](_URL_2_). \n\nBrandenburg-Prussia was a very fragile, weak state before Freidrich Wilhelm II. And even under Friedrich II. it wasn't nearly as strong as Habsburg's empire - they've just had an incredible luck in Silesian Wars. Not to mention the Miracle at the House of Brandenburg. If it weren't for Peter III, Prussia would fell and I think that leaders of unifying Germany would come from other place (maybe catholic Bavaria?).\n\nRemember that this \"book burning\" you've mentioned happened not only in catholic countries. Guess why evangelicals had to flee from England to the New Land? \n\nAlso, the case of some countries is very complicated. Spain and Portugal fell into their own trap - they managed huge colonial empires, this required lots of resources - including intelectual resources and lots of manpower. They had to send officials nad priests to Americas, Africa, Asia, to maintain their huge empires. In those times France didn't have that much land outside Europe and Dutch only traded through VOC - other countries weren't interested in colonies (most of english colonialism was a private initiative). So those resources could have been invested in other things - not administration but philosophy, theology and science. Also, protestant countries were usually more urbanized (I'm thinking especially about Netherlands but also Northern Germany) and it was beneficial for development of their intelectual capital.\n\nI'm more than sure that religion itself wasn't an important factor in diffrences of development of science or philosophy in Europe. There are other far more decisive, like urbanization or geography. Most of countries remained catholic, you only mention some parts of Germany (which weren't that much diffrent from catholic ones) and Netherland as protestant countries which weren't \"stagnant\" in opposition to Spain and Austria. For Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth years 1569-1648 were a golden age.\n\nBut let's look for some names. [Musicians](_URL_3_) - mainly Italians. [Painters](_URL_4_) - well, we have Dutch/Flemish baroque but lots of them were from the catholic part of Benelux (e.g.Rubens). By the way - why was Netherlands more succesful than Habsburg-ruled part of Benelux? Because it was independent and the capital wasn't a city 2 000 km away with a ruler that doesn't even speak the language of people who are ruled by him. [Sculpture](_URL_1_) - Italian, German, Spanish. Another observation - in cultural heritage aspect, protestants, because of their aversion to opulent churches left us less art than catholics. Also, Catholic Church is probably the biggest patron of arts in the history of mankind. \n\nScientific revolution? Catholics had big contribution, I think it was larger than Jews (Baruch de Spinoza!) or Protestants. Let's count some of Catholics: Coppernicus, Vesalius, Galileo, Matteo Colombo, Blaise Pascal (very religious man, Jansenite - look how long it took Catholic Church to condemn Jansenism despite being an obvious heresy!), Pierre Vernier and many others. Saying that there was some kind of stagnation in catholic part of Europe is an overstatement. \n\n*_URL_0_", "I think this \"intellectual stagnation\" is more of a historiographical artefact than an actual characteristic of the period. You're pretty much talking about the period between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, which is a bit of a grey area in most people's general view of the history of ideas.\n\nIn reality, this period was critically important in the development of modern politics. This is when old ideas of the purpose and form of politics definitively gave way to modern conceptions, with the invention or reconceptualisation and elaboration of ideas like sovereignty, the state, international law, *coups d'état*, and more. The traditional 'start date' for the modern international system, after all, is 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, and a while I don't think it's as significant as it's often made out to be, it certainly acts as a good milestone for summing up the period's developments. Most importantly for your question, Catholic thinkers played an absolutely central role in this process.\n\nTwo prime examples. It was Giovanni Botero, an Italian, who first explicitly conceptualised the idea of \"reason of state\", from which the modern concept of the state substantially derives, in his 1589 work *Della Ragion di Stato* -- and it was in Italy that that doctrine first substantially took root. The real magnum opus on this subject is Friedrich Meinecke's *Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d'état and its Place in Modern History*, published in the 50s but only somewhat out-of-date now and still a good introduction, and Meinecke observes that Italy was still 'ahead' of the rest of Europe in this reconceptualisation by a couple of decades well into the 17th century. \n\nFrancisco Suárez, a Spaniard, developed the argument that the state is a creation of human rather than divine law and distinguished between international and natural law in his 1612 *Tractatus de legibus ac deo legislatore*. Hugo Grotius, a much more famous figure in the end, took significant influence from Suárez.\n\nOf course, it is true that the Enlightenment very much originated outside of the traditional Catholic powers (disregarding France, which as you rightly point out is an exceptional case for a variety of reasons). But this isn't because the Counter-Reformation had 'held back' the Catholic powers, whose thinkers contributed to the period's major intellectual developments in very significant ways. Rather, it was more to do with the heady synthesis that came out of combining post-Reformation ideas of the role and nature of religion and secular power with these developments in political thought, which in the first place originated in the Catholic sphere. \n\n(Having said that, even in the Enlightenment one of the most important early figures was in fact an Italian Catholic, Giambattista Vico, whom I took my username from.)", "One notable field that has incredible development in this time in Catholic areas is anatomy. Northern Italy and France were two of the centers of study. Vesalius is the most famous of the period, creating books containing very detailed anatomical plates, based on real human dissection. His method of inquiry is argued to be one of the things that really helps pioneer the scientific method. He contrasts Galenists who basically treated the works of Galen, a Greek anatomist, as practically infallible. It was kind of funny Galen really does embrace inquiry, but the Galenists will only take the results not the methods. So when Vesalius has human dissections not matching the descriptions of Galen, people just suggest the corpse must be malformed. Galen really based most of his observations on Barbary Apes, many of the muscles don't really match too well. \n\n\nHe did most of his work out of the University of Padua, with good relations with Catholic authority figures. When he stopped lecturing he became the court physician to the emperor.\n\nThere are a lot of fields that really don't upset religious authorities much. \n\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://books.google.pl/books?id=C7j-AzlcTzoC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=pius+ii+magnum+scelus&source=bl&ots=vcFWhfOjgD&sig=gaPzWQCT5mZbt-ObETuyF3KKw5s&hl=pl&sa=X&ei=JmFhUZmiE4WMtAaqvIDoBA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=pius%20ii%20magnum%20scelus&f=false", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_sculpture", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C5%82_Boym", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Baroque_composers", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_painting" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eanetqy" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "Outside of the Arthurian and other legends? Not that I am aware of. Swords in medieval Europe were essentially... not really disposable, but it was well understood that they would be damaged, require care and maintenance, and eventually break or wear out. Especially if they were used a lot.\n\nNow, the interesting part is that with care and storage swords CAN last a long time. Especially if you are able and willing to replace different pieces of them, but not necessarily the whole sword at once.\n\n So what this led to is that at some points during the medieval period swords were very expensive, and at other later points, there were so many of them hanging around that you couldn't give them away depending on where you were in Europe at the time.\n\nThe Arthurian legends are, as far as I know, the main source for all of the popular media in the west about seeking after a particular sword. However, they are NOT the ONLY source.\n\nThere are other legends as well. Beowulf's sword Hrunting. Other legends of powerful objects as well. Manannan Mac Lir gave Fragarach to Lugh.\n\nSwords have long been a symbol of authority as well as a weapon. Part of this is because of the type of weapon they are, and part of it is because of who had them at various times.\n\nNow, as to what warriors tended to value in swords, now that was rather different. Warriors needed a weapon. And so they valued good craftsmanship and good materials.\n\nAnd what people thought the \"best\" of those things were, tended to vary based on where you were and when. But it is interesting to note that the places in Europe famed for their metalwork in the Medieval period also became major centers of trade.\n\nSo in Spain you have Toledo steel, in the Germanic states you have Solingen Swords, in Italy it was Milan that held supreme. In Britain, it was either imports or for local make you wanted London's Worshipful Company of Cutlers.\n\nAll of this is before we get in to the discussion of various developments of metallurgy at various times. For that, suffice to say that one of the main things that made the Medieval centers for sword and knife making as well known as they were was a very good control of the carbon content of their iron as they worked it in to steel. As well as knowing, at least somewhat, about certain trace metals that can make steel more suitable for most common applications at the time.\n\nA lot of legends about swords that can cut through anything or otherwise are just better likely have their origins in the fact that metallurgy was not developed everywhere equally all at once. It developed over time with individual discoveries turning in to cultural traditions long before scientific methods or understanding could be applied. So if a soldier was traveling in a distant land and ran across metallurgy far superior to that in their own land, it would seem to have magical properties to their eyes.\n\nRemember that the scientific method of exploration, at least the way we frame it now, dates to the 16th century and a lot of differences in knowledge prior to that were attributed to everything from divine favor to magic to whatever the flavor of the month was. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cgm3e3v" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Spain and Portugal were big on colonizing South America. The Philippines was colonized by Spain because it is a necessary and strategic location for trade with the Far East, especially the spices from India and Indochina and the Porcelain from China. The Philippines politically was of minimal importance to Spain because Mexico (and the surrounding territories) was a much more important colony. In fact, Spain ruled the Philippines through Mexico, not directly, by virtue of the Viceroy of New Spain.\n\nHence, the Spanish influence is much greater in Central and South America that it ever was in the Philippines. While it can be argued that Filipinos are indeed hispanic, they are less so than the Spanish Colonies in the Americas.\n\nSource: Teodorico Agoncillo, History of the Filipino People" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "fibepyv" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "First, let me note that this is really a huge question. Africa is the world's second largest continent and it's incredibly diverse. And the Victorian period was really long, from 1838 to 1903. I'll try to give a partial answer focusing only on tourism and on the later Victorian period (after about 1885 or so) and on sub-Saharan Africa. North Africa and Egypt are their own particular thing.\n\nSo, there wasn't much tourism in Africa at all during this period. And what little there was, happened in just a few places. When we think of colonial white tourists in Africa, we're probably thinking of the period from around 1900 to 1940. Most of the tropes that are associated with \"old time\" African tourism -- \"great white hunters\" on safari, caravans of native bearers, a luxury hotel at Victoria Falls, biplanes -- are early 20th century, not 19th century. Before 1900 there weren't a lot of whites in Africa for any reason, and most of those were merchants, missionaries, or engaged in some colonial enterprise like mining, plantation farming, or rubber extraction. \n\n\nKeep in mind that before 1900, mass tourism barely existed, and tourism to someplace as distant as Africa was almost strictly limited to the wealthy plus a few eccentrics. Also, most of sub-Saharan Africa was really dangerous to visit well into the 1880s! That's because Europeans didn't really get a handle on tropical diseases until around then. As late as the 1870s, you had large numbers of Europeans dropping dead from various pestilences. A while back I visited the island of Goree, just off the coast of Senegal. There's a memorial there to thousands of people -- including hundreds of Europeans -- who died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1878. Would you want to visit the modern Congo in the middle of an Ebola epidemic? Or Wuhan, China right now? That's how most Europeans felt about Africa before 1880. People did go there -- but they saw it as dangerous, so they didn't go without a good reason. \n\n\nAlso, large chunks of Africa were still no-go areas because of the violence associated with colonialism. You really wouldn't have wanted to be a tourist in South Africa during the Zulu Wars. And you really REALLY wouldn't have wanted to be a tourist in the Congo during King Leopold's genocidal rule. Lots of parts of Africa were pretty peaceful during the period 1880-1900, but lots of other parts weren't. \n\n\nSo, up until around 1880 tourism in Africa was sort of like tourism in Antartica today: a few people did it, but they were mostly wealthy and mostly stuck to the coasts, plus there were a few eccentrics doing who-knows-what. \n\n\nAfter 1880 you do see a bit of tourism, mostly built around safari hunting. \"How and why did safari hunting become popular\" is its own interesting question, but let's just note that it did. But while it certainly existed in the 1890s, it didn't really take off until after 1900. \n\n\nAnother thing to keep in mind is that up to 1900, most of Africa was still really hard to get to. The automobile was unknown. Railroad construction was just getting under way. Most of the continent required a long walk inland from a coastal port, and there weren't that many good coastal ports. Telegraph lines existed, but only to selected locations, so it was easy to simply disappear. \n\n\nOkay so, to answer a few specific questions: \n\n\nWere natives used as servants? -- Of course. That was true pretty much everywhere under colonialism, but it was especially true in Africa. Why import a European, at vast expense, when you can train an African to do the job? You can pay him almost nothing! All the servants were Africans. And despite constant grumbling by the colonials about how lazy and unreliable the Africans were, they found no difficulty in running all sorts of enterprises, from railroads to luxury hotels, staffed almost entirely by African workers. \n\n\n Was it seen as dangerous and scary, or interesting and adventurous? -- Mostly dangerous and scary (though sometimes wild and interesting) up until around 1880, then gradually less scary and more exotic / cool. \n\n\nDid anyone ever vacation to Africa for pleasure rather than business? -- A few people, and mostly late in the period, and mostly to a short list of relatively safe, peaceful destinations, particularly South Africa, Senegal, and Kenya. Since Africa is huge, there are some interesting exceptions. For instance, the avant-garde French poet Arthur Rimbaud spent the 1880s bouncing around East Africa, doing everything from gun-running to amateur exploration to becoming one of the first Europeans to export real Ethiopian coffee from Ethiopia. And there were a few travel writers and amateur naturalists; those guys pop up everywhere. In the 1890s, a seemingly ordinary British woman named Mary Kingsley simply decided to go to West Africa. She ended up traveling thousands of miles deep in the bush and writing two books, one of which -- \\_Travels in West Africa\\_ -- was an instant best seller and is still worth reading today. \n\n\n How common were towns built for European visitors/residents? -- Actual towns? Quite rare. There are a few towns built by Europeans to live in, like St. Louis in Senegal. But even there, the locals outnumbered the Europeans. There were regions of European settlement, like the Boer lands in what's now South Africa, and the highlands of Kenya and Tanzania which were claimed by English and German settlers. But, again, locals outnumbered Europeans even there. Think about it. Why would a European move to live in Africa? Well, because you would have cheap abundant labor to do the farm work, dig the mines, lay the rails, shovel the coal, pave the roads, and do all your housework. That was the whole point of being a European colonist! \n\n\nLater in the 20th century you would get colonial segregation, most famously in the form of South African \\_apartheid\\_. But that was a 20th century thing. In the 19th century, most Europeans in Africa lived surrounded by Africans, and there weren't really any all-European towns or neighborhoods yet.\n\nI'm not sure if this answer is what you're looking for, but I hope it helps." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dec7c04" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ " > As for the Ottomans, the whole Balkan tinderbox situation would not have occurred if they were not so weak as to be totally unable to defend their Balkan territories against ethnic rebels and their European sponsors. It seems that diplomatic chaos in the Balkans, and a corresponding war over the pieces of the Sick Man of Europe, was inevitable from the very moment the Ottoman hold on the region was first successfully challenged in the Greek Rebellion in the 1820s and 30s.\n\nI can speak to this part but not to the others. There's a few things to deal with here, but in regards to WWI it's that while the origins of the conflict lay in the Balkans, there is nothing inherent in an unstable Balkan region that was going to lead to a general European war. Indeed, one of the reasons why the July Crisis seemed to unravel in almost slow motion and why the news of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand seemed to be so trivial was that in the 1910s there had already been two Balkan wars and several Balkan crises.\n\nThat general European war could not have happened without the wider alliance structures and in particular what Christopher Clark calls the \"Balkan Inception Scenario\", that is, the acceptance on the part of Russia and France to go to war over a conflict between Austria and Serbia that would almost certainly trigger the Austro-German alliance.\n\n > if they were not so weak as to be totally unable to defend their Balkan territories against ethnic rebels and their European sponsors....from the very moment the Ottoman hold on the region was first successfully challenged in the Greek Rebellion in the 1820s and 30s.\n\nI mean, that's quite a tall order. The \"European sponsors\" in the Greek War of Independence consisted of Russia, Britain and France against the Ottomans alone. In other words, the two greatest land powers and the greatest sea power in the world at the time. The Ottoman's ability to prevent Greek independence probably sank with the Egyptian fleet at [Navarino](_URL_0_) as the Egyptians under Muhammad Ali were almost certainly the most competent forces within the empire at the time.\n\nIn any event that's a bit of a sidebar to the more relevant aspect of your question:\n\n > It seems that diplomatic chaos in the Balkans, and a corresponding war over the pieces of the Sick Man of Europe, was inevitable from the very moment the Ottoman hold on the region was first successfully challenged\n\nI mean, sure, in the sense that without independent Balkan states that WWI couldn't have broken out in the way that it did and that the post-independence Balkans was going to be a mess ([as indeed it was long after WWI ended](_URL_2_)).\n\nBut I think that's missing two issues:\n\nFirstly, Ottoman involvement in the war at all was entirely contingent, and perhaps more than any of the Great Powers who went to war in 1914 it was a war of choice, and in particular the choice of the pro-German Enver Pasha. Of note is that the Ottomans were the last of the major 1914 belligerents to actually go to war, not doing so until the Turkish-flagged but German-manned *Goeben* and *Breslau* (newly inducted in the Turkish navy with Turkish names, *Yavuz Sultan Selim* and *Midili*) attacked the Russian Black Sea fleet and ports on 29 October. There was very little preventing them from maintaining neutrality (and they were even offered inducements to do so) or of joining the Entente (which they pursued, though it's not clear to what extent this might have just been a smokescreen for the imminent German alliance or whether they were, genuinely, looking to join whichever side would offer the best deal.)\n\nSecondly is the issue of why \"The Eastern Question\" hadn't already led to a general European war. \"The Eastern Question\" effective refers to the question of \"After the Ottomans, then what?\" It having been assumed since the mid-19th century that the Ottoman's days were numbered.\n\nThe primary answer is that while all of the European powers thought the Ottomans were going to fall sooner rather than later, and everyone wanted a piece of the imperial pie, none of the respective sides could decide what to do about it and indeed were willing to go to war to protect the integrity of the Ottoman empire, which was notably demonstrated in the Crimean War in which Britain and France backed the Ottomans against Russia despite having sided against the Ottomans in the Greek wars mentioned earlier. The outbreak of WWI with the particular alliance structures that it had resolved the question: the empire was to be divided entirely between Britain, France and Russia (the Sykes-Picot-Sazonov agreement). But that was not a foregone conclusion until war actually broke out and until the Ottomans joined the Central Powers.\n\n > the Sick Man of Europe\n\nThere has also been quite a lot of pushback against this notion of a \"Sick Man of Europe\" in the past several decades of scholarship. The Ottoman Empire of the Young Turks seemed to have been in a process of revitalization, modernization and mechanization. While it was certainly not a state comparable to, say, Germany or Great Britain, there are no indications that the Ottoman Empire was on the verge of collapse before the war broke out, the Ottoman military consistently out-performed the expectations of the opposing sides (perhaps most notably at Gallipoli and Kut, though also fighting the British to a multi-year standstill at [Gaza](_URL_1_).) They also more or less continued fighting right through to the end of the Turkish war of independence in ~~1924~~ 1923 [edit: war ended in 23, Republic of Turkey declared in 24, doh!] and came out of the entire ordeal under the strong leadership of Ataturk.\n\nIn any event, a bit of a side question, but as a kind of **TL;DR** I'm not entirely sure how one could blame the Ottomans for this one, even though they were certainly a part of the overall balance of power and political situation in which the war was possible and then broke out.\n\nSource wise:\n\nI would have a read of Christopher Clark's *The Sleepwalkers* on the outbreak of the war. For the late Ottoman Empire and their involvement in WWI, Eugene Rogan's *The Fall of the Ottomans* is quite good. IIRC the relevant chapters in Malcolm Yapp's *The Making of the Modern Near East 1792-1923* are also quite good in knocking down the \"sick man\" thesis." ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Navarino", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Battle_of_Gaza", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cgk5l60" ], "score": [ 43 ], "text": [ "I'm gonna go ahead and pull a chunk of this from one of the [answers I wrote up a little bit ago on this very thing :)](_URL_3_) \n\nSo. Roman slavery. You know how the Civil War was fought over slavery? Well ...in Rome, they were an integral part of society. However....strangely enough as it might seem, \"slave\" was a VERY general term. There was a MASSIVE difference between a \"house slave,\" or even a \"city slave\" and a slave who worked the fields, the mines, or the ships. The former were seen as soft and pampered by the rest, the hard-working, hard-bitten, short-lived slaves. The city slaves lived a relatively cushy life for slaves. They earned money, they could eventually buy their freedom, they were teachers, maids, butlers, messengers, bodyservants, cooks, etc. Essentially...for an analogy and perspective. They were the equivalent to people who are paid minimum wage today. Now, some slaves got more (such as the bodyservants to the aristocracy, the teachers, etc), while some got less (the bath slaves), but they all lived relatively cushy lives. \n\nThese are the examples that people give when they want to convince you that Roman slavery was cushy and that the Romans were wonderful people who wore togas everywhere and were the bestest and most culturedest people. To answer the second part of your question, if/when these people were released, they became the *clients* of their former owner - their former owner would continue to take care of them with money and influence, and they would essentially be a part of that man's extended family. They kept the money that they had earned through their servitude, and often times they would have a pretty good base to go off of. For an example, [here's a picture of the tomb of a particularly successful freedman.](_URL_1_) Freedmen didn't get the rights of ordinary citizens, but their children certainly did - even if the fact that their ancestor was a former slave always stayed with them.\n\n---\n\nWell....THEN you look at the flip side. The other slaves. The ones who **kept fucking revolting for a reason.** \n\nThese were the farm slaves. The slaves in the mines (Perspective on the mines of the Roman world. I say mines, you think....maybe a little mineshaft in the ground, etc? Well you're SEVERELY underestimating the Romans when it came to industry. And when I say severely....their mining projects in Spain (for example) were unbelievable. Here's a quote from Richard Miles' *Carthage Must Be Destroyed*: \n\n > Furthermore, in order to increase efficiency and production, new techniques were brought in from the eastern Mediterranean. Large numbers of slaves, controlled by overseers [Who were also slaves], did the manual labour. Underground rivers were redirected through tunnels and shafts, and new technology was used to pump water out of shafts. The process by which the metal ore was extracted was laborious. First the rock containing the silver ore, usually mixed with lead, was crushed in running water. It was then sieved, before going through the same process twice more. The ore was then put in a kiln so that the silver could be separated out from the stone and lead before being transported, often by river, to the main cities on the coast. [...] in the Roman period from the second century BC to the fifth century AD it was calculated that at any one time some 40,000 slaves toiled in the Spanish mines, producing 25,000 drachmas [*approximately* 107,000 grams of silver] of profit a day. Indeed, the colossal scale of both the Punic and the Roman mining operations can be ascertained by the 6,700,000 tonnes of mainly silver slag found at Rio Tinto that can be dated to those periods.\n\nI used that quote just to give you an idea of exactly *how* extensive that *one* mining operation was. Spain was not the only place that Rome mined, but it was certainly one of the biggest. Those 40,000 slaves that had to work those mines? Yeah, they didn't live long. Here's an ancient writer named Posidonius' take on that:\n\n > Originally any private person without mining experience could come and find a place to work in these mines, and since the silver-bearing seams in the earth were conveniently sited and plentiful, they would go away with great fortunes. But later the Romans gained control of Spain, and now a large number of Italians have taken over the mines and accumulated vast riches as a result of their desire to make profits; what they did was buy a great number of slaves and hand them over to the men in charge of the mining operations...\n\n > The men engaged in these mining operations produce unbelievably large revenues for their masters, but as a result of their underground excavations day and night they become physical wrecks, and because of their extremely bad conditions, the mortality rate is high; they are not allowed to give up working or have a rest, but are forced by the beatings of their supervisors to stay at their places and throw away their wretched lives as a result of these horrible hardships. Some of them survive to endure their misery for a long time because of their physical stamina or sheer will-power; but because of the extent of their suffering, they prefer dying to surviving. \n\nYeeeeeeeeah. Note that the **vast** majority of Roman slaves were not household, or even city slaves. They were mostly field slaves, under conditions like these. Here's one about work in a flour mill - This is from Apuleius' *Metamorphoses*, which is a novel. However, it's also one of our best sources for the \"plebeian life\" of Ancient Rome:\n\n > The men there were indescribable - their entire skin was coloured black and blue with the weals left by whippings, and their scarred backs were shaded rather than covered by tunics which were patched and torn. Some of them wore no more than a tiny covering around their loins, but all were dressed in such a way that you could see through their rags. They had letters branded on their foreheads, their hair had been partially shaved off, and they had fetters on their feet. They were sallow and discoloured, and the smoky and steamy atmosphere had affected their eyelids and inflamed their eyes. Their bodies were a dirty white because of the dusty flour - like athletes who get covered with fine sand when they fight. \n\nMasters could essentially do whatever they wanted to slaves - some were more lenient (Seneca has writings on this in particular), while some (obviously) were more brutal. Interestingly enough, a middle ground would be the slaves who we find most interesting today...the infamous Roman gladiator. Like all other slaves, they were...well...slaves. They were subject to their master's whims, they could...well...this piece of graffiti from the time period says it all:\n\n > Take hold of your servant girl whenever you want to; it’s your right.\n\n^ That. Know what that means? Yeah, you can fuck your slave whenever you want - they're a slave, it's what slaves are for. Whether you were a male or female slave, if your owner wanted you, you were his, and you had no legal recourse. Having sex with slaves was extremely common in the era, so common as to be unremarkable. It's assumed that most Roman aristocrats lost their virginity to a slave they took a particular liking to. \n\nGladiators were used just like all the other slaves - except their use was also a blood sport. They (like other slaves) weren't allowed to get married, however they kept the winnings from their fights. They were relatively pampered (fame and fortune - think sports superstars combined with Hollywood icons), however they were forced to fight for the entertainment of the Roman citizenry. The man sitting across from them over supper could be the man who killed them the next day. (NOTE: One misconception that I see ALLLL the time. [See this bullshit?](_URL_0_) This would NEVER HAVE HAPPENED. [Rather, this one would be what you would see.](_URL_2_) And you know what the thumbs up means? It means **death for the loser.** MINE = BLOOOOWN. Back to the story.) Also - the gladiators were housed in what amounted to prison complexes. They were detached from cities, walled, with guard towers, walls, you name it. They were schools in a sense - but they were a huge symbol that one of the greatest fears of the Roman people was what would happen if the slaves rose up against them in a co-ordinated revolt. Hence why Spartacus' war caused so much terror amongst the populace, and one reason that it was dealt with so brutally. \n\nOne thing to remember about the gladiators - the fights rarely ended with one of the gladiators dying. We've got plenty of records of gladiators who lost multiple battles, and it would be too ridiculously expensive to replace a well-trained gladiator who just so happened to get killed. Accidents happened, of course, but the fights were there primarily for entertainment - while it was a blood sport, and while there certainly were fatalities, those fatalities are incredibly skewed by Hollywood and modern depictions of a gladiatorial contest.\n\nIf you've got any more questions, please feel free to ask them! :)" ] }

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[ [ "http://allthingsd.com/files/2012/07/commodus_thumbs_down.png", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/P.Maggiore_Tomb.JPG", "http://allthingsd.com/files/2012/07/Commodus_thumbs_up.jpg", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1jwu1g/what_was_the_life_of_a_slave_in_ancient_rome_like/cbjcpbj" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ehlmsuv", "ehlveqt" ], "score": [ 5, 6 ], "text": [ "As a history major constantly looking for substantive resources for citation, I’d say a great textbook chock full of primary sources is Sources for America’s History by James Henretta. There are two volumes for every edition which cover U.S. history up until, and since, 1877. The books are organized not only chronologically, but based on topics ranging from the role of women in society to presidential politics and foreign relations. The books are published by Macmillan, but there are plenty of other resources that can help with a broad base of topics if you know where to look. For example, William Herndon, a former law partner of Abraham Lincoln, compiled the testimonies of those who knew Lincoln best to create a well-rounded and accurate picture of the man himself. It was not widely accepted amongst historians until the 1980s, but since then, Herndon’s Lincoln has become a definitive source for presidential and Civil War historians alike. Hope this helps!!", "I very curious regarding your opinion on the poor quality of textbooks. Can you give me examples of what you mean? Interpretations you disagree with? Facts wrong? Important subjects left out?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ezl7i88" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Let’s first try and narrow this down and clarify / define some items. On a side note: this is a fantastic question which touches on the exciting areas of transnational history, identity, and globalisation. Before anything I am going to talk solely within the Anglo world- this itself will be shown to be far less limiting that maybe expected. First, the term sea shanty is referring to a very specific period, about 4-5 decades between c.1840-1880. This is not to say that \"sea songs\" are only that old. These were specifically composed shanties for work or expression of the “mood” of the crew. Essential all the shanties we have today and you can find recordings of are from a number of compilers who carried out their task prior to the first world war. As our study of shanties rely on these collectors a very brief overview of some issues should be raised and hopefully you and others will find interesting. The collecting occurred during a period of changes and movements of identity within England and wider notions of what may be an idea of Britishness. The collectors were seeking out what they believed to be authentic shanties based on their own perceptions of the countries seafaring culture, history, personal identity, and assumptions of the maritime character of the English.(1) This shaped what songs they saw ‘“fit” to be recorded. As such, songs found in print, by some, were deemed to have been ‘contaminated.’ (2) Thus, what should be concluded from this is that beyond the complications of collecting oral tradition as it’s dying out from a population which is highly mobile and spread across the globe, is that what we do have, carries a potent bias to any study.\n\nNow, this is where it gets fun,and hopefully to the core of your question. I want to give a moment of background information. First, Sailors, and Merchant ships, throughout the age of sail and into the 19th century were markedly global communities. Anglo-Sphere ships were crewed by West-Indians, Africans, African-Americans, Continental European, and South-American. Ships had a high turnover rate with only small parts of a crew staying on for more than one voyage.(3) Second, Shantites changed and morphed quickly due to these changes, mostly likely faster than those found on land. Finally, musicscape, and folk music studies, along with those working with oral traditions, have shown the influence songs have upon local communities for identity. These local identities, which are markedly different from modern political-nation-state identities have strong geographical markers to them.\n\n**Shanties**\n\nShanties themselves, as stated, are for specific tasks aboard a ship that required hard labour. Regional various did exist to a certain extent, and small changes within songs did occur as will be outlined below. However, what is important is that the core of the shanty was to remain understandable to every member of the crew- this under the ever changing cultural and personal make up of the crews. They were sung by two groups: the Shantyman and the Crew. The Shantyman knew the song, and “led” the crew in the shanty. The Shantyman could pick and change the lyrics as needed, and were pulled from a personal repertoire. Their choice of words were chosen based on the knowledge of the crew, where verses could be adapted to ‘mak\\[e\\] up little rhymes which would fit’ with the current crew. (4) Other small changes as well could occur. Specific verses were said to be changed out to target individual officers, or actions of officers thus, changing the lyrics of some verses but maintaining the core point of the song as a form of release and form of expression by the crew to officers. (5) Now to try and address your specific point of region variations. This would have appeared but again, these would be slight changes to the songs lyrics. I’ll give two examples\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_1_) (Norwegian)\n\n[_URL_2_](_URL_2_) (South Australia)\n\nWhat is shown above are the slight changes that occur in a shanty to match the crew make up, or the port of all. The song itself keeps the core of a return to port,however changes are found in name (miss Nancy Blair) as well as rounding Cape Horn.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThis is a very small change, and others were seen in the popular song “The Liverpool Judies” which could interchange different ports (Liverpool for Newyork or San Francisco) but the core of the song about being shanghaied would be kept even if markers of the outgoing port changed. However greater changes could occur giving better representation to the oceans and ports where the ship was sailing. The last example of change, and sadly not regional, is of “re-purposing” a shanty. Songs about sweethearts who were off fighting Napoleon saw lyrics which marked places, events, etc, change in order to adapt to sailing around Cape Horn to California. (6) What I want to try and capture in this, while giving examples which touch of change and variation as per your question, is that there was no real established canon of lyrics. Thus, with the turn over of crews, and the immense cultural diversity of crews, Shanties saw great change and variation within just the Anglo seafaring world. Shanties were noted by original collectors and current scholarship for the influences specifically from African/west-Indian, and African-American music but also from Continental European. This matches the crew makeup and demonstrates that shantites were highly mutable.\n\nI want to make two conclusions here. First, Sea shanties did have regional variations, but more exemplar of the shanty would be to say that the regional variation was one based on the changes, always in movement, and mutability of the oceans and the effects of this space upon those who plied a trade upon it. Studying the human interface with the ocean, how we have been shaped by our interactions and how these interactions of turned around to shape out perception of the ocean. For Shanties, the regional variations were thus based on ports of call, the composition of, for all intents and purposes the geographical, political, cultural, land which was the ship, that the present crew lived within. Second, and off topic a bit from your question but tied directly to it is the question of identity. During this very same period English travelers who wrote about maritime communities commented about the similarities they saw among those across the British isles, France, Netherlands, and Scandinavia. While land based folksongs, had far less, and slower change, Shanties were always in motion. Contemporaries would not have understood a specific canon of “folk music” as sailors, but of a series of core songs and rhymes which could be found on every ship and song by crew members from around the globe. While the words varied, the locations rooted to the songs change (this being markedly different from land), there was a shared knowledge and identity through the meanings of the songs based on a shared and globe experience of life at sea. James Carpenter in 1931, commenting about the strangest and the cosmopolitanism found what he was looking for “British” shanties said: ‘But the chanteys arose, not from an integral race with common ideals a background, shut in by accommodatingly stationary mountains and seas, but from the sons of Cain, bounded by the ever-shifting walls of the forecastle.’(7)\n\n & #x200B;\n\n1. Peter Mandler, ‘Against Englishness: English Culture and the Limits to Rural Nostalgia’; Robert Colls, *Identity of England* (Oxford, 2002).\n2. Davud Atkinson, ‘Folk Songs in Print: Text and Tradition’\n3. See, Eric Sager *Seafaring Labour: The Merchant Marine of Atlantic Canada*; Paul Van Royen etc, al. *Those Emblems of Hell? European Sailors and the Maritime Labour Market, 1570-1870*.\n4. Harry E. Piggott, ‘Sailors’ Chanties’ *Journal of the Folk SOng Society* 5,20 (1916) 306-15.\n5. R.A Fletcher, *In the Days of the Tall Ships*, 326-8.\n6. See, Bullen, *Songs of Sea Labour*, xiii.\n7. James Carpenter, ‘Life Before the Mast: A Chantey Log’ *New York Times Magazine* 19 July 1931, 14-15.\n\nOther\n\n\\-Arthur Knevett, ‘Cultural and Political Origins of the Folk-Song Society and the Irish Dimension’, *Folk Music Journal* 10,5 (2015)\n\n\\-Stan Hugill, *Shanties From the Seven Seas* (London, 1961(\n\n\\* -Kelby Rose, ‘Nostalgia and Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Sea Shanties’ *Mariner’s Mirror*, 98 (2013)\n\n\\-Frank T Bullen, *Songs of Sea Labour* (London, 1914)\n\n\\-W.B Whall, *Ships, Sea Songs and Shanties* (Glasgow, 1910)\n\n\\-Graeme Milne, 'Collecting the Sea Shanty: British Maritime Identity and Atlantic Musical Cultures in the Early Twentieth Century' *IJMH* 29,2 2017" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8s\\_Z13jEeo", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8s_Z13jEeo", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDjOAsxeokw" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d49lxtc" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Do you want films *about* the crusades or do you want films that *teach* about the crusades?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cgn10mo" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "A field hospital was a hospital near the frontline, usually maintained by the division the patients belonged to. Evacuation hospitals were for long-term patients, usually located \"at home\". " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "djkg1pc", "djll9fl" ], "score": [ 6, 3 ], "text": [ "At the end of the Great War, only three naval powers remained in the world; The United States, The United Kingdom, and the Empire of Japan. Historically (circa 1900) Japanese naval doctrine was to keep a force of what could be classified as capital ships equal to 70% of the United States. Their theory was that if any war broke out between the IJN and USN, then two separate engagements would occur, in which the US Navy's Pacific Fleet, and later Atlantic Fleet would be crushed decisively. \n\nThe Japanese delegation to the Washington Naval Conference was of two separate mindsets. The former was of the 70% doctrine, while the second was well aware of American production capability compared to the Japanese Empire. For comparison, the average GDP of Japan in 1920 was only 18% of the United States, and the IJN held only 55% as many capital ships as the USN. The WNT came with a prohibition of all fortifications built in the Pacific, perhaps seen as a windfall by the Japanese, already feeling threatened by British fortifications in Burma, Hong Kong, and Oceania, as well as a large US presence in the Philippines. \n\nThe Japanese were very wary of the WNT, but ultimately accepted in favor of building a cruiser rich naval doctrine, shown in the battles off the Solomon Island chain, as well as smaller engagements around the Philippines in early 1942. The WNT remained a controversial topic in the IJN, as well as the Japanese Government until open hostilities in 1941.\n\nSOURCES\nStephen Howarth's \"The Fighting Ships of the Rising Sun\"\n\nText of the WNT _URL_0_\n\nEDIT: Formatting", "Everything fellow redditors have mentioned is correct, I only have to add that you have to take the WNT in the context of US' 1910s plans for Navy development which the Japanese were well aware of via naval attaches in Washington:\n\nThe Wilson administration's plan for Naval rearmament from 1916 and its expansion in 1919 included a ludicrous amount of over **50 first line battleships**, in order to surpass Royal Navy's number of 42 front line battleships. This was an insane number that Japan's Eight-eight plan for construction of 8 BBs and 8 battlecruisers, which was already seen as a huge industrial endavour simply couldn't match. This plan however, provoked the political aspects of the Royal Navy even more than it had ones in the IJN.\n\nAfter Wilson left the office, the succedding Harding administration realized the plan was ludicrous and set out to a diplomatic solution - however, the genie was left out of the bottle and the threat of USN focusing its industral effort on creating a huge invasion fleet was hanging over Japanese heads.\n\n**Kato Tomosaburo**, Navy Minister at the time, while in the first being a stark proponnent of the eight-eight plan and exponential naval armament, eventually realized an armament race would be a situation in which Japan would be the first one to drop out. However, Kato Tomosaburo's viewpoint was not shared by the majority of the IJN staff; most unexperienced young officers saw the arms race as a display of national prestige and the signing of the WNT was seen as something paramount to treason. The loudest proponent of this was **Kato Kanji**, a young officer who argued that US's industrial capacity is the exact reason why Japan shouldn't sign the WNT - since in the case of a war, USN will just be able to build the extra ships in matters of months, whereas IJN would be stuck with its feeble fleet which couldn't be expanded as quickly.\n\nAt the signing of the treaty, both Kanji and Tomosaburo were present in the Japanese delegation - whereas Tomosaburo accepted all US requests, Kanji threw a huge tantrum and the delegation almost came to the point of rupture; eventually Tomosaburo managed to contain the delegation, mostly due to the help of higher political factors from back home in Japan that reminded Kanji of his place as Tomosaburo's subordinate\n.\nHowever, this didn't mean Kanji stayed quiet afterwards and due to this incident, the IJN quickly \"split\" into the anti and pro Treaty factions, which eventually calmed down, but resurged again in 1930 as the London Naval Treaty appeared as an extension of the WNT.\n\nSources:\n\n*Evans & Peattie: Kaigun, p 191-198*\n\n*Buckley: The United states and the Washington conference*" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/pre-war/1922/nav_lim.html" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "clpa2yq" ], "score": [ 86 ], "text": [ "The French and British weapons in large part existed and continue to exist to increase national standing in the world. Being a nuclear power is a fairly exclusive club and the members of this club have a bigger stick when dealing on the world stage.\n\nFrance's strategy was in large part to act as a trigger for US weapons. France during the 50's was not convinced of US dedication to defense of Western Europe. This was only exacerbated by the Suez crises in 1956 and again increased through the 60's and 70's as France withdrew from NATO and Soviet technology increased allowing the Soviet Union to strike US cities with nuclear weapons. France wanted to ensure that if The Soviet Union invaded Western Europe the US would be forced to intervene.\n\nDuring the 1960's the French strategy was that if an invasion of French territory was imminent French Bombers would perform a Nuclear strike against all cities they could reach (Khrushchev was Ukrainian and most cities in the Soviet Union were beyond the reach of French bombers so Ukrainian cities were a major target) The Soviet Union would be forced to retaliate against France or accept huge losses with no response (in Soviet Doctrine this would signal they were unwilling to retaliate and would result in the US launching a preemptive strike.) The Soviet use of nuclear weapons would trigger the US to use nuclear weapons. Basically France found a way to put their own finger on the trigger of US nuclear weapons.\n\nBoth the US and the USSR knew that France had the ability to trigger mutually assured destruction. So absolutely the French Nuclear ability was taken very seriously. For a fraction of the cost of US and Soviet arsenals France had an effective nuclear deterrent.\n\n[1981 paper about nuclear proliferation](_URL_0_)\n\n[paper regarding French nuclear strategy](_URL_2_) PDF\n\n[a comparison of US UK and France Nuclear Strategy](_URL_1_) PDF" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/waltz1.htm", "http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CE4QFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencespo.fr%2Fceri%2Fsites%2Fsciencespo.fr.ceri%2Ffiles%2Fart_bt.pdf&ei=zblTVNWcOI23yATkhIHQAQ&usg=AFQjCNFk712YEdAaV0ko9XebLtYRVf3vDg&sig2=ZWptCuuy3KaC_KZ5nim6og", "http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CFcQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fkms2.isn.ethz.ch%2Fserviceengine%2FFiles%2FESDP%2F94832%2Fichaptersection_singledocument%2F5650b3af-20af-43d1-b139-5646dccba4d5%2Fen%2FChapter%2B7.pdf&ei=zblTVNWcOI23yATkhIHQAQ&usg=AFQjCNHGZefbKuZ39iUSjOAyMp1KfsFs9w&sig2=hd_XSsGLcYz0RN3UVA6FvQ" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ckd17cu" ], "score": [ 15 ], "text": [ "**Preface:** American Civil War and \"the rest\" (Franco-Prussian and Austro-Prussian primarily are two separate entities. They were two entirely different methods of waging war and need to be treated as separate cases. The Americans had a Jominian (a Napoleonic military theorist) understanding of warfare and thus attempted to replicate Napoleonic methods tactically. It failed horrendously. The rest of the West, basically, Europe, would have a style of war which swung much more in the WWI-side of the spectrum in their respective Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars.\n\nYou're asking a lot of questions here so I'm not even going to really try and give some kind of definitive answer. When did men begin to \"find cover\" and do something reminiscent of \"suppressive fire\"? About the same time men were still \"in rank and fire\" and \"unloading volley after volley\". Light infantry became a \"thing\" in the mid 1700's and would be an integral part of European warfare in the Napoleonic Era where a light infantry body would win or lose battles at time. Wellington would at times make 1/3rd of his force skirmisher/light infantry forces which would decimate enemy formations; all which would be 'taking cover' and the like. Further, and this is just pre-post pettiness, Napoleonic warfare was more than just two sides lining up in an open field and unloading on each other until one side gave up. This is very important to know because having a strong understanding of Napoleon's tactics are necessary to understand America's in the Civil War, and, most importantly, why it didn't work and why it was faux-Napoleonic. In short, Napoleons tactics were to use combined arms to force the enemy to dedicate his reserves to the flank and thus engage the entire enemy force. He would then use his own reserves to smash into the enemy weak spot with massive columns in a final bayonet charge to crush the enemy with overwhelming numbers. \n\nLet me make this clear as it's important: **It was the cooperation between the infantry, cavalry, and artillery that locked the enemy in place through a delicate dance of maneuver and the reserves that decided the battle.** The American Civil War was absolutely nothing like this but it attempted to, and now we get to what an American Civil War battle looked like. Whereas in a Napoleonic battle you'd have a mass of columns approaching the enemy and forming a line or staying in a column respective to the situation with cavalry advancing with the infantry and artillery batteries suppressing the enemy while skirmisher formations screen the enemy and pick them off, the Americans had just one of these components: the infantry bit. Their artillery was present but hardly as decisive as Napoleon (or his contemporaries) would use them. The Union never really had anything resembling real light infantry battalions and the CSA, while using them in small number, never really put them to use in mass as his European contemporaries were and as they were used in the Napoleonic Wars. \n\nFurther, and perhaps most deadly of all, rifled muskets along with advances made cavalry nearly useless. This is only compounded by the fact that America had *no* cavalry tradition whatsoever and thus what little cavalry they did have were dragoons (mounted infantry, essentially) and scouts. They had next to nothing to 'crash' into the enemy and be that decisive factor and what little they did had was useless in the face of rifled muskets which were accurate up to 350 yards and effective to 500. Last but certainly not least the Americans on either side were not keen on keeping reserves which, again, was completely against the entire principle of the tactics they were trying to apply.\n\nWhat we get, in result, is an absolute bloodbath that we now know as the American Civil War and notable battles like Gettysburg. Pickett's Charge would have, with Napoleon, been accompanied with cavalry to add a decisive shock factor and to draw out the enemy reserves. Instead it was a colossal failure. In fact Pickett's Charge is a microcosm of ACW tactics as a whole. Justus Scheibert, a Prussian observer to the ACW, commented on his experience with witnessing a battle:\n\n > *\"The nearer to the enemy, the more faulty the lines and the more ragged the first (line) until it crumbled and mixed with the skirmishers. Forward went this muddle leading the wavy rest. Finally the mass obtruded upon the point of attack. In a sustained, stubborn clash, even the third would join the melee. Meanwhile the usually weak reserve tried to be useful on the flanks, or stiffened places that faltered, or plugged holes. In sum it had been a division neatly drawn up. Now its units, anything but neat, vaguely coherent, resembled a swarm of skirmishers.\"*^[1]\n\nThis is really what ACW battles came down to. They were entirely indecisive as they lacked a deciding factor. Even infantry can be that factor with the right weapons but they just didn't have them. So the answer to what a American Civil War battle looked like was two massive blobs of infantry with 5-6 men packed into a square meter elbow to elbow and using modern, rifled muskets. They would meet, fire off volleys at each other and try to act with a column attack that was entirely unsupported by cavalry and only marginally so by artillery and without any skirmishing body to weaken the enemy. It would have been an absolute bloodbath and a chaotic mess. With totally amateur officers on all levels of command compounding this men just could not engage with the enemy. There are too many cases of a battalion attempting a charge and just stopping short and breaking down formation into just, as Scheibert calls it, a loose collection of line infantry who are now \"skirmishers\" who just charged the enemy and are now, short of them, just dissolving into random and uncontrolled fire. In response to this by the end of the war bloody campaigns of attrition like the Petersburg and Overland campaigns.\n\nReally one of the biggest issues with the Americans was their insistence on using, at first, the Regiment (1500) as the smallest tactical unit and later the Battalion (800). One officer would lead these men and if he died the entire thing went to crap. There was no backup plan -- the entire regiment or battalion operates as one. It fights as one and dies as one. This was an incredibly Napoleonic way of doing things while, as our friend Scheibert will again observe, Europeans were already on the path out of:\n\n > *\"Prussian tactics freed (officers) to use their own minds... Liberated battalion and even company commanders could be the heads of tactical units, their own, and make them fight as right-thinking officers saw fit and as well-trained troops best could. The flexible line at the forward edge resembles a chain , then with detachable links under independent guidance. At crisis they can dismember into smaller and even the smallest units without disfunction... Our Prussian tactics thus gave our line officers energy, elasticity, and speed - to the entire army's benefit... Furthermore, diligent peacetime training provided our troops an abundance of formations, something to fit any circumstance.\"^[2]*\n\nThis is a nice transition into the European style of warfare; something which is looking as I said more in the WWI side of the pendulum than the Napoleonic. What Sheibert just described is what is commonly referred to as an \"infantry chain\", that is, the gradual breaking down of infantry bodies into smaller tactically independent units. It doesn't matter too much if your Battalion Commander gets popped because your lieutenant or your colonel or whatever can just break off on his own and make his own decisions.This is the beginnings of squad based warfare that will be so prevalent in WW2 and contemporary warfare. Rather than operating in groups of 800 or god forbid 1500 you would see Company's and Platoons with men as little as 80-100 operating independent from the rest of the body. \n\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cafdzp1" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Well, first, what exactly do you consider to be the \"usual\" ways?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cdofv4o", "cdohek5", "cdok2cz", "cdoosil" ], "score": [ 5, 13, 14, 9 ], "text": [ "I am not an expert on this at all, but the \"original\" religious beliefs in both India and Indonesia were to varying degrees displaced by Islam before Europeans arrived. India (according to Wikipedia) is 13.4% Muslim, which actually gives it the 3rd largest Muslim population in the world, and the percentage would have been much higher under British rule, when Pakistan and Bangledesh were part of India as well.\n\nIndonesia is actually the largest Muslim nation, and is 87.2% Muslim (again, according to Wikipedia).", "I'm afraid I can only speak for African colonies, not for South American and Asian colonies which to my understanding will be very different in this regard. This is a generalization too, the specifics of certain states are very different.\n\nSo a lot of the colonization efforts in Africa were preceded by explores and (key to this questions) Missionaries. These missionaries came from all over the world (I've read journals from Americans, British, French missionaries) but were generally aiming to convert people to their denomination of Christianity. These people were very paternalistic and patronizing to the Africans but generally seemed to want to \"help\" (the degree to which they were actually helping is debatable).\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThat's an extract from the journal of a missionary who set up a school in Luebo (in what is now the DRC). With Christianity generally came literacy. In order to read the bible and worship god, the Africans needed at least a small community of literate readers to propagate the message.\n\nSo when the Scramble for Africa proper began after the Berlin conference (1884-5) there was already a precedent for missions to Africa to attempt to convert the peoples and teach basic reading a writing skills. Most of the colonies in Africa were not settler colonies but based around extraction and acquisition of resources. So due to the colonial powers not having many boots on the ground so to speak, a native presence was required. This administrative Africans needed to be able to read and speak the language of the colonists for obvious reasons. The already fledgling missionary schooling system was integral to this, naturally these church schools were not secular in their teachings.\n\nSo fast forward to the post colonial period and the majority of Africans who were educated and in positions of power, were Africans who had gone through the church schooling system. These Africans would generally be Christians. So as the transition from colony to state began, these were the men (mostly men at this point) who were to take the reins so to speak.\n\nThat's not to say traditional religions were eliminated entirely. Many traditional religions survive to this day. There are also christian sects that combined traditional religions with Christianity. Often the gods, spirits and ancestors of the old religion would become Angels or Demons of the Christian religion. On a larger scale, African churches began to appear, as Africans became more educated, that rejected the white supremacy of European Protestantism and Catholicism. \n\nI apologize that I can't answer the second half of your question, but hopefully this explains why Africans did adopt European religions. Hopefully I also get across that religion was not a passive thing. Africans (from all walks of life) adapted the religions to suit their own needs. I think it would be wrong to says the populace follows the religion of their political masters. Literacy and power lead the adoption of Christianity rather than zealotry.", "Well it *may* have to do with the fact that the colonial rulers of South America were Catholic vs the Protestantism that characterized British rule of North America and India. More to this point, the Phillipines which is firmly in Asia is staunchly Catholic to this day, and that is because it was ruled by the Spanish before the war agaisnt USA.\n\nCatholic orders like the Jesuits and Franciscans made aggressive conversion campaigns in SA, and one of their main objectives was exactly that. Not to mention the fact that Spanish administrators also took their part in breaking up their old belief systems: many Catholic churches in Mexico are built directly above Mayan or Aztec temples.\n\nAlso population-wise, a large porcentage of the native South American population was wiped out by the Old World diseases and the hard conditions of labour imposed by the Europeans. As these populations dwindled they would be more \"vulnerable\" to conversion attempts.\n\nEDIT: I did a little bit of more research, and although it is not definitive proof, compare these two images: [Catholics](_URL_1_) [Christians](_URL_0_). In the colonies (South and Central America, Africa and Asia), *most* of the Christians that are in those place are Catholic, i.e. Protestants were not as effective (or willing) as Catholics at converting the local populations.", "Okay, to give you a quick TL;DR right off the bat, I'd argue that you're massively underselling and simplifying what happened to both the eradication of the Inca state religion when the Spanish showed up, and the conversion of the natives to Christianity.\n\nOne of the Spanish motives for conquering the New World - and much of their moral support for the endeavor - came from the papal dispensation that allowed Spain to conquer so long as the natives were brought into the fold of Christianity, as they had souls and could thus join Team Jesus (yes, the notion of New World civilians having souls was a topic of debate and discussion). In practice this was often exerted rather forcefully - for instance, conquistadors presented groups they met with the Requirement, which basically boils down to \"Join Christianity, or we have *casus belli* against you\". As was somewhat famously recounted in several chroniclers' accounts, Atahualpa, victorious Inca of a brutal fraternal civil war, was presented with a Bible and told of Christianity. Asking the man who is considered by his people to be an aspect of the Sun to up and change teams is presumptuous, wouldn't you say? It is said he threw the Bible on the ground and the conquistadors promptly sprung into action. (Always a fun story, the capture of Atahualpa - ask me again sometime and I'll expand on it.)\n\nAnother way the Spanish usurped Inca state religion was through the \"extirpation of idolatry\". Keeping, worshipping, secreting, or otherwise maintaining idols and shrines was a severe offense, and these objects and places were vigorously sought out and destroyed. The white rock Yurak-Rumi outside Vitcos (a holdout of the independent Inca state after the Rebellions) was one such *huaca*, or sacred place/object. The shrine of Chuquipalta containing it was burned to the ground - the rock is still present and Brian Bauer found evidence of the burning in excavations there. At every point the Inca pantheons, or their local analogues, maintained by the people of Andean civilization were replaced with saints and ceremonies respecting them.\n\nThe result, however, is a Christian religion completely unlike any other in the world, and markedly different from the Roman Catholicism initially presented to the people of the Andes. For example, the thunder and storms here in the Cuzco Valley of Peru is called \"San Pedro\". What does Saint Peter have to do with lightning? Well, Inti, the Sun, had an aspect known as Illapa, the Thunder. Inti got replaced more or less with the Christ figure, and Saint Peter took the place of Illapa in the pantheon.\n\nAnother example: there's a painting of a virgin at one of the sites I've worked at here. This *virgencita* garners pilgrims from the towns in the valley, and occasionally the surrounding areas - folks from the city of Cuzco occasionally even visit. The *virgencita* basically replaced the *huaca* of Andean society - a deeply-seated cosmological concept of sacred space and spirit that inhabits the earth, water and sky of our world. The Virgin is responsible for good or bad weather in the valley - if you fall into sickness it may be because you hadn't respected the Virgin or given her a *pago* offering of late. This mentality survived from well before the Inca (so far as it can be discerned) straight into the present day - save for a different name.\n\nI can't speak for how Asian cultures \"resisted\" Christian advances, but for Andeans, \"adaptation\" is a much more proper term than \"conversion\"." ] }

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[ [], [ "https://archive.org/stream/presbyterianpion00shep#page/62/mode/2up/search/school" ], [ "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Christian_distribution.png", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Distribution_of_Catholics.png" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "db6mdvu" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "I can answer the aspect of the question referring to the Anglo-Saxons, and can touch on the Celts and Vikings in relation to that. I did want to primarily focus on the Celts, but that would require explaining the differences between Gaelic, Brittonic and Pictish culture which is so complicated and so debated its not even worth it. \n\nFirstly, I'm afraid that they were West Germanic rather than North Germanic, at least in terms of language. This might seem trivial, but it places the Anglo-Saxons in the contexts of the Frisians and the Franks (modern Dutch and French (and the Germans partially)) rather than of Scandinavia, and the Anglo-Saxons were to have far more diplomatic, cultural and trade links with the Continent than with Scandinavia, especially in the Carolingian period, after the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had been more or less established. In regards to continental links during the Carolingian period, for a more diplomatic focus I'd recommend the Patrick Wormald's chapter on Offa, Alcuin and Charlemagne in Campbell's \"The Anglo-Saxons\" (Note: it was published in 1982 so some things that he states as fact have since been disputed) and for a more political history I'd recommend the chapter on Offa and Charlemagne in Wallace-Hadrill's \"Early Germanic Kingship\"\n\nSecondly, you quite correctly draw the distinction between population and language in your question, and it is key that this distinction is recognised. While in 19th and early 20th century the general narrative was \"the Anglo-Saxons arrive, beat up the Welsh and steal their land\" the lack of Archaeological evidence for this has been used to dispute it, such as by Fleming in \"Britain after Rome\". Sometimes I feel like this argument gets a bit silly and goes too far: we must always be cautious using \"negative evidence\" (or \"lack of evidence\") to prove something. It seems likely that the plague of Justinian may have reached Britain, and we lack any archaeological evidence for damage caused by that; so it might also simply be the case that all the mass graves of the British who were slaughtered by the Anglo-Saxons have since vanished. Yet it seems to me that the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons was not one purely of conquest, but one of gradual cultural conversion by a new warrior class.\n\n The withdrawal of the Roman army and power structure in the late 4th and early 5th centuries necessitated the development of some other form of government, which in this case was the various warlords or \"tyrants\" that Gildas refers to. While in the heavily militarised \"highland\" areas of Wales and Northern England, into which Roman style villa-based agriculture had not spread, a residual Brittonic (i.e. British Celtic) tribal structure persisted and eventually formed the much debated kingdoms of Rheged, Gododdin and (disputedly) Bryneich and so could effectively govern and repel Germanic and Gaelic raiding. The Hadrian's Wall garrisons by this point appear to have been isolated from the rest of the Roman World and were largely self-sufficient. It's not simply that they \"went native\", as Neil Faulkner [points out](_URL_0_) that there was a gradual shift in the army in Britain to a more British identity, even as that same identity became more Roman. But it appears that the Roman local military forces in the North and West integrated into the subsequent tribal structures that formed, and gave them military strength. As such, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira in the North found expansion inland from their coastal bases very difficult.\n\n The same cannot be said of the very civilian and agrarian South, whose rulers governed in a Roman style but likely had a lack of troops to fight off invaders. Now the legend of Hengest, Horsa and Vortigern, in which Vortigern gives land to H & H in return for military service, after which he is betrayed by H & H and they conquer England, is much ridiculed, but I think that it might be a mythic version of a phenomenon during the 4th and 5th centuries in which local Romano-British rulers used Anglo-Saxons as soldiers to rule securely and to fight rival warlords. There is precedent for this in the Roman World in the extensive hiring of Germanic \"Foederati\", most infamously in the Visigoths. Bryan Ward-Perkins argues in \"Why did the Anglo-Saxons not become more British?\" that a fairly small number of Anglo-Saxons actually made the journey to Britain, but that they must have occupied a position in society that gave them immense influence, and allowed them to essentially convert the culture of their British neighbours. Additionally, it seems that Old English has a complete absense of any Celtic words, suggesting there was no intermingling and cultural exchange between the two groups. I don't believe that this was a relationship of subjugation, as English culture and language survived a Norman rule of centuries where British culture and language didnt survive in this regard.\n\n Instead, it might be hypothesised that the Anglo-Saxon warrior-aristocracy seemed very attractive to the British, and the adoption of Anglo-Saxon customs may have been a tool of social advancement. Furthermore, the legal system which these emergent states had put in place by at least the 8th century, by which point they were thoroughly Germanic in nature, can only be described as apartheid; in terms of the \"wergild\" (the amount of money someone was worth in a legal sense) a British subject was worth *half* as much as an Anglo-Saxon subject according to Ine's Law Code in Wessex. I'd say that doubling your legal value is a pretty good incentive to abandon your British identity and Christian religion. As such, it seems to me that the Anglo-Saxons and their kingdoms actually had firmly British roots.\n\nI'm aware this post has ballooned out of control, but I'd actually like to reserve the last paragraph for slagging off the Vikings. In my view, the impact of the Vikings on England is often overestimated. While the additions of their North Germanic language into our West Germanic language have made English fiendishly difficult to learn today, they are also often credited with the modern cultural divide between the North and South of England, as they established the \"Danelaw\" in the North. However, I previously argued that there was a distinct difference in the style of Roman governance between the North and South, and that the formation of Kingdoms differed in these two areas. So while the Vikings certainly influenced this divide, they hardly created it. The Vikings did not really influence ethnicity in Britain on their own, but they did have an immense impact upon the formation of other ethnicities, or \"ethnogenesis\". For example, Alfred's wars against the Vikings changed his kingdom from one of the \"West Saxons\" into one of the \"Anglo-Saxons\": the exterior pressure of the Vikings meant that the Anglo-Saxons were forced to change. Alfred's grandson completed (albeit temporarily) the reconquest of England, and by the time he did so it really was \"England\": in 927, Aethelstan changed his royal style from \"King of the Anglo-Saxons\" to \"King of the English\". The term \"England\" itself was also a result of the Vikings, as the first King of the \"land of the English\" rather than simply of \"the English\" was Cnut, a great King of Denmark who conquered England in the 11th century. And this impact was not limited to the Anglo-Saxons. In Woolf's \"From Pictland to Alba\", he makes it clear that before the arrival of the Vikings Scotland was divided between the Gaelic Kingdom of Dalriata and the Pictish kingdom of Pictavia: after the Vikings were driven out, these kingdoms had been replaced by Alba, which would become Scotland. So while the Vikings were themselves unimportant ethnically, they spurred \"ethnogenesis\" throughout Britain. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/romanisation_article_01.shtml" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "chroc13" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Be careful describing Francoist Spain as 'fascist.' The Falange--the Spanish fascist party--got less than 0.01% of the vote in the [1936 election that preceded the Spanish Civil War](_URL_0_). That's less than 7,000 votes. There were facist aspects of Franco's regime: Falange membership swelled after the outbreak of hostilities the Falange was incorporated into Franco's 'movement,' and both Germany and Italy provided men and equipment to the Nationalists during the war. However, Franco was never a committed fascist. Like every other group he subsumed to his own cause (the Nationalists, the Army, the Catholic Church, industrialists, large landowners, the middle class, the Alfonsists, and the Carlists), he used the Falange to further his real program: himself. Everything else came a distant third.\n\nSo, I can't speak to why nations have had varying amounts of fascists at various times, but one must be careful in attributing that label to Franco's regime." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_general_election,_1936" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dw0440z", "dw05ynv" ], "score": [ 6, 34 ], "text": [ "Chechen resistance to Russia had historic ties to radical Islam. Imam Shamil, probably the most notable Chechen resistance leader of the 19th century (when Russia first tried to conquer Chechnya), was obviously a religious figure (hence the \"Imam\"), and followed Sheikh Mansur in that regard. Both were followers of Sufism, a ~~radical~~ spiritual branch of Sunni Islam, specifically the Naqshbandi sect (apologies if I'm messing up terminology, Islamic studies are not my strong point). It was a defining feature of the Chechen people, in that it differentiated them from not just from the Russians (Orthodox Christian), but also the Persians (Shia Muslim) and other local ethnic groups in the Caucasus (who were everything in between; I think some Dagestani groups were Sufi though). This religious identity maintained itself throughout the Chechen resistance: it didn't just come back up in the 1990s, but was there during the Russian Revolution era (1917-21) when there was an attempt at a North Caucasus state (including Chechnya), and through Chechen revolts in the Soviet era: Shamil's name in particular was used as a rallying cry, and with it the religious aspects, which were even more prominent in the officially atheist Soviet Union.\n\nThis at least is why Chechnya has kept up its Islamic traditions; I can't speak for the lack of such traditions in Bosnia.", "**part 1**\n\n/u/kaisermatias is probably best for explaining the situation in Chechnya but aside the specifics of religiosity in Bosnia (which I'll get to) one of the major reasons for a very different outcome is that the political structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is the outcome of Dayton Agreement, also known as the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Brokered by the international community with representatives from the US, France, Germany, the European Union and so forth present, the aim of the Dayton Agreement was and still remains to preserve a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, secular political structure in BiH by instituting a highly complex political structure in BiH and giving the international community in form of the office of the High Representative immense political power.\n\nWith the NATO bombing campaign against the Republika Srpska and the success of Croatian Operation Storm in the summer of 1995, the Republika Srpska (the Serbian part of BiH) signaled their willingness to negotiate peace and through brokerage of the international community, the accords were signed at Dayton, Ohio in November 1995. With it, BiH's status as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and secular state were established by imposing the internal political division that is present in BiH to this day.\n\nAnd here is where it gets complicated: The state known as Bosnia and Herzegovina is technically speaking the Federal parliamentary Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH for short, which I'll continue to use throughout this post). So, according to Dayton and some further agreements, BiH has a president elected directly by the people (we'll get to some specifics), a government formed under a prime minister from a federal parliament with two chambers, a fairly usual judiciary with a Constitutional Court but also with a special Human Rights Chamber operating until 2003, and the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, a special office created by Dayton (we'll come to him too soon).\n\nBut that is not all. BiH is constitutionally comprised of two seperate state-like entities that form the country as a whole: The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which – unsurprisingly is a federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina – and the already mentioned Republika Srpska (RS). The Federation represents the Bosnian Muslims and Croat Bosnian parts of the population and according to the Dayton agreement controls 51% of the countries territory and the RS controls the remaining 49%. The Federation itself is – like BiH – a federation comprised of 10 autonomous cantons. While since 2005 BiH has its own army – before that the Federation and the RS had their own set of armed forces – in pretty much everything else the Federation and the RS are separate: Each have their own government, parliament, supreme court, flag and coat of arms, police force, customs, and postal system.\n\nI already mentioned the Cantons in the Federation but it is important that while these follow a \"classical\" federal structure more closely related to a form that we are related with, they too have their own governments, prime ministers, agencies, and so forth. These Cantons are further divided in municipalities. The RS is directly divided into municipalities without any further cantons.\n\nAlso, speaking of the president of BiH, that isn't just one person. Rather it's three. During the four year term the chair of presidency rotates among the three members (a Bosniak, a Serb, and a Croat) every 8 months. These members are elected directly (the Bosniak and the Croat from the Federation, the Serb from the RS) and they serve as a collective head of state with their most important functions being proposing a budget and being actively involved in foreign policy.\n\nSo, to recap, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is a country with a three members collective presidency, a two chamber parliament, and one federal constitutional court. This country is at the same time comprised of two political entities (\"entities\" being the exact terminology used in the Dayton agreement as to not imply they are states): The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska, each of them with their own parliament, their own prime minister, and supreme court and corresponding internal administrative and political structure. In addition to that, the Federation is also comprised of 10 Cantons, each of which also has its own government and prime minister. So, you have a country with 3 million inhabitants and a bit smaller than West Virginia that has a three person presidency, three supreme courts, 13 parliaments – one of which with two chambers with proportional representation – and 13 prime ministers.\n\nAnd this is where the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina resp. the High Representative comes into place. Because if the above sounds to you like a recipe for girdlock, that's because it is. And the Western powers who hammered out Dayton agreed on that. So not only did they created the High Representative as a position to oversee the implementation of Dayton, they also granted the position powers that can best be described (and have been various times) as dictatorial. The High Representative can adopt binding legal decisions if he feels that local parties are unwilling to act and he can remove from office public officials who violate legal commitments or, in general, the Dayton Agreement. And the High Representative also uses these powers, having until 2004 dismissed a total of 139 officials, including judges, ministers, civil servants and members of parliaments, sometimes freezing their bank account in the process.\n\nThe High Representative's decisions can not be appealed and he is also not elected by the people of BiH but rather is only responsible to the Peace Implementation Council, an international body with steering members from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, the Presidency of the European Union, European Commission, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which is represented by Turkey. Past high representatives in chronological order were Carl Bildt, former first conservative prime minister of Sweden; Carlos Westendorp, Spanish Diplomat; Wolfgang Petritsch, Austrian diplomat; Paddy Ashdown, British Lib Dem politician; Christian Schwarz-Schilling, German conservative politician; Miroslav Lajčák, Social Democrat Slovak foreign minister; and currently Valentin Inzko, Austrian diplomat.\n\nCritics of the Dayton agreement, especially from within BiH, have contended that Dayton might have helped end the war in Bosnia but has essentially turned the country into an international protectorate that for all its complicated internal political structure is essentially ruled by the international community.\n\nAnd while that criticism is certainly valid to an extent, the deeper running problem, especially with Dayton now approaching almost a quarter century of being in effect is the issue that the way the state of BiH was set-up cements the categorization of nationalities that intially played such a huge role in the conflict. In essence, the specific structure that is based upon national categories like Croatians, Bosniaks, and Serbs prevents the inhabitants of BiH to develop any sort of civic nationalism or positive relationship with the central state because the only group that at this point can claim as their \"own\" but not wholly is the Bosniaks while Croatians and Serbians constantly look to Croatia and Serbia for their interests too: Dayton is the conflict not resolved but frozen in place.\n\nAt the same time, it has also prevented extremists of anyone side gaining an upper hand, including those who'd have supported some sort of jihadist policies. It is however important to emphasize here that for all intents and purposes, mujahideen and international jihadists never had an overly massive presence in Bosnia during the war and that Bosnian Muslim religious practice has a very different tradition from other Muslim areas of the world.\n\nEstimates of the number of Islamist volunteers in Bosnia during the war of the 90s vary widely, as widely as 500-5000, though most serious studies such as those of the International Crisis Group and the Center for Strategic and International Studies put the number somewhere in between 1000-2000. ARBiH did establish a detachment of foreign fighters during the war, El Mudžahid, which was attached to ARBiH's 7th Muslim Brigade under Mahmut Karalić. However, as the ICTY found during its case against Enver Hadžihasanović, the chief of staff or ARBiH, the relationship was not so much one of subordination but rather, almost outright hostility. According to witnesses, the only way to control El Mudžahid was to threaten them with attack rather than order them anything.\n\nAnd this wasn't exactly the only way relationships between the foreign volunteers and the Bosniak natives were fraught. Radical extresmists such as Al-Queda, which sent some of their people to join the El Mudžahid would often clash with Bosniaks over their lax(er) interpretation of Muslim practices. While Muslim religion especially during the war became an important part of Bosniak identity, to this day 54% of Bosniaks identify as \"non-denomiational Muslim\" and many religious practices common in other countries, from Hijabs to the prohibition of alcohol, are not observed or only observed by a comparatively small part of the community.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "chwyd5o" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I don't have a general answer, but I have some specific examples of those who had a choice to go exploring and did: Edmond Halley, who was exploring the oceans in the 17th century, Joseph Banks, who traveled on James Cook's first voyage in the 18th century, and Charles Darwin, who traveled on the Beagle in the 19th. All three were gentlemen--adventurous, certainly very curious, perhaps a little out of the ordinary (they would have to be) but sane gentlemen. \n\nEdmond Halley, from a wealthy manufacturing background, undertook sea voyages to carry out scientific and astronomical work (his first being in 1676, when he was 20). He even captained (by many accounts poorly) his own ship in order to carry out research into compass variations in the Atlantic ocean. He did these things as part of his career in England, not inspite of it.\n\nJoseph Banks, voyaging in the later half of the 18th century, was also a young, wealthy and in his case landed gentleman (22) when, since he had nothing else to do and an urge for adventure, booked himself on a scientific trip to Newfoundland and Labrador. Four years later, he was appointed botanist on James Cook's first voyage--one which famously took in what Tahiti had to offer. The trip was definitively off the map, going to places completely or almost completely unreached by European explorers. But it was still heavily populated by gentlemen who had scientific interests. Later, his own travelling days done, Banks founded the early Kew collection of exotic plants, receiving samples from other naturalists around the world sent purposely to find samples of possible use. \n\nCharles Darwin famously was not the naturalist on FitzRoy's Beagle, but his assignment to the expedition was not unlike Banks'. Both were young at the time, and both were extraordinary in their natural interests, and both did not quite fit a leisurely or mundane life. However, like Banks, Darwin was level-headed and sane enough to be allowed along as FitzRoy's companion on a ship where gentlemanly company would be somewhat otherwise limited.\n\nAll three of these men went off sane and came back perhaps slightly less sane. All of them were not accidents or outliers, but examples of the heavy scientific and completely level-headed exploratory impulse among polite society. After all, expeditions like this take money. You don't fund an expedition which has an increased chance of failing because the people associated with it are known to be unbalanced. You fund an expedition which has at its head a great leadership team who can deal with incredibly poor conditions, unexpected occurrances and diplomatic disasters, and still bring back useful information whether it be something tradeable, or something growable, or something that can be invaded. \n\nMy answer? I can't speak for who the sailors were, but I think the vessels sailing into the unknown were led by people who if they weren't precisely entirely well-adjusted (there is a reason they went, after all) had something important to offer and were trusted or otherwise recommended to deliver on an incredibly difficult enterprise.\n\nSources:\n\nRichard Holmes' The Age of Wonder, and my own general knowledge of Halley and Darwin from earlier research and reading. Darwin Slept Here is a very interesting easy-reading book into Darwin's time in South America." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e81g0ih" ], "score": [ 12 ], "text": [ "It really would not have existed, at least not really until after WW2.\n\nWorld History as a field is still pretty new-- as our courses in World History at most universities. Prior to that, the most common history class that any college educated individual would attend was Western Civilization (which still exists on plenty of campuses in the US). The ideal of the Western Civilization course was to tell a common history of Western Europe and its colonial progeny that took for a starting point Rome/Greece. This history was fairly novel at the end of the 19th century as it ran pretty counter to the nationalistic (or nation based) histories which had become vogue. Histories that for instance spoke to the antiquity of the French Nation or German Nation and celebrated its uniqueness or special position in Europe/the World. Western Civ courses stressed common ancestry and common destiny.\n\nIn this same vein we might track the emergence of New History led by James Harvey Robinson, who took the bedrock of Western Civ and built upon it a deeply progressive narrative of history that could explain how man (or western man) rose up from his primitive state to modern. This movement saw professional historians as antiquarians, whose work was too academic and remote from contemporary life. New History also known as Social Studies combines history, politics, geography and civics together. It's unlikely leaders would be familiar with this sort of history as Robinson really begins his project around 1913.\n\nAfter World War One, there is a greater movement towards World History, though its still very much on the margins and seen as an amateurish thing to do by much of the academy. Leaders in this regard would be Spengler and Toynbee who formed new versions of world history out of a new civilization approach in order to range across space and time. Their attempt to create an all encompassing, cosmic-universality of mankind history was dismissed as imagination, philosophy, or rubbish. What Spengler in particular really wanted to do was explain why World War One happened-- and to him, the easy answer was that Europe had reached the precipice and was beginning its civilizational slide into oblivion.\n\nRecognizable World History bubbles up perhaps most recognizably in the 1950s in the writing of Leften Stavrianos who believed that we should be taking “a view from the moon,” a higher unifying vision of the whole of human past. He argued that istorians should transcend the Eurocentrism of their discipline and the progressive narrative that ranges from Greece to Rome to Modernity and leaves societies like Egypt and China to the side as exhausted dead ends. The problem with Western Civ he believed was that it gave no global context to human history and left students with only a triumphalist narrative in which European Civilization comes to dominate the globe, which was certainly less of European Evolution while all other societies seemed static, frozen in time.\n\n* Allardyce, Gilbert. \"The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course.\" The American Historical Review 87, no. 3 (1982): 695-725.\n\n* Allardyce, Gilbert. \"Toward World History: American Historians and the Coming of the World History Course.\" Journal of World History 1, no. 1 (1990): 23-76.\n\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cwzzqyh", "cx02tw5" ], "score": [ 22, 6 ], "text": [ "The people of the Amazon were semi-nomadic, which made the Inca style of conquest and cultural integration difficult. Furthermore they were known to be violent. This was their best defense against conquest by both the ruling Andean powers and the Spanish/Portuguese. They had little to offer and and everyone else had too much to lose. \n\nThere is evidence of economic and cultural trade represented in Andean art. Flora and fauna found only in the rainforest is shown in Andean motifs and goods. Feathers in particular were traded from the forests to the more established civilizations. \n\nEdit: a more direct answer- Yes, the Inca had a pretty good knowledge of the rainforest and the people there. Inca influence came in the form of goods: textiles, ceramics, and food/alcohol. These were in exchange for taxes and allegiance. Because the semi-nomadic people did not deal in goods and currency, nor were they in large enough groups to threaten or aid the Inca, they were relatively left alone. ", "The Inca Empire and preceding Andean cultures traded with but did not politically control Amazonian peoples. Huertas Castillo writes that Inca people obtained feathers and animal skins from Amazonian peoples such as the Ese Eja and Harakmbut, in exchange for items such as bronze axes ([26](_URL_0_))." ] }

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[ [], [ "https://books.google.com/books?id=i12ax9VsPS0C&lpg=PA26&dq=Amazon%20feathers%20Inca&pg=PA26#v=onepage&q=Amazon%20feathers%20Inca&f=false" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ci1i99o", "ci1mvg5" ], "score": [ 44, 279 ], "text": [ "There were three things that Caesar was undoubtedly guilty of, and would have been roasted alive in any court in Rome for.\n\nFirst, his entire political career had been defined by bribery. To gain political office in Rome meant spending lavishly on your clients, and the grey area between gifts and bribes was as unclear then as it is for politicians today. And Caesar did spend ever so lavishly. Starting with his run for Pontifex Maximus, he basically assured his own election for all the important offices he held (including his pro-consulships) through hefty bribes.\n\nSecond, he also was guilty of serious offenses against the state and the gods by his **actions** as both consul and then pro-consul. For the first, it was his actions towards his fellow consul, Marcus Bibulus, that caused the trouble. Not only was Caesar complicit in the violation of his sacrosanctity, he also ignored the fact that Bibulus had declared that every day of that consulship year was a religious holiday, meaning that technically speaking, all of the laws that Caesar passed during his consulship (including his appointment as pro-consul) through the Assemblies was invalid, since no public business was to be conducted on such days (this was, as an aside, one of the ingenious but ultimately failed attempts to block Caesar). These actions alone could easily have been used to prosecute him. However, his actions as pro-consul didn't do him any favours either. He went well beyond his mandate when he began his invasions, and while he became popular in Rome through his dispatches and distribution of largess, he also could be said to be participating in an illegal war. \n\nNow, this would all be a moot point if the alliance between him, Crassus, and Pompey was still alive, since the money of the former and influence of the later could have trumped any charges as easily as they had gotten themselves and Caesar elected repeatedly. However, with the death of Crassus and the turning of Pompey to the Senate, Caesar's only protection at this point (legally speaking) was his continued immunity from prosecution via his pro-consulship.", "Fantastic question! It's been a while since I've answered one, so you just made my day here. Let's get into the whirlpool that's 1st century BCE Roman politics, shall we? :) **The first posts will be background to help you understand the last post. If you just want a quickie, scroll down a bit to the third post. If not, enjoy!**\n\nFirst thing you have to remember is that Rome in the last century BCE was confusing as *hell.* Power was constantly shifting, and traditions were being overridden left and right. In the early years, Roman armies had marched on Rome for the first time - and then there were the actual civil wars. One of the few traditions that was still left was the eternal tradition of politics. Every man wanted more power - and in that regard, it was every man for himself. **There were no political parties, but there *were* political \"ideals.\"** You could appeal to the people for your power - these people were disparagingly called the \"populares\" by the other side. The other side was traditional and focused on looking as \"Roman\" as possible - they called themselves the \"optimates\" or the \"best men.\" Many pop history folks (looking at you, Dan Carlin) like to portray these two sides as the \"Democrats and Republicans\" of the ancient world, but that's absolutely not the case. Every man was for himself - and that was the greatest check on the system. While you made temporary alliances with others, you would only help that other person out so long as it was convenient for you. Backstabbing was hugely prevalent, and it was also the greatest check on any one man having too much power. Men rose and fell with incredible rapidity - Caius Marius, for example, was a paragon in 101 BCE. In 100 BCE, he was panned and forced to retire from his 6th consulship in (relative) disgrace due to the Saturninas affair, which sparked a whole new set of SNAFUs. But that's another story, and this is just for the addition of context. \n\nNow for just a bit more context. This might seem random, but bear with me - I'll tie it together in just a bit. **In 60 BCE, there was a rather defined political battle between a few of the biggest names in Rome.**\n\n* The first, possibly the most common, name was **Cato Minor**, more commonly known as Cato the Younger. Cato was one of the most outspoken men of the Senate; he never held the consulship (Rome's highest office), but he certainly did command quite a bit of *auctoritas* and *dignitas*. When he spoke, people listened - and he was famed for not budging from his firm ideals on what a Roman SHOULD do. That didn't really work out in his favour, other than being the most famously outspoken man in the Senate at that point, but his reputation garnered him one crucial advantage; people were *afraid* to speak against Cato. Cato was the staunch defender of Roman ideals! Obviously, if you speak against Cato, you're speaking against Rome herself! You're not a true Roman! You get the idea. Cato's famous for holding the first recorded filibusters (I believe), and he was nothing if not diligent at curbing people's power. Needless to say, this policy didn't go over terribly well with those who were seeking that power, which leads us to the first person who Cato royally pissed off!\n\n---\n\n* **Pompey Magnus.** In 60 BCE, Pompey was the most decorated Roman general alive. He had been one of Sulla's understudies, earning his title of \"Magnus\" in the **Marian civil wars.** After that mess, he spent a few years getting his ass handed to him by Sertorius in **Spain** (which is generally glossed over rather conveniently), for which he was granted a triumph. From there, he headed to Italy, where he took credit for crushing **Spartacus' revolt**, then took command of the Mediterranean to conduct what was possibly **the greatest anti-piracy campaign in history.** Within 40 days, the entire Mediterranean was cleared of piracy - which is a bigger deal than it sounded. Rome's population was incredible, and the city was absolutely reliant on constant imports of grain from her provinces - something that the pirates were interrupting, on top of ransacking other trading ships and even raiding the coastline from Gibraltar to Egypt to Italy and Greece. Putting it in perspective....clearing that entire area in 40 days? Today, it would be considered to be a nearly impossible task. It's one of the achievements of Pompey that shows that he truly was an organizational genius. Immediately afterwards, he conducted **the Third Mithridatic War,** which culminated in the Pontic king's suicide and the subjugation of the [Eastern Provinces](_URL_0_). \n\n When Pompey returned to Rome, he received another triumph for his success, and he was again the golden boy of the people. He expected all of that love and adoration to translate into political success, but he failed to reckon with Cato's....Cato-ness. When he returned to Rome, Pompey had two objectives: **He wanted to give land to all of his veterans** (a reasonable request, which had become tradition over the past half century), and **he wanted to confirm his Eastern Settlement** (the laws and regulations that he had established over in those aforementioned provinces). Cato cockblocked both with the help of his allies. Pompey, feeling rather stung by this, began searching for allies of his own. The only man who held as much power as him, however, was one of his own greatest enemies - a man who he couldn't *stand.* In 60 BCE, however, they both had a common enemy in Cato. And as they say, an enemy of my enemy...\n\n---\n\n* **Marcus Licinius Crassus** - he's well known as the wealthiest man in Rome for a reason, and that's what he's most famous for. What people *don't* think of is what he did with all of that money. Especially in the First Century, **a bid for political office required a vast sum of wealth; and most of the people running were running so they could *achieve* that vast sum of wealth.** Well, they were really running for the power and prestige. The wealth was just a nice side effect - but they still didn't have the money on hand to campaign. They had to get it from somewhere, and the best place to get the money? From people who had the money on hand. Crassus was the most famous of these, and he bankrolled HUGE numbers of aspiring politicians. As a result, he had an enormous amount of sway in the Roman political system - **all he was lacking was a military command.** He tried to achieve military glory in the Spartacus War, but, as it was a slave revolt, that didn't do much for him (coupled with Pompey's glory-hogging tendencies). Well, in 60 BCE, Crassus was having similar issues to Pompey; **Cato was being a nuisance.** Crassus was hugely involved with the *publicani* - who were made famous in the Bible as the \"publicans,\" or the \"tax collectors\" - and **the *publicani* had a problem.** They weren't able to collect as much money as they'd promised in the war-ravaged East (what a shocker). **So, being businessmen and not wishing to make a loss, they tried to renegotiate their contract.** Some of the Senate (such as Cicero), saw the demand as completely outrageous - but were in favour of it to placate the business class and to keep them mollified. Some, like Crassus, were businessmen themselves, and were wholly in favour of the idea. But then, in comes Cato and his cadre.\n\n[Cicero, always being the purveyor of wonderful descriptions of daily politics, commented thusly:](_URL_1_)\n\n > The fact remains that with all his patriotism and integrity he is sometimes a political liability. He speaks in the Senate as though he were living in Plato's Republic rather than Romulus' cesspool. What could be fairer than jurors who take bribes should themselves be brought to trial? Cato moved accordingly, and the Senate agreed. Result, the Knights declare war against the House - not upon me, for I was against it. Could anything be more shameful than tax-farmers repudiating their contract? All the same, the loss was worth standing to keep the Order on our side.\n\n" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://thebigboard0710.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/pompey-60bc-pontusmap2.jpg", "http://books.google.com/books?id=H9ClB8ykgIcC&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=cicero+cesspit+of+romulus&source=bl&ots=pF5vKWtM7t&sig=Tb4gb8Sr5-gIcgL-eMS89dxmQuE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lD2TU7SjPMSRqgbA7oCwCA&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=cicero%20cesspit%20of%20romulus&f=false" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ckrehvd" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "OK, long time lurker here with his niche topic finally being mentioned :)\n\nThe main benefits to the crown at the time included firstly a huge protestant and loyalist/unionist majority for centuries to come (starting to become the minority at the present time). This gave them a number of benefits mainly including the increased taxes from another relatively prosperous province. The population of their native countries where relatively happy as they had a new source of land that was not in the Americas. This meant that Ulster was quite popular due tot he fact that it only would take a day or even a few hours to cross to in comparison to other English possessions such as Virginia or Massachusetts.\n\nAnother large part of the benefit was the fact that the monarchy was perpetually worried about a foreign, probably Roman Catholic power (primarily Spain at this time) using Ireland as a 'stepping stone' for the main invasion of Britain. This proved to be a good idea as both the Spanish monarchy and Napoleon later considered this plan.Ireland had to be swept into the arms of England/Britain essentially to keep the latter nation safe. This policy can be traced back to 1169 when King Henry II of England mounted his first invasion of Ireland. Neither Henry nor his successors succeeded in gaining control of all of the island.\n\nIt was also a popular policy for the nobility, large scale merchants and guild members as they were all given large plots of land after the plantation. The London guilds were notably given land in the north west a county still known (rather contentiously due to the English connotation) as London-Derry. A number of both small and large scale castles were built and inherited from the previous residents, notably Enniskillen castle once a stronghold of house Maguire and the newly constructed castles in Crom, south Fermanagh.\n\nSources: _URL_0_" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212682112000297" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ef71bb5" ], "score": [ 116 ], "text": [ "Some gentle clarification: by the time Australia and Japan went to war against each other, the latter had already suffered a number of relatively minor but symbolically significant defeats in China (contemporary observers saw these as challenges to the myth of Japanese invincibility), most notably at Taierzhuang and Changsha. \n\nMark Johnston's *Fighting the Enemy: Australian Soldiers and their Adversaries in World War II* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) deals directly with your question and seems to confirm that the Germans held the Australians in high regard. To quote some passages from the chapter \"The Germans: Mutual Respect\":\n\n > An Australian in another battalion reported that German prisoner he met in July 1942 claimed that the Australians had gone home, but that English troopers were continuing to '*dress up as Australians to frighten us*'. (52f.)\n\n > Early in the siege [of Tobruk], the German commander, Rommel, described Australians as 'fighting magnificently' and showing 'remarkable tenacity'. In a well-known passage he described a group of fifty or sixty Australian prisoners as 'immensely big and powerful men, who without question represented an élite formation of the British Empire, a fact that was also evident in battle'. (53)\n\n > A German infantry major described the Australians at Tobruk as 'extraordinarily tough fighters', superior to the Germans in their use of camouflage and individual weapons, particularly as snipers. German accounts of the desert campaigns describe the Australians at Tobruk as 'crack shots', delivering 'incredibly accurate' fire. A mortally wounded German infantryman ... said, as he smoked a cigarette, 'Thank you, you very good fighters'. Another German captured at Tobruk in vicious hand-to-hand fighting during the first German attacks on the 2/17th Battalion, told one of his wounded captors, 'Australian soldiers are very brave', to which an Australian in the party replied 'My bloody oath'. (54)\n\n > Early in October 1942, a German intelligence summary concluded that the Australians were, in attack, the best British troops on the Alamein front. At about the same time, General Stumme, the acting commander of the German-Italian *Panzerarmee*, told a conference of commanders that Australians were the enemy's 'best troops'. Similarly, in 1983 a German writer claimed that the General Staff of *Panzerarmee Afrika* had considered Australian soldiers 'the best we found in Africa'. (56)\n\nThe Japanese, on the other hand, appear to have had much more ambivalent views on the Australians, and Johnston notes that this likely began with Japanese propaganda, which emphasized the inferiority of non-Japanese. Concerning the Australians' military performance, I again quote from Johnston:\n\n > ... a Japanese wartime account of fighting at Ayer Bemban, in Malaya, said that despite continued Japanese attacks, 'the [Australian] warriors continued suicidal resistance like wounded boars'. It described an Australian counterattack, which won them a brief respite before retreating: 'the enemy, defying death, strangely and impudently counter-attacked with bayonets along the whole line'. Similarly, a propagandistic Japanese article about the Japanese capture of Ambon said that the 'desperate resistance of the Australians after the breakthrough was not to be despised'. (124)\n\n > The instructions [to Japanese forces in Papua in 1942] depended on information based on clashes which had occurred earlier at Rabaul and Kokoda, and included the assertion that 'The fighting spirit of the Australian infantry soldier is strong'. This spirit was said to be superior to that of the American troops in the area. The instructions highlighted Australian marksmanship, and the skilful Australian use of cover and grenades. On 11 August, a Japanese lieutenant on the Kokoda Track conceded: 'Although the Australians are our enemies, their bravery must be admired'. (125)\n\n > A Japanese intelligence summary written in November, possibly in reference to the Milne Bay operations, said that the Australian soldier's 'will to resist is strong and though we attack him, he resists further'. It also told of Australian skill in the use of hand grenades, and a diary written at about the same time at Gona said 'Their firing is very accurate'. A Japanese diary entry, written at this desperate point, admitted: '27th November- Strength of Australian soldier is superior to that of Nippon soldier'. (125)\n\n > ... a comment appeared twice in a Japanese report on fighting on the Huon Peninsula that 'Sniping at the enemy is easy and gives substantial results'. In an echo of the Australian assertions that Japanese did not like 'cold steel', Japanese soldiers were told after the Milne Bay battle: 'Enemy lacks fighting spirit in hand to hand combat'. A pamphlet captured the following year said that 'The enemy cannot stand up to hand-to-hand fighting or charges'. Not only could they not face charges, according to the official line, they also could not make them... These criticisms of Australian courage were directed towards the conclusion that the Australians, with their 'materialistic civilisation', were spiritually weaker than the Japanese. (125f.)\n\nIn addition, Japanese reports and recollections frequently emphasized the superior firepower available to the Australians and Americans, which the Japanese would need to overcome through their \"spiritual superiority.\" This complements the views of one veteran, Ogawa Masatsugu, who \"drew a contrast between conditions in China, where the dead fell in man-to-man conflict with a 'real enemy', and New Guinea, where 'we didn't know what was killing us'.\" (127) He seems to have had a low opinion of the Australians overall. To quote Johnston again:\n\n > Masatsugu was rather scathing about Australian infantry, saying of the early success in the counterattack of October 1943: 'I was amazed how weak the Australian soldiers seemed'. Australians supposedly ran when attacked, and returned to mop up only after artillery, aircraft and exhaustion had robbed the Japanese of their ability to resist. (127)\n\nAs an odd footnote to all this, after the war the famous Japanese officer Masanobu Tsuji offered his personal assessment (\"the subjective view of just myself\") of the fighting prowess of the enemy soldiers that he faced. The Australians here ranked fifth in a list of twelve, at least under hypothetical measures (*Masanobu Tsuji's 'Underground Escape': From Siam after the Japanese Surrender*, ed. Nigel Brailey [Leiden: Brill, 2012], 235):\n\n > If we were to assume that we could give the same equipment and the same training and assume that a fight is waged on the same battlefield, on the basis of actual combat experience in eight years of front-line fighting, I would place the fighting strength of the soldiers of various nations that I fought against in the following order (Japanese soldiers excepted):\n\n > 1. Chinese\n\n > 2. Soviet\n\n > 3. Indian-Gurkhas\n\n > 4. American\n\n > 5. Australians\n\n > 6. Other India\n\n > 7. English\n\n > 8. Filipino\n\n > 9. Burmese\n\n > 10. Thai\n\n > 11. Annamese\n\n > 12. French\n\nI highly recommend Johnston's work if you want a fuller picture of the complexities of this subject. I simply repeated the material that related directly to your question. :)\n\nEDIT: I forgot to include the Italians, whom Johnston does briefly discuss. It seems, in general, that the Italians feared the Australians, due in part to misinformation (apparently spread by Italian commanders) that the Australians behaved like \"barbarians\" and \"took no prisoners.\" (22f.) At Alamein, the Italians also attributed the Australians' successes to inebriation. Per one Italian division commander: \"The enemy generally attacks with very well-trained troops ... These special units, generally Australians and New Zealanders, attack with decision and brutality generally rendered bestial and brutal by drunkeness.\" And according to another officer: \"Hand-to-hand fighting is going on. The Australians, *roaring drunk on whisky*, are like madmen ... The wounded, both German and Italian, have horrifying tales to tell.\" (23). Johnston dismisses these claims as explanations or excuses for impending Italian defeats." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cu4sfrc" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "No, it wasn't a crime. About 3.5 million GDR citizens fled, 3 million of those to West Germany ([Source](_URL_0_)). There were state run refugee camps in the west where refugees got first orientation. A lot of people also had relatives in the west and could use them as a first station.\n\nRegarding the question of whether those refugees faced legal problems in the west, they didn't. West Germany treated GDR citizens as own citizens. (Source: [von Münch, Die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit, de Gruyter](_URL_1_), unfortunately in German)\n\nSo, they were citizens of West Germany. As such they had no legal problems whatsoever.\n\nOn a tangent, there was also the so-called \"Alleinvertretungsanspruch\", a legal doctrine upheld by the west until 1969 which stated that there was only one rightful German state in German territory and that the GDR was an unlawful military occupation. This was then changed slightly and delicately during Willy Brandt's chancellory and his new \"Ostpolitik\" where West Germany recognised the existence of the GDR for the first time, but without conceding points like automatic citizenship for GDR citizens." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.chronikderwende.de/english/term_jsp/key=e_gdr+refugees.html", "https://books.google.de/books?id=U0BVt0eewacC&pg=PA105#v=onepage&q&f=false" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dqp4map" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "The answer will depend on your interest in Wu and your language skills, but in all cases the basic problem remains the same; the sources we have are very restricted and for the most part treat the empress as an example for future rulers to learn from, rather than as someone whose thoughts and deeds and character should be set down and analysed as objectively as possible. Moreover, for someone as unique and as well-remembered as Wu is, there's a surprising dearth of detailed biographical studies.\n\nThe most recent popular biography in English is Jonathan Clements' *Wu: the Chinese Empress Who Schemed, Seduced and Murdered Her Way to Become A Living God* (2007), which, as the title indicates, is not averse to retelling some of the more scurrilous gossip about its subject. Two more scholarly studies that place Wu in her context are Richard Guisso, *Wu Tse-T’ien and the Politics of Legitimation in T’ang China* (1978) and Dora Shu-Fang Dien, *Empress Wu Zetian in Fiction and in History: Female Defiance in Confucian China* (2003).\n\nI wrote about Wu and her reputation in an essay for the Smithsonian which [can be accessed via my blog site here](_URL_0_). This essay offers a brief intro to the main problems of writing about the empress and to the historiography of the reign, if that's of any interest." ] }

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[ [ "https://mikedashhistory.com/2012/08/11/the-demonization-of-empress-wu/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dg5nhmp" ], "score": [ 26 ], "text": [ "This is a very interesting topic. The natural place to start is of course the Old Testament itself. First, we have to clear some things up. \"Yahweh\" or \"Yahu\" and \"El\" were two distinct gods in the Caananite pantheon. This is actually reflected in the Hebrew text itself; if you read the early books of the Pentateuch, especially Genesis and Exodus, you will frequently find repetitions of passages, only slightly different. The most obvious example is the first two verses of Genesis; read them side-by-side, make a list of the order in which God creates things, and try to reconcile them. It's not possible, except with some extremely contrived arguments.\n\nNow another thing is obvious even in translation - in Gensis 1 and the first three verses of Genesis 2, God is consistently referred to as \"God\". If you read Genesis 2:4 and onward, however, you will instead find the epithet \"the LORD God\". When \"LORD\" is written with capital letters, that means the Hebrew text says \"YHWH\". This name was considered so holy by the ancient Hebrews that one read \"Adonai\", meaning \"Lord\" or \"Master\", in its place. This was indicated by marking the vowels of \"adonai\" around YHWH, whence we get the mistranslation \"Jehovah\". Anyway, this practice was reflected in translation - we get Kyrios in Greek, Dominus in Latin, and LORD in English, all with similar meanings.\n\nWhy does this matter? Well, in many of the places where we have two apparently conflicting narratives, we find that one of the narratives frequently uses \"YHWH\" in one way or another, whereas the other sticks to \"El\" (translated God) or \"Elohim\" (translated God, but it's the plural form of God with the rest of the clause in singular, which is a way of emphasizing his importance or exaltation). Indeed in Exodus 6:2 - 3 we are told \"I revealed myself to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai [usually translated God Almighty], but was not known to them by my name, Yahweh.\" The verses predominantly using \"Yahweh\" and \"Elohim\" respectively are conventionally thought to be part of two ancient literary or oral traditions, that of the Yahwist (J) and the Elohimist (E), dating back to approximately the 800's BC. The other two predominant traditions are \"P\" (\"Priestly source\"), sometimes thought to be the editor or compiler of the first two sources, typically dated to around 500 BC; and D (Deuteronomist), a separate tradition and the author of Deuteronomy and some of the later books, dated to around 600 BC. The dates are all quite rough and much debate surrounds them. Collectively, this is known as the Documentary Hypothesis, and it explains many features of the Bible.\n\nAs you see, the history of the Hebrew Bible is not very straightforward, and it consists of many different traditions that would later be unified. As for polytheistic origins, the link you provide brings up one of the best examples, Psalm 82:1, which can be roughly translated as \"The most exalted El has taken his place in the divine assembly, he judges among the gods.\" Here \"Elohim\" is used both to refer to \"God\", and gods in plural. Many attempts have been made to translate this psalm to sound more in line with orthodox Christian thought, and often \"gods\" is placed within quotation marks or translated as \"angels\", but the Hebrew is really quite unambiguous. God is exalted above other gods, a king or judge of sorts, but he is one of several gods. Other examples, more or less obvious, exist. There is for example one passage where the Israelites flee because of a sacrifice made to Molech, but for some reason I can't find it at the moment...\n\nHints as to the identity of Yahweh can be found throughout the Bible. Isaiah 27 describes an apocalyptic scenario in Yahweh will slay Leviathan. Psalm 74:14 says that \"It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert\". These parellel the slaying of the sea monster Lotan, servant of the sea god Yammu, by a storm god Ba'al in the Ugaritic texts of Canaanite mythology. If we look at Job 38, it begins \"And Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind.\" In Exodus 14:21, Yahweh parts the red sea by summoning a strong wind from the east. These are just off the top of my head - but they illustrate the likelihood that Yahweh was originally a storm god of some sort. \n\nEl, unlike Yahweh, appears in other Canaanite pantheons, and the word El, as indicated above, is also used to mean \"God\" (e.g., \"Yahweh El\"). In the Ugaritic texts El had a consort called Asherah, was symbolized by a bull, and was the supreme deity and father of other gods, and in the early 2nd century AD, the Greek writer Philo of Byblos identified him with the Greek titan Cronus. Indeed, up until the mid-6th century BC idols of Asherah appear to have been common in Israel.\n\nWhat happened then, in the 6th century BC? Well, at the start of the century, Israel lost a war with Babylon, resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem, and the capture of many Israelites. This period is known as the Exile or Babylonian Captivity. During or after this period, the Israelites appear to have turned to exclusive worship of Yahweh, as the one and only god, as later writings are more clearly monotheistic.\n\nThe Babylonian exile was ended when the Persian king Cyrus (Kourosh) the Great conquered Babylon in 539 BC - we can confirm this date precisely thanks to an inscribed cylinder found in Babylon. Now, the Persians very likely (although it is in fact not known with full certainty) practiced Zoroastrianism, practiced in Iran up until the Islamic conquests in the 7th century. It is still practiced today, mainly by the Parsi, a minority of Iranian heritage in western India. Zoroastrianism was founded by Zoroaster (or Zartosht in modern Persian, actually Zarathustra in the original Avestan), likely around 1000-1100 BC based on linguistic analysis, give or take a few hundred years. Zoroaster was a reformer of Iranian religion, and preached worship of the Wise Lord or \"Ahura Mazda\", the one, unitary creator deity and the personification of all things good and moral. Other features that might sound somewhat familiar are angelic beings created by Ahura Mazda known as \"Benevolent Spirits\" (Spenta Mainyu), personifying virtues, and Angra Mainyu, the \"destructive spirit\" personifying all evil (and indeed, a controversy in Zoroastrianism has been whether Ahura Mazda directly created Angra Mainyu or not.)\n\nIn the latter parts of the book of Isaiah (Verse 40 onwards) we find an after-the-fact prophecy of Cyrus' conquest of Babylon, and praise of him as the \"anointed one\" or \"Messiah\", who delivered Israel from Babylon. Cyrus forged a covenant with Israel (in the name of Yahweh), incorporating it into his empire but tolerating local culture and religion. Indeed, here we also find the first explicit statement of monotheism, in Isaiah 44:6: \"This is what the Lord says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:\nI am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.\" (translation from NIV). These become common later on, in texts also signified and easily dated by the use of Persian loanwords, and Yahweh is portrayed increasingly as the God most of us imagine today.\n\nTo sum it up: The God of the older parts in the Bible is an amalgam of the gods Yahweh and El. During a period of great hardship in the 6th century BC, the Israelites seem to have abandoned idolatry and turned to exclusive worship of Yahweh as the God of Israel. Following influence from Persian religion, Yahweh morphed into an increasingly exalted, universal, exclusive personification of Good. Later editors of the Hebrew Bible probably tried to scrub this fact from the older traditions, but they were not entirely successful. (EDIT: Of course, the practice of not pronouncing Yahweh was a consequence of his exaltation. Vowel marks were only introduced after the transitioining to monotheism.)\n\nI hope this gives some insight. This is of course a vast topic with many angles - linguistic, archaeological, anthropological and literary, and opinions on the exact causes and influences that caused the transition are not uniform. However, the general idea of transitioning from polytheism to henotheism (worship of one deity in a pantheon) to monotheism around the period of the Exile, is not in serious dispute." ] }

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[ "http://www.city-data.com/forum/religion-spirituality/1818445-evolution-yahweh-pagan-tribal-god-israel.html" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "de3eg1b" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "They're two names - or, rather, variations on a name - for the same people." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "clbdw2t" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "One thing to bear in mind is that the meaning of the First Amendment was still being debated in the early years of the Republic. No-one flipped a switch and *boom* all traditions of state religion were extinguished. I wrote a comment on a similar subject [here](_URL_0_); for example, though some early presidents balked at invoking God in their official capacity (Jefferson), others did not. \n\nAnd, laws against blasphemy, which would seemingly be inconsistent with church/state separation *and* with free speech, survived into the 1950s. *See [Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson](_URL_1_)*, 343 US 495 (1952) (blasphemy law unconstitutional on *free speech* grounds).\n\nI wouldn't want to dissuade others from answering more in depth. These are just examples showing that 1789 was not a line-in-the-sand on the matter. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2gqzw0/to_what_extent_did_thomas_jeffersons_writing/ckltomx", "http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5628256980652867975&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d7yhc1a" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The Allies were in no position to send any amount of ground forces to assist the Soviets on the Eastern Front. Not only was the British Army preoccupied with operations in North Africa and the Mediterranean at large (and later the Pacific theatre), but the American military had not sufficiently \"geared up\" to provide actual boots on the ground in a way that would benefit the war effort in the East. To put it bluntly, \"in 1941, there was no chance of a Second Front [...] Britain and the United States could only hope for Russia's survival while they calculated how best they could together distract Hitler from his campaign of conquest in the east and weaken the Wehrmacht at the periphery of the German empire\". Thus, the British intervention in Greece, Norway, the North African campaigns, the need to protect Egypt and the Suez, and eventually the (contentious) decision to strike into the \"soft underbelly\" of occupied Europe via the Italian peninsula is what resulted. By the time major ground forces were available to the Western Allies, there was no strategic need, ability, nor desire to deploy them to the Eastern Front.\n\nThere are more factors at play here, including the tension between Anglo-Soviet relations in 1941-42, the questionable benefit (if there is any) of sending a handful of Anglo-American divisions to the Eastern Front, the difficulty in supplying those home divisions in the context of a foreign war in a foreign nation, and the likelihood that Stalin, while \"desperate for the sort of supplies only Western industry could supply\", almost *certainly* did not want American or British ground troops on Soviet soil.\n\nIt's safe to say that whatever ground forces could have been mustered and somehow transported to the Soviets would have been relatively pointless in the context of the Eastern Front; Stalin didn't need a handful of British blokes from Liverpool or ten divisions of eager American boys, he needed British and American trucks, aluminum, foodstuffs, and dozens of other industrial resources that the Soviets could not produce due to the loss of the western parts of Russia and Ukraine, some of the most productive land in the entire USSR, or simply lacked the advanced industry to do so in the context of a war where the Soviets had quite literally dismantled hundreds of factories and shipped them east. \n\nIn July of 1942, the Allies agreed that the \"opening of the 'Second Front' had been definitively postponed from 1942 to 1943\". North Africa and Italy were useful battlegrounds in chipping away at the edges of Germany's empire, but the true Second Front wouldn't come till later. While the invasion of France would eventually be postponed until 1944, it is important to note here that Stalin desperately wanted the opening of a Second Front because, strategically, he needed to pull at least some German divisions, men, and resources away from the Eastern Front. While its possible that, if the United States had been able to focus solely on Germany, there may \"have been less delay in opening a Second Front directly against the Atlantic Wall\", it's hard to imagine the Anglo-American forces launching any major land offensives in continental Europe until 1943 at the earliest. At this time, of course, the tide in the East had turned against the Germans (you can pick your specific turning point, be it Moscow in '41 and Jan. of '42, Stalingrad, the failure of Case Blue, Kursk, god knows how many books have been written on it) and any \"need\", if there ever was one, for western ground troops to assist the Soviets on their home turf ceased to exist.\n\nAll that said, the Soviets did make use of Polish soldiers in the form of communist puppet organizations and I do believe a fair number (not sure how many) Poles fought for the Soviets, but I don't have numbers on hand and it's debatable if you want to count them as \"Allied ground forces\" in the context of the question you're asking.\n\nSources: Keegan, The Second World War" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ce09xqb" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I'm deleting this question now, as it is not about history or historiography, but about the general academic process. I believe there are other subreddits about this topic, such as /r/askacademia." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cnm8g83", "cnm9zc0", "cnmg0y5" ], "score": [ 5, 3, 3 ], "text": [ "In just about all situations, they're exclusive. What's the context of this? It's possible your teacher or your sources are wrong.", "Historical eras are not categories that are set in stone, and for the most part, are fairly arbitrary. Well, that is to say, broad eras such as \"classical antiquity\" and \"the Middle Ages\" are arbitrary (more specific time periods - such as Tudor England or Edo Japan, can obviously be defined). As my high school history teacher said, people didn't just wake up one day and realize that they were now living in the Middle Ages.\n\nThat being aid, these eras exist in historiography because they can be convenient. People shouldn't stick to them religiously, but they can be useful for splitting up and studying the past. \n\nWhen most people talk of \"Roman times\", they are talking about an era known by such terms as *classical antiquity.* This is the ancient world in which the Roman Empire rose and flourished within. Historians date the end of antiquity differently (and as aforementioned, these ending dates really are arbitrary), but antiquity *is not* seen as being the same as the Middle Ages (or Medieval period, the two terms refer the same thing). If antiquity and the Middle Ages were the same, then the two different labels simply wouldn't be useful.\n\nIn terms of \"Roman times\" as in \"the Roman Empire\", well, Roman rule ended in Britain by a little after 410 AD. Romano-British culture continued to exist, of course, but Medieval England was not Roman in the sense that it was not a part of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire did survive in the East - today we often use the term \"Byzantine Empire\" to describe the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire that survived until 1453, but the the residents of the Empire really did see it as the Roman Empire.", "No.\n\nSimply because the level of which two completely time periods with completely different everything could be considered \"the same\" would be a level of reduction that would be completely absurd, akin to asking \"can the Civil War and WWII be considered the same?\" \n\nIf you reformulated your question to say \"could be considered similar,\" then the question becomes more viable (although still tremendously reductionist, and still mostly wrong in both structure and detail).\n\nHowever, the late antiquity period is commonly considered a \"pre-cursor\" to the (early) medieval period, sharing some overlaps (the rise of mounted soldiers, fortified strongholds in lieu of open cities, an aristocracy whose wealth was based on land rather than exchange or capital), but even these comparisons tend to break apart upon close examination.\n\nThat a phrase or a concept from Medieval England originated from Roman times, does not mean it is the \"same.\" It just means it originated from Roman times." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "copfyje", "copmk1q", "copmnyo" ], "score": [ 19, 3, 3 ], "text": [ "Since we haven't managed to decipher the Minoan's script, we don't know all that much about their religious customs. We do know some things based on physical remains, however. There are figurines of goddesses holding snakes, a lot of ceramic and painted bulls, and a lot of double-headed axes. So, it's pretty certain these were important symbols to them. There have also been a few shrines found in caves, so that's something.\n\nThe Greeks also mentioned later Cretain deities, who may have been related to earlier Minoan deities. One of these is named Britomaris, AKA \"the good virgin.\" She seems to have been similar to Artemis in some ways, enough for the Greeks to feel they were equivalent. It has been theorized that the snake-wielding figure I mentioned before is Britomaris. \n\nIn regards to the Mycenaeans, we know a great deal more due to having deciphered their script. Mostly, this gives us names of gods and goddesses. As you might have suspected, they were pretty much the same as the ones the Classical Greeks worshiped! There were some differences, however. They didn't worship Apollo or Aphrodite, which lends to the suspicion that they were adopted from Eastern cultures. They also seem to have given a greater preference to Poseidon than Zeus. Interestingly, they DID worship Dionysus, even though some Classical Greeks believed he had come rather recently from India. \n\nThere isn't much indication of HOW they worshiped their gods, but they likely sacrificed in ways that were similar to their decendents. It's worth noting that the Myceneans made mention of Persephone and Demeter, and seem to have given them great importance. This lends credence to the later idea that the Eleusinian Mysteries, a mystery cult that involved those two goddesses, was VERY ancient. ", "For Minoan religion, I highly recommend checking out [this](_URL_0_) page maintained by Jeremy Rutter at Dartmouth. It's what we used in my graduate Aegean Archaeology class and I used it myself a lot elsewhere as well. I only caution you to remember that because our understanding of Minoan religion comes almost entirely from archaeology, it suffers from all the usual caveats and vaguaries of archaeological preservation. Thus, when Rutter says things like:\n\n > A survey of the representational art which illustrates Minoan religious activities clearly indicates that those figures which are plausibly to be identified as divinities rather than as mortals are overwhelmingly of the female sex.\n\nIt should really say that \"a survey of the **extant** representational art...\" While we see a lot of goddesses and relatively few gods in what we've found, it's entirely possible that male divinities were worshipped in ways that do not preserve as well in the archaeological record, and so their importance or abundance is underrepresented in our understanding of it.", "RELIGION IN MINOAN CRETE\n\nCrete’s Religious Context \nThe religious structure of Minoan Crete is one preoccupied with that of the divine. The Minoan world, as it stands through historical understanding of archaeological sources, shows plentiful traces of an organised belief system that was prominently integrated into the society and lives of its people. \nThe extent to which historians can currently examine the nature of the Minoan belief system relies in interpretation of specific religious artefacts, layout of archaeological sites, and the Minoan A and Mycenaean B tablets, though there are few of the former.\nThe conception of a functioning Minoan belief system has revolved around the similarities evident between the Minoans and Myceneans. Like many bronze-age societies, the Minoan religious system revolved around the belief in a number of divinities that shaped the natural and environmental world around them. \nThese integrated themselves into Minoan society and their practitioners seamlessly – so closely, Hood notes, ‘It is often difficult to distinguish representations of gods from those of their priests and worshippers.’\nMinoan Deities\nIt should be noted that, like any historian working in a field of contentious debate, the evidence relating to the identity of the deities and their nature in the Minoan system remains ambiguous at best.\n\n\nPONTIA\n\nCentral to the spiritualistic Minoan religious system was ‘Pontia’, addressed in Linear A as a possible ‘mother goddess’ figure – although this could also be Demeter, referenced in Linear A. She possesses heavy symbolism within many shrines and sanctuaries – referred to as the ‘Lady of the Labyrinth’. Based upon the cultural exports of Crete we find Pontia on Mainland Greece – theories about the transformation of Pontia into Athena continue to this day.\nPontia was only one part of a vague polytheistic system, but it is purported by Castleden that ‘the double-axe was Pontia’s symbol, and possibly the pillar and snake too’. The labrys, or double-axe, was most certainly a symbol of the Labyrinth, having its symbolism strongly integrated into the architecture of palatial and temple areas at Zakros and Knossos. Perhaps it is even illustrative of the Minoan minotaur legend which has permeated the imagination of Evans and other traditional historians for years.\nFundamental to Minoan religious symbolism is that of the snake and pillar – the ‘pillar worship’ of Crete in homes and villas can be seen as representative of the Cult of a mother goddess, or that of a sacred tree and naturalistic symbol of life. The Knossos Gg Tablet addresses ‘Pontia of the Labyrinth’ – it is possible this goddess had labyrinthine sanctuaries in other Minoan temples.\n\n\nKOUROS\n\nKouros is a figure whom seems to have been indicative of a cyclical system of death and resurrection in nature. This figure, dubbed a ‘year-spirit’, is portrayed by a masculine figure called ‘Kouros’ – depicted in two ivory figures of pubescent figures Evans remarks most likely came from the Labyrinth and temple in Knossos. Kourous is evidently believed by Hood to depict ‘the death and resurrection of a god of vegetation, central to the cult of the goddess (Pontia)’. This god is subsequently believed to have been a predecessor of Zeus – even transforming in the late period as ‘Zeus Velachos’.\nAlexiou, however, reminds us that there may have been many other ‘divine boys’ present in Minoan worship. However, it is likely that the depiction of young men in some Minoan frescoes may have been that of Kouros.\n\n\nSEA WORSHIP\n\nAs a civilisation closely connected to coastal life and trade it seems natural that Minoan Crete fixated itself upon the system of deities connected to the ocean. A number of historians have hinted at the presence of a ‘sea goddess’, but little is known about the nature and practice of sea worship – Castleden purports this is as coastal shrines on the shore would have been too vulnerable to be preserved today.\nThe Ring of Minos is one indication of the imagery of the sea in ritual worship. It portrays a priestess carrying ‘portable shrines’ across the ocean to different temples. This is consistent with beliefs concerning Minoan Crete regarding the nature of ‘seashore cults’ in which ‘deities were transported in ships to describe a magic circle of divine protection around the island’. Willetts purports that ‘leaping’ into the sea' may have been an initiatory practice reminiscent of Minoan myth.\n\n\nPOTIEDAN\n\n It is possible that Potiedas or Poteidan may have been present as the Greek Posiedon in Crete as large-scale votive and sacrificial offerings at Pylos during the Mycenaean period were offered in his name. Castleden suggests it is a possibility this practice spread to Crete. However, it is certain that Poteidan was a religious figure whom merged a number of iconographies in his worship – Potiedan is referred to in many tablets as the ‘Bull God’ or the ‘Sun God’ – and it is in this form that Potiedan has been concluded to act as an all-powerful figure whom could take a number of manifestations. \nPotiedan’s most prominent manifestation is that of the bull – a figure that permeates the rituals and arts of Crete to an extent that it is difficult to construe the meaning of ‘bull leaping’ and the practices which typified Potiedan worship. Thus the symbolism of bulls and also horns, most notably that of model bulls and horns of consecration appear in a number of places. This is postulated by Nanno Marinatos as a symbol of ritual bull sacrifice – having been found in monumental scales at Knossos.\n\n\nTHE SNAKE AND DOVE GODDESSES\n\nOur knowledge of the snake goddess is both derivative of the source of information on Pontia, and that of two faience snake-wielding figures from Knossos. The symbolic significance of snakes has many meanings: possibly as a symbol of immortality (the ‘shedding’ indicative of rebirth) or life within the earth.\nThe Snake Goddess herself is seen to be the host of one of the largest Underworld cults on Crete. Like many deities, her physical affinity with the animal (snake) world substantiates that she is a goddess, much like that of the Dove Goddess found in sanctuaries at Knossos – in this case figurines found in sanctuaries at Kannia portray both doves and snakes.\nThe symbolism of doves has been interpreted to relate to the value of fertility. The depiction of goddesses with doves is standard in many shrines and sanctuaries, and these figures often are depicted in a pose in which their arms are raised: most likely a customary manner to denote prayer or divinity. Examples of this are present with the Dove Goddesses in the Knossos Shrine of the Double Axes, and the Goddess with Her Arms Raised at Gazi, Herakleion.\nSites of Worship\nThe Minoans expressed the practice of worship in certain areas, but shrines – the basis for Minoan votive offerings and libations which served as the basis for personal worship – have been found in public and private spaces in Crete.\n\n\nCAVE AND PEAK SANCTURARIES\n\nAcross Minoan Crete there existed a large number of caves and peak enclosures in which religious sanctuaries were established. These were used fundamentally as ‘dwellings from the earliest time of habitation, then as burial-places, shrines and sancturaries’. Not only did these serve as the site of worship for cults, but even for the secret or underground revival of old rituals and gods – though at 2000 BC this was replaced in mainstream Crete by the prominence of temples in the civic structure.\nThe amount of food found within the sites of these peak shrines, as well as vases for libation and figures of model animals and men substantiate a system of pilgrimage – the largest of the sanctuaries on Mount Juktas having areas for storage of offerings around the shrine and ritual fires. Of course, the symbolism of earth, sky and sun would have been a focal point to these.\n" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.dartmouth.edu/~prehistory/aegean/?page_id=720" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cs59fso", "cs5ocz8" ], "score": [ 27, 9 ], "text": [ "There were forms called Alien Registration Forms that any person who originated from an Axis Power nation had to fill out. They contained questions like \"country of origin,\" \"how long have you lived in the United States,\" and others like an immigration form. Citizens had to fill this out, even if they had lived in the US for generations. I had just seen one for an Italian woman who lived in Pittsburgh for 37 years, yet still had to fill one out. Those who had to fill these out felt discriminated, and understandibly so. The idea behind it was to unsure that foreigners wouldn't sabotage the war effort or cause any other problems. ", "Hello! Recent History graduate with a focus in Italian History. Actually, when it was announced that Mussolini had declared war on Ethiopia in 1936, there are several accounts and instances noted of fights breaking out between African Americans and Italian Americans. Many African Americans take pride in the fact that during the age of colonialism and imperialism in the 19th century, the fierce warriors of Ethiopia managed to resist invasion whereas other African countries fell to the Dutch, German, British, etc. It infuriated African Americans that Ethiopia, famous for its resistance, had been targeted by Mussolini, and I'm sure the Italian-Americans who were sympathetic to the Fascist Party were aggressors in the fights as well.\nLink with further info: _URL_0_ " ] }

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[ [], [ "https://tezetaethiopia.wordpress.com/2005/06/18/black-americans-and-italo-ethiopian-relief-1935-1936/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d12rn7a" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "I mean, it's in our texts, if that's what you're asking. Plutarch says:\n\n > κιβωτίου δέ τινος αὐτῷ προσενεχθέντος, οὗ πολυτελέστερον οὐδὲν ἐφάνη τοῖς τὰ Δαρείου χρήματα καὶ τὰς ἀποσκευὰς παραλαμβάνουσιν, ἠρώτα τοὺς φίλους ὅ τι δοκοίη μάλιστα τῶν ἀξίων σπουδῆς εἰς αὐτὸ καταθέσθαι: πολλὰ δὲ πολλῶν λεγόντων αὐτὸς ἔφη τὴν Ἰλιάδα φρουρήσειν ἐνταῦθα καταθέμενος.\n\n > > But when a little casket was brought to him, which nothing of the goods of Darius and his baggage seemed more valuable than to those watching over it, he asked his friends what they though was most rightly placed there. And after many of them spoke he said he would place the Iliad there to guard it.\n\nThis occurred, according to Plutarch, some time after the battle of the Issus, which is when Darius' baggage train was famously captured (not at Gaugamela), although Plutarch delays mentioning it for some reason until after Gaza was taken. Strabo mentions the same story:\n\n > φέρεται γοῦν τις διόρθωσις τῆς Ὁμήρου ποιήσεως, ἡ ἐκ τοῦ νάρθηκος λεγομένη, τοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου μετὰ τῶν περὶ Καλλισθένη καὶ Ἀνάξαρχον ἐπελθόντος καὶ σημειωσαμένου τινά, ἔπειτα καταθέντος εἰς νάρθηκα ὃν ηὗρεν ἐν τῇ Περσικῇ γάζῃ πολυτελῶς κατεσκευασμένον\n\n > > Anyway, it is said that there a recension of Homer, called the 'Recension of the Casket,' which Alexander, and Callisthenes and Anaxarchus, read over and annotated and which was then placed in a richly-wrought casket which he found in the Persian spoils\n\nSo there's at least two textual authorities for it" ] }

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[ "http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/14/story-cities-day-1-alexandria-egypt-history-urbanisation-foundations-modern-world", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3wj8ga/literature_they_say_alexander_the_great_slept/" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "d8fnwuh" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "It depends on what you mean by visible and what you mean by space. If you mean low earth orbit, then they would be easily visible. It would appear as a bright flash (even at 200 or so km, it would still be bright enough to be uncomfortable, maybe even dangerous). You would then see a cloud form around the site of the detonation. The size of the mushroom cloud would be a couple Kilometers, so it would be visible, but not easily so.\n\nFrom somewhere like the moon, the flash would still be visible. A few years back, a small meteor hit the moon with the energy of around 5 tons of TNT, less than 1/3000 the energy of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This was visible from the earth without a telescope. It was about as bright as a 4th magnitude star, putting it as visible from somewhere with decently dark skies. This means that it would be very clearly visible. If my back of the envelope math is correct (and I'm remembering the physics correctly) this would be something around magnitude -4.5, which would be pretty clearly visible, if on the night side, similar brightness to a bright planet. I'm not sure how visible it would be considering that the bomb was dropped during the day so it would be against the brightness of the Earth. Finally, a significant portion of the energy of a nuclear bomb is released as x-ray, ultra violet, and gamma rays, which are invisible. The X-rays and Gamma rays are absorbed by the atmosphere, heating it, so they would still contribute to the visible brightness.\n\nIn short, if you are close enough to the Earth to be in a stable orbit, you would probably be able to see the explosion. If you're in low orbit, the mushroom cloud would probably be visible.\n\nAlso, this question might be better suited to /r/askscience. While it's a historical event, this is hypothetical and uses scientific calculations, rather than historical accounts or evidence." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ddhef74" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Well, I've seen one of them on [here](_URL_0_), and is actually either a coin or a small weight used as a standard to weight other things against. Given that it appears to weigh around 250g, it's hard to believe that it was used as a kettlebell. \n\nI have no idea about the others... " ] }

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[ "http://i.imgur.com/S4xy7Ns.jpg" ]

[ [ "http://www.wenwu.gov.cn/2013ywb/contents/759/32410.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cf0k18r" ], "score": [ 20 ], "text": [ "Well... he didn't. It is a common misconception that Lee's surrender was the end of the war, but it really wasn't. He surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia, and not much else. As the flagship Confederate Army, it was a crippling blow to the Southern cause, but it wasn't exactly the end of the war. Rather it was the catalyst for the rapid collapse of Confederate forces in other theaters. Johnston wouldn't surrender for two more weeks, and the last major Confederate force were the men under Stand Watie, in late June.\n\n[I admit that I didn't know off hand when Davis officially dissolved the Confederacy, but it appears to have happened almost a month after Lee's surrender, following a Cabinet meeting held on May 5th. So while he never officially surrendered the Confederacy, he did oversee its official end.](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conclusion_of_the_American_Civil_War#Capture_of_President_Davis_.28May_10.29" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c988099" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "This is maybe more of a philological question. I'm a classical philologist, so I will bite. \n\nLooking into the usage of a word or phrase starts from the vaguest point and narrows down, usually. So you have your phrase \"have it all\" specifically with related to women, and with an ironic tone to it. First you will want to find out if this is an idiomatic phrase that a dictionary might stock. Big fat huge research dictionaries give a lot of useful etymological information, although I'd bet not so helpful with phrases like this. You might want to consult online databases, and since this is a pop culture phrase you might want to sift through Google results for \"have it all\"+women or \"have it all\"+women+can't (ugh). Philology is often about sifting through pages and pages of dry material.\n\nYou might find that a lot of the material references one particular reference point (I don't know, the article that the Atlantic ran a few months ago). Maybe then there's sort of a blank time for uses of \"women\" \"have it all\". But maybe that reference point article itself references an essay written in 1958, and before this you can't find anything, or what you do find refers to, for instance, men who are trying to be successful in their own right and also follow their fathers' examples. So the context is totally different when that 1958 essay uses the phrase, and when the Atlantic picks it up in 2012 that's where you find an explosion of \"women can't have it all\" or \"women can have it all\".\n\nThis is all hypothetical of course! If you were a classical philologist you would spend a weekend locked in a library searching the indices of inscription volumes to see if anyone in North Africa in the 2nd century BCE ever left the phrase \"she had it all\" on a tombstone." ] }

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[ "statefarm.com", "http://thebaffler.com/past/the_meme_hustler" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "c5jt2y0", "c5jt5v5", "c5jw9s0", "c5jy0b3", "c5jyvr3", "c5k3vzp" ], "score": [ 23, 11, 9, 29, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Dutch is still spoken as main language in Suriname. It is also spoken in Indonesia, though mostly by old people only.\n\nAlso note that the Dutch mostly only had colonies for trade, not for settling.", "There are serveral reasons for this and I will point out two of them. The first one is about Capetown/Africa, the second one about Indonesia. The Dutch lost many of their colonies in the great Napoleonic wars that lasted roughly from 1795 to 1813. Capetown was one of them. The Dutch Republic (or the Kingdom of Holland) was a French ally fighting against the British. The British conquered many Dutch colonies like Capetown, Ceylon and also cut of Indonesia. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the Dutch regained many of their colonies, but not Capetown/South-Africa. The Dutch people living there moved to the inlands, establishing Transvaal and Oranjevrijstaat. South-Africa was a British colony now, where people would speak different languages then Dutch, which means that Dutch would loose influence. \n\nIndonesia and India resembled eachother. Both are colonies that brought in money for the Dutch and British, colonies with many different types of goods to be exploited, with an indigeous people willing to learn and adapt to their rulers. However, the British focussed on one major language throughout India, English. The Dutch cared less about this and let the different people living on the many islands speak (and educate their children) their own language. They did not impose Dutch on the Indonesian people. \n\nThese are just two examples/explanations. Though the Dutch ruled a major part of the colonised world, the other four major countries ruled more! Another thing is that one of the more discriminating words in Dutch and English (and perhaps other languages) vocabulaire is a Dutch word - apartheid. ", "Dutch was spoken as a primary language by many people in the former New Netherlands colonies (NYC to Albany corridor along the Hudson River) until well into the 1830s. Case in point: Martin Van Buren was a native Dutch Speaker.\n\nI would imagine that Dutch speaking eventually died out in this area because - you know - the English divested the area from the Dutch through conquest. However, that was in the late 17th or early 18th century. So Dutch stuck around for another 100-150 years.", "Yay! A relevant question for me! Je aanvraag (vraagje?) geeft me veel plezier!\n\nIbuffel got it largely right, and johnbarnshack made a vital point. In effect, the Cape Colony and its derivatives were the only major colonies of settlement that involved the transplantation of population and its expansion. The creolization of the language into Afrikaans is a sign. It's worth noting that before the 1920s \"Afrikaans\" was anything but uniform across the subcontinent, and which actually today is still not quite uniform, if you listen to Coloured people speaking the very slangy *flaaitaal* sorts of Afrikaans. Part of the reason for the creolization is that Dutch people are only a plurality of the European base of Afrikaner heritage; French and Germans together with others are more numerous. But Dutch was the language of the VOC (Dutch East India Co) that controlled the trade point at Kaapstad (Cape Town) so it was de facto the starting point.\n\nThe Dutch \"gave up\" the Cape officially for a forgiveness of debt and because it was honestly ungovernable; the *trekboers* had gone inland and set up local governments out of disgust for the Company and then Batavian regimes before 1806. (Ibuffel is wrong that the Kingdom of Holland was an enemy of Britain; in fact only the puppet Batavians and the Bonapartists were, while the rightful Stadhouder [monarch] was in exile and had requested the British safeguard their holdings by force.) So the post-1816 Dutch were happy to be rid of its costs, while keeping some of its financial strings. The Boers themselves did, as Ibuffel points out, continue expanding even against the desires of the parsimonious British, building first Natalia (later the British Colony of Natal), the OVS (Free State), and a clutch of weird little republics that later coalesced into the rickety machine that was the ZAR (Transvaal)--all today within South Africa. But the ascendancy of high Dutch was maintained as a language of administration even though the language people spoke was very creole. Those who could read, could read High Dutch and/or English. High Dutch was used jointly with English for government documents, printing of laws, et cetera, all over South Africa until the 1920s. It was joined, then supplanted, by Afrikaans as a way for Boers/Afrikaners (don't get me started about whether or not those two are interchangeable--that's a really long story) to say \"we are not Dutch! We are South Africans!\" which is a major identity struggle that Hermann Giliomee writes about in *The Afrikaners: Biography of a People* (2d ed 2009). The story of the *Taal-unie* and their efforts to solemnize \"white Afrikaans\" is quite interesting.\n\nAs for other regions, the maintenance of Dutch as an administrative and commercial language has turned on much the same reasoning. The difference is that unlike SA, there is no large European-originated population to maintain a Dutch creole that is so close to modern Nederlands. In Suriname, which has a large population descended from ex-slaves, their *flaaitaal* contains a huge amount of Dutch (much as Gullah in North America contains much English). The Dutch under the VOC and GWIC (Geoctroyeerde West Indische Compagnie, or Chartered West India Company) were not very concerned about spreading Dutch culture, religion, or values themselves, so their footprint was only as heavy as local Dutch social activity was. There were some Calvinist missionaries and efforts to promote Dutch enclaves in various places (Taiwan comes to mind) but overall Dutch traders had a reputation for keeping to business however odious that business (e.g., slave trading) may have been.", "I used to live in Curacao, Dutch is still the official language there. Papiamentu is the most widely spoken however.", "Don't the Amish in America speak Dutch still?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cvtjv72", "cvtk91g", "cvtvw3p" ], "score": [ 4, 6, 3 ], "text": [ "Zachary Taylor was a war general prior to becoming president in 1848 and had no political experience prior to his election, he stated that he had never voted before 1848", "*No* political experience before being the President? You mean not having held civilian elected office?\n\nEisenhower's first civilian political office was U.S. President, I think. Though you don't get to be a general officer, much less four or five star general, without being a master politician.\n\nThere are plenty of examples of U.S. Presidents having 'limited' political experience--a few terms as governor or in Congress before the Presidency. Shoot, most of our Presidents in my lifetime have had relatively short political careers before becoming President. George H.W. Bush had a longer career as a politician/public employee, but some of that time was serving in appointed (as opposed to elected) positions.", "Herbert Hoover had been Secretary of Commerce, but had never held elected office before. He had previously been a highly successful business and had led the relief effort after World War I for aid to those left homeless/orphaned/starving after the war (a role he would reprise after the Second World War). Hoover's business acumen and humanitarian credentials went a long way to convincing America to support him." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cxbw7g9" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "Although rumors and accusations of police collaboration dogged Stalin for much of his early political career, these charges never really stuck onto Stalin. The tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, often employed a tactic of falsely accusing various revolutionaries of police collaboration to drive a wedge into groups that were already prone to political infighting. The underground nature of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party's agitation meant that the daily activities of its various activists like Stalin are often quite murky and uncertain. Both activists and police often tried to get the better of the other in this context with \"informants\" sometimes leaking false information and the police hinting to their informer that there were traitors in their midst. The chronic disorganization and understaffed bureaucracy of the tsarist state added a further layer of confusion as it became much more difficult to prove or disprove collaboration after the fall of the imperial state in 1917.\n\nIn the case of Stalin, the idea he collaborated with the hated tsarist secret police became a political rumor too delicious not to perpetuate by his political enemies. But there is very little in Stalin's actions in the RSDLP that indicate he was playing both sides; he was quite committed to the cause of revolution in his early career. Although Lenin never particularly liked Stalin, he never doubted Stalin's commitment to the Bolshevik cause. Lenin's last testament, often touted as a Lenin's condemnation of Stalin's growing power, singled out Stalin's rudeness and increasing bureaucratic power. Unlike other targets of the testament (the testament itself was quite catty to everyone, not just Stalin), Lenin never accused Stalin of being on the wrong political faction prior to 1917. \n\nBut the image of Stalin as an apolitical opportunist has a great deal of power for his enemies on both the left and the right. Left-wing Trotskyites favored this narrative because it meant that the greatest excesses of the USSR, which occurred under Stalin's watch, were not the fault of Marxist-Leninist ideology, but rather laid at the feet of a deceitful demagogue who never really cared for the utopian dream of Lenin. For the anti-communist right, Stalin's hypocrisy fed into larger notions of a fundamentally corrupt regime whose ideological pretenses of a Marxist utopia were just window-dressing for a man's will to power.\n\nBoth these critiques of Stalin are somewhat silly not only for their lack of evidence, but also because a Stalin committed to the ideals of Marxist-Leninism is still culpable for the crimes and excesses of his rule. In short, Stalin does not need further charges, especially ones that are spurious and unsubstantiated, leveled against his character.\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "celslec" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "The answer to this is going to vary with time and place, and have a lot to do with how desperately the lords needed someone to cultivate their land and how desperately the peasants wanted land to cultivate.\n\nIf you were formally someone's serf, that is, you swore an oath of fealty to them, they did have the obligation to come to your aid and protect you from physical harm. A lord who could not protect his serfs was no lord. A great many peasants were not serfs, particularly in the towns. The obligation would be a moral one and reflect on the lord's prestige - it would be pretty much unenforceable, legally.\n\nThis all comes with the caveat that this is effectively the storybook picture of feudalism. The reality was not nearly so neat." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cnzj6rs" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "yes and no: convivencia was really defined by balance of power tensionsbut plenty of times without religiously motivated warfare. For instance the Taifa period between the Ummayad and Almoravid dynasties (Taifas were essentially small independent kingdoms, for instance of grenada, seville, etc.) was marked by Christian expansion but it was primarily about monetary raids and getting and keeping Muslim vassals in the rich southern part of Spain. El Cid (who when exiled spent years as a close retainer of the emir of zaragrossa and had muslim vassals) and the Tibyan (primary source written by last independent Taifa ruler of Grenada) do a nice job of showing some of this as both are set at the end of this period. Also even as the states fought each other people of both religions crossed boundaries and fought in the other side's wars (for instance even around las navas de you had christian mercenaries helping out the muslim empire's forces in battles against the berber tribes)" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ct2x1zc", "ct318yu", "ct31zej", "ct59dfd" ], "score": [ 8, 8, 7, 5 ], "text": [ "Two of my favorite answers (I wrote) both involving the role of religion in some American secular affairs, music and foreign relations. \n\n[How and why did Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists become such strong supporters of Israel and the Jewish people?](_URL_1_)\n\n[What were the views of Church on Blues Music?](_URL_0_)", "I think we can just nominate /u/Reedstilt, and helpfully he has assembled a [list of his greatest hits here](_URL_0_). ", "Wait, are you only looking for things from 1492 onwards?\n\n/u/Reedstilt consistently has awesome contributions for Native North American history in this sub. I know so little about it that region pre-17th century; I always learn something from his comments.\n\nThese are my favorites:\n\n[Was there a revolutionary ideological shift that brought down the Mississippian cultures?](_URL_0_)\n\n[What was happening in N. America during the time of Jesus?](_URL_1_)", "These are all my answers I've submitted on American history. I don't know if any are of high enough quality to be considered, but I thought I'd share just in case.\n\n**American History**\n\n*Political History*\n\n* [Why was Washington D.C. created out of land owned by Virginia and Maryland?](_URL_16_)\n\n* [What was the deal with the Fenian Raids into Canada?](_URL_19_)\n\n* [Did Henry Clay's political platform while running for President change, or was it consistent?](_URL_5_)\n\n*Racial History*\n\n* [Was there ever a serious effort to get Native American Nations to join the United States, and be recognised as states?](_URL_20_)\n\n* [During the Jim Crow/Civil Rights era, were there any boycotts launched against entire states?](_URL_12_)\n\n* [Why were sit-ins during the Civil Rights movement potentially dangerous affairs?](_URL_11_)\n\n* [How did the N-word come to be a derogatory slur]\n(_URL_7_)\n* [In the US, did slaves have any legal protections from their owners?](_URL_18_)\n\n* [To what extent was the emergence of strong black leaders reason for the increased demand for Civil Rights?](_URL_13_)\n\n* [What was Martin Luther King Jr. really like?](_URL_2_)\n\n* [Is it true that the original African slaves brought to Virginia were treated as indentured servants, and that they were eventually granted freedom?](_URL_1_)\n\n* [How accurate is the proclamation that Irish slavery was as prolific in America as African slavery?](_URL_9_)\n\n* [Did white indentured servants mix with black slaves?](_URL_6_)\n\n* [Is there truth in the statement, \"The Civil Rights Movement made MLK, rather than MLK making the Civil Rights Movement\"?](_URL_14_)\n\n* [Were there religious arguments against miscegenation? What were they?](_URL_4_)\n\n*Social History*\n\n* [Were the Vietnam era protests effective?](_URL_0_)\n\n* [Why do we measure cultural shifts in decades?](_URL_10_)\n\n* [When did literacy become expected in America?](_URL_15_)\n\n* [How did marijuana come to be so stigmatised in the United States?](_URL_8_)\n\n* [What makes old Universities/Colleges more prestigious?](_URL_3_)\n\n* [Popular Music and the Vietnam War](_URL_17_)\n" ] }

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[ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3b4qyb/meta_askhistorians_showcase_submissions/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3be954/meta_askhistorians_showcase_submissions_middle/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/39ax2o/meta_ah_showcase_dear_lovely_readers_of/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3bw3fz/meta_askhistorians_showcase_submissions_medieval/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3cjm1c/meta_askhistorians_showcase_submissions_ancient/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3alovu/meta_ah_showcase_dear_readers_of_raskhistorians/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/39svf0/meta_ah_showcase_dear_lovely_readers_of/" ]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3bw7fz/what_were_the_views_of_church_on_blues_music/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2rogzy/how_and_why_did_christian_evangelicals_and/cni0em2" ], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3c1zc9/what_was_north_america_like_before_the_english/csrq9xz" ], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2yowgi/in_a_talk_i_saw_recently_david_graeber_implies/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2azh2j/what_was_happening_in_north_america_during_the/cj0otsd" ], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/32iqko/were_the_vietnam_era_protests_effective/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2p8onh/is_it_true_that_the_original_african_slaves/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2p2ehm/what_was_martin_luther_king_jr_really_like/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2s0dsz/why_do_some_of_the_oldest_collegesuniversities/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2rknpm/were_there_religious_arguments_against/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2qoc14/henry_clay_ran_for_president_three_times_over_a/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2qp4mb/did_white_indentured_slaves_worklive_with_african/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2v2d9u/how_did_the_term_ngger_become_derogatory_towards/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2q81jf/how_did_marijuana_become_too_be_so_stigmatized_in/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2pi4qm/how_accurate_is_the_proclamation_that_irish/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/31paaq/why_do_we_measure_culture_shifts_in_decades/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/31gjph/why_were_sitins_potentially_dangerous_during_the/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/32dmg9/during_the_jim_crowcivil_rights_era_were_any/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2s6yv8/to_what_extent_was_the_emergence_of_effective/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2r60o5/the_civil_rights_movement_made_martin_luther_king/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2tsmnq/when_did_literacy_become_expected_in_america/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2qhmhp/why_was_the_land_for_washington_dc_taken_from/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2r6cuv/were_songs_that_we_currently_associate_with_the/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2spny6/in_the_us_when_black_slavery_still_existed_were/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2qhff8/what_was_the_deal_with_the_fenian_raids_into/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/32h7qb/was_there_ever_any_effort_to_get_native_american/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d8tdimz", "d8tk19m" ], "score": [ 31, 5 ], "text": [ "It is often hypothesized that when Mayhem vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin committed suicide, the scene became a lot darker and real. Mayhem's semi official album \"Dawn of the Black Hearts\" was released with a cover featuring a picture of none other than Ohlin's dead body, with shotgun and all, taken by Mayhem guitarist Øystein Aarseth. They used his suicide note as song lyrics and the band members made necklaces with pieces of his skull, given to \"worthy musicians.\" Oystein used the image to further Mayhem's dark image.\n\nAfter the Mayhem incident, Øystein had allegedly became so enthralled with this dark image that he kept it going. He opened a record shop, Helvete ('Hell' in Norweigan), and it became a stronghold for the Black Metal scene. Many young musicians and bands had become obsessed with the same ideas Øystein had and transformed their Death Metal bands into Black Metal bands, with the same anti-religion and totalitarian ideas that Øystein had. The satanic image was there, but they concentrated more on being evil than any real philosophy and thus church burnings and murders came with that.\n\nSources: Sam Dunn, Director. Metal: A Headbanger's Journey (2005)\n\nMichael Moynihan, Author. Lords of Chaos (1998)\n\nEdit: Fixed mix up about Ohlin being guitarist, when he was in fact a vocalist.", "As unreliable as Varg Vikerness may be, you might get satisfactory answers by looking up his videos where he speaks of the Norwegian Black Metal scene during '91 - '93. \n\nThe documentary \"Until the Light Takes Us\" and Fenriz of Darkthrone are also good sources to answer this question. Members and fans of the scene have pointed out that the book Lords of Chaos is not entirely reliable. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ctvf8n2" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "This submission has been removed because it violates our ['20-Year Rule'](_URL_0_). To discourage off-topic discussions of current events, questions, answers and all other comments must be confined to events that happened 20 years ago or more." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_no_current_events" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "f9z1w41" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "Information on the \"Germanic\" tribes on the fringes of the Roman world is relatively scant for much of the Roman Empire's existence in the west. These various groups left little in the way of native writing, even less was written down contemporaneously to the events they ostensibly depict, and the works of Roman writers were hardly unbiased sources on the ways of their neighbors. So historians are left with a few written sources that need to be carefully examined, ie the work of Tacitus and Caesar, or the works of Jordanes, and consequently much of our knowledge on these groups comes from archaeology. \n\nThe Germanic tribes of the early Empire were quasi-sedentary. They did not lead hunter gatherer/nomadic existences nor were they exclusively farmers, much less were they urbanized, instead they only temporarily occupied good sites for agriculture and livestock. They would stay put for as long as the soil held out, likely decade or two, and then move along to a new site that offered greener pastures. These group likely differed significantly in size, but early in the Roman empire they were unlikely to include more than a few hundred people at the absolute highest level. Roman authors and their tales of hordes and throngs of Barbarians thronging over the border in massive armies tens of thousands strong, are just that, tales. Urban development, and subsequently larger populations, around the Germanic world went alongside the development of Roman infrastructure. The first areas to start an exclusively sedentary lifestyle would have been trade hubs with the Roman world, trading on the North Sea with Britain, along the Rhine, and only gradually penetrating deeper into Germania. \n\nThe societies that arose in Germania were dominated by a warrior elite who were able to exert, more or less, exclusive military power in the area and dominate the smaller groups that lived around them. While many men may have had access to weapons, and indeed bore them, it is unlikely any but the highest rungs of society, those with access to Roman goods, were involved in politics. Our historical sources are not clear on how these societies were structured exactly. Tacitus, a Roman historian, claims that in these societies kings were hereditary and generals were chosen by merit of their skill at arms, but this seems unlikely. Even more farfetched are 19th century romantic notions of Germanic freemen operating a quasi-democratic society. It seems likely to me that political power was extremely transitory. A single chieftain or warlord might wield a great deal of power within his own lifetime and provide his children with a more substantial advantage in the future, but there's little to actually indicate hereditary transfer of power.\n\nWe should also take care to not attempt to categorize these different polities as ethnic groups. Many of the labels that were applied to Germanic peoples by Roman observers are routinely resurrected to describe groups living in a similar locations centuries later, but there is little reason to think that ethnic markers were as long lived as this. Instead we should imagine these societies as much more fluid with tribal allegiances changing as different contexts arose. The Germanic people of the early Empire were likely no more loyal to their \"tribe\" than they were to another that offered them a better life. Loyalty and politics in this time and place were much more personal, with gift giving, serving in a warband, and so on being the means by which political alliances were maintained, not through ethnic similarity. \n\nThe material culture of these people, the kind of houses they lived in, the goods they owned, and so on, were as a rule quite plain. Indeed houses in the Low Countries and Northern Germany often consisted of little more than a dug in floor, a roof, and a small hearth. Goods that they owned would likewise be rather simple and locally sourced. Pottery, beer, subsistence foods, simple weapons such as spears or bows and arrows could likely be made locally, but more luxurious goods such as wine, armor, jewelry, and so on were likely Roman imports and limited to an extremely small part of the population, those with contacts in the Roman world whether they were traders, raiders, or mercenaries (and the difference between the three was likely pretty small). As the Germanic world coalesced into larger polities this would change, but this was a development much later in time." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d69xb1j" ], "score": [ 25 ], "text": [ "To start with, I do have an answer for you, but only reluctantly. I'd much rather say I reject the entire premise of the question. So I'll start with why I don't think the premise is sound, and then I'll give you part of the answer anyways. \n\nSo the trite complaint is to say that \"advanced\" is a highly relative and vague term and most anthropologists aren't going to use it for exactly that reason. However, I can already hear you saying: \"Yes, but surely there are some things we can say are objectively more advanced, like gunpowder weaponry compared with bows!\". To that I say: absolutely, but we need to make sure we understand what criteria we are using to define \"advanced\". \n\nGenerally, people think of Native American societies as less advanced than European societies because they are defining advanced on the basis of metalworking technology and highly-complex state society, neither of which were well developed in the Americas north of Mexico. However, that is only one dimension we could evaluate how \"advanced\" a society is. \n\nLet me elaborate by quoting from Eric Wolf (1997:5), emphasis mine:\n > Many of us even grew up believing that this West has a genealogy, according to which ancient Greece begat Rome, Rome begat Christian Europe, Christian Europe begat the Renaissance, the Renaissance the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment political democracy and the industrial revolution. Industry, crossed with democracy, in turn yielded the United States, embodying the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. \n\n > Such a developmental scheme is misleading...History is thus converted into a tale about the furtherance of virtue, about how the virtuous win out over the bad guys. Frequently, this turns into a story of how **the winners prove that they are virtuous and good by winning**. \n\nWhat Wolf is describing as a developmental genealogy here (Greece to Rome and so on) is very frequently the basis for qualifying the idea of what \"advanced\" means. The idea being that the qualities of European societies in the late 18th and into the 19th centuries are the benchmark for \"advancement\". For example, the ability to project power across the planet in colonial and imperialist projects. A frequent question about the relative lack of advancement in Native societies north of Mexico is \"where are the empires?\". However, we have to question whether or not \"empire\" is really an advancement, or necessarily a marker of moral success. \n\nNow you might say that I'm conflating moral success with technological or social advancements, but that idea of moral success is really very much bound up in the ideas we have about what an \"advanced\", or \"modern\", society consists of. As Wolf says, the genealogy of the West is often told as a moral success story, with each \"advancement\" moving closer towards the virtuous society of the present. It's really important to decouple this idea of virtue from advancement. Why do we define virtue (and advancement, consequently) on the basis of conquest? What is so inherently virtuous about empire that we consider it \"advanced\", for instance? \n\nIndeed, in the present it is fairly uncontroversial to say that empire, colonialism, and monarchy run counter to our democratic ideals. Yet, in the past, we don't often consider Native societies in North American - considerably more egalitarian on the whole than their monarchist counterparts in Europe - as embodying \"advanced\" or \"modern\" society. Since they are not part of this genealogy of the West, the virtues we value in a \"modern\" society are glossed over as \"primitive\", rather than being \"advanced\". \n\nSo, my objection to the very premise aside, we still have to have some sort of definition of \"advanced\" to work with to actually answer your question. In this case I'll just use \"complexity\" as a byword for \"advanced\". In anthropology, \"complexity\" is an analogy borrowed from biology that describes an organism (or society, technology, etc.) as more or less complex on the basis of how many components it involves. For instance, a dog is considerably more complex than a bacterium. In a social sense, a state society is generally more complex than a foraging society because there are a larger number of social roles inside that society (\"organs\", perhaps). \n\nHowever, just like with the biological example, complexity is just descriptive, and doesn't necessarily indicate how successful and organism might be. Bacteria are extraordinarily successful organism despite not being very complex, while you can list any number of extinct mammals, for instance, that are considerably more complex but not nearly as successful. As this applies to technology, let's say that the complexity of a technology is a product of the social complexity necessary to produce it. Firearms, then, require a number of specialists to produce, while a bow and arrows can be produced by a single individual. It could be argued that early firearms were hardly superior to bows despite their greater complexity, so again, complexity doesn't necessarily equate with efficacy, but that is a bit of a tangent. \n\nIn terms of complex technologies north of Mexico, agricultural technology in the U.S. Southwest was significantly more complex in many ways than in other regions. Particularly irrigation technology. The Hohokam farmers of southern Arizona (primarily in the Phoenix and Tucson basins) were able to construct extensive irrigation canals that ran for many miles and seem to have functioned for many hundreds of years, with the apogee being between about A.D.800 and 1300. These canals cover an absolutely huge area. For instance, [a map of the canals](_URL_2_) under what is most of modern Phoenix. [A map that includes the lower Gila River as well](_URL_0_), showing some of the extent to which the entire Phoenix basin was covered in irrigation canals (and therefore put under cultivation). \n\nThese were not simple irrigation channels either. As you can see from the maps, many ran for a number of miles. The engineering that has to go into a canal to ensure it flows continuously on a gradient over that long a distance is a feat unto itself. [These weren't small canals either in many cases](_URL_1_), especially the large central \"trunks\" of each canal system. The complicated, branching structure of the canal system is also a feat of engineering in that it requires a good understanding of how large each ditch needs to be to provide sufficient water for all the side channels. We know also that many of the main canals are positioned so their openings take advantage of areas with high flow along the Salt River, due to areas where bedrock encroaches on the surface. \n\nWhile there are traditions of irrigation in other parts of the U.S. and Canada, none come even close to the scale of these Hohokam systems. Even in the Eastern Woodlands, home to the largest extent of agricultural societies north of Mexico, no irrigation systems reach this level of complexity. Though, to be fair, there is significantly more ground water and rainfall in the East that makes such systems much less valuable than in the extremely arid deserts of southern Arizona. \n\nThere are any number of other examples of technological variation across the Native societies of the U.S.A and Canada, but hopefully this gives you at least an idea of one dimension along which that variation exists. \n\n**Edit:** Need a citation for the material from Wolf!\n\nWolf, Eric R. 1997. *Europe and the People Without History*. University of California Press." ] }

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[ [ "http://phoenixspatialhistory.asu.edu/sites/default/files/canalII/Picture2.png", "http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/hohokam2/pix1.jpg", "http://arizonaexperience.org/sites/arizonaexperience.org/files/base_images/hohokam-canals_turney-map.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cihk5hp", "cihktw6", "cihkw81", "cihwu5e", "cii0hze" ], "score": [ 14, 31, 66, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Newspaper articles are accepted as sources in much the same way that anything else is accepted as a source. Historians generally strive towards objectivity, but we also understand that there is no source that is totally objective. I teach university undergraduates, and whenever they have a primary source analysis or something along those lines, I always tell them that I do not want to see the statement, \"This source is biased.\" The reason for that is that *every* source is biased. In everything -- newspaper articles, government edicts, telegrams, diary entries, interviews, memoirs, histories written after the fact -- there are inbuilt \"prejudices\", so to speak: cultural assumptions, socioeconomic circumstances, political leanings, and so on. These must all be taken into account when evaluating a source. A newspaper article is no different in this regard. No conscientious historian will take an article at face value, but will evaluate it within the wider context of other bodies of work.\n\nLet me give you an example. You pick up a 1935 copy of the *Völkischer Beobachter*, which was the official Nazi Party newspaper, and you find an article in it about the nature of Jewish involvement in German society. Naturally, we can say that this is a \"biased\" source; it is the mouthpiece of a virulently and violently antisemitic political movement. If you want to know about the nature of Jewish involvement in German society (which, after all, is what the article is about), this is not really going to tell you all that much about it. However, it *will* tell you an awful lot about what the NS regime wanted citizens to *think* about Jews in Germany. You can also, perhaps, infer a fair bit about the harsh realities of being a Jew living in NS Germany in 1935, since the article would undoubtedly be a harsh attack on Jews, and it appears in a nationally-circulated newspaper with a high readership. \n\nSo, in answer to your question, newspaper articles are accepted as much (or as little) as any other source. You can't just accept what one says out of hand, and you must interrogate the source closely. But even the most opinionated or \"biased\" source has value. It depends what questions you are asking of your source.", "Just a modnote as this question got a report - questions about the historical method (including analyzing and working with primary sources) are very much encouraged in here. ", "I wrote my final undergraduate thesis on the role of journalism in shaping our understanding of history — focusing specifically during the Spanish Civil War — using contemporary newspaper reports as my primary reference material, so I'm well aware of the pitfalls of using them as historiographical sources. But I also think newspapers (and journalistic writing generally) are completely valid and incredibly precious parts of the historical narrative — as long as you use them in the right way.\n\nThere's an old adage about journalism being \"the first rough draft of history\" — though exactly who coined that phrase seems to be [the subject of some debate](_URL_0_) — which I think is a nice epigrammatic summary of why journalism is important to history. \n\nIn the last two centuries or so, journalists have generally been the first people to chronicle and analyse events and, most importantly, *to write that analysis down*. They are history's first responders; they create a paper trail that provides a foundational basis for understanding events as they were understood at the time — because the importance of the news media in framing popular understanding in the modern era cannot be overstated.\n\nAs contemporary eyewitness accounts, newspapers are often the most prolific, articulate and readily available sources. They're certainly not the only contemporary sources, or even in most cases the best, but they are a starting point for further enquiry.\n\nWhat I mean by 'use them in the right way' is really 'understand and interrogate biases'. The first lesson in my very first historical method class was that pure, philosophical objectivity in the writing of history is a myth. It doesn't exist. Historians are shaped by their own social, cultural and political context, and all come with their own biases and subjective interpretations. The study of history is an exercise in interpreting evidence to validate or counter a thesis — and the use of evidence is invariably selective. So then it's about damage limitation, and what *kind* of selectivity it is: are you excluding evidence because it's irrelevant to the thesis, or because it explicitly goes against your argument?\n\nWhen we talk about 'objective' history *qua* 'good' history, we're not arguing that something can be proven or disproven absolutely — in fact, that idea should go out the window on day 1, along with the idea of true objectivity. What we're really talking about is understanding and accounting for the context, interpretive frameworks (and yes, biases) that affect both primary source material and historiography.\n\nAll that being said: interpreting and analysing journalistic reportage is exactly the same process as assessing formal historiography. You look at social context and political orientation and geography and culture, and compare to other sources, and develop an assessment of that source. Rinse and repeat. \n\nSo — and I'm going to use my own personal examples here — when I'm writing about how the bombing of Guernica was reported in the Anglo-American press, I know that in the late 1930s the *Times of London*'s editorial page was ardently pro-German; how could that affect their editors' willingness to directly accuse the Germans of carrying out the bombing? When I'm talking about attacks on the Spanish clergy, I know that the *New York Times*' editorial bullpen at that time was dominated by Catholics — how does that affect their framing of anticlerical violence?\n\nEssentially, credibility is a subjective judgement like any other, and no source is 'credible' in a vacuum; rather, its credibility is derived from others' perspectives on its use of evidence and the sophistication of its argument. We can cross-reference a contemporary newspaper account against the accepted historical version of events (where one exists) and find factual errors or outright untruths. But that doesn't change the view that newspaper provides into how events were framed at the time, and from there extrapolate valuable insights into the contemporary zeitgeist.\n\nIf you can, find a copy of Phillip Knightley's *[The First Casualty](_URL_2_)* for a fascinating read about how journalists and propagandists (and some people who were both at once) have shaped public perceptions in times of war; alternatively, going back to the Guernica example, H.R. Southworth's *[Guernica! Guernica!](_URL_1_)* They should give you some more practical examples of what I've tried to explain here.\n\n*Edit: thank you for the gold, stranger.*", "Newspaper articles are fantastic sources mainly because they provide such blatant bias. Especially when dealing with historic newspapers the political slant is often obvious and not even hidden. \n\nWhen encountering any source as a historian we always assume bias. Infact one of the key facets by which historians engage their craft is by analyzing and discussing the facts surrounding a particular source. By aggregating sources that provide a broad swath of historical experience and opinion it is much easier to convey the subtle details of a particular issue or event.\n\nGenerally as a historian you don't want to use primary sources that deal in dry facts that proclaim objectivity. If we want to learn more about the facts and minutiae of an even we would either look for other historical works, or even better cross reference historical documents that discuss the event in question.\n\nFor the average history student you want to bulk up the context of your piece with Secondary sources that discuss your topic in context. A textbook or Journal Article would provide the backbone of your paper. But the meat of any historical article always comes from the ugly, dirty, messy opinions you find in primary source documents.\n\nWhats most important is that you look at history with a skeptical eye, and always presume the most cynical of motives when you read any source. From there you can start to approach the truth, and perhaps write yourself a decent paper.", "I minored in journalism in college and will always remember what my journalism ethics professor told us - There is a misconception that journalism is supposed to be unbiased. That is not true, it is supposed to be objective. As long as facts are reported accurately and both sides are given a chance to speak, the journalist has met the ethical obligation to be objective.\n\nApply this to academic research. When you write a paper, you are presenting an argument and evidence to support your argument. You will naturally present the information in a way that favors your argument (this is human nature). You should address any evidence that contradicts your argument and acknowledge dissenting opinions but you then usually try to either discredit that dissenting evidence/opinion or explain how ti does not apply to the argument you are advancing. In this way you have been objective.\n\nJournalistic writing, when done properly, is not much different than academic writing in terms of being objecting and fair even while being biased. \n\nNow there are some journalistic sources that are not objective. There is also academic and peer-reviewed writing that is not objective. This is why you are supposed to evaluate the evidence being considered, why you conduct a literature review, etc. Also sources should be evaluated." ] }

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[ [], [], [ "http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2010/08/who_said_it_first.html", "http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Guernica_Guernica.html?id=1R304lcSa4kC&redir_esc=y", "http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_First_Casualty.html?id=DXu6XL4g4agC&redir_esc=y" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6s1m2l", "c6s21ad", "c6s2t09", "c6s2wa8", "c6s396f", "c6s89rw", "c6sltam" ], "score": [ 13, 19, 11, 9, 6, 5, 2 ], "text": [ "In the case of Sweden it is a result of The Policy of 1812 which came into effect as a result of Swedens large territorial losses (Sweden lost half of its total territory). Since then, Sweden has in effect remained neutral through every major conflict in Europe.\n\nEDIT: In reality, Sweden was far from neutral during the cold war (or WW2 for that matter). There was a military security guarantee from the US in case of Russian aggression but this information was not made public until 1994.", "You're asking a whole lot of questions in one package. At least Norway should be removed since it was a founding member of NATO which pretty much puts it in the western camp I think.\n\nSweden was covered by Superplaner, longstanding policy of staying neutral.\n\nFinland had to be neutral in order to keep the peace with the Soviet union, it had to walk a fine line with regards to Russian interests (this is where the term \"Finlandized\" comes from).\n\n Russia had decided that it was not worth it trying to make Finland into a real satellite state after the winter & continuation wars but they retained a lot of influence with the Finns.\n\nI'll leave Austria and Ireland to others.", "Norway was part of the founding nations of NATO and have contributed soldiers and materiel for every NATO operation, latest during Libyan revolution, where Norwegian F-16s operated out of Crete.\n\nSweden's neutrality worked during both World Wars so they saw it to their benefit of remaining neutral, as what Superplaner said.\n\nAs sp668 said, Finland was under Soviet influence to stay neutral. Search for Urho Kekkonen, the Finnish president for more info.\n\nIreland I don't know, but I'd make an educated guess that too many Irish would not have been pleased about going into an alliance with the British, as it was just over a decade since Ireland had gained true independence and the scars from Easter Uprising, Irish civil war and independence war and the hated Black & Tans were still fresh in most Irishmen's minds.\n\nAustria I have no idea, so hopefully someone else will give an answer. Might though have something to do with the four zones of interest the Americans, British, French and Soviets established.", "Sweden's Cold War neutrality was a convenient fiction. \n\n* US nuclear subs patrolled Sweden's west coast, [including Sweden in the NATO nuclear umbrella](_URL_3_).\n* [Swedish jets were full of US avionics and electronic warfare equipment. Swedish officers participated in NATO exercises.](_URL_0_) \n* [Swedish agents were part of the CIA's Operation Gladio](_URL_2_) to run militias throughout Europe in the event of Soviet occupation.\n* A secret Swedish Air Force unit [smuggled spies into and out of Sweden and dropped infiltrators at the Soviet border](_URL_1_).\n", "Austria was offered reunification by Stalin if it stayed neutral (same offer was given to Germany, but west German chancellor Adenauer refused), and it took the offer. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_", "Ireland has been remained neutral in every war since it became a republic in 1937. As for why well during WW2 it was just a good idea not to get involved if you could avoid it. Also much of our government and population had lived through the war of independence and civil war so wished nothing to do with Britain. Our history of being colonised and ruled by a foreign power probably has also left us leary of war and invasion. During the cold war while we didn't become involved in NATO we were clearly part of the western liberal democratic bloc of countries so not sure how neutral that makes us.", "Austria, like Germany, was divided into spheres of occupation by the allies. However, the occupation of Austria continued until 1955, when Austria pledged neutrality in exchange for the removal of occupying troops." ] }

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[ [], [], [], [ "http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2012/09/26/secrets-baltic-swedish-cold-war-neutrality-revisited", "http://www.thelocal.se/32788/20110324/", "http://books.google.com/books?id=ox_gXq2jpdYC&pg=PA511&dq=sveaborg+gladio&hl=en&sa=X&ei=g6SKUKqxOcuy0AHaxYGwDw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sveaborg%20gladio&f=false", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_neutrality#The_Cold_War" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Austria#Independence_and_political_development_during_the_Second_Republic", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_State_Treaty" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "csik5n5" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I can't give you the best information, but usually this is something your academic adviser would help you with. Can you not solicit their help? They want your name and address because you will be asked to revise elements of the article." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ecuhtap" ], "score": [ 58 ], "text": [ "George Orwell rejected USSR Stalinist policies and their interpretation and implementation of Marxist-Leninist philosophy. But Orwell certainly didn’t reject socialism. In fact, Orwell himself was a devoted socialist, and volunteered and fought in war for socialism. He said himself in his essay *Why I Write*, \n\n > “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.” \n\nOrwell wrote an entire book, *Homage to Catalonia*, about his experience fighting in socialist, anarchist, and syndicalist militias during the Spanish Civil War. In the book he says, \n\n > “Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society. In that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege and no bootlicking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what the opening stages of socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see socialism established much more actual than it had been before.”\n\nIn this sense, Orwell mentions his admiration of a classless society free of state coercion, which in many ways is a form of communism in its higher stage, as Marx defined communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society. In this way, you could argue that Orwell considered himself a democratic socialist, but that he was also sympathetic to anarchists who aimed to also achieve communism but through means that are not authoritarian. But he wasn’t totally anarchist. In *The Road to Wigan Pier* Orwell says on anarchism,\n\n > “I worked out an anarchistic theory that all government is evil, that the punishment always does more harm than the crime and the people can be trusted to behave decently if you will only let them alone.”\n\nBut he later elaborated, \n\n > ”it is always necessary to protect peaceful people from violence. In any state of society where crime can be profitable you have got to have a harsh criminal law and administer it ruthlessly.”\n\nIn this way you can clearly see that while anti-authority, he is still in favor of some form of justice system, which is absolutely counter to anarchist theory.\n\nOrwell seems instead to be opposed to totalitarian techniques to achieve communism, but was actually in favor of a communist society himself, as long as it was achieved through means that were not oppressive.\n\nWhat many don’t understand is that the USSR was communist, meaning their goal was to achieve communism, but the USSR never claimed to live a communist society, because according to Marxist-Leninist philosophy, they were still in the dictatorship of the proletariat phase of socialism, and it wasn’t until the 1936 Soviet Constitution that the regime claimed to have effectively began their transition into socialism, the lower phase of communism, but they never made it to actual higher stage communism. This utilization of the state apparatus, and even strengthening the state to violently erode capitalism with the goal of it leading to socialism is what Orwell was opposed to. He was not opposed to the end goal of socialism or communism itself.\n\nOrwell was a socialist until his death, and never rejected it later in life. The British MI5 even kept close tabs on him and for a long time considered him not just a socialist, but a secret Soviet-sympathetic communist. They would later retract this and claim he was not a communist, but still hold that he is a socialist. Much of the belief that Orwell rejected socialism later in life comes from\nhis two essays *Fascism and Democracy* and *Patriots and Revolutionaries* which he wrote in contribution to the book *Betrayal of the Left*. \n\nThe essays outline Orwell’s break from the British Communist Party following the party’s backing of the Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact. Specifically, they were against the British Communist Party’s stance of appeasement and nonviolence with Nazi Germany, while Orwell and his partners believed that fascism must be fought and denied in every way possible, whenever possible. The British Communist Party took this stance of nonviolence toward the Nazis from the Marxist-Leninist belief, originating from Lenin, that the Soviets could not win or benefit from any capitalist war. Instead, like the Soviets at the time, the British Communist Party believed they must instead focus on internal struggle, or supporting internal communist revolutions in other nations. But they believed fundamentally that any direct war with a capitalist nation would only harm the cause. Again, this emphasizes Orwell’s fierce stance against Soviet totalitarianism and Marxist-Leninist philosophy as a whole, but maintains that he is still, and always was, a socialist." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cap3y0s" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "In 1775, [48.7% of colonists were English](_URL_0_), the next largest group were black slaves. none of the other ethnic groups were above 10% of the population. " ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_American#1775_estimates" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "floy2d5" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Someone may come along and discuss the religious breakdown of sides in the Troubles in more detail for you, but in the meantime, you might be interested in a previous answer I gave about the history of ethnic and religious tensions in Ireland: [_URL_1_](_URL_0_)\n\nThe key takeaway is that Catholics were the majority but were legally discriminated against for a significant period under Anglican rule. Again, I go into more detail in the above linked answer." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/edg4hi/how_british_were_the_irish_considered/?st=k5d1iphz&sh=532dc67f", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/edg4hi/how\\_british\\_were\\_the\\_irish\\_considered/?st=k5d1iphz&sh=532dc67f" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e8x9k2k" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "On one hand, Mary was actually a lenient, merciful person. She was ready to pardon Lady Jane Grey, until the Wyatt Rebellion forced her to change her mind: something that her far-bloodier father Henry VIII would not have hesitated over for a moment. Though she was certainly devout, her tally of 280 or so burnt heretics perhaps was not that great by 16th c. standards. But, on the other hand, it was substantial, considering it was done over only three years, from 1555 to her death in 1558. And it differed from previous English persecutions: they didn't kill as many people. When Archbishop William Warham went after 46 Lollards in 1511, for example, only 5 were burnt. It was typically the leaders who got the bonfire . Like Thomas Man, a wandering preacher who was burned in Smithfield in 1518. Mary went after even the lowliest, like the Colchester Martyrs, and went for them root and branch, not only burning modest tradesmen but their wives as well. That made her an easy target in John Foxe's *Book of Martyrs.*\n\nShe was also an unsuccessful monarch, lasting only five years, leaving no heir, and losing Calais, so it was easy to cast her as a villain. And, in the tradition of winners writing the histories, of course the end of Mary I and Catholic rule was seen as a victory for the Anglican Church. Eamon Duffy challenged that in his book, [The Stripping of the Altars](_URL_0_), ( and expanded it in his later Fires of Faith ) reasonably asking the question, why was it such a bad thing for England to have become Catholic again? And wouldn't it have been just fine, staying that way?\n\nComparing her to Elizabeth, however, is difficult. Elizabeth had a much larger political problem with the Catholic church than Mary had with her heretics: the Pope did not regard her as legitimate ( because Henry could not legally have divorced Catherine of Aragon) and said so: so she was under real threat. Her cousin Mary ( of Scots) was far preferable to Catholics and the center of plots, which is why Mary eventually had to be executed. It is quite hard to separate politics, economics and religion at this time: Mary I saw heresy as a terrible danger to her subjects' salvation. Spain's Philip II saw his elimination of heresy to be practical foreign policy, a mission handed to him by his father Charles V. But Elizabeth could be simply worried about the simple loyalty of her Catholic subjects, regardless of doctrine. The Jesuits coming into the country were trying to unseat her, and asking for assistance from the Catholic English, which they sometimes got: there was , for example, the Ridolfi Plot involving the Ear of Arundel and family. Elizabeth did not, however, go after the Catholics root and branch- plenty managed to keep a low-enough profile to survive. And she also had a very, very, long reign compared to Mary's, so you can't really just compare numbers: if she had kept Mary's pace, after 45 years she would have burned 2,240 people.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;" ] }

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[ [ "https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300108286/stripping-altars" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cqa08ue", "cqa1e74", "cqan71z", "cqb393m" ], "score": [ 33, 8, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "It all goes back to popular culture. Questions about WWI & WWII, the Middle Ages, and Rome and Greece pop up constantly, and it's not hard to figure out why. How many movies/shows/games have been made about WWII in the last 15 years? How many about Rome? I'm convinced that Game of Thrones alone accounts for much of our medieval interest, and it's not even set on *Earth* or in the *Middle Ages*; if anything, it's a weird quasi-War of the Roses setting, and thus early modern.", "You might enjoy some earlier posts on the topic\n\n* [[META] Can We, AskHistorians take a month off of all things WWII and Nazi related?](_URL_1_)\n\n* [[META] Moratorium on Hitler hypotheticals?](_URL_2_)\n\n* [Why do we love WW2?](_URL_0_)\n\nAlso, a **Public Service Announcement**: if there are subjects that you don't want to see, download the free *Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES)* browser add-on: it will allow you to automatically filter out posts containing specific keywords. In the *RES settings console*, click the *Filters* tab, scroll down to the *keywords* section and define the keywords you don't want to see in this sub, e.g. WW2, WWII, Hitler, Nazi, Stalin, Holocaust, Hiroshima... ", "I feel the answer is because its mythologized image has clear \"good\" and \"bad\" side unlike most of other cases where both sides can be accused of being somewhat \"evil\" (modern Americans probably don't think Vietnam was necessary and just war, just as Russians may be resentful about Afghanistan, but both remember WW2 as heroic great war). There are also many controversies there so it's a big playing field for second-opinion bias like \"the real evil were Allies/USSR\", genocide Olympics, \"all the work was done by USA/USSR\", \"Hiroshima is as bad as Holocaust\" etc.", "World War Two is often (very wrongly) seen as a clear-cut good vs evil confrontation, it also in many ways was both the first and last war of its kind and it shaped the contemporary world more than any other major event by ushering in digital computing and nuclear fission. Additionally the sheer scope of the conflict and the fact that it took place very recently makes WW2 the most appealing historical subject for the general population, judging by the constant release of WW2 books, movies and video games every year, it's clear to me that the second world war will continue to generate massive amounts of attention in decades to come." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/26be5p/why_do_we_love_ww2/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1tdwke/meta_can_we_askhistorians_take_a_month_off_of_all/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pcr9o/meta_moratorium_on_hitler_hypotheticals/" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fex3wps" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "If your 'the Anarchy in England' means the famous (notorious) civil war period in the 12th century, I can mainly recommend the following ones: \n\n* [Crouch, David. *The Reign of King Stephen: 1135-1154.* Harlow: Longman, 2000.](_URL_3_) \n* [Dalton, Paul & Graeme J. White (eds.). *King Stephen's Reign, 1135-1154*. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2008.](_URL_2_) \n* King, Edmund (ed.). *The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign*. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994. \n* [_______. *King Stephen (The English Monarchs Series)*. New Haven: Yale UP, 2010; pbk 2012.](_URL_1_) \n\nThe historiographical topic of 'Anarchy' period almost inevitably intertwined with how we evaluate the various aspect of politics under the reign of King Stephen (1135-53). In short, the good book of 'the Anarchy' is the good book on him at the same time, and you have plenty of them. Among others, two collection of essays, respectively edited by Dalton & White and by King represent the development of the revisionist interpretation of Stephen's reign that had originally been initiated by Edmund King in the 1970s. King has been without doubt the leading scholar in this field of research, but if you find his writing style too heavy for your taste, I'd rather instead recommend Crouch's book as the first to read. \n\nIf you are not really confident on the essential knowledge of this topic, Carl Watkins' [recent small booklet](_URL_0_) of Penguin Monarchs might also serve as an introductory work, though I assume that you have had enough knowledge of this period by reading some historical novels and TV series like Ken Follett's *Pillar of the Earth* or Ellis Peters' *Brother Cadfael* series." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/196/196264/stephen--penguin-monarchs-/9780141989877.html", "https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300181951/king-stephen", "https://boydellandbrewer.com/king-stephen-s-reign-1135-1154-hb.html", "https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315843803" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cmdfzh1", "cmdh2fu" ], "score": [ 6, 91 ], "text": [ "As a follow up question, or rather clarification: In what way do you feel that the education is in fact focused on things like the holocaust rather than those committed in Africa or Asia? I assume by your question you grew up in a country in which this was the case. However for people growing up in Nanjing, the Japanese atrocities are more represented than Nazi Germany's.\n\nSo are you just speaking in terms of Western education? Or do you have the impression that it is globally so unbalanced?", "I would challenge your assertion that education is \"always\" focused on the holocaust, and not the other ones. At the very least it depends on where the education is actually taking place. As /u/keyilan points out, students in China probably learn more about Japanese atrocities there than German atrocities in Europe. If you are from a country with stronger European ties (or even a European country), it's really not that strange to give more attention to the more local subject. \n\nI teach history in Norway, and at least the history book that is used at my school doesn't *only* focus on the holocaust. The World War Two section has parts about atrocities on the Eastern Front, the holocaust, Allied terrorbombing/firebombing and Japanese atrocities in Asia. The holocaust part *is* larger than any of the others, but that's not really so strange considering some Norwegians were caught up in it.\n\nHistory teaching isn't really about finding the \"most cruel\", but the most relevant and relatable." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "decd7uf" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "After the fall of the Roman empire, Italy continued to a more or less unified and autonomous polity until the 8th century, and would not become definitively fragmented until the 10th. \n\nAfter the fall of the Second Kingdom of Italy, the word \"Lombard\" (after the ethnicity of the old ruling class) denoted anything indigenously Italian in both north and south (\"Frankish\" was anything associated with the new ruling class). The earliest examples of what can be called written Italian appear in Benevento in the ninth century, while the nearby \"Lombard\" city of Salerno would become a major Mediterranean entrepôt and come to house a renowned University. \n\nIn northern Italy, after the wars of succession following Charlemagne's death, the Kingdom of Italy was given to Lothair (a grandson of Charlemagne) in 795. The unstable transitions between emperors in the Carolingian dynasty would ended in 887, after the deposition of Charles the Fat. Charles was the last Emperor to simultaneously hold the title of King of Italy, France, and Germany, and had even been elevated to the Imperial Throne from the position of King of Italy. However, he possessed no direct heirs, and the fight between innumerable female-line descendants was on.\n\nThe Marquis of Ivrea managed to get crowned King Berengar II in the late ninth century, however it wouldn't be long before the German Kaiser Otto decided to take the crown for himself.\n\nThe Ottonian Emperors Otto I, Otto II, Otto III, and Henry II would all travel to Italy to be crowned King of Italy by an Italian Bishop. Absurdly, the Ottonians came to rely on Italian revenues to contrast the unruly vassals in Flanders, Bavaria and Luxembourg. With the Italian lords having fought themselves into irrelevance in wars of succession of the early tenth century, Italy came to be one of the most centralized parts of the Empire. This arrangement would last until Henry II died without issue in 1024. And here it gets interesting, because although Conrad the Salian is elected emperor with minimum fuss in Germany, in Italy his ascension is not entirely recognized.\n\nThe Ottonians understood Italy, especially thanks to Otto II's marriage to the Byzantine princess Theophanu, but the same could not be said about the Salians. Almost as soon as Conrad II was elevated to the throne, his legitimacy in Italy was contested. Conrad condemned the \"Lombards\" in court, but no punitive action was taken: the lack of a strong landed aristocracy meant that Conrad had no military means to counter Italian cities doing as they pleased without transporting knights over the Alps. After Conrad convened a synod in Pavia to hear out the complaints, he got so infuriated by the dissidence of the Italian leaders he ordered the arrest of the bishop of Milan Aribert of Intimiano. However, imperial influence in Italy had almost completely eroded: Aribert fled back to Milan unhindered. Conrad tried to forcefully enter the city to seize him, but couldn't round up enough support. It would seem, then, that the Kingdom of Italy was ungovernable.\n\nIn between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, when the Italian cities established themselves as self-governing but didn't yet evolve into states with jurisdictions beyond their city walls; so although Italy certainly continued to exist as a geographic and political construct, identity was most definitely tied to one's city or region. One of my favorite quotes from the Divine Comedy reads as follows:\n\n*Non omo, omo già fui, e li parenti miei furon lombardi, Mantoani per patria ambedui*\n\nThis is Virgil introducing himself to Dante. Virgil says, \"Man I am not but man I once was, my parents were Lombards, Mantuans by homeland both.\"\n\nDante commits an anachronism; Lombards wouldn't arrive in Mantua for hundreds of years at the time of Virgil's birth. But what's interesting here the way Dante calls \"Lombards\" the inhabitants of Northern Italy as late as the fourteenth century. \n\nBut specifying \"Lombard\" isn't enough, Dante finds it necessary to affirm that Virgil's parents are both \"Mantuans.\" So here we have a demonstration as to how identity on the peninsula is mostly tied to the urban communities. \n\nIt's important to reaffirm that the concept Italy never disappeared: In the second decade of the fourteenth century, for example, Boccacio would write that Canagrande Della Scala (Lord of Verona) was \"One of the most notable and magnificent lords known in Italy since the Emperor Frederick\" while the poet Niccolò de' Rossi affirmed that Canagrande \"Will be king of Italy by next year\" (Canagrande dropped dead at forty and did no such thing, but that's not the point).\n\nFast forward to the Battle of Fornovo in 1495, when the Italian states chased the already retreating Charles the VIII of France from Italy. Duke Lodovico Sforza of Milan and Pope Alexander had asked Charles to conquer the Kingdom of Naples, but then freaked out when he actually did conquer the Kingdom of Naples. They then set up a league to stop him (long story). After the battle, Milan made a hasty separate peace at Vercelli; and \"Treachery!\" cried the other members of the League, who then snubbed Milan (who had born the brunt of the fighting) and proclaimed the Republic of Venice \"Liberator of **Italy**\" after Charles was forced to hand the Kingdom of Naples back over to King Alfonso after his Alfonso's son Ferrante landed in Calabria at the head of an army courtesy of his Spanish cousins.\n\nFast forward again to the negotiations ar the Peace of Utreicht after the War of Spanish succession in 1713, and the Venetian Ambassador Carlo Ruzzini reported that the Republic of Venice was seen as \"*La Principale Potenza e Protettrice d'Italia*\" or \"Principal Power and Protector of Italy.\" \n\nSo clearly, the notion of \"Italy\" doesn't seem to have mutated in the two hundred years since the solidification of the half dozen independent polities on the peninsula, although the concept of Italian identity would only be formed after Napoleon's conquest of the peninsula. However, even during the *Risorgimento* (the Italian Unification process) Camillo Benso of Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont (the Italian state which conquered the peninsula) would have been perfectly content with stopping at the conquest of Rome. It's a strange set of circumstances which led Garibaldi and his Redshirts, who were fundamentally paramilitaries, to organize their expedition conquering the south of the Peninsula. However, conquer they did, and \"Italy\" now refers to the entire peninsula and the state that governs it. \n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cpo74wy" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Which parties in particular are we talking about internationally? The traditional great powers of Europe? The Franco-Prussian War was an epoch-defining event that shook up the traditional order in central Europe, which allowed the Prussians and the North German Confederation to formally unite the southern German kingdoms of Württemberg, Baden, and Bavaria into a single, German state. Any balance-of-power equations that would have existed prior to 1871 about a fractious, disunified Germany, would have to have been re-evaluated.\n\nAn important aspect of why there was little fervor to really intervene on the side of France during the war was because of diplomatic maneuvering on the part of Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to diplomatically isolate France by the time the war broke out in 1870, and his diplomatic baiting with the [Ems Dispatch](_URL_5_), France declared war upon Prussia, making it seem the aggressor. That, and the part of French diplomats about \"restoring France to its natural borders\" to the Rhine river in the events leading up to the war, also did not help France's image as the victim, especially as the war turned decisively against them in the [Siege of Metz](_URL_2_) (trapping 200,000 French troops), and the disastrous [Battle of Sedan](_URL_0_), which saw the capture and surrender of 120,000 French troops and the capture of their leader, Napoleon III.\n\nBecause of France's prior actions in the 1860s under Napoleon III's foreign policy, they alienated the Austrians by aiding the Italians in their [Second War of Independence (1859)](_URL_3_), which saw the Austrians lose territory to the nascent and newly-unified Italians. Bismarck's diplomatic maneuvering kept Russia nominally friendly or at the very least neutral against Prussia when they went to [war with Austria in 1866](_URL_4_), which culminated in Austria's loss of influence with the other German minor states, opening up the path to unification under the \"Little Germany\" unification idea, which was Germany without Austria.\n\nFrance's foreign policy also alienated Britain, in that their colonial conquests and foreign policy tended to be anti-Britannic, which was the traditional mode of thought for Franco-Briton enmity at the time, and has existed for centuries up until that point. After Prussia's victories in 1866, and Bismarck's vague promises of compensating Napoleon III for guaranteeing French neutrality while the Prussians curbstomped the Austrians, France saw itself somewhat swindled by the current state of affairs in the period between 1866-1870 - suddenly, to their east, was a large country that was more politically unified than ever before, and worse, had a professional military with reserves that they can mobilize that can outnumber their men in the field. \n\nCompound this strategic reversal on the map of Europe was the fact that France had very little to count on from the other European powers:\n\n- Britain was cold towards France as was the usual case. France was seen as the \"biggest threat\" to Britain, and despite their cooperation against Russia in the Crimean War, there were a series of naval arms races between the two countries that made relations cold.\n\n- Russia was not friendly towards France because of the latter's involvement in the Crimean War, easily within living memory of the statesmen of the time, not to mention Napoleon III was seen as one of the arch-architects of organizers of the coalition against Russia during that war.\n\n- Austria certainly could not be counted on due to their recent reorganization in having to make [political concessions to their Hungarian counterparts](_URL_6_) after the disastrous war of 1866 left the Austrians militarily and politically impotent during the 1870 war.\n\n- The United States was not going to be involved, they just emerged from their Civil War in 1865, and not to mention they were not in any power to mount any kind of military expedition in the aid of France.\n\n- Italy might have been the only state that could have helped France, but they were also recently unified and consolidating. However, France was still guaranteeing the security of the Pope in Rome, and Italian nationalists yearned to make Rome their capital. When the war broke out, the French withdrew their Roman garrison to reinforce the mainland, and the Italians promptly occupied Rome. However, there were Italians who did not forget France's part in aiding the Italian unification efforts of 1850-1860s, and there were those who joined on the side of France during the war, such as the Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi, who led a [volunteer force](_URL_7_) to aid the French.\n\n- Spain did what it did best in the Nineteenth Century - which was to stay neutral of Continental European affairs in a large part.\n\nThe Prussians understood that the war had to be kept short and the overall strategic objective was to secure German unification, and that meant defeating France, whose interests were not served by a strong, unified Germany, which would replace France as the pre-eminent European land power. Bismarck himself even said he did not want Germany to annex the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, judging (correctly) that this would lead to a permanent enmity with France, but the German nationalists and German military leaders won that debate in arguing that Alsace-Lorraine was populated by ethnic Germans, and the military leaders arguing that they wanted a strategic buffer on their western frontier controlled directly by the central government in Berlin. This enmity between France and Germany would be one of the culminating causes of World War One, and Bismarck's diplomatic policies of keeping France diplomatically isolated ended with his dismissal in 1890, with Kaiser Wilhelm II's \"zig-zag\" foreign policy achieving relative diplomatic isolation on the part of Germany when [France and Russia formally concluded a military alliance in 1892](_URL_1_), thus surrounding Germany with potentially hostile powers on two fronts - something Bismarck feared the most, and had come to pass.\n\n\nTLDR; brilliant diplomatic maneuvering on the part of Bismarck and alienating French foreign policy by Napoleon III in the years leading up the the 1870 war left the French diplomatically isolated and effectively gave the Prussians a free hand in defeating the French. " ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sedan_%281870%29", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Russian_Alliance", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Metz_%281870%29", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italian_War_of_Independence", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Prussian_War", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ems_Dispatch", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_Compromise_of_1867", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_the_Vosges" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cdnbf82" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "No, because his premises were unscientific, his methods questionable and his experiments haphazard.\n\n\nFirst, many of the experiments were based on peculiar Nazi racial theories about who was \"Aryan\" and who was not. The issue of the existence of distinct human races is problematic and controversial in and of itself. Certainly, no contemporary scientist will agree that there is such a thing as the Aryan race. Obviously, which such a flawed premise, it is hardly surprising that the experiments yielded no results.\n\n > in 1944, he began his own project on twins, [...] **Were there reproducible racially determined differences in serum following an infectious disease?** [...] Dr Mengele infected identical and fraternal twins, Jewish and Gypsy twins with the same quantity of typhoid bacteria, took blood at various times for chemical analysis in Berlin, and followed the course of the disease. According to [Jewish inmate doctor and forced assistant) Dr Nyiszli, he also worked with tuberculous twins. [...] Dr Mengele's letters and reports to [Nazi research physician] Professor von Verschuer were probably destroyed by von Verschuer [who went on to pursue a successful academic career after denazification]. [...] Right up to the last moments of the war, Professor von Verschuer was still hoping for a major breakthrough. [...] **Dr Mengele and Professor von Verschuer did not solve their problem**. (Benno Muller-Hill, *Murderous Science*, 1998)\n\nFor more on the tuberculosis study in particular and why it was scientifically flawed for other than racist reasons, see Benno Muller-Hill, [*Genetics of susceptibility to tuberculosis: Mengele’s experiments in Auschwitz*](_URL_0_) (Nature, Vol 2, August 2001, pp 631-634). Essentially, Mengele and his supervisor **clung to an outdated theory**.\n\nMengele also used the twins in (extremely painful) experiments to try to change their eye colour, but failed. This was an attempt at research on phenogenetic eye pigmentation and eye colour heredity. A particular Nazi focus was to find out **whether the structure and colour of the eye could be used to determine the \"race\"** (Jewish or Aryan) of the subject. (Benoît Massin, *Mengele, die Zwillingsforschung und die „Auschwitz-Dahlem Connection\"*. In: Carola Sachse (Ed.): *Die Verbindung nach Auschwitz. Biowissenschaften und Menschenversuche an Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten. Dokumentation eines Symposiums.* Göttingen 2003)\n\nSecondly, many \"experiments\" seemed to have sprouted from an impulse of the moment and were not part of an integrated study as were the two experiments described above. No original paperwork survives on the other experiments, we therefore rely on a great number of eyewitness testimony. Some of these bizarre experiments were: sewing twins together to create conjoined twins, surgeries such as organ removal, castration, and amputations.\n\nA symposium uniting experts from the field of law, history and medicine was held at the University of Minnesota in 1989 to discuss the Nazi human experiments. It had this to say about why Mengele's research was useless:\n\n > The experiments were carried out under circumstances that were scarcely representative of the normal human condition. The debilitated physical conditions of many of the victims most certainly confounded results from the experimental procedures. [...] \nThe absence of sound scientific reasoning or theory underlying the experiments. (Nancy L. Segal, *Twin Research at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Implications for the Use of Nazi Data Today*. In: Arthur C. Kaplan (Ed.): *When Medicine Went Mad: Bioethics and the Holocaust* 1992)" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~piecze/MengeleBennoMullerHill.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cen3zx6" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "Let's all go to this topic: _URL_0_" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1uyyyo/in_light_of_sharons_death_what_actually_happened/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cehrxhq", "cehvn0o" ], "score": [ 2, 11 ], "text": [ "Interesting question, I'd like to know that too. BTW St Petersburg was built by Italian architects, so it's not specifically French I suppose.", "The intellectuals in Russia saw the French as the high point of refined European (Western) culture at the time. By the late 18th and 19th century, they saw themselves as a backwards peasant state and aspired to the cultural accomplishments of a nation like France, and as such French became a de facto intellectual language (as it was in other parts of Europe as well), and elites began to imitate aspects of French culture. \n\nAs a personal aside, I've always found that Russian writers FAR outstrip French writers of the 19th century when they are writing in a way that strikes me as distinctly contextualized in a Russian context. But maybe that's just because I'm sort of existential like that." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d1v56wt" ], "score": [ 39 ], "text": [ "Alexander's constant campaigning did indeed mean that he wasn't able to spend as much time ruling his domain as a less conquest oriented monarch might. But just how the conquered peoples felt about their new position is hard to gauge. In one sense it is reasonable to say that Alexander's new subjects would have been aware that they were under the rule of a new government as Alexander appointed many new Greek and Macedonian officials to rule in his new provinces. The most famous example would be Egypt where Cleomenes, a man from the local Greek colony of Naucratis, was appointed as the region's chief financial officer. He would go on to become the most powerful man in Egypt until Alexander's death, presiding over an extortionate and abusive regime. Macedonians such as Stasanor, Tlepolemus, Sibytius, Peithon, and Philip were all appointed to rule in the various provinces of the Far East. We don't know much of the regimes of these men although many lasted quite a long time after Alexander's death.\n\nBut would having a new Greek or Macedonian governor make that much of a difference to the conquered peoples? Taxes and tribute were still imposed, often at the same rate the Persians had set. The Persian administrative structure was kept in place, with the regional boundaries being organized in much the same way. Also Alexander did not appoint only Greek and Macedonian officials. In Egypt, a native named Doloaspis received administrative control of the country while Cleomenes was supposed to only act as a tax collector (a limitation he clearly ignored). Queen Ada continued to rule in Cardia, the Persian Phrataphernes was kept on in Parthia (and would stay there until 321). Other Persians like Mazaeus (who was given the governorship of Babylon but had two Macedonians acting as his general and tax man), Mithrenes (former Sardis governor sent to rule Armenia), and Abulites (ruling Susiana but again with Macedonians as his officials) all administered a great deal of territory for Alexander. In India, things can't have been very different at all. Much of Alexander's Indian empire was ruled by the local kings Taxiles and Porus as vassal states. Seeing as Macedonian rule east of the Indus had almost completely broken down by 315 one wonders what really changed administratively. \n\nOf course simply looking at the appointments Alexander made doesn't give us a complete idea of how his new subjects felt about whether they were truly part of a new Macedonian empire. Now it's entirely possible that people didn't think Alexander was coming back as he continued ever further into the east. On his return journey numerous governors were replaced for alleged mismanagement, suggesting that Alexander's officials were carving out their own fiefdoms before the man was dead. Some of this can be attributed to Alexander's ever increasing paranoia but there is some evidence that such acts of abuse were going on. Harpalus, a friend of the king's, eventually replaced Mazaeus in Babylon and went about debauching himself on the assumption that Alexander would never come back. He was forced to flee, taking a large quantity of embezzled funds with him, in 324. \n\nIn terms of what we can learn from all this it seems fair to say that while the conquered peoples probably had some idea that they were living under a new Greco-Macedoinan power structure, it's hard to be sure whether or not there was truly a sense of being part of a unified empire under Alexander. Whatever belief there was in such an entity certainly crumbled very soon after his death, as the empire gave way to the successor kingdoms. \n\nI hope this rambling answer has been somewhat informative. All the information I've referenced comes from Arrian's *Anabasis.* " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d22tvbj" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ "Why wouldn't it be considered one? \n\nI know this is a problematic set of criteria, but it's what my university teaches its undergrads. A state has\n\n1. visible class distinctions\n2. monumental archetecture\n3. complex record keeping (when I started my grad program we said \"writing\" - but that turned out to be so problematic the prof changed it)\n4. agriculture\n5. centralized political structure\n\nAgain, hugely problematic. But Rome fits those things.\n\nThe question I see more often (perhaps because of my research) is whether Rome can be considered a nation-state, and the consensus is that it can't be. There are a number of different theories about nation-states and nationalism, and almost all of them make nation-states things of modernity. People do argue about whether the state produces the nation (I think that's the direction Weber, *Peasants into Frenchmen*, takes) or whether nationalism produces nations (Benedict Anderson? I forgot who I read on Italian nationalism that argues this way).\n\nThere is a guy, Antony Smith, who argues that nations could and did exist in the ancient world. He picks Jews and Armenians for that. It's been a while since I looked at his stuff. I don't remember the Armenian argument very well. The Jewish argument had to do with the centrality of cult practice at Jerusalem (or lack thereof after 70 CE) - it provided an anchor in a shared imagined history linked with a homeland either currently or previously occupied and continuously remembered by a population that recognized itself.\n\nRome never got that. I would argue it came close with the Social War, Augustus' use of *tota Italia*, and some other similar things, but it never really sunk in." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c63xdk8", "c63y7od", "c63zuch" ], "score": [ 3, 4, 3 ], "text": [ "I think [this](_URL_0_) counts. There's actually a whole documentary about it as well.", "Most of the Soviet Union's puppet states fell with little or no bloodshed. And the coup that put the end to the Soviet Union itself was also a fairly tame affair. Romania and Yugoslavia excepted, and some fighting in the Baltic states and Caucasus. \n\nNapoleon III was elected president of France in 1848 - he mounted a coup in 1851 before taking power as Emperor that seized control of all of France and its empire with only a few hundred deaths. Not small potatoes but not terrible given the coup's scale. \n\nBrazil was declared a republic after a bloodless coup, although there were several small monarchist rebellions after the coup ended.", "The Czech revolution is known as \"The Velvet Revolution\" because of how peaceful it was." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_Revolution#Estonia" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cuhd4fq", "cuhnhjl", "cui06k3" ], "score": [ 2, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Check out the work of David Roediger. Also Philip Foner's work is classic. More recent is Philip Dray. What aspects are you looking at? ", "Are you looking for works that are an overview of the history of Unions which analyses sources to paint a picture, or would you like primary sources - articles etc. written by people involved in the Union movement at periods in history?", "Here's a handful that have made it into my notes, coming at the topic from a more socio-cultural and political-economy angle (I'm interested in workers as consumers):\n\nLizabeth Cohen, *Making a New Deal : Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939*, Second Edition (Cambridge [England]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).\n\nJefferson Cowie, *Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class* (New York: New Press, 2010).\n\nNelson Lichtenstein, *Labor’s War at Home: The CIO in World War II* (Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982)\n\n George Lipsitz, *Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s* (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).\n\nRoy Rosenzweig, *Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920* (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983).\n\nNan Enstad, *Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Twentieth Century* (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).\n\nLawrence B Glickman, *A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society* (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997).\n\nI'll do a quick search and see if I can find a 'state of the field' essay for labor studies that's fairly recent and might guide you toward more cannonical works within that subfield of history itself. (Which is kinda dying in favor of more integrative histories of capitalism, btw.)\n\nIMMEDIATE EDIT: also, check out the stuff written by Joseph McCartin - incl. his 2013 *Collision Course* which is very under-grad and public reader friendly. His interpretation of labor history runs counter to Cowie's hypotheses in several interesting ways, so there's some nice counter-point to think with there . . . " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cnktubn", "cnkx7gw" ], "score": [ 14, 7 ], "text": [ "It actually doesn't have much of a historical reason. The most popular kosher wine in the US is Manischewitz wine, and they add sugar to their already-sweet wine. Frasier is playing off this stereotype. But kosher wine need not be sweet; I'll let someone else answer about historic Jewish wine. ", "This exists for a particular historic time and place. Traditionally, there was nothing particularly sweet about Jewish wine. However, in order to have kosher wine, there are a number of procedures that need to be followed, resulting in Jews being pretty much the only people who grow kosher wine. As Jews emigrated to the United States, the population was predominantly found in New York, and Jewish businesses, including the kosher food industry, centered around there. However, the only grape that would grow in the New York area, especially before more modern cultivation techniques, is Concord grapes, which are rather sweet and don't have the best flavor. But that was what available. This is the main grape used by everyone to make grape juice and grape jelly, due to its sweetness. So the end result was that kosher wine in the New York area, and then across all of the US, came to be made with sweet Concord grapes, and then a stereotype formed around Jewish wine being sweet, in the 20th century. But there's no history of it nor any Jewish reason why it must be so. I've lived in France, and there are kosher wines of all varieties there. They scorn the poor quality sweet kosher wine that Manischewitz makes. It certainly doesn't need to be true any more, but people have grown used to it and it's become a tradition. There's no huge Jewish tradition of drinking or interest in alcoholic beverages, so there's never been any huge Jewish movement to have better wine--if you're not too religious, you'll drink any wine that interests you and don't have to concern yourself with it being kosher. If you are religious, then you'll only drink kosher wine and you're not going to spend too much time fretting over the secular practice of drinking wine as a leisure activity." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ee3muas" ], "score": [ 689 ], "text": [ "Here's an interesting piece of history that helps us understand: \n\nIt was a different time, people going for \"weird psychiatric cures\" at leading institutions in their city or country would have thought less about the brutal and suspect methods. \n\n**Exhibit A.** \n\nMontreal Neurological Institute / McGill and the Peter Allan Institute. In the 1900s, Montreal, Canada was one of the Mecca's in neuroscience and still is. There was a guy named [Dr. Ewan Cameron](_URL_0_) who at points in his life was the head of the American Psychiatric Association (1952–1953), Canadian Psychiatric Association (1958–1959), American Psychopathological Association (1963), Society of Biological Psychiatry (1965) and World Psychiatric Association (1961–1966). He had a theory and afaik was the one who came up with the \"Depatterning\" idea of giving drugs then subjecting people to images with their eyelids kept open, think Clockword Orange and the stereotypes of that kind of \"mind control\" or \"mind wiping\". \n\nHis research was funded by the U.S. government. While he knew his research was being funded by a foreign government, I'm not sure if he knew it was being funded by CIA/more secretive groups. Regardless, he was doing some heinous research with the money.\n\nPeople would go for depatterning at his institution of the neurological institute, be completely messed up, substance induced or activate a permanent psychosis, then they would end up at the hospital, then to Mcgill, then hospital, then to the Peter Allan institute. There was little cross-talk between institutions even in the same city and people would be shunted from one to the next in the worst cases. This is how it went undetected. Otherwise, people probably thought \"o they didn't get a lobotomy, they must be crazy though, wonder how they got this way, must be in their blood\".\n\nEven Donald Hebb, of \"fires together, wires together\" fame was funded by the same foreign bodies but he claims he didn't know how insidious the money was, and we believed him. That's another story and he is a well loved and important figure in neuroscience. Ewan Cameron, however, who's heard of him anymore? He permanently injured and indirectly killed many with his depatterning. \n\n------\n**All in all,** the CIA funded research all over the world, it was decentralized and they looked for researchers with credentials and no scruples to conduct the kind of research we know they did. It also took ignorance, willful or otherwise, a different time and standards of care/research subjects, as well as no one connecting the dots. Think of it this way, you are a scientist with existing research, a granting body promises money in return for your research, you take the money in return for giving your results to them. Maybe it's only 1/4 of the research your lab does anyway, you take the money from this non-scientific body and your department either doesn't know or doesn't think it's all that bad or out of the ordinary. \n\n\n\nNot familiar with how the dots were connected or by whom but I hope this gives a picture of the actual context for how things went down.\n\n- editing to add that also, because of the lack of what we consider modern scientific rigor, not only were Ewan Cameron's findings unethical, the research methods were crap. They did not work to \"depattern\" or \"wipe a mind\" like he claimed. He just made a whole lot of psychosis and we learned next to nothing from all that suffering. " ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Ewen_Cameron" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dtkiwpg" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "About 2500 years ago. In fact, the Greeks started portraying tyranny as a universally negative and hated thing pretty much immediately after the early tyrants your textbook told you about.\n\nIn his brilliant article 'Before *turannoi* were tyrants', Greg Anderson showed that \"tyranny\" was not a negative term when it was adopted into the Greek language, probably from Lydian, in the 7th century BC. The earliest attestation, in a poem by Archilochos, seems to take the word to mean simply \"great power\" or \"great wealth\" - both of which were seen as desirable and admirable by Greek elites at the time. It seems tyranny was generally regarded as the prize at the end of the endemic factional competition for power and influence that marked the political life of early Greek city-states. As you say, the early tyrants are generally not known as despotic, oppressive rulers; several are remembered by tradition as champions of the people, who overthrew old leisure-class oligarchies, curtailed the power of greedy rivals and treated citizens to many benefactions. For example, all sources agree that Peisistratos of Athens, who ruled about 546-527 BC, ruled in accordance with the existing laws and adorned his city with temples, fountains and festivals. According to a student of Aristotle, his rule was remembered by the Athenians as an \"Age of Kronos\" (i.e. a golden age of fertility and prosperity).\n\nTyrants, however, represented the monopolisation of power in a system of rival factions; they often seem to have tried to make their position hereditary. In the more stable tyrannies, the sons of tyrants often succeeded to the position. These sons were rarely as well-regarded as the \"first generation\" of tyrants; it seems that Greek communities were perfectly happy to see a tyrant rise to power, but could not tolerate the notion of power remaining forever in the hands of one family. Possibly this is related to the idea that those rising to the tyranny in a context of elite rivalry must have been men of some political skill or military power, but those who simply inherited the position did not need to be men of any particular ability. However this may be, tyranny may have been a common form of government in Archaic Greece, but it rarely lasted more than two generations before being overthrown. Knowing this, successor tyrants were more likely to act aggressively to assert their power, which in turn increased the likelihood of inciting rebellion.\n\nThe Athenians maintained that they were liberated from an oppressive tyranny when two lovers called Harmodios and Aristogeiton assassinated Peisistratos' son and successor around 514 BC. The so-called \"tyrant-slayers\" became a rallying point of the young democracy; songs were sung to them, [statues made](_URL_0_), and honours were given to their descendants in perpetuity. However, inquisitive Athenians knew perfectly well that the story was false; we only know its details today because Herodotos, Thucydides and the aforementioned student of Aristotle all explain at length what they discovered about the actual situation. Harmodios and Aristogeiton, they say, were not enraged by the tyranny at all, but were simply involved in a lovers' quarrel. They may have plotted to murder both (or all 3) of Peisistratos' sons, but they attacked in haste and only managed to kill the less capable Hipparchos, leaving the true tyrant Hippias in charge of the city. Only then, driven to paranoid fear by the attempt on his life, did Hippias begin to rule with an iron fist. He had many citizens exiled or executed and generally seems to have inflicted a reign of terror on Athens in the hope of rooting out a non-existent conspiracy. Prominent Athenians like Kleisthenes called on the Spartans to intervene, and in 510 BC, Hippias was finally driven out. A few years later, Kleisthenes initiated the reforms that are regarded as the foundation of Athenian democracy. But the relevant question is: was Hippias always a hated despot, inspiring plots like that of Harmodios and Aristogeiton? Or was he hated only because of his violent reaction to the tyrant-slayers' attack, ironically inspiring Athenians of later generations to worship Harmodios and Aristogeiton as liberators?\n\nUnfortunately, it's hard to give a definitive answer, because this example is by far the best known, and it still remains largely hidden in the murky depths of Archaic Greek history. But the shift in attitude towards tyrants seems to have been a general feature of Greek political thought towards the end of the sixth century BC. It's at this time that Sparta makes a name for itself by going around deposing tyrants in states as far afield as Samos (and Athens, as noted above). From this time onward, tyranny is never again regarded even as morally neutral. It is always portrayed as evil, and becomes more so as the centuries pass. Fear and hatred of tyranny is a defining feature of Greek thought throughout the Classical period, and many features of Greek democratic government (magistracies filled by lot for short periods; administration by panels of magistrates and generals rather than single leaders; the institution of ostracism/petalism, by which the people could vote to send a chosen citizen into exile) are clearly intended specifically to prevent any single person from gaining too much power. Anyone who managed to gain prominence in politics immediately attracted suspicions of aiming for tyranny. Athens issued decrees to the effect that anyone caught plotting to establish a tyranny could be killed with impunity, and that all Athenian citizens were to swear that they would do so without hesitation. The writings of authors with more oligarchic leanings, such as Plato, Aristotle and Isokrates, show clearly that tyranny was hated by democrats and oligarchs alike; the latter may have argued that democracy was blind, lawless and unstable, but they showed that the same was true for tyranny. Even though one-man rule was on the rise in the fourth century BC, and some of the Greek world's most powerful political entities were intermittently run by tyrants (notably Syracuse and Thessaly), it seems to have been all but universally agreed that this was a bad thing, and that each of these states craved liberation.\n\nLater centuries built this indignation at the concept of tyranny to ever greater heights. Fourth-century tyrants like Dionysios of Syracuse became archetypes of the evil tyrant: men whose insatiable desire for power reflected their insatiable desire in general, and who were characterised by violence, wrath, greed, arrogance, gluttony, dishonesty, distrust, sexual perversion, and everything else that the ideal citizen would keep far from him. Greek and later Roman thought portrayed the tyrant as the anti-citizen - someone whose unrestrained appetites made it impossible for him to live a good life within the confounds of civil society, regulated as it was by laws, customs and traditions. From the mere exponent of socio-political processes, the tyrant had become their worst abberation.\n\nWhence the change? I've already noted that tyrannical dynasties rarely lasted long, and that there was probably some sense that one-man rule wasn't right even before the Classical period. This may well have been the product simply of rival factions wanting access to power; one reason for the success of Peisistratos' tyranny was that (as epigraphic evidence shows) he seems to have been able to co-opt other members of the elite in his system as long as it was understood who was really in charge. The process of tyrannical coups and their eventual violent overthrow also may have given tyranny some nasty associations with instability and even civil war, leading Greeks to seek to establish more stable systems of government. \n\nBut it seems likely that it was the increasing sophistication of Greek states and their institutions, and the accompanying growth of civic consciousness, that made tyrannies increasingly unpalatable specifically in the later sixth century BC. As ideas like citizenship, equality, and the rule of law became rooted in Greek thinking about political communities, it would have seemed increasingly absurd to them that one man should be able to do whatever he wanted to the rest. The arrival of the Persians put the final nail in the coffin of tyranny; Persia, ruled by a monarch itself, often used local tyrants as their loyal governors, increasing the Greek distaste for this unaccountable form of rule. As they developed systems that were more inclusive, more accountable, and more stable, they started seeing tyranny not as a feature but as an abberation, and eventually came to think that even murder was justified if it helped to get rid of them." ] }

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[ [ "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Tiranicidas_04.JPG/1200px-Tiranicidas_04.JPG" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fahh4hs" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I cover some of the logistics and tactics of the Mongol army [here](_URL_0_). And then I talk about some basic taxation and administration [here](_URL_1_).\n\nThe administration aspect of my second post is really broad, and it was because the question was broad in and of itself and diving into specifics *can* bore some people; however, I will expand a bit further for you since you're wondering how new holdings and probably older but more recent holdings were administered.\n\nSo, the Mongols get a lot of credit for rapid adaptation and rightly so; initially, under Genghis Khan, they would govern by using their military as a basis for their organization of society. Using this method they could get tribute from the more recently conquered lands; however, this wasn't a long term solution and as time went on, the Mongols realized the importance of taxation. Genghis Khan relied on some of his subjects that were more closely related, such as the Khitans who had recently ruled Northern China but were overthrown by the Jurchen even more recently. Likewise, in Central Asia they relied on the Kara-Khitai for the same reasons. These groups of people were great bridges for the Mongols in my opinion, though the Khitans were *proto-Mongolic* people, they had become more and more Chinese-like and although the Kara-Khitai were Turkic, they had become more and more Persian-like. You can see how these people could have been useful to the Mongols just from the *bridge* perspective I mentioned. Despite all this, the Mongols still appointed governors to these areas. Some sources claim that these governors were rotated in and out of these regions, which doesn't surprise me at all to be honest because Genghis Khan believed that the world could be conquered and ruled from horse back, and as history tells us, nomadic people were very prone to adopting sedentary like society when exposed to it.\n\nAs the Mongol Empire continued to expand and last longer this evolutionary process continued through the administration of Ogedei, (the second ruler) and by the time of Mongke (the 4th ruler), we see him trying to make the Empire more centralized and more bureaucratic, as he creates \"viceroy\" like positions to oversee the duties of these governors and census-takers once the Empire moved to a tax based system. Obviously as the Empire grew it was important to maintain stability through trade and agriculture as well, this was important especially because the Mongols controlled the sedentary peoples.\n\nI'm not sure if you meant to type predecessor, or if you meant successor; however, Ogedei is the 3rd son of Genghis Khan and will succeed him in ruling the Empire. In 1229 at the Kurultai, the Mongol nobility will vote to elect Ogedei as the new Great Khan of the Empire. Now, I'm a firm believer that Ogedei was simply brilliant - many have made the case for the youngest son, Tolui, or the oldest, Chagatai, and I can see where they are coming from, but I just find Ogedei from an administrative perspective to be great. Genghis Khan typically did everything from a military camp, sometimes you couldn't even find the man as he was always on the move. Ogedei knew that this would cause a problem in this ever evolving system, especially during the transition from tribute to tax based, so one of his first decrees was to have an imperial capital. Symbolism aside, it was nice not only for the Mongols but also their subjects as they now had a set place where they could deliver their taxes, show up for meetings and later, accommodate travelers and merchants . And thus, in 1235, Karakorum was to be constructed. I'd like to mention also that this didn't mean Ogedei had decided to settle, he continued to live a nomadic life-style. Ogedei realized that there was no way to implement his father's Yasa law on other people, so he implemented religious tolerance in what was now a multi-religious and multi-ethnic Empire, though I warn you - when I mean religious tolerance there is more emphasis on the word tolerance here. One detail one should remember, is that the Mongols considered other populations to be lesser than their live-stock and I highly doubt their opinion changed simply because they had conquered them (up to this point at least). Does this mean that everyone needed to be Mongol? Of course not, and Ogedei knew this, so he tolerated these other people.\n\nOgedei also invested heavily in infrastructure. These are not all new projects, some of them were expansions of what his father had begun. For example, stations were placed around the regions of Mongolia in which messengers could ride through very quickly and bring news to the Khan ASAP, and likewise he could send news out. What Ogedei did was simply expand it by creating stations that reached farther as the Empire grew and sped up the process by giving these people \"licenses\" or \"passports\" I suppose would be the better word. A rider could show up to one of these stations, flash their passport, swap out his horse and continue along. This made it possible to get news to everyone much more quickly." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/df3t3e/how_did_mongols_being_compromised_of_mostly_light/f341cwn/?context=3", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/e5f1bu/how_could_tribal_people_like_the_mongols_or/f9kf3fq/?context=3" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d2e6sya" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "OK, I think firstly there's a misconception in your post that a count 'owns' his county, or has control over all the land within it. This was never the case in medieval Europe. Counts very often owned substantial amounts of property outside of the counties they ruled, and could (in theory if never in practice) rule a county in which they owned no land whatsoever.\n\nIn terms of your question as to which came first, counties predated counts by quite a bit, in the former Roman empire at least. Most counties were based on the old late antique city territories (*pagi*), just as most episcopal dioceses were, which is why, for the most part, medieval counties and dioceses are coterminous. This did change, especially after the year 1000, when weaker central control, particularly in France, allowed powerful aristocrats to either create new independent counties for themselves or to amalgamate several counties into one.\n\nCounts were appointed by kings up to c.900 AD, and were usually a person who had considerable land and influence within the county already; since Early medieval government and administration was so simple, a count needed local resources in order to be effective. The count was given control of the royal lands (the fisc) within the county, but this wouldn't usually have been enough to fund a count's activities on their own. \n\nFrom about 900 onwards, counties tended to drift out of the King's control and counts inherited from their counties from relatives, rather than being appointed by the king. So who controlled the country depended on who was count at the time when central control weakened to the extent that counts could go it on their own.\n\nI'm on mobile, so haven't been able to give a super detailed answer, but feel free to ask follow-ups on anything I've been unclear about. I should also add that this answer is based on the Carolingian empire and its successor kingdoms. As far as I know England is very broadly similar, but royal central power over the aristocracy was stronger for most of the middle ages: hopefully some can come along and add more details on England, since I don't know much about it." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "eco4c0m" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "While Classical Greece and Communal Italy are two completely different time periods in two different geographic spaces, there are some communalities in Mediterranean urbanization. I brought that up in a podcast episode about communal Milan [here](_URL_0_).\n\nRegarding the specifics of Italy, the development of urban-centric political, social, and economic institutions has to do with the characteristics of the peninsula between the basin of the river Po and Rome. You see, it is not a consequence of happenstance that the heartland of Europe's greatest empire, that of Rome, was a peninsula that could support dense urbanization thanks to high agricultural productivity, capped off with navigable rivers and generous coastline helping foster strong internal and external trade links. \n\nSo once Roman institutions definitively evaporated with the fall of Theodoric's Ravennate monarchy, the two post-Roman kingdoms of Italy (Lombard and Carolingian) already had an enormous potential for regional instability. With relatively small power bases leading aristocrats could easily challenge the state; while the state, such as it existed, even in times of tranquility could never adequately develop the necessary capacity to affirm itself on the entire peninsula. And let's not forget that Lombard Kingdom in particular never even consolidated nominal control of the entire peninsula, with corridors connecting major areas of urban productivity controlled by the Eastern Empire. Indeed, not only did the wars of Justinian do much more to devastate, depopulate, and destabilize Italy than any sack conducted by the late roman armies and barracks emperors, but the continued byzantine presence on the edges of the peninsula would deepen geographic fragmentation and contribute to the lack of a unitary system of governance and control. So while in the rest of Europe the seeds of nation-states were planted over the course of the post-roman transformation, Italy would be in a state of near-constant division and crisis, principally because it could afford to. It has been argued that crisis would be the defining feature of the Italian political system until the end of the communal period. \n\nTwo foreign rulers who would call themselves Emperors, Charlemagne in the eight century, and Otto in the ninth, would take advantage of an Italian leadership so divided it could not muster an effective opposition to a foreign threat. It is telling that there is no Italian counter-equivalent figure comparable to Otto and Charlemagne. Both Charlemagne and Otto faced off against Italian monarchs who were, theoretically, at the height of their power. And both Charlemagne and Otto's Kingdom of Italy would degenerate into regional factionalism and disorganization. I wrote in-detail about the disintegration of the Carolingian kingdom in [this answer here,](_URL_3_) if you're interested. I also wrote about the decentralization of Otto's empire [here](_URL_1_).\n\nThe perseverance of ill-fitting legal and administrative constructs dating to the Roman Empire, revitalized by Italian kings and foreign Emperors alike in order to justify rule both inside and outside of the Italian peninsula, might have contributed to the continued lack of any successful system of administration attuned to the present needs of Italy. However, this Roman heritage and cultural baggage meant that at the local level the peninsula continued to be well-administered. The urban-centric legal holdovers from the Roman period fostered political enfranchisement for property owners, courts upholding rule of law, and as a consequence, upholding the ability to conduct trade and retain prosperity. \n\nThe Roman marketplace and courthouse, called *Basilica*, had also accrued religious functions to create a social, legal, and cultural reference points in the Italian cities, often headed by a religious authority: the local Bishop. Thus landowners converged onto urban bishops asking for arbitration of disputes, merchants asked for privileges in the marketplace, and in a general sense these communities created a system rule by voluntary convergence. This form of government called the \"Commune,\" would recognizably emerge at the start of the 11th century. \n\nBut as I mentioned [yesterday](_URL_2_), while this sort political organization was certainly easier to set up in urban communities, a strict conception of the phrase \"City State\" can be limiting. \n\nThe \"Comune\" could transcend the geographic space of the city and its hinterland, even surviving its physical destruction (as happened in Milan in the 12th century) or geographic migration (as happened to Venice in the 10th century). The \"Comune\" could also impose itself with varying degrees of control over satellite communities, or it could itself submit to an outside authority, even accepting submission to a single sufficiently influential or charismatic person (as happened in Verona in the 14th century). But, most importantly, the construct of the \"Comune\" could itself be called into question, with frequent crises and expulsions of formerly enfranchised parties as the terms of the social contract were modified and renegotiated. The urban context is a vital feature, but it is not the only feature. " ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4zq1vk/askhistorians_podcast_069_milan_in_the_era_of/d6y5dwb/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7l9qtx/why_wasnt_there_a_kingdom_of_italy_after/drpgajq/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a9b7ut/is_a_concept_locked_in_its_time_period_case_in/ecleuck/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7l9qtx/why_wasnt_there_a_kingdom_of_italy_after/drogufz/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c5pr2dd", "c5psoz3", "c5pu6aa" ], "score": [ 6, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Easy, one digs up old maps, one redraws old maps, whilst the other debates old maps until the ends of time. But no seriously, I think that is it at a fundamental level. Archeology seems a lot more hands on though, and therefore the most rewarding I think. I know a dutch specialist in Meso-America. He gets to spend every Summer digging in the Atacama for old burial sites, and has quite a gourd collection!", "Realistically it comes down to a difference in methodology. Historians place the greatest weight on documents, Archaeologists on material remains, and geographers on maps. Each considers their specialty the most reliable. When things are going well the three work hand in glove, although they tend to squabble sometimes. \n\n", "Geography is not simply the study of or drawing of maps. \n\nHistorical geography instead focuses on the influence of environment and place on historical issues, or the way history has shaped a place. historical geographers look at an area and analyze how it has changed over time. \n\nGeographers organize their data primarily by place. Historians categorize their data primarily by time. However, both fields must take into account multiple factors. \n\nArcheologists deal with the material remains of human cultures in order to create conclusions about a society, which are further developed by historians. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c3vou8e" ], "score": [ 17 ], "text": [ "Actually, there was a looooong history of chipping away at [Plessy vs. Fergouson.](_URL_4_). Essentially it largely came down to before BvB.E., that you had to provide equal but seperate, which meant that the states had to provide a black law school. I know that in [Sweattv.Painter](_URL_1_), they basically made Texas have to create a black law school for equal access, so the SCOTUS had a long history of chipping away.\n\nAs for desegregation without SCOTUS, I think we would have to thank the Nazi's and Soviet's for that. After WWII, it became really hard to justify segregation in the armed and federal services based on race (interesting note, federal service wasn't segregated until Woodrow Wilson!), after fighting an enemy who based their philosophy on racial purity and segregation. How could the U.S. honestly justify itself as the torch of freedom if it wasn't free. This is why Truman integrated the services in 1948...which was a HUUUUUUUUUGE deal.\n\nLater, the Soviets used the [\"And you are lynching Negroes\"](_URL_3_) counter argument against the U.S. in painting them as villains. How could the U.S. claim it was better than the Soviets when there was systematic and institutionalized racism? Mounting pressure in the 50's and 60's would probably have forced most likely the Democratic Party to move to further integration (please note the history of the [Dixiecrat](_URL_2_) party). Eventually something would have hit SCOTUS to force them to act which would be acting with a probably more militant Civil Rights movement (with Brown v. Board, Martin Luther King had a legal basis for his movement, without it, more militant types like Elijah Mohammad and Malcolm X as well as the Black Panthers would have had to use more...extreme measures). I would put the Civil Rights movement about 10 to 15 years behind the power curve without _URL_0_, but it would have eventually happened as the Court would have had social pressures to hear a case of that type, and honestly Plessy v. Ferguson was a relic of it's time and really was unjustifiable." ] }

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[ [ "B.v.BE", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweatt_v._Painter", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixiecrat", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_States_racial_desegregation_case_law" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cvqbpyp" ], "score": [ 12 ], "text": [ "Those books on salt, cod, etc are usually lumped under \"microhistory\" which is actually one of my favorite easy-reading history categories, I would read a popular microhistory on just about anything. HOW JARRED MAYONNAISE MADE THE MODERN WORLD AND EVERYTHING IN IT! I just love reading those out-there arguments in microhistory. \n\nDisability studies is one that's come into my radar recently, for eunuchs and castrati. It basically looks at historical times and what it meant to be disabled or able-bodied in those societies. So analyzing the castrated body, was it considered disabled in that society, if so, in what ways? I'd say disability history is part of the larger trend in [body history](_URL_0_), which works with things like, what values and meanings did society map on the body? I find body history pretty brain-stretchy when I read it, but I quite like it. " ] }

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[ [ "http://arbor.revistas.csic.es/index.php/arbor/article/viewFile/807/814" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dbv0wk1" ], "score": [ 39 ], "text": [ "While you may get answers here, this question may be worth x-posting to our sister sub, /r/AskAnthropology " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e3wd4rg" ], "score": [ 21 ], "text": [ "The position of the NSB (Dutch national-Socialist party) in regards to the German invasion was twofold. On one hand Anton Mussert (the leader of the NSB) welcomed the invasion, as he hoped that Hitler would install him as the leader of the Dutch territories but on the other hand he could not be seen as openly welcoming the German forces.\n\n\nMussert was contacted by the *Abwehr* (German military intelligence) in december 1939, in order to ascertain what the NSB would do in case of an invasion. Mussert stated that the NSB would not 'stab Holland in the back' by demanding the party members to desert in case of an invasion. The *Abwehr* concluded after the invasion of Norway, where National Socialist Quisling had actively supported the German invaders, that Mussert ‘must be able to pose as [the nation’s] “saviour in time of need” ’, not appear to have betrayed it to the enemy.'\n\n\nWhen the invasion begun, however the NSB members were seen as enemies and several were incarcerated. Mussert tried his best to dispell this, even ousting some party members who had assisted in the invasion. This didn't convince the Dutch populace, though, and NSB members were largely shunned and seen as traitors.\n\nDenouncing the fleeing cabinet members and the queen as traitors was in line with Musserts ambition to be named the *Reichskommissar* for The Netherlands. Mussert hoped him and his party would be installed as the new governement. But for all his efforts he got few results. Arthur Seyss-Inquart was to be the *Reichskommissar* and Mussert wasn't even invited to his inaugural adress. Even though the NSB grew during the German occupartion, the party never got enough goodwill under the populace to be considered useful by the Germans (in terms of governement, they were seen as a good recruiting platform for the SS). Mussert was seen as too much a Nationalist, not enough National Socialist by the Germans.\n\n\nMussert, at his post-war trial, maintained that he had always intended to act as a guadrian of the Dutch values under the Nazi opression and that him remaining as the last Dutch politician to stand between the populace and the oppresive German regime. He did try his best to have The Netherlands remain 'independent' (this meant 'not annexed' ,with an own governement) but he had to bow down to many German demands only to have a 'shadow cabinet' with no formal authority.\n\n\nSo: you see that Musserts position was rather twofold. He wanted to gain power under the German rule, but he also wanted to be seen as a 'saviour of the Dutch people'. Things never really turned out the way he wanted, though and he became a sockpuppet for the Germans even though he tried really hard.\n\n\nSources: \n\n* Slaa, R te, and E Klijn, *De NSB: ontstaan en opkomst van de Nationaal Socialistische Beweging, 1931-1935* (Amersfoort, 2009).\n* Stokes, LD, 'Anton Mussert and the NSB: 1931-45', History 56 (1971), 387–407.\n* Pollmann, Tessel, *Mussert & Co : de NSB-leider en zijn vertrouwelingen* (Amsterdam, 2012)." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e7kb57y" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "There is a strong consensus that Yersinia Pestis was the pathogen responsible for the medieval Pandemic referred to as the \"bubonic plague\" or \"Black Death.\" Twigg and various scholars (primarily in the 1970's) claimed that this particular pathogen was not responsible because the pandemic spread too quickly and blamed Anthrax and other sources, but their work was largely built on medical research which was outdated in the 1970's or has been refuted since. One of the effects of the post 9/11 fear of biological attacks by terrorists was a glut of funding for research into Y. Pestis, which discovered that both the pathogen and it's various vectors (fleas, rodents) are much more robust that Twigg assumed in making his argument.\n\nRecently archaeologists have been able to empirically refute these \"alternative pathogen\" theories by doing genetic analysis of the tooth pulp of skeletons recovered from plague pits (mass burial sites) from both the 6th and 14th century pandemics. Repeatedly confirming that the victims died from some strain of Y. Pestis.\n\nLocalized outbreaks continued for centuries after the initial pandemic, eventually ending as rodent and human populations became disease-resistant or because or changing climactic conditions. The reasons are not well understood.\n\nWhat could they have done better? In the fourteenth century very little. Most of the population lived in rudimentary one-room houses in which their animals and livestock often lived or slept. Y. Pestis can infect a wide range of animals (dogs, cats, pigs, chickens) and can be transmitted by both fleas, common lice. Without modern housing or sanitation medieval humans had little way to prevent exposure to or the spread of the disease. Fourteenth century medicine was mostly superstition, and for the tiny minority of people that could afford a \"doctor\" the medical care they could receive would have no medical benefit or be genuinely harmful (e.g. bloodletting).\n\nIt is true that real wages increased (effectively doubling) and prices for some things went down. The mortality rate is contested, but for England, where we have the best data, it is believed 55-60% of the population died in the initial Pandemic (1347-1351). In real terms this caused a massive shift of economic power from landholders to laborers, in a sense the wealthy were now competing for labor, rather than the usual situation where labor competes for jobs. This famously caused Edward I to issue the statute of laborers in 1351, establishing wage controls and attempting to restore the economic power of the nobility. \n\nThe sixth century plague pandemic caused the East Roman/Byzantine Emperor Justinian to issue a remarkably similar edict on wage and labor controls, also in response to economic changes caused by a Yersinai Pestis pandemic.\n\nHow the plague affected the culture goes beyond my knowledge." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "chgs6rl", "chgw70b" ], "score": [ 152, 9 ], "text": [ "It's important to remeber that IX Hispana was always under strength since its near destruction during Boudicca's revolt (Annals 14.29) so that by the campaigns of Agricola, it numbered only 1000 under Lucius Roscius Aelianus (CIL 14, 3612). Because of this it almost saw destruction once again in Caledonia during 83/84AD. Little more is known until it's construction of a gate way at Eboracum fortress which is dated to 107-108AD (RIB 1,665). then due to the legions absence during the construction of Hadrians Wall some consider it to not even be in Britain. Some evidence even tells us that a legate of the legion in 121AD was buried in 127AD in Petra after serving as governor of Arabia Petraea (CIL 3,87). It seems likely that the legion was not destroyed in Britain, but possibly in the Second Jewish Revolt or one of the Armenian Campaigns.\n\nEdit* Tiles found in Noviomagnus on the Rhine suggest the legion was transferred to Germania around 121AD before being moved to the East.", "Lurking dilettante wannabe here ( enough with the caveats) Is this thread about the Lost Eagles of Varus or is that another Roman Legion mystery?" ] }

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[ "http://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/25by59/legio_ix_hispana_5000_roman_soldiers_who_marched/" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "da1xvnp" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Emperor Musa went on hajj in 1324, and on his hajj he visited Cairo before continuing on to Mecca. He was not the first Malian monarch to make this hajj, nor was he the last. But, by the vagaries of fate, he is remembered for the particular wealth he brought with him on his pilgrimage.\n\nOur earliest source describing this hajj comes from the syrian scholar Shihab al Umari, who wrote his account twelve years after the fact, based on interviews with people in Cairo who interacted with the Malian monarch. [Here is an excerpt from al-Umaris account](_URL_0_) which concerns the extent of the *mansa's* wealth, and details his visit to the Mameluke sultan in Cairo. Since al-Umari's account is second hand and comes years after the event it relates, we should keep in mind the possibility that the story was embellished in the intervening years.\n\nIn this period, Italian city states like Venice were engaged in trade with Mameluke Egypt. These merchants would have heard the tale of the *mansa's* immense wealth, and spread the rumor to European ports on the Mediterranean shore. Emperor Musa holding a gold nugget is first depicted on the Catalan Atlas, which was produced in 1375, some fifty years after the hajj and 38 years after al-Umaris account.\n\nI don't know of any scholarship or numismatics that has tried to directly link gold that ended up in Europe as the gold that came from Mali in 1324. Again, he wasn't the only one to bring gold. In fact, Arab sources make particular note of the wealth in gold of the monarchs of Ghana in the 9th-11th centuries, and mention other Malian monarchs bringing caravans of gold with them.\n\nRather, the mere rumor of immense wealth in a far off land was enough for *Mansa* Musa and Timbuktu to be remembered in Europe." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/k_o_mali/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cr9s949", "cra56i0" ], "score": [ 2, 5 ], "text": [ "After WWI, Germany was economically devastated. There were restrictions placed on their military strength and reparations that were forced to be paid with the stipulation that if they were not paid, Britain and France would seize German lands and divide them as a result of secret treaties not made public after WWI. (On a side note, the US would pay the reparations for Germany in an effort to maintain peace when Germany was unable to pay due to rapid inflation). Germany was in chaos with returning soldiers organizing into different revolutionary sects and open conflict on the streets. The Nazi party organized and specifically targeted the poor and disaffected - poor people who could not afford to eat and middle class families that had lost their savings. Only the mega-rich were able to make any money or could afford to live relatively normal lifestyles. Hitler and his Brownshirts (who were like the security force during rallies and such) presented to the German people not only organization and a greener pasture ahead, but promised jobs and economic stability, earning popular support enough that he was given a position in government in an effort to control him. Despite the limitations on the military, after gaining dictatorial power, focused most of German production on military strength because he knew what he wanted. He had a plan to reconquer lands that he felt had no right to exist such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. He felt that these countries were part of Germany and should be returned to the Reich. They produced tanks at an unprecedented level. Unexperienced Germans \"volunteered\" in the Spanish civil war to learn flying techniques and maneuvers and utilized this experience in the air. France was organized defensively and when the Germanys invaded, they simply bypassed French fortifications and cut off those who were fortified. The speed and efficiency that the Germans exhibited with their mechanized divisions was unorthodox and devastating. When you're asking how it happened, you have to take into account the goals of Hitler, the reluctance of Britain and France (who were arguing amongst themselves at the time) to get into another war, the deception and strategy of the Nazis in professing peace while at the same time manipulating countries like Czech and Poland into submission, their u-boats which were very successful early on, the blitzkrieg strategy, etc. Also, keep in mind that Russia was a German ally when it all started. Russia helped in the invasion of Poland and was sending supplies to Germany up until the day before Germany invaded Russia. Many believe that had the Germans continued onto Moscow instead of diverting to focus on supplies and pausing long enough to allow logistics to catch up, the Germans would have handily defeated the Russians by toppling their government and maybe have been able to resist American and British forces. There are so many what-might-have-happened-ifs, but I don't think you're asking about those. To answer your question of how it was possible: The Nazi party devoted almost ALL of their focus on developing their military with the purpose of invading their surrounding countries and their equipment, strategy, and tactics were far superior when the war began. ", "The simple fact of the matter is that Germany was never in as bad a position after WWI as is commonly believed.\n\nThe Hyperinflation, which stemmed partially from wartime financial decisions of the German government and partly from deliberate attempts to sabotage reparations, was largely under control by 1924. Thanks to the Young-Dawes Plan, Germany now had access to foreign loans and enjoyed immense economic prosperity from 1924-29. Following the Great Depression, the German economy was stabilized by the efforts of Hjalmar Schacht, utilizing Keynesian methods. Hitler used the opportunity to begin a massive armaments programme, part of Goering's Four Year Plan, which placed Germany in an advantageous position in 1939 compared with it's neighbours.\n\nBy 1933, the population of Germany was c. 65 million, the same as the much larger German Empire in 1914. The incorporations of the Saarland, Austria, Sudetenland and Czechlands into Germany between 1935 and 1939 ensured that the population in 1939 was much larger than in 1914, and Germany had a much larger industrial base, which was geared towards war. \n\nIt also helped that the German military had hardly been curtailed by Versailles. 115 000 men was still a large army and to this could be added the 'Black Reichswehr', a clandestine organization that kept tabs on the right wing Freikorps paramilitaries, so as to call them up in case of war. The General Staff was dispersed through the so-called Troop Office and various other organizations, such as the Reichs Archiv, where former officers wrote apologist histories of the First World War. After the Treaty of Locarno in 1926, Germany began cooperating with the USSR: German officers trained at Soviet Academies, German pilots trained in the USSR, and German aircraft and tank designs were tested in the USSR. Hans von Seeckt, essentially the chief of staff of the German Army, sought to build up the Reichswehr as a professional force which would form the nucleus of a new German Army in the future. All of these efforts ensured that when conscription was reintroduced and the formation of the Wehrmacht was announced, Hitler's generals did not need to start from scratch.\n\nPoland was no match for Germany militarily in 1939; they found themselves in a two front war with the Germans and the USSR, with attacks all along their border from the Baltic to Slovakia. No support was forth coming from Britain or France, but this did not prevent the Poles from putting up staunch, heroic resistance. The Polish campaign cost the Germans c. 50 000 casualties, 1/4 of all their tanks, 285 aircraft lost and c. 280 more damaged.\n\nFrance was attacked half a year after the Polish Campaign. In this case, the Luftwaffe was able to attain air superiority, and so the movement of the German Army Group A through the Ardennes went largely undetected. The French and British were expecting the main thrust through Northern Belgium as in 1914, and were surprised when they had a large German mechanized force in their rear, and had no strategic reserves. Even still, the Battle of France was a costly affair for the Germans: c. 158 000 casualties, 795 AFVs destroyed, c. 1300 Aircraft lost.\n\nThe Battle of Britain, suffice to say, was a failure. The German Navy was reeling from Norway, and the Luftwaffe was inefficient at Anti-shipping operations, so the Royal Navy was a formidable barrier to invasion. The German army lacked the specialized equipment and the training to carry out an amphibious landing. Above all, the RAF was NEVER as close to defeat as the Germans OR the British believed. The losses the RAF suffered could be replaced relatively easily, but German aircraft production lagged behind, and the losses the Luftwaffe suffered were unsustainable. What comes to mind is the dark humour of Luftwaffe pilots, who announced the approach of British aircraft by saying, \"here come the last of the Spitfires, AGAIN!\" Above all, the losses incurred by the German bomber force in the BoB and the Blitz left it hamstrung for Operation Barbarossa.\n\nTo make a long story short, Barbarossa was a failure; spectacular gains were made and losses inflicted, but the USSR survived. From 1942-43 the Red Army gradually got back on it's feet, and by 1944 the war in the east, and in general, was lost for the Germans." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dbubosf" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "The wars and military operations to which you are referring were, for the most part, secondary to the larger 'conflict' which framed much of the later 20th Century known as **The Cold War**. (I'm sure you know this, just so we are on the same page). A significant European contingent of states were likewise party to military pacts arrayed against the Communist world and its satellites.\n\nThe US supported right-wing allies primarily as a counter-balance to Communist or 'leftist' expansion in areas they sought to influence, such as Central America. This was a block against the supposed *domino theory* which states that one successful change in ideology within a state can cascade through a region. \n\nThat being said, while many of these conflicts look similar in a macro sense they are all subtly different in a micro sense. Is there one instance which you are particularly interested in here? Then either myself or someone else could give you some more specific context!\n\nFor a good primer on Reagan-era activity in this sphere I would suggest:\n\n **T. Carothers: In the Name of Democracy - US Policy toward Latin America in the Reagan Years**.\n\nIt provides a country-by-country background to US activity in promoting right-wing governments and undermining left-wing influence.\n\nEdit: Text. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "f6b2s96" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "What aspects are you interested in? What do you mean by “Filipino-Spanish society”? Do you mean Filipino people under colonialism or do you mean the very small Spanish population running the colony?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "csaojxk", "csapc3o", "csawufu" ], "score": [ 81, 24, 4 ], "text": [ "This is actually a somewhat broad question and you could get many possible answers. I'll only discuss one thing and allow others to pipe in.\n\nIn 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed a set of rules on wartime conduct that his troops were going to follow. This was called informally the Lieber Code.\n\nIt was named after a German-American named Franz Lieber who had fought in the Battle of Waterloo when he was fighting with the Prussian Army. Lieber ended up as an academic and eventually was a professor at Columbia. \n\nAnyway, him and several other guys got together and came up with this code. It addresses several things that would later be incorporated in The Hague Conventions and Geneva Conventions.\n\nIt's starting point is that the means must be justified and codified so that soldiers don't end up making terrible choices in the fog of war. You have to begin with the end in mind and that your goals in war must be reflected in your conduct. It explicitly banned a few things. Here are a few:\n\n1. You can't kill POWs.\n\n2. Torture can't be used to get a confession.\n\n3.Poison can't be used.\n\nThat's just some, but you can see how those became part of later war conventions. Lieber also differentiated between POWs and Guerilla fighters. POWs needed to have uniforms, a command structure, and a capacity to hold other POWs. Without that, the Guerilla fighters would be executed, though Lieber didn't really endorse that. But similar rules made it into The Hague Conventions and Geneva Conventions.\n\nThe Lieber Conventions also outlined the treatment of occupied territories and the status of slaves, escaped slaves, and returned slaves. \n\nIt did a lot more than that, but that's just the basics. The Code wasn't really put into that much use during the Civil War as some Union generals and Confederates didn't really consult it. It's importance became more evident when the Europeans adopted quite a bit of it later and it worked it's way into future conventions and whatnot.", "I second /u/GregPatrick: the law of war has developed many times in many different places, such that there are many ways to answer this question depending on which culture and era you highlight. One thread you might take a look at is [this discussion](_URL_1_), about nine months ago, about \"just war\" theory and \"illegal wars\" in Roman history, especially towards the end of the Republic. In brief, Roman tradition held that certain rites be followed before a war could be lawfully commenced. But these \"rules\" were mostly honored in the breach. This of course is about \"just war\" theory, which overlaps with but is not the same as \"war crime\" theory. \n\nFor _war crimes_, consider this thread that [expands upon](_URL_0_) GregPatrick's comments about the Lieber Code and the Geneva Convention. \n\nAn interesting topic that someone with WW2 flair might discuss in greater depth is the public idea of war crimes, and how those ideas evolve during actual war. For example, there's a [recent Radiolab episode](_URL_2_) about American public opinion of war crimes during World War II. And I believe there's also some controvery, for example, about whether Churchill was prepared to use mustard gas in the event of a German landing. Since that is outside my specialty, I pose it only as a recommendation for someone to follow-up on if they want. ", "The first line of thinkers in this tradition exist within the Roman and Greek society. Cicero, Plato and Aristotle wrote about the moral issues facing leaders and soldiers when they go to war. \n\nA lot of it also comes from the Christian Tradition of Just War. Important first authors on the tradition were St.Augustinus and Thomas Aquinas.\n\nIt was thought out to find a balance between warfare and the christian pacifist origins.\n\nThe first important secular thinker on just war and the 'laws of war' was Grotius. He also wrote a lot about international lawmaking.\n\nOutside the Christian tradition there are a lot of other examples of 'laws of war'. \n\nSun Tzu for example stated that a general should treat is prisoners wel. This was more out of a pragamtic vision since Sun Tzu saw it as a way to gain more manpower. More important here are Mo Tzu and Mencius who wrote about the injustices facing people and the necessity at times of taking up arms. \n\nIn Indian society there are discussions to be found about ethics of war in The Laws of Manu and The Bhagavad Gita.\n\nAnother example from the Talmudic law from the 12th century involves sieges. It said that the besieger should leave space open from the siege so the civilians could flee from the city.\n\nAs you can see the laws of war developed separate in every society. So im not so sure how they did develop, but i would think that a lot comes down to religious authors.\n\nsource: Moral Constraints on war\n\nif anybody has any questions on just war theory ask away. I just wrote a casestudy for my thesis using just war theory." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1q0mva/what_is_the_history_of_the_lawsethics_of_military/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2g1sdx/cato_accuses_caesar_of_waging_an_illegal_war_in/", "http://www.radiolab.org/story/nazi-summer-camp/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e16osew" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ " > I can not discern any of the words from the calligraphy. Was this intentional? Is this just my modern ignorance? Or did the literate person of the day simply learn throughout their whole life that that was how letters were written.\n\nI had to do paleography during my PhD, and this kind of text *is* readable, it just takes an awful lot of practice to get used to. The added complication to modern eyes are the added abbreviations and contractions to the Latin thrown in by the scribes which make it all the harder to discern what letters logically follow on. To scribes trained in this script from an early age, the style would be far more readily recognisable." ] }

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[ "https://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Ferenow.com%2Fpostclassical%2Ftheplantagenetsthekingswhomadeengland%2Ftheplantagenetsthekingswhomadeengland.files%2Fimage011.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Ferenow.com%2Fpostclassical%2Ftheplantagenetsthekingswhomadeengland%2F89.html&docid=EPPjbQgD770VIM&tbnid=50uRxj6yiq7DkM%3A&vet=1&w=980&h=606&hl=en-gb&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim", "https://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.opendemocracy.net%2Fneweconomics%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F5%2F2017%2F06%2FCharter-Forest-1075x605.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.opendemocracy.net%2Fneweconomics%2Fcelebrating-800th-anniversary-charter-forest%2F&docid=IUUrSWrdqJ3JTM&tbnid=P0Th0YwUxKKXIM%3A&vet=1&w=1075&h=605&hl=en-gb&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cz8ouid" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "In the incunable age, i.e. from the inventing of the printing press to ca. 1500, a book printed on paper without a binding sold (in Venice) for a price approximately equivalent to the daily salary of a skilled laborer, so say $100-200 modern dollars. Napkin math: 300 page text gives us somewhere between 20 to 75 sheets of paper (depending of how it was folded, octo to bifilium). Let's say the price is for a quarto, so each sheet becomes 4 leaves or 8 pages, which means we need 38 (large) pieces of paper to make our book. Splitting the difference on the price gives about $150 for the book, and if we guesstimate 20% of that is from materials, that gives us $30 modern dollars for those 38 pages, or just under $0.80 a sheet. \n\nThis is pretty cheap, and substantially cheaper than parchment. It gives us a useful baseline to talk about the cost of material and labor, but we must also realize there was a wide range of prices for materials across time and space. Paper costs mostly depended on the prevalence of linen clothing. Tree-fiber paper would wait until the 19th century. Before this, paper was made from linen rags, and thus the cost of paper were tied to their availability. If you lived somewhere where people wore a lot of wool, you'd probably pay more for paper.\n\nHowever, for both parchment and paper, the cost of materials was not usually a factor that dictated script size. Despite the high cost of vellum, medieval manuscripts had very wide margins (though they are often now found trimmed). Although helpful for note-taking, this was an aesthetic choice. Scribal abbreviations certainly shortened the overall length of a text, but they were designed to save the scribe's hand, not material cost. Even parchment manuscripts produced under the *pescia* system in medieval Paris - essentially medieval textbooks - do not show concern for wasted space, though they might use lesser quality materials. \n\nBasically, if you knew how to write, you were almost certainly wealthy enough that the cost of materials was not a particular problem. \n\nFor scratch, sometimes people used the margins of books, sometimes they used chalk, and sometimes they used wax spread over wood. " ] }

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