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{ "a_id": [ "cud49ub" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "There was a commercial crisis extending from central to north-western Europe as early as 1620, during the conflict's initial Bohemian phase, though the slowing of silver shipments from the New World may also have contributed. Without questioning estimates of human loss, Schulze & Volckart consider the longer-term commercial impact over-rated (_URL_0_), with trade diversion from war-torn routes (Leipzig seeming to be a major beneficiary, at least going by grain price movements - surprisingly for me as I thought it remained sluggish in population terms until a good deal later) but general revival by the 18th century. " ] }

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[ [ "http://eh.net/eha/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/SchulzeVolckart.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d2ugkc7" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "“Man’s best friend” is a colloquialism, so it sort of depends on what you mean and how seriously you take it. In a very real sense, dogs have been man’s “best friend” since their domestication, about 30,000 years ago. There are arguments that hunting with dogs increased efficiency to give humans surplus time for the flowering of culture. There is evidence that human behavior and physiology [co-evolved with dogs](_URL_1_), with similar changes to key enzymes in digestion and brain neurochemistry appearing more or less simultaneously in both human and canid lineages.\n\nSo in a very real sense, dogs have been “man’s best friend” for a very long time. They were the first animals domesticated; they had a “friend” role rather than merely a mobile meat source, in that they helped with hunting and guarding human encampments, and were socialized as “friends”.\n\nBut if you mean as a modern marketing phrase, you’re right that its popularity only goes back to the 19th century. In the early days dogs were bred for a particular need – hunting, tracking, guarding, retrieving, herding. These were working dogs. Of course, there’s nothing to say that a working dog can’t also be a friend, but if you look at breeds that were created solely or primarily for companionship, then most of them go back no earlier than the 19th century. Modern dogs are very mixed in their genetics, because crossing them with other breeds happens all the time, either deliberately or accidentally. But the 19th century is recent enough that very good historical records exist, and you can also do genetic analyses to see how breeds relate to and are derived from each other to create [trees of phylogenetic relationships](_URL_0_). And you can see that “ornamental” or “companionship” breeds are quite recent." ] }

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[ [ "http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/jGrPEch.png", "http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n5/full/ncomms2814.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dqt3fgn", "dqtlnco", "dque761" ], "score": [ 1270, 57, 6 ], "text": [ "It is effectively a check on the judiciary branch in practice, and a means by which the framers sought to allow the government to show mercy. \n\nThat said, this was a controversial inclusion into the Constitution at the time. There was a deep disagreement among the Founding Fathers on whether the power should be unlimited. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787 there was a proposal made by Roger Sherman to require Senate affirmation of a Presidential Pardon. It was defeated 8-1, but it became a hotbed issue as the document made its way to the States to be ratified individually. \n\nThe anti-Federalists were adamantly opposed to the unlimited Pardon power. Their arguments rested primarily on the idea that an unlimited pardon could and would lead back to tyranny. Edmund Randolph also believed that an unlimited pardon, specifically a power that could pardon treason, would lead to tyranny. After it became clear that the pardon power was mostly supported and would be included in the final draft, without a Senate consent clause, the conversation shifted to whether there should be exceptions made for treason and/or impeachment. \n\nHowever, \"treason\" was a funny word to the delegates. England has had a long history of using \"treason\" as an all-encompassing concept, a sort of umbrella law where if someone the government didn't like hadn't broken other laws they could still be brought up on charges of treason. We know from Madison's notes that there was much discussion about whether the President's pardon power should include matters of treason. One suggestion was to reserve pardons for treason to the Senate, but this was shot down by Rufus King of MA and George Mason of VA who claimed respectively that the Senate was too politicized and already had too much power in the Constitution. \n\nThe debate among the state legislators was far more intense. Hamilton wrote in Federalist 74 that \"one man appears to be a more eligble dispenser of the mercy of government, than a body of men\". This became the core argument of the Federalists in support of the pardon. \n\nThe arguments against the pardon were from the Anti-Federalists. Specifically number 67, in which George Clinton argued the proposed Constitution provided the President with a power that would \"tend either to the establishment of a vile and arbitrary aristocracy or monarchy\". \n\nClinton also wrote:\n\n > ...His power of nomination and influence on all appointments; the strong posts in each state comprised within his superintendence, and garrisoned by troops under his direction; his control over the army, militia, and navy; the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason which may be used to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt; his duration in office for four years-these, and various other principles evidently prove the truth of the position, that if the president is possessed of ambition, he has power and time sufficient to ruin his country.\n\n\n\n", "Follow-up: I always thought that the power to pardon seemed like an oddly royal power to be granted to the president of a government that is supposed to be the antithesis of monarchy. Did any of the Founding Fathers believe that giving presidents the power to pardon would make them too much like the very king whom they had fought a war to get away from?", "A follow-up question: did founding fathers envision it being used as a [bargaining chip when something is wanted from the criminals (e.g., the pardoning of pirates in 1717 as a way of curbing piracy).](_URL_0_)\n" ] }

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[ [], [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/6ww93c/judge_wont_vacate_former_sheriff_joe_arpaios/dmbafgj/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ci0y2f3", "ci15mjk" ], "score": [ 9, 3 ], "text": [ "There are at least two important points. First of all, Germanic incomers were few in numbers. It is usually thought that Frankish settlement in Gaul must have been in the range of the tens of thousands, on a Latin speaking population of several million (common estimations propose 5 to 6 millions in Gaul). These settlers concentrated north of the Seine, where their input is still visible in toponymy, while they seem to have been very few south of the Loire. That being said, language replacement caused by élite take-over did happen; for instance, it seems that northern England (Northumbria) never was thoroughly settled by Germanic incomers—in fact, kingdoms there probably retained their native names—but it never the less ended up speaking Old English.\n\nHere comes the crucial factor: Latin remained a language of power in Merovingian Gaul (and Wisigothic Spain, and Ostrogothic Italy). Gallo-Romans, educated in the Late Roman fashion, coming from families rooted in the most Romanised part of Gaul (Aquitaine and Provence), had a very important role: they formed the bulk of the episcopacy (which had an important political role on top on its religious cultural power), but they also contributed to the lay administration. For instance, a certain Asclepiodotus drafted laws for two Frankish kings in the late 6th century; people like Dynamius of Provence (roughly in the same period) corresponded in flowery style with Frankish administrators of the eastern court and obtained important positions. It seems clear that from a cultural standpoint, Latin won the battle. There might have been some resistance: though we don't have evidence for it in Gaul, we know that the Gothic élite (the *dokimoi* in Greek) objected to the classic education of their princes, in the early 6th century. However, this very situation shows how powerful the attraction of Roman/Latin culture could be for “barbarian” princes, and probably many other members of their “aristocracy.”\n", "hi! fyi, you may find something of interest in this section of the FAQ (link on sidebar):\n\n* [Frankish and French](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/language#wiki_frankish_and_french" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c9cjv29" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The main difference in segregation in the south and north is de jure and de facto segregation. This means that in the south segregation was enforced by law while in the north it was enforced by practice or standard." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ceek2d8", "ceem37v", "ceenrwq" ], "score": [ 74, 28, 22 ], "text": [ "Apparently they were genuinely worried about tyranny and thought they would be praised for their deed.\n\n_URL_0_", "Although all that I have read in detail on the matter was in [_Cicero_ by Anthony Everitt](_URL_2_); and while I don't have the book with me now, what I gathered is that Rome was split into roughly two factions or coalitions: republicans, or the _optimates_, and populists, or _populares_.\n\nWhile this is a gross oversimplification, they much resembled today's right and left, America's Republicans and Democrats (I'll let the undoubtedly enraged historians on this sub list all the reasons I'm wrong), in political alignment. The issues mainly concerned to whom authority should be given. The _optimates_ argued for the power of the senate and the aristocracy; the _populares_ tended to be new money, self-made men, and proponents of popular reform.\n\nThe rise of Julius Caesar as a demagogue (and the fear it inspired) on the _populares'_ behalf was not unprecedented. Just 40 years prior, [Gaius Marius](_URL_1_), a great militarist and precursor for the _populares_, became the _de facto_ leader of Rome and introduced many popular reforms. This eventually led to a civil war with [Sulla](_URL_0_), another military leader and statesman. Once Sulla gained power of the republic, he instated many measures favorable to the _optimates_ and sought to inspire a harmonious relationship between the senate and the Roman people. This, sadly, involved a proscription: a list of suspected sympathizers of the Marian cause, for whose heads a price would be paid. So the following age was not one of peace, and many of Julius Caesar's extended family were killed or under threat.\n\nJulius Caesar, then, inspired great fear in the _optimates'_ hearts when he again started a civil war and leveraged the power of the people to stage a _coup d'etat_ of the Roman government. Although Caesar and Marcus Brutus certainly were personal friends at some point, their political alignment was never quite the same. Marcus Brutus was the nephew of renowned [Cato](_URL_3_), who staunchly rejected any olive branch Caesar offered him. Any supporters of the old _status quo_ were largely driven out of the capital or were won over by the ostensible mercy of Caesar. With this kind of political atmosphere, those who wished to _regain their old power_ began to plot in secret against Caesar. This would make sense for senators who begrudgingly returned to Rome but disapproved of the new political order. In many ways, this is understandable since Caesar's aims of reforming government were no secret. \n\nNeedless to say, the leaders of the plot would have had disproportionate power if they would have been able to maintain control of the government, but there was not adequate planning from the conspirators. Neither Cassius nor Brutus could eliminate the contenders for dictatorial control (primarily Marcus Antonius and Octavian), and to be quite honest, it seems like someone else would have followed the example of Julius Caesar eventually.\n\nSo, from a rather superficial understanding of the life and times of Julius Caesar, it seems that the conspirators were fighting a political inevitability. Their motivations were self-centered in the sense that Caesar represented the opposite of their life goals, although they would have benefited more than others had they been successful in maintaining the power of the Senate.", "Yes and no. They assassinated Caesar to forestall his monarchy (if he actually intended one), but what they were trying to preserve was a system of government where a select bunch of elite families had a lock on political power. By becoming dictator for life, Caesar eliminated the traditional competition for the office of consul and all the *auctoritas* and *dignitas* associated with it. So yes, some selfish motives were involved. \n\n\nThere could also be a self-fulfilling prophecy to it. Brutus was a distant ancestor of the Brutus who had (according to Roman tradition) overthrown the last king (Tarquinus Superbus) and since the Romans believed that these sorts of traits were passed down, those opposed to Caesar would immediately look to Brutus to commit the act. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14alnc/what_were_some_political_implications_of_julius/" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulla", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Marius_the_Younger", "http://www.amazon.com/Cicero-Times-Romes-Greatest-Politician/dp/037575895X", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Younger" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c58aedf", "c58anks" ], "score": [ 17, 11 ], "text": [ "They didn't really exist. Towns and cities were besieged, they were not battle zones. Once town/city walls were breached, what ensued was pretty much slaughter, rape, and pillage. ", "As WARFTW says, if an army actually penetrates into a city to a significant degree, the battle is generally over. I suspect this is mainly for psychological reasons, as watching the enemy within the walls would have a crippling effect on morale. Generally armies would retreat to the citadel and refortify.\n\nHowever, this is not always the case. The Battle of Tenochtitlan as described by Bernal Diaz was very much street by street, house by house. Furthermore, there would be a great deal of small unit action. This is famously portrayed by Virgil during the Fall of Troy, but a more accurate source would be one Chinese text describing how small groups of organized defenders can inflict a great deal of damage on the disorganized attacker during a sack." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cathxod", "catjxv9", "catkmls", "catp56o", "catedbx" ], "score": [ 12, 2, 2, 3, 10 ], "text": [ "I think this is an interesting question that I don't have a simple answer for. \n\nI would break it down into time periods though to get a more comprehensive view. I'm not really an expert in pre-Soviet history but a lot of the ideas behind state planning were born or proposed in that time. They were radical and they were a response to Russian \"backwardness\". Whatever ideas were implemented by Stalin in the 1930s were, in some shape or form, articulated more intellectually by either Bukharin, Trotsky, or others. In Tsarist times Russia had a problem of hyper-centralization. Put simply, the government didn't reach into every nook and cranny of the massive country and there were huge economic problems by the time the Soviet state took power. \n\nI give this background because of the word \"failure\" in your question. If you look at industrial output in 1917 and compare it to say, 1939, the \"failure\" of state planning isn't really a reality in a strict economic sense. If you look at the question that way, then central planning most-likey saved the Soviet Union, and the system, from almost certain destruction in 1939. Of course, it took a huge human toll, with millions of deaths and a huge famine. So, if the goal was to turn a largely agrarian country into an industrial one in the shortest amount possible, than central planning was, as some argue, a necessity. If, however, you define failure in terms of human cost, then of course it was a failure. \n\nIf you are talking about the later Soviet period and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union, then yes corruption certainly played a role, but there are those who argue for the inherent fallacies of the system. Those types of arguments are a little tricky to evaluate since they are being made after the fact.\n\nIn short, I am of the opinion that central planning saved the Soviet system in its early years and then contributed to its demise. If you are looking for more information regarding central planning in the 1920s and 30s, you are going to be focusing on collectivization literature, which is of a historical nature. if you are looking for an answer to your question in the context of collapse, then you are most likely going to be diving into mostly political science literature, as there are no really solid historical works on the collapse itself (source: tried to do an MA thesis on the subject). \n\nFurther reading / sources ...\n\nMillar, J.R., and A. Nove. \"A Debate on Collectivization: Was Stalin Really Necessary?\" Problems of Communism 4 (1976). < -- debate between two economists regarding whether collectivzation was necessary for the Soviet Union to industrialize (warning, boring).\n\nLewin, Moshe. Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization. Translated by Irene Nove. London: Allen and Unwin, 1968. < -- one of the earliest (if not the earliest ) work on collectivization - if you are interested in Collectivization or Soviet society in the 20s and 30s focus on Fitzpatrick, Lewin, Viola \n\nMartin Malia, Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia (New York: Free Press, 1995). < -- where you find the argument that central planning failed due to the inherent fallacies of the system. \n\nDeutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky 1921-1928. The Prophet. London: Verso, 2003. < --one of the best series of books I've ever read, huge background into the intellectual underpinnings of the soviet system\n\nGill, Graeme. \"The Soviet Mechanism of Power and the Fall of the Soviet Union.\" In Mechanisms of Power in the Soviet Union, edited by Niels Erik Rosenfeldt. Houndmills: New York: Macmillan Press, 2000. < -- for an analysis of the politics behind the collapse, anything by Gill would be good..\n\nLedeneva, Alena V. Russia's Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking, and Informal Exchange. New York: Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1998. < -- Ledeneva is big into studying corruption / underground economy from a bottom-up perspective\n\n", "I learned in my introductory Economics class that the Soviet command economy was largely based on quota systems, which distorted incentives which would work properly in a capitalist system. For instance, lamps would be filled with lead because the factories would be paid according to tons of lamps produced. Another example was that consumer, interior light bulbs (your normal 40 watt light bulb)were EXTREMELY hard to come by. Factories were initially paid by the total wattage of all bulbs produced, so these factories produced floodlights, and when the quota was changed to the number of light bulbs, the factories produced nightlights. So to specifically answer your question within the context of my knowledge, central planning failed in the USSR due to inherent fallacies and incompetence of the system.", "Others will come along and provide fuller answers: but, I thought I'd chip in a reading recommendation, you might enjoy [Francis Spufford's 2010 Red Plenty](_URL_0_), which manages to be a rather moving historical novel about the dreams and failures of central planning, and includes elements of both \"inherent fallacies\" and \"corruption\". (I would argue one of the inherent fallacies is precisely the increased scope for corruption, but anyway....) Also, the book has a great set of footnotes for further reading - the earnestness of architects of the system like the mathematician Kantorovich is quite heartbreaking.", "Is that if a system motivates and enables corruption much, that can be an inherent problem in it. I.e. no system can simply expect or demand that leaders or common people will be honest: it is a huge part of the system itself to set up incentives so that it _keeps_ people honest.\n\nSo there is no such thing as \"it was a good idea but bad people abused\" it \" - a really good idea of government must contain efficient means for not letting itself be abused much!\n\nMy first hand experience of having been born in Hungary in 1978:\n\n- Probably the biggest problem was the complete lack of the population to judge or punish its leaders or select them. If you give people practically unlimited power they WILL abuse it. Minister of Defense Czinege for example used to hunt game from military helicopters, and use the military resources to hold huge luxurious feasts for his friends on the public purse. This does not sound like a huge problem, but it shows the general morals of the leaders, and the general reason was that there was nobody who could have fired him for this or cared. This is an inherent fallacy.\n\n- Our biggest tangible economic problem was debt. Money borrowed was not invested, it was basically just consumed. (A problem striking similar to that of democratic welfare societies now.) It was basically a method to keep people complactent, to not resist the one party rule and not to want to account the leaders: the standard of living had to rise to keep people complacent, even if it was based on debt. Most of the debt was simply used to import Western products, machinery etc. as it was better than ours. Mostly industrial products like machines though, as importing a lot of consumer products would have gave people the \"wrong\" idea. Which gives:\n\n- Another huge problem was the low competitiveness of state owned enterprises: poor products made expensively. Again the problem lack a proper system for motivating managers and keeping them accountable. As far as I can remember the only countries in the region who could make halfway decent products were the GDR and Czechoslovakia. In case of cars not even them. ANY Western car was considered much better than any Eastern car, with the possible example of the Zastava (Westerners know the Zastava as a Yugo and it was considered good, better than a Wartburg). ", "I am not a historian, but I am russian and thus my answer might be of some interest to you. Central planning in soviet economy originally formed on the basis of theory of military mobilization. This is because of early years of USSR. The important thing is that production of consumer goods was always a secondary objective and it was thought of as a way to save resources. The main goal was to create a industry capable of production modern heavy weapons. The soviet economic theory stated that competition leads to waste of resources and labour. Like having 2 cafes in a small town is a waste, and it's better to build one big public cafe that will serve all the demand. Due to heavily ideologized social sciences this view became a dogma. In 70-s the system slowly started to rot. It was blind to it's weaknesses. There were little explicit big time corruption but the system just become less and less effective with every year. There were numerious attempts to reform it, to liberate at least small business, but they were not sucessfull for various reasons, for example due to absence of business culture and ideological pressure. " ] }

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[ [], [], [ "http://www.amazon.com/Red-Plenty-Francis-Spufford/dp/B00B9ZDDCC" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d5ba3ir" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ " > the Christmas Truce has that was apparently a top-down decision\n\nJust asking for a bit of clarification here as this is exactly the opposite of my understanding -- from what I understand the high-ranking officers on both sides were fairly horrified when they heard about the Christmas truces and they planned artillery bombardments on Christmas Eve and Christmas the following year to ensure that it didn't happen again." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dsbinkk" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "Yes, it is a coincidence. Spanish colonies were initially geared towards resource extraction, which did well in places with wealthy, established civiliations already, or in places that had the proper climate for the cash crop of the day (sugar).\n\nBourbon Spain did eventually pursue more settler oriented colonies in places with more moderate climates (e.g. modern Argentina/Uruguay), but that came much later.\n\nSide note: resource oriented colonies were viable in the colder climates as well. For example, France had colonies based on fur trading in very cold parts of North America. I don't know why Spain overlooked that type of colony, but perhaps they had their hands full with their other colonies to be concerned with that.\n\nEnglish-style settler colonies are really the odd man out in this time period, and it should also be noted that some of England's state driven ventures resembled resource extraction colonies more than settler colonies. Early Virginia is a notable example of a state-driven economic venture. Settler colonies were often driven by the migrants themselves, rather than the state..." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "deyth1q", "dezebjw" ], "score": [ 16, 6 ], "text": [ "In my experience, most of the revisions were made within the overall narrative of WWI that you've described, focusing instead on who exactly was to blame for the ultimate outbreak of the war. For most of the 20th century the scholars seem to have been preoccupied with the location of the \"smoking gun\", and it shifted from Germany, to the Western alliances, to Austria-Hungary, and back to Germany, as well as some other participants. Or, in other words, the conditions made the war possible, but the relevant guilty party (or parties) was the one(s) ultimately responsible for the outbreak, and, having the sole responsibility for the start of the war, were the ones who theoretically could have prevented it. The reading of WWI as \"inevitable\" came about a bit later, and tended to spread the blame a bit more evenly, but in effect it prioritized long-term collective responsibility, while short-term causes were still largely attributed to individual actors (or blocs of actors). \n\nMore specifically however, recently there was an uptick in scholarship that argues that Would War I was NOT inevitable, and the *general* war could have been avoided, in some cases up until August 4th. \n\nThe best work that deals specifically with this notion is probably Margaret Macmillan's \"The War that Ended Peace: Road to 1914\". \n\nMacmillan argues that the most important lurch towards the war took place between the Sarajevo assassination on June 28, and August 4 1914. She insists that the most crucial decisions that ended up leading to the outbreak of the hostilities were taken by a relatively small group of men in that period, and that almost every single one of them had the opportunity to take a different decision on certain matters. She also points out the proliferation of various factors that were making a general war less likely at the time, such as labour movements, investment and capital flows, and migration and international communication. Unfortunately, I don't have my copy of the book at hand right now, so I cannot provide any specific detail as per her argumentation, but she dedicates a lot of time to going over the personalities of the most important decision-makers at the time and the circumstances and the overall context which they were forced to make decisions in. \n\nEDIT: Slightly changed the argument presented in the first paragraph.", "It sounds like you're asking about the historiography of the *causes* of WWI, and certainly there has been an unending argument about that since 1914 itself. What's unique about WWI is that, being the first major conflict of the 20th century, it's not that sources are few, there are simply far too many. Millions of pages of diplomatic correspondence or memoirs or newspaper articles, it's to the point that it's physically impossible to read it all, and that if you're picky enough about what you look at, you can reasonably blame any of the belligerent powers for the outbreak, and as a matter of fact there is at least one major work blaming each possible combination of powers: it was France and Russia, it was Germany and Austria, it was Germany alone, it was Britain, it's staggering how much you have to sift through with WWI.\n\nTo get back to your point, I think there are two major works you have to read if you want to see the \"top hits\" of academia on the causes of WWI: Fritz Fischer and Christopher Clark.\n\nIn the 60's Fischer wrote a monumental work called (in English) *Germany's Aims in the First World War* and to make a long story short he put more or less the sole blame of WWI on Germany, or at the very least for making a global war out of a local Balkan dispute. He makes a compelling case and he absolutely had evidence to back it up, going into minute detail researching German govt documents. For a long time after the debate was whether you agreed with the \"fischer controversy\" or not. A main critique of fischer is that he takes german documents at face value (for example concerning the Schlieffen plan, there are arguments that it was really a ploy to get more funding to the armed forces, the plan uses units that didn't exist at the time). If anyone more familiar with Fischer's work would care to jump in please feel free to do so, I'm much more familiar with clark\n\nIn 2012 Christopher Clark published what's become a landmark work on WWI origins called *The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914*, and his main thesis is that so much time and ink has been spent exploring *why* WWI happened, we've ignored *how* it did. He cites a quote from Bulgarian historian Buldinov \"once we pose the question \"why\", guilt becomes the focal point.\" Sleepwalkers explores the chronology of events of the July crisis and how the actions of one party's actors were perceived by another, and from my point of view at least provides very convincing arguments, especially with what is known as the security problem: defensive actions that are taken by one state out of fear of a rival are taken as aggressive by the other. Germany's actions that are taken as belligerent by Fischer seem much more reactionary when put in the context of an atmosphere of paranoia about encirclement. Each power was scared of the ability of other nations' presses to force their govt to push forward with hardline nationalism while simultaneously discounting their own (each govt of the time paid very special attention to the leading newspapers of their rivals). The Entente was by no means an anti-german coalition and Clark makes a convincing argument that within a couple of years Britain and Russia would have probably stopped cooperating and returned to seeing eachother as rivals. I'm afraid I'm not doing Clark's work justice these are just isolated points, but his main contention is that the war wasn't inevitable, but it's actors *believed it to be so*, they saw themselves as on an irreversible path, and so could not see viable diplomatic alternatives open to them and so \"sleepwalked\" to war.\n\nClark's work is very popular right now, and with good reason I believe, especially since its focus on taking \"blame\" out of the equation it's very popular in German circles, and for precisely this reason there are British historians who criticize it. For now at least Sleepwalkers is probably the best example of modern historiography of WWI origins" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cfhaffi" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "It would depend entirely on why you were saying what *he* was saying was a lie. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ct2tqpl" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "There are very few surviving epaulettes from the Revolutionary War, otherwise I'd send you towards an image of an original. Instead [here is a link](_URL_1_) to trusted reproduction site, you'll want to look specifically at the cockade epaulette. I am assuming that you're working off of the [Charles Wilson Peale](_URL_0_) portrait as well. The gold braid on top would either be a plain weave ribbed tape (possibly some small design in it) or a literal braid with 20 or so sections. The fringe is bullion, essentially like a coiled spring. Most often these have a buttonhole at the top and a loop underneath the bottom that a shoulder strap goes through to attach." ] }

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[ [ "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marquis_de_Lafayette_2.jpg", "http://www.najecki.com/repro/OffNCO.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ca7w4rj" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Originally that is how the United States was created. A loosely related country of sovereign states. Each state printed it's own money, had it's own laws, provided for the welfare of their citizens, had it's own army. Basically the Articles of Confederation made the Federal government weak as possible. That presented problems, a lot of problems. \n\nEach state had one vote in congress.\n\nCongress didn't have the power to tax. \n\nIt couldn't regulate trade. Foreign or domestic.\n\nThere was no national court system.\n\nLaws required 9/13 votes to be passed.\n\nUnder the articles the states didn't care for each other or the national government. They didn't even support it sometimes. Shay's rebellion proved that the national government couldn't raise in army in a time of need something needed to be done. And that is when we drafted the Constitution of the United States.\n\nTo answer you question about states being split up, it already happened once of course and it didn't end well. This time even if they weren't to secede violently causing a civil war it still couldn't be done. States rely SO MUCH on federal aid. If they leave the Union it's gone. Most states couldn't maintain themselves without MAJOR changes. Also without that aid the luxury of everyday life is diminished. Schools, highways, recreational places would soon be left untouched to clear up money. \n\nTo answer your question about why the Government was created was well to establish a functionable country really. The US under the Articles pretty much failed. The federal government wanted some kind of authority. They needed armies to defend themselves, taxes to support themselves, they needed certain laws that would be applied everywhere and a court to support them. They also wanted a fair representative government that could work together for the greater of the country. However over the years, kickstarted by FDR the federal government has grown stronger. Since it is stronger and provides things states needs it makes it really hard for states to be \"split up.\"\n " ] }

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[ "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/what-can-we-learn-from-de_b_3339736.html" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cvy64wq", "cvy66yk", "cvy8ie1", "cvy9i1g", "cvyah2p", "cvykyr9", "cvyn8fe", "cvyv5hs" ], "score": [ 23, 8, 6, 8, 5, 2, 5, 4 ], "text": [ "I've got a good one, a few years back I interned at a local archive in order to beef up my CV and get some general experience, because at this point I had none. After introducing myself and doing some light filing and genealogy work, I asked the head archivist if she had anything she wanted done but couldn't do herself. Then she showed me the basement.\n\nOver the years, the archive had been donated many hundreds of items, but couldn't do anything with them because it was an archive, not a museum. So all these artifacts and objects were moved to the many empty shelves in the basement. The archive itself was a former [jailhouse](_URL_3_) and the remaining cells were in the basement, completely loaded with stuff. My first job was cleaning this first room of the basement out, moving everything to the furthest back room, so they could turn the cell area into a mini museum. This done, I was moved to the third room where all the previous items had been moved: [bottles,](_URL_0_) [musical instruments](_URL_4_), even an old WWI [Memorial.](_URL_1_)\n\nAfter a few days of cleaning and cataloging I came across with these two old school metal garbage cans, one was full of documents and papers, the other had a bunch of junk. Except for something extremely heavy at the bottom. I pulled out the object, looked at it for a second, realized what it was and immediately got my boss. \"Ms. Gandy, will you come downstairs with me, I *need* to show you something.\" So she followed me downstairs looked at it and said \"Well, what is it?\"\n\n[An Artillery Shell,](_URL_2_) Rusted, leaking black powder and extremely unstable.\n\nI put the shell in a box and brought it upstairs (nearly dropping the thing, and becoming a stain on the wall in the process) where the archivist called the Sheriff. The Sheriff took a look at it and called SLED (State Law Enforcement Division) The SLED guy showed up and called the *Army.* When the Army finally arrived, they took a look at it and said it was *so unstable they couldn't risk carting it to their base 45 minutes away* The Army took the bomb out to the local racetrack and had to blow it up there, along with various other shotgun shells and bullets I had found in the basement of this archive. ", "Oooh! The Australian National Library, which I love with all my heart, is sort've weird in that it has a remarkable quantity of primary evidence concerning WWII era Finland. It has a document at the moment that I'm super interested to see titled ['The Mannerheim Clique Will Answer for their Crimes!'](_URL_0_) It's an English-language Soviet propaganda pamphlet dating to November 1939, shortly after the onset of the Winter War. It's not exactly of a great deal of use for me, but I'm pretty excited to see what sort of salacious rumours the Soviets were cooking up about the Finns, particularly first hand like this! ", "I've got sort of a general archival question I could ask.\n\nI'm currently pursuing my Masters in Library and Information Science, but hope to focus on and find a future in archives and museums rather than libraries. I worked for four years during my undergrad in the university archives and loved it, so I have some experience in the field.\n\nMy question is, are there any areas in archival study that should be focused on by a student planning on entering the field soon? Like, are there are areas of the medium that are evolving or growing, such as digital preservation? Also, any advice or tips for what I can do now to make my resume look better in the future such as volunteer opportunities and such.\n\nThanks!", "General question to all you archivists out there:\n\nTHe digital future of archives - yay or nay? The way I hear things, the move to digitize great parts of archival collections has been faced with criticism, especially pertaining to longevity. In short, we know how long paper and microfilm lasts - do we really know how long hard drives, jpgs and pdfs will last?\n\n\nAlso, a work related complaint: I have to use the German Federal Archives frequently. This archive took over many a record from the former GDR archives in Potsdam. Mainly it is stuff pertaining to the Nazi era which the GDR archives copied from other Eastern European archives. However, some of the stuff can not be seen as a user because they say that they only give out microfilms if they have the originals and with the GDR stuff, they don't know if they have the originals because there is no concordance. This annoys me greatly.", "While working on my undergraduate thesis I was reading the microfilmed correspondence between the figure I was studying and the US president at the time. The handwriting in some of the letters was pretty atrocious; a fact that was not helped by the ink that had bled through the thin slips of paper used in this particular exchange.\n\nI was casually sitting with a friend in my living room, casually chatting about how our respective theses were doing, when I decided to ask his help deciphering this one particular section of the letter that was particularly maddening.\n\nI'm at the part where they're discussing where they met. Ten minutes in we figured it out: \"in the garden of the Bishop\". Our blood went cold for a second. THE Bishop? These were spies having a rendezvous in the garden of one of the best known figures from that period? No evidence that the Bishop knew, but it was still a 'holy crap' kind of moment for me.", "I've never been in an actual physical archive. Theoretically, I can visit an archive on campus (it holds a number of Theodore Geisel's manuscripts, which does go on display every so often), but I'm an undergraduate student and I don't really have an excuse to go other than \"uh, I work at access operations\". So instead, I spend a lot of time going through the digital archive of the Jonestown Institute. \n\nBasically, if you've seen a lot of my posts about Jonestown, a certain domain comes up every single time: \"_URL_0_\" This is the location of the website \"Alternate Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple\", run by the Jonestown Institute at San Diego State University. Besides hosting articles and commentary from *the jonestown report* (a physical journal that ended in 2013, IIRC, and is now completely online), it contains large amounts of primary source material: tapes found in Jonestown and released by the FBI through Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts, Peoples Temple files, telegrams between various government agencies post-November 18, letters from relatives, newspaper articles, Peoples Temple publications, \"thank you Dad\" letters, the Edith Roller journals, poems from Jonestown residents, articles of corporation, etc. Most of these are online and available to the public *for free*. Some of the stuff does need to be ordered for a nominal fee (namely, a large number of tapes recovered from Jonestown have not been converted to MP3s, and thus you need to email them to order the tapes themselves), but otherwise the average reader can go through the material and read them/download them/etc to their heart's content.\n\nI guess I could tell a story about stuff I've found, but I don't have time to do that today. Too much work. ", "So I decided, in Pretoria, to go into the old Surveyor-General's kelder and check out the \"ou-nommerleêrs\" and \"ou-plaasdiagramme,\" which turned out to be quite an adventure before the removal of the office to a more modern building. It had been there for nearly a century, and so things were just sitting on shelves, partial series, some really valuable things next to some bug-eaten dross. A few things were damaged from a fire (well, from the water) in the 1960s, but most of it was intact aside from the dust and old smoke that settled on everything. But the most amazing part had to be the rolled plan \"storage.\" I noticed a closed door behind a shelving rack, and decided to see what was inside. Sure enough, what was there was about 2.5 meters of stacked roll plans dating from all over the calendar and situated all over the province, a bunch of old mining claims, and it was precarious. The only way to get in was to climb up it and start excavating. This was possibly the most dangerous thing I've done in an archival building because it was really unstable, and I did ride the plans down when one side finally gave way.\n\n[But what good is this description without a picture? Here's the thousand words, after I'd sort of restored order because I didn't want to be known as the researcher who wrecked everything.](_URL_0_)\n\nThis was easily the best-lit area of the whole kelder, with a whole fluorescent tube for it. The rest of the basement aside from the files and books was creepily full of old furniture, not an electric outlet in sight, and a grand total of three fluoro tubes to light an area about 10m by 70m in size. Yeah, I bought a flashlight. The kicker was that in the plan-surfing event room, I found nothing of actual use. It was all on the racks around the corner shrouded in the darkness of the oubliette. Good times, good times.", "One of the interesting experiences I've had over the years was getting a backroom tour at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, some years ago before it was part of Drexel University. \n\nOne of the more interesting artifacts they had was several *massive* cabinets labelled as \"Thomas Jefferson Collection\". It turns out that Thomas Jefferson had quite a fossil collection, much of it from Big Bone Lick in what is now Kentucky. The also had a couple of the original labels, hand-written by none other than William Clark in 1807. These fossils included an enormous mastodon skull that probably weighed at least 200 pounds. (I may even have some pictures of this. I'll see if I can find them.)\n\nJefferson apparently had asked Louis and Clark to keep and eye out for any living mastodons might find while crossing the great plains. Given Jefferson's well-documented predilection for massive animals (the moose AMA a few months back), and that the existing mastodon fossils were recognized as being similar to those of elephants, which occur in Africa and Asia, this request to look for live mastodons was not anywhere as ill-informed as it sounds to us today. The American continent was full of strange critters (Moose! Mule-deer! Rattlesnakes! Bison!) and it was fully acknowledged by educated people that the organisms of the New World were often more similar to their Asian relatives than to their European affiliates (Fir trees are a good example).\n\nI think they upgraded the collection storage sometime back in 2002 and no longer allow grubby-thumbed teenagers to rifle through their collections of irreplaceable artifacts. " ] }

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[ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/features/trivia", "http://archivists.org/initiatives/american-archives-month/american-archives-month-2015" ]

[ [ "http://i.imgur.com/hx7vqOJ.jpg", "http://imgur.com/hviUpqZ", "http://imgur.com/zwfuF8l", "http://www.darcosc.com/Historical_Commission_Building.jpg", "http://imgur.com/SyoFRCN" ], [ "http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/292291" ], [], [], [], [ "http://jonestown.sdsu.edu" ], [ "http://imgur.com/J9lt9Ao" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cxjjka0" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Hi, I discuss the details of Japan's joining of the Axis alliance [here](_URL_0_)." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3lgah1/in_ww2_why_did_germany_ally_with_japan_instead_of/cv64yn6" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cc2w081" ], "score": [ 10 ], "text": [ "[\"Dead Man's Letters,\"](_URL_0_), from 1986, seems to fit the bill. " ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man%27s_Letters" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ff32vog" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "I don't focus on sexual abuse of children in [this older answer](_URL_0_) but do touch on the issue in the follow-ups. *Obvious* content warning if you click through, or read further, as this is all about sexual assault and violence.\n\nTo reiterate, it was one of the few places where there were any appreciable legal protections, but even they they were quite weak and toothless. One of the few cases of a rape prosecution of a white man against a black person was James Keyton. A Tennessee enslaver, he was brought to court for the crime, *but* he was nevertheless found not guilty. The fact that he was charged at all speaks to just how heinous his offense was viewed by the community; likely a combination of the victim's young age as well as the violence he is said to have inflicted in the act, which flew in the face of the self-image of slavery being *paternalistic* that may enslavers held in the period to try and self-justify their ownership of people. The fact that he was acquitted in turn speaks to the *limits* of censure a white community was willing to bring against a fellow white man for their mistreatment of a black person, no matter how heinous. The indictment from the grand jury was perhaps seen as warning and humiliation enough.\n\nAnother relevant case that we know of wasn't of an enslaver, but rather of an old enslaved man, known only as Ned. He was charged with the rape of two girls, one aged six, the other aged nine. When the crime was discovered Ned was quickly arrested, tried, sentenced, and hanged within the span of two months. The reason though is two fold. The first of course is that he was a black man. The second is that only one of his victims as an enslaved black girl, the other was a young white girl. Had he only committed his crime against the former... it is possible he would have still been pursued by the courts, but certainly without such vigorous prosecution. \n\nCompare that case in Virginia with one in Mississippi around the same period, where an enslaved man named George was charged with raping a young black girl, and much of the focus of the trial was on whether, as the defense contended, the \"crime of rape does not exist in this State between African slaves\". The jury didn't agree, and convicted George, so clearly some Mississippians disagreed, but on appeal, the court concurred with the defense. In response a law was passed explicitly criminalizing the rape of enslaved women, and even allowing for death (or whipping) if they were under 12. Georgia passed a similar law, but of course it still remains telling how they differed by race. If a white man raped a white woman, he could face prison for up to twenty years, while conviction of raping an enslaved woman would likely mean only a fine, presumably paid to her enslaver in any case. Imprisonment was possible, but unlikely to be given by a white jury.\n\nAll from *Rape and Race in the Nineteenth-Century South* by Diane Miller Sommerville" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aku0d2/im_the_wife_of_a_slaveowner_in_the_southern_us_in/ef833ux/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c5bz19t", "c5bzy8w", "c5c05m9", "c5c0jkr", "c5c9cpc", "c5ccflk" ], "score": [ 49, 25, 66, 33, 5, 2 ], "text": [ "Let's say you are living in Tang-dynasty China. Someone steals something from you. The person you go to is the local magistrate - who becomes an investigator and a judge rolled into one. He would often hire people to help him with tasks such as apprehending suspects etc.\n\nThen comes the burden of evidence. By Tang-dynasty laws, a criminal could only be convicted if (s)he confessed. Thus the evidence could be overwhelming - you would still need a confession. If the evidence was strong enough, but the suspect was still not confessing, some light torture was in order until a confession was forthcoming. Now - if this was a petty theft, and the suspect died during torture, the magistrate would probably get in trouble. However, if it was a serious crime, and the evidence was seen as overwhelming, a suspect dying during torture was accepted, as the eventual punishment would be death anyways.", "Before the 17th century **Japan**, as in most feudal societies, justice was obtained by whatever means a particular lord had in place, and often included some type of magistrate or city watch (in big cities), as well as direct involvement by his samurai (especially in smaller settings like villages). \n\nDuring the Edo Period samurai began to be even more involved in law enforcement, as this period was one of Shogun enforced peace and there were no wars to be fought, so many samurai found themselves without masters or duty.\n\n*Taiho-Jutsu: Law and Order in the Age of the Samurai* by Cunningham is a well written book concerning this subject. [link to a quick review of this book](_URL_0_)\n\nEdit: Clarified the scope to Japan", "It is very difficult to tell for most premodern societies. Luckily, Iceland left an extensive body of literature that focuses almost exclusively on the issue.\n\nThe Icelandic Althing is generally said to be the oldest Parliament in the world, but that doesn't really capture the nuances of the government. Iceland had a law making body, after a fashion, and a judiciary, after a fashion, but the government had no executive arm. This means that the government could not enforce the laws it made. The Medieval Icelandic government was more or less exclusively a body of its members, with no authority beyond that.\n\nSo what does this mean practically? If, say, Thorstein Halfredsson kills your brother, you summon him to the upcoming court, which you need to do in person (no subpoena officers). In the trial, most of the proceedings are actually taken up by proving you filed the charges correctly. If he is found guilty, he is either fined or sentenced to greater or lesser outlawry. A lesser outlaw is forced to leave Iceland (or just the district) for three years, or face greater outlawry. A greater outlaw is precisely that--someone outside the protection of the law.\n\nSo you get Thorstein sentenced to greater outlawry, but he still needs to be punished. So you round up a group of your family and friends and go find and kill him. He, of course, might not agree to this and will probably flee. In many cases, merely getting the sentence of greater outlawry passed is enough, and no pursuit is carried out.\n\nBut let's say you didn't want to go to trial. Instead, you immediately went to Thorstein and buried an axe in his chest. In that case, the heads of yours and Thorstein's families will get together and hash out an agreement. Very likely, each death will be seen to cancel the other. Alternatively, you can skip the killing part and Thorstein's family will pay some sort of compensation, or Thorstein will perhaps voluntarily accept lesser outlawry.\n\nBasically, Iceland regulated and systematized vigilante justice.\n\nEDIT: My source is Medieval Icelandic literature and Jesse Byock's *Viking Age Iceland.*", "In Ancient Greece, city states had publicly owned slaves who acted as a police force. They kept order and controlled prisoners, but they didn't investigate crimes. Most crimes were considered a private matter so the citizens dealt with them themselves.\n\nThe city of Rome never had a real police force, though it had a force of men set up for the protection of each ward. These men were responsible more for public order and physical protection and had no role in criminal justice.\n\nOne thing to keep in mind about criminal justice as a whole is that, for most of history, crimes were considered private matters between individuals. Eventually a new idea took hold in England; violating the King's Peace (through murder, theft, etc.) was not just a crime against an individual, but a crime against the whole country. This brought about the prosecution of criminals even when no private citizen brought a case against them.", "The post-Roman Visigoths in Spain created their own [legal code](_URL_0_) that sets down rules for legal issues like murder, theft, etc. It's an interesting window into the past, if you have few minutes to read through it. ", "If I recall from a crime and punishment museum I went to in Rothenburg, Germany, at least in that part of the world, they had officials who were in charge of trade laws and other fiscal related crimes. The town guard was in charge of general law and order. As for collecting evidence, I don't remember too much, but I do remember that if at least two reputable men reported the crime, that meant that the suspect was to be brought into city hall or where ever the jail was for \"interrogation\"(torture). " ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.e-budokai.com/books/taiho.htm" ], [], [], [ "http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/visigoths.htm" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cfkqkfk", "cfkwc77" ], "score": [ 20, 3 ], "text": [ "The economic (and hence geopolitical) interests of the two countries were, and are, quite different; they are separated by a mountain range that makes it difficult to get much overland trade going. Sweden looks east across the Baltic (and south to Germany); Norway looks west, to the North Sea and the Atlantic (and to the UK). The union was relatively loose, consisting mainly of Norwegian foreign and trade policy being decided in Sweden; unfortunately the trade policy was precisely the place where many wealthy and influential men felt they could do a lot better, for the reason outlined above. \n\nThe split occurred in 1905. The immediate dispute was over what was called the \"consulate question\": The Swedish foreign ministry decided where to send ministers and what countries to prioritise, and was not answerable to the Norwegian Storting (parliament). Norway's merchant fleet was (and remains) quite large, and the ship-owners felt that their interests were not being looked after; there was lots of Norwegian trade outside Europe, but few consulates. So, the Norwegian government demanded the right to appoint its own ministers. The Swedes refused, though offering a compromise that in effect left them most of the power - basically they offered to give the Norwegians a formally \"separate\" foreign ministry, it would in effect have been subordinate to the Swedish one. This was referred to in Norway as the \"vassal-state compromise\" (loosely translated; more literally, the \"satrapy points\") and was rejected, leading to the breakup of the union. It may be worth noting that the consulate question had been a thing, on and off, for ten years, and that 1905 was, by some odd coincidence, a high point in Norwegian military power due to a llong-running armament program. \n\nSo, there are underlying economic interests, a direct expression of those underlying frictions in the dispute over what embassies and consulates should be prioritised, and then you have the more ideological point that the nineteenth century, and perhaps especially the turn of the century, was a period of very strong nationalism. The Norwegians felt (and feel) themselves a very separate people from the Swedes, although the difference is perhaps not so visible from the outside. :) \n\n > Has there ever been any movement for a sort of \"Scandinavian Union\"?\n\nSure. It's a perennially popular project among intellectuals; Ibsen was all in favour of it, for example. (And then there's the Kalmar Union, of course.) There's even one on reddit [right now](_URL_0_) that's trying to make a Scandinavian alt-coin, called the eKrona, as the first step to forming a closer economic union. \n\nSource: I learned this in school. ", " > As far as the other countries of Scandinavia, has there ever been any movement for a sort of \"Scandinavian Union\"?\n\nThe [Helsinki treaty](_URL_0_) was signed in 1962 to \n > ... promote and strengthen the close ties existing between the Nordic peoples in matters of culture, and of legal and social philosophy, and to extend the scale of co-operation between the Nordic countries\n\nSo in a way, there has been \"a sort of Scandinavian Union\" for a while now." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/ekrona" ], [ "http://www.norden.org/en/about-nordic-co-operation/agreements/treaties-and-agreements/basic-agreement/the-helsinki-treaty" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cc5q5bh" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "(I'm going to take this on, since it has come up in my research. How it relates to my flair is a long story. The short version is \"church property disputes.\" So while I am a historian, I am not a lawyer, and some of what I think I have figured out may need to be corrected.)\n\nThe American common law tradition did not start over from scratch with just the method. Much was kept and much has gone away, because of the different constitutional situations. \n\nSome of what is different in American common law is different because the US has a written Constitution. In the context of English and Welch law, we do run across talk of a constitution, but there you cannot go to a public display or search on the Internet and find a copy and say, this is it: the English Constitution. There it is more a tradition. So a big difference is that American common law has evolved in new directions because it is interpreting a text rather than a tradition. \n\nMuch else is different because the process of interpreting what the American text provides has pushed American law in new directions. So the right to privacy was deduced in Griswold v. Connecticut from three different provisions of the text of the Constitution. It's a common law principle that didn't exist in England.\n\nWhen I read appellate court cases, especially in the 19th century, I see many references to English precedent. So English precedent used to count for a good bit. In his book *The Common Law* (1881), Oliver Wendell Holmes treated the English tradition as very much alive as a source of precedent for American decisions, while at the same time discussing differences the American context requires. (That would be a good book to have a look at, as long as you bear in mind that it's not a critical history, but a series of lectures making a case for Holmes's view of how things should be.) That has pretty nearly stopped, at least in the cases I read, though I have seen a Supreme Court decision from 1979 that still referred to an early 19th century English case for context. There may be others like that.\n\nOne principle based in the English common law that comes to mind as still in force most places in the US is the rule against perpetuities. It is an English common law principle dating from the late 17th century (with a statutory basis that goes back to Henry VIII's reign) that basically says a trust can't run forever. Every trust has to terminate no later than 21 years after the death of the last person who can be shown to have been conceived at the time the trust was created. (That was the original term; much shorter terms are used in American practice today.) A few American states (Alaska and Kentucky for example; there are others, but I don't remember which offhand) have overturned the rule against perpetuities by statute, but in most states it still applies.\n\nAlso, It is worth mentioning that the common law tradition has always been at least a bit controversial in the US. So the law of Louisiana, for example, is based on the French civil law rather than the English common law. And there is to this day a good bit of bellyaching in some quarters about the fact that in America judges can make law, and not just apply it as a bureaucratic function, so the question really remains open in that sense.\n\nEdit: correcting spelling" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dubrnh8", "dubvbvt" ], "score": [ 35, 21 ], "text": [ "Follow up question: how well known was extent of the Cambodian genocide by Vietnamese leadership, and what role did it play in the breakdown of relations and decision to invade?", "Another follow-up question: why did the Vietnamese install former Khmer Rouge battalion commander Hun Sen as the head of Cambodia’s new government? Why not choose someone less tainted with Khmer Rouge association?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cqt5dn8" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I can't speak to the English aspect of things, but the Boston Tea Party made American leaders really uncomfortable. There's a really good book specifically answering your question called *The Shoemaker and The Tea Party* by Alfred Young. In a nutshell, American leaders were not happy with the idea that the lower classes could do that sort of thing. You have to remember that most of the American leaders were wealthy, while many of the rebels were not. In making the nation one of the things that they really wanted to avoid was giving the lower classes to much power and the Boston Tea Party was a very visible reminder that the lower classes, mostly sailors and dockworkers in this case, could overthrow the leaders if they got angry enough. \n\nThe Boston Tea Party was actually largely forgotten (or intentionally erased) after the American Revolution and was not remembered until the early 1800s, not so coincidentally when most of the Revolutionary generation were dead and right at the start of Jacksonianism, which celebrated the average man." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d2vkda2" ], "score": [ 22 ], "text": [ "Knowledge of Greek and Latin was a fundamental of a classical education. It's not to \"show off\" their educated status, per se, but just a part of being educated. It allowed them to read classical works of literature in their original language, which would also be part of their education. In fact, admission to universities like Harvard required passing a test which included Greek and Latin." ] }

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

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{ "a_id": [ "c7q7ljo", "c7q95fq" ], "score": [ 10, 5 ], "text": [ "That is conventional thinking, that agricultural societies are violent while hunter-gatherers are peaceful, but it's wrong and misleading and draws heavily from the idea of the [Noble Savage](_URL_0_). It's more a matter of the type of violence. Hunter-gatherers, at least mobile ones (there were some sedentary hunter-gatherers) generally don't have the concept of ownership. Different groups may have sort of land-use rights over a certain terrain, but there's no real sense that they own the land. And if conflicts do arise, it's easy to move with your feet and just go somewhere else. So there isn't really war over land or territory. Instead there are skirmishes between groups and interpersonal violence (like murder) that you get anywhere. So it's violence, but it's not war.\n\nAgriculture favours permanent settlement in one place and the accumulation of material wealth in the hands of relatively few people, and this breeds the concept of property ownership, and then subsequently war over land. Early or incipient agriculture doesn't necessarily change a lot, but agriculture lays the foundation for social complexity. It is really with social complexity that you start to see major defensive structures (walls/palisades, fortresses, etc.), permanent military & police forces, and institutionalized violence (i.e. true warfare, not just small-scale skirmishes and raids, though these don't go away).\n\nSo, I'd say that hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists are both just as violent, but the nature and intensity of the violence changes. Hunter-gatherers have skirmishes and interpersonal violence but not so much in the way of warfare or attempts to conquer other people or take over land. Agriculture lays the foundations for the development of social complexity, and social complexity breeds true warfare. Both violent, but different. There are exceptions to these general trends, and particular societies may be more or less violent than others, but in general everyone likes to kill.\n\nNow, all that said, this isn't really history and the anthropology of violence is not my specialty and is only tangential to my research, so I'd suggest that you ask this in /r/Anthropology to get more answers. You should get some people who are more familiar with hunter-gatherer violence in the ethnographic record, as we really don't know a lot about hunter-gatherer violence purely from archaeological data (small-scale events don't leave much of a trace), so what we know is mostly drawn from analogy with ethnographically-known societies. And people who focus on violence will know more about that.", "Plenty of studies. This is a huge area of debate right now in anthropology and archaeology. I touched on some of it in an [answer I wrote recently](_URL_0_) to a question about Steven Pinker's book (*The Better Angels of Our Nature*), which claimed that hunter-gatherer societies were indeed more violent than urban ones.\n\nI mostly agree with Pachacamac's summary, except to say that the idea of peaceful hunter-gatherers was based on a bit more than the old noble savage trope. There was plenty of ethnographic evidence for little-to-no violence in hunter-gatherer societies (more specifically what are called \"immediate return hunter-gatherers\" in the jargon – basically people who live purely hand-to-mouth) and a convincing explanation of why that should be the case: hunter-gatherers having few material reasons to fight and an easy strategy for diffusing disputes in just moving away. There wasn't anything to contradict this in the archaeological record and it fit with the expectations of classical social evolution theory which sees agriculture as the greater enabler of social inequality and hierarchy. So it seemed reasonable to extrapolate and say that prehistoric hunter-gatherers were peaceful too.\n\nPersonally I think there's still a lot of truth in that position. The evidence for it hasn't gone away, we've just realised:\n\n* that if you're going to treat modern hunter-gatherer societies as representative of *all* hunter-gatherer societies you have to tackle some severe biases in your sample\n* that there is a great deal of variation amongst modern hunter-gatherers\n* that there are crucial differences between different violence on different scales: interpersonal crimes of passion and large-scale warfare are wholly different phenomena\n\nAnd that's led to a lot less certainty about the issue. For contrasting views, you could check out Lawrence Keeley's *War Before Civilization* and Douglas Price's *Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace*." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage" ], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12fu8t/are_steven_pinkers_claims_about_the_high_levels/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cazahjz" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The Romans actually made some of the straightest roads in the world since it was the empires life blood. \n\nBut in modern times its probably when we started to pave all the roads that it became easier to do in a straight line than a curved one." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cab84z3" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "One thing I think you should make note of, and be careful not to mix, is the definition of African American members of Islam and African American members of the Nation of Islam (NOI). While superficially the two look similar, the differences are vast and important. The NOI is more responsible for the Black Power and Black Panther movements than Islam itself. Many of the former members of the NOI ended up converting from the NOI to more mainstream version of Islam (such as Malcom X and Muhammad Ali to Sunnism).\n\n\nI think, then, it is best to talk about the NOI to see how it helped spark the movements mentioned above and why members of the NOI were often marginilized by society and other leaders of the Civil Rights movement.\n\n\nWhile the NOI is in agreement with Islam on many things such as drugs, alcohol, and Allah, it was not formed until 1930 and most of its vocalized opinions are vastly different from Islam proper. The most notorious belief of the NOI was that the \"Black\" race is the original race and that all other races came from them. In addition, they believe that \"White\" people were created by a scientist named Yakub on a Greek island who established dominance over Blacks and put in place a system to control them, even though Black people are the dominant race. Additionally, the NOI believed in a thing called \"Mother Plane\", a UFO that is a small human built planet, carrying bombs, that appeared in Biblical times to the prophet Ezekial. (**OPINION WARNING**) Really, it might be more accurate to compare what the NOI was to something like Scientology than traditional Islam.\n\n\nSo during the Civil Rights movement, there was a large (intentional) divide between Dr. King's movement and the Black Power movement. While Dr. King Jr. and the SCLC advocated a society of equality between Blacks and Whites through nonviolent protest and boycotts, the NOI sought to assert dominance over Whites by military action and thus did not draw the same societal support that the former organization did. \n\n\nThe more \"balanced\" organization between the two would be the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC; \"Snick\"). It was a younger movement than the SCLC and advocated more extreme measures like the Sit Ins and Freedom Rides during its earlier days (something King did not actively promote) and evolved into a Black Power movement in the late '60s to protest the Vietnam War.\n\n\nSo a final answer? Islam proper in the Civil Rights movement didn't have as much of a connection and presence as the NOI did, and due to the extremist views of the NOI (and many Americans mistaking the NOI for being close to traditional Islam), Islam got bad press well outside its effective influence. Malcom X, after traveling to Mecca, renounced the militant views of the NOI and its segregationalist policy (as opposed to the integration policy of the SCLC) and started to lead the Black Power movement toward more traditional Islam and while still advocating Black empowerement, disavowed the racism of the NOI.\n\n\n*Edited a bit for spelling... If I find any more, I'll try to fix*" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cfn6mge" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "This is a huge question; American public opinion changed quite often over the period 1914-1917 in reaction to such things as the Atlantic U-Boat campaign, the Zimmerman Telegraph, the Dublin Uprisings, and other events. The American public at this time - like at any time - was hardly a single mass, either, and that definitely had an important effect. \n\nBut broadly speaking - yes, the declaration of war on Germany reflected a pro-British outlook from \"the man on the street\". \n\nInitially, polling during 1915 indicated the American public was strongly in favour of remaining neutral. Unsurprisingly, this was especially true in places like the mid-west (where lots of German-speaking immigrants had settled), and areas heavily Irish-American. Woman's movements and the clergy were also fairly pleased at the declaration of neutrality, although it would be overstating the case to claim there weren't fractures within these communities as well.\n\nIf America was neutral, however, the effect was decidedly pro-British. The economy remained on a civilian footing, which should theoretically have served both sides equally well; however the close proximity of Canada, and the blockade of Germany by the Royal Navy, made it far less risky to provide loans and credit to British manufacturers. Companies saw a chance to extend their influence; JP Morgan, for instance, raised cash for the French war effort despite it being specifically banned by the American government. The fact the America primarily spoke English has also been pointed to as a reason American opinion slowly swung towards supporting the British; English-language sources (newspapers, books, movies) coming from Britain could be quickly and easily distributed, with a penetration German-language sources couldn't match. \n\nThe Germans didn't particularly help themselves in this regard either. With their surface fleet bottled up in Kiel, the interdiction of enemy shipping had fallen to primitive U-Boats. The attack on the Lusitania became a symbol of the outrage this type of attack generated; while definitely not \"the straw that broke the camel's back\" in regard to American entry into the war it is sometimes claimed as, the Lusitania was definitely widely reported and strongly condemned. \n\nThe final act in the drama was the Zimmerman Telegraph. It is an extraordinay document; the Germans calculated that they had to resume unrestricted U-boat warfare to cut grain shipments from Canada. They also knew this would probably militarily bring the US into the war regardless of how it was framed. They therefore cabled their Ambassador in Mexico to propose a trade - if Mexico joined the Central Powers, and America entered on the side of the Entente, then Mexico should invade the south of the United States. At the end of the war, Mexico could keep New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The British intercepted this and gleefully handed it over at the most opportune moment. I don't have to tell you, but the average Joe American was *not happy when they found out*. \n\nBut in summary, it was the culmination of lots of different events which tipped public opinion into supporting war; by 1917 Americans were definitely keen for a scrap as a result. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cvi8b3x" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The Tennessee State Museum in Nashville used to have a display on York- including the old Sharps and Hankins rifle he hunted with as a boy. There's also some York stuff at the [TN State Archives](_URL_0_) \n\nMyself, I'd prefer a trip to Jamestown over Nashville, but that looks like a better place to start." ] }

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[ [ "http://sos.tn.gov/search/node/Alvin%20York" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cd8qzyx" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "The two were in direct conflict almost immediately until they agreed to the Lateran Treaty. They were basically fighting over the power to indoctrinate Italy's youth. The Church also believed that Fascism contradicted their stance on free will, and believed Capitalism (Liberty) was preferable to Fascist Corporatism.\n\nIn Italy, the Church had youth groups (e.g. Catholic Boy Scouts) that they used to teach Catholicism to kids. Mussolini, who believed Italy's youth belonged to the State, wanted to outlaw these youth groups and make it mandatory for them to attend Fascist public schools. These Fascist schools actually contradicted the Church's teachings in many ways and they also tried to turn kids into Fascist militants. As a result, the Catholics and Fascists actually engaged in street battles, and the Fascists killed priests.\n\nThe Lateran Treaty gave the Fascist state control of Italy's youth while the Church was given sovereignty (something they've wanted for decades) which also exempted them from taxes but they were also paid back for all the property Italy seized from the Church.\n\nFrom what I can tell, Italy made Catholicism the State religion but by making the Church a sovereign state it no longer had control over Italy's laws, giving the Fascists more power." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "crr7zxv" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I do not know if he is correct but we must remember that a census of Roman citizens would only include a fraction of the population since a large portion of population were not actually considered citizens." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "elsn75k" ], "score": [ 12 ], "text": [ "In short, a little bit during the era of Stalin and Beria, and mostly because of Beria.\n\nFirst, I'll make the minor distinction that Beria was ethnically Mingrelian, a group closely related to the Georgians but with their own language, who are from the northwest of Georgia (though few outside of Georgia make that distinction, and the Mingrelian language is considered by some to simply be a Georgian dialect. However the difference is more readily made within Georgia). This doesn't make a huge difference, but it is notable as it arguably played a role in what Beria did (see below).\n\nStalin may have been an ethnic Georgian (rumours that his father had Ossetian heritage have no basis in fact; the truth is no one is quite certain where the Jughashvili name comes from), but he was committed to the Communist idea of internationalism and downplayed the fact he was Georgian, more readily assuming a Soviet identity. Lenin famously accused him of \"Great Russian Chauvinism\" prior to his death, which is ironic as it meant that Stalin favoured polices that benefited Russia specifically rather than the Soviet peoples as a whole, despite not being Russian. He did not really do anything that overtly benefited Georgia during his time in office, and would only visit during the summers for vacation, and at that he would only stay at his dacha in Abkhazia (an autonomous republic in northwest Georgia, known for its tropical climate and beaches).\n\nBeria however was much more a nationalist. He gained the favour of Stalin while serving as the head of the OGPU (secret police; precursor to NKVD and KGB) of the Transcaucasus Federation (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia; the three were united into one republic from 1922 until 1936), and was promoted to General Secretary of Georgia during the 1930s, though he soon effectively became the de facto head of Transcaucasia. He used this to move onto the head of the NKVD in 1938, moving to Moscow, where he stayed until his downfall and execution in 1953.\nIn Tbilisi (the capital of Georgia and Transcaucasia) and later Moscow, Beria brought his own associates, promoting them to power. Many of them were ethnic Mingrelians like himself, and this clique was known for their ethnic heritage. When Stalin started to turn against Beria, he launched a purge against Beria’s group, an event known as the “Mingrelian Affair,” and saw many of his people replaced by those loyal to Stalin rather than Beria.\n\nBeria also saw the mass settlement of ethnic Mingrelian and Georgian farmers into Abkhazia. This was ostensibly done to help cultivate land there, but was more to do with eliminating a rival to Beria: Nestor Lakoba, the head of Abkhazia and a close ally of Stalin. The ethnic Abkhaz had a bare majority in the 1920s, and Lakoba enjoyed immense popularity in his region, which was jokingly called “Lakobistan.” As noted Stalin would vacation there yearly, staying with Lakoba, which made Beria uncomfortable with someone else being so intimate with the leader. So he had Lakoba poisoned in 1936 and started his policy, which was effectively ethnic cleansing: thousands of Georgians were brought to Abkhazia in order to disrupt the demographic balance, and it crushed the Abkhaz leadership and brought it firmly under Georgian (read Beria’s) control, though that only led to resentment and further issues down the road (see 1992-93 and 2008 wars in Georgia).\n\nAn avid soccer fan, Beria was also not afraid to extend his influence to that realm. As head of the NKVD he was de facto in charge of the Dinamo sports clubs, which were a part of the NKVD apparatus. This included the famous Dinamo Moscow team, and the Georgian Dinamo Tbilisi. Beria exerted influence to ensure top players joined the Moscow and Tbilisi club, and was not afraid to imprison those who defied the “invitation” to either club. Not surprisingly Dinamo Moscow was one of the top clubs in the 1930s and 1940s, while Dinamo Tbilisi soon rose to prominence as well." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "czjyjjx" ], "score": [ 53 ], "text": [ "The original form of the Latin was not actually *Graecus* but *Graius* (plural *Graei*)--*Graecus* appears to be an expanded form imitating the Greek suffix \"-kos.\" It appears that the name was taken from a Greek-speaking people bordering some Italian settlement and was later applied to the entirety of Greek-speakers (much the way that in Herodotus \"Medes\" generally refers to Persians and Iranian-speakers in general). The history of the term, though, is pretty uncertain and was confused even in antiquity. The Γραικοὶ were apparently a Thessalian people (like the Hellenes--Hellas was originally the term for an area of Thessaly on the river Spercheus) and were from an early date considered to be somehow related to the Hellenes, but how was never satisfactorily explained. A Byzantine scholar, quoting Hesiod, claims that original eponymous ancestor of Greek-speakers was not Hellen but a certain Graecus, whose brother was Latinus (contradicting a different tradition on Latinus' birth) and whose parents were Deucalion's daughter Pandora and Zeus. This would make Graecus Hellen's nephew, although another Byzantine scholar descends Graecus from Thessalus. Aristotle also says that originally the Hellenes were called Γραικοὶ, as does an inscription from the 4th Century. But ancient ethnographies are muddled at best, and these probably represent some sort of mythological connections that may or may not have any basis in reality and are probably not being fully understood by the authors mentioning them (Aristotle in particular seems to be thinking of the Graeci and Hellenes as being confined to Thessaly). In the historical period whoever these Thessalian Γραικοὶ were they had ceased to exist, although the Parians were called Γραῖκες and, being Aeolians, were possibly descended from this tribe. But none of this makes sense with the fact that the original Latin is *Graius*, not *Graecus*, and there appear not to be any Greek ethnic terms that lack the \"-kos\" ending and resemble *Graecus*. There are a few place names, but they don't seem to be related and are too far south. So basically the answer is...we don't really know. It used to be thought that when the Italians first encountered the Greeks back in the Archaic Period they were still known as Γραικοὶ (certainly Hellenes had not taken root yet) and that the word eventually was simply transmitted to Latin. But that doesn't seem to make much sense. The Romans must've got it from some small Greek tribe in Italy living next to an Italian people, but we don't know who they were or how the name was transmitted " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ehjhn9i" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "The key cash crops grown by American slave labor before the 19th century were tobacco and rice. Little cotton was grown in the United States, in large part because separating the seeds from the raw cotton by hand was extremely labor-intensive and time-consuming. In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which greatly simplified the procedure and made growing cotton much more profitable.\n\nIn the early 19th century, southern planters moved into areas like the Mississippi River Valley and started growing lots and lots of cotton with slave labor. At the same time, industrialization created a huge demand for cotton by textile factories in the North and in England - thus southern cotton plantations became a key factor in the burgeoning global industrial economy, so much so that the region came to be called the Cotton Kingdom.\n\nThe Cotton Kingdom depended on slave labor. Slaves planted, tended, and harvested the cotton. So much of southern planters' money was tied up in land and slaves for cotton production that slaves were often the closest thing they had to liquid capital. Slaves were simultaneously capital, collateral, and the means of production. Historian Walter Johnson puts it in very evocative terms: “The Cotton Kingdom was built out of sun, water, and soil; animal energy, human labor, and mother wit; grain, flesh, and cotton; pain, hunger, and fatigue; blood, milk, semen, and shit.”\n\nCotton became the symbol of American slavery because cotton grown by slave labor in the American South comprised a large part of the raw material that powered the global economy. By 1860, the South produced 2/3 of the world's cotton.\n\nAs the nation edged closer to Civil War, many southerners expected that the demand for cotton would help secure southern independence. It didn't, but that's a story for another time.\n\nSources:\n [The Economics of Cotton](_URL_0_)\n\nWalter Johnson, *River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom*\n" ] }

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[ [ "https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ushistory1os/chapter/the-economics-of-cotton" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cdkc01z", "cdkvx7h" ], "score": [ 2, 3 ], "text": [ "Australian history isn't my field, so I can't speak to the specific case of New South Wales in Australia. I do know that the name \"The New Principality of South Wales\" was assigned to the southern coast of Hudson Bay (in present-day Canada) by Welshman Thomas James in the 1630s. The question of why Cook chose NSW seems to be more uncertain. I know we have a couple of Australia experts around here, so hopefully someone who can shed some more light on this will see this question.\n\nIn addition, I can point out as a matter of general interest (maybe?) that, in general, the mapping and naming of places in Australia, as in other colonies, was part of the act of claiming and ultimately taking possession of land that was inhabited by Indigenous people and was also being contested between rival expansionist powers in the Pacific. Mapping and naming were means of symbolically conceptualizing these areas as new edges of empire(s), even before any actual European settlement had taken place. By assigning place names with ties to Britain or even to their own personal lives, for example, colonizers like James Cook and Matthew Flinders imagined these areas as part of the British Empire. This process played into the geopolitical tensions between imperial states that defined European politics at this time, especially between England, France, and Spain, whose colonizers often mapped their *own* conceptualizations of these spaces through French and Spanish lenses and points of reference -- in direct contest with their British counterparts. Significantly, naming places in these ways also marked a significant element of colonizers' attempts to imagine/racialize these as white spaces.\n\n**Refs:** \n\nPenelope Edmonds, *Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities*, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), esp. 22-26.\n\nAdele Perry, *On the Edge of Empire: Gender, Race, and the Making of British Columbia, 1849-1871*, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001).", "It would appear to be named after Wales, not South Wales - in Cook's original journals - found here: _URL_0_ - he calls it simply New Wales:\n > I now once More hoisted English Colours, and in the Name of His Majesty King George the Third took possession of the whole Eastern coast from the above latitude down to this place by the Name of New Wales\n\nIn later copies sent to the Queen and the Admiralty it is changed to New South Wales.\n\nHowever he doesn't really give any reason in that section, and in his descriptions he doesn't really compare it to Wales, but the prevailing theory is that it must have reminded him of Wales in some way...\n\nOn the Glasshouse Mountains, from the same journal, from before he named it New Wales:\n\n > These hills lay but a little way inland, and not far from Each other; they are very remarkable on account of their Singular form of Elivation, which very much resembles Glass Houses,‡ which occasioned my giving them that Name. " ] }

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[ [], [ "http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/cook/james/c77j/chapter8.html#chapter8" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cu3ktz1", "cu3qa6c" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ " I'd check the bibliography of Lord Kinross' \"The Ottoman Centuries\". Of course, he focuses like most on the period after the suppression of the Janissaries as the time of Ottoman decline...", "Turkey: A Modern History starts later than you like, but could be useful in your EP to compare when the Ottomans started declining, as the Ottoman decline is covered in roughly 2/3 of the book, but it starts in the 1700s" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cyn57s3", "cynz8iv" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Are you looking for books on the colonies before or during World War I? Empires at War: 1911-1923 has a chapter by Heather Jones on the German Empire. Absolute Destruction by Isabell Hull discusses Germany's colonial policies in Southwest Africa. I know Germany had colonies in the Pacific but I have no suggestions for those colonies. ", "Even though I haven't read it, i've heard that it's good; *The Kaiser's Holocaust: Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the colonial roots of Nazism* by Casper Erichsen and David Olusoga. \n\nOther books could include Thomas Pakenham's *The Scramble for Africa* and John Rohl's *Kaiser Wilhelm II 1859-1941: A Concise Life*. If you prefer to read in German, Rohl's books are also available in German. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c6fmurg" ], "score": [ 15 ], "text": [ "[Presentism](_URL_0_), if you do it, you're gonna have a bad time.\n\nWas Lincoln racist by modern standards? Hell yes, but *everyone was*.\n\nIt's better, when broaching this subject, to point out that Lincoln was not an abolitionist, promoting full equality for blacks, but rather antislavery. He thought it deplorable that black people were forced to labor not for their own benefit but rather for someone else (the master). He greatly advocated economic freedom for blacks so that they could determine their own destiny and also to preserve white Northern labor from the threat of competition from Southern slavery. This reflected the majority of Republican opinion at the time. By the end of his presidency Lincoln had developed new opinions regarding race and the future of the country, and would approach a much \"less racist\" mindset by modern standards.\n\nThat quote is also quite cherry picked, sitting on its own there. Take for instance another Lincoln quote:\n\n > I want every man to have the chance - and I believe a black man is entitled to it - in which he can better his condition, when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him. That is the true system." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_%28literary_and_historical_analysis%29" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d3zq0sz" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I think most of the writing that's survived in the sahel is arabic, the mauritanian manuscripts are and the most famous timbuktu manuscripts are too.\n\nHowever, according to University of Cape Town the Timbuktu manuscripts do also contain works in Songhay, Fulfulde, Tamasheq and Hausa. \n\nThe problem is the manuscripts aren't all from the mali empire time, some are from later and some earlier and as far as I am aware they haven't been catalogued enough for anyone to be able to say for sure when those languages were first used and if that was after or before the mali empire lost timbuktu (Timbuktu was recently captured by islamic rebels and the cape town university group working at it lost funding so a lot of work is still to be done in studying the manuscripts).\n\nPossibly someone who'd actually been to timbuktu would be able to tell you for sure." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cdyo81c" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "Firstly, it is important to note that prisons in Siberia weren't that bad under the Romanovs. Lenin himself was exiled there, and this is where a lot of the sources focus, so I will discuss it more. His experience in Siberia was hardly that of a prisoner - he was permitted to make his own way there, the journey took 11 weeks, for much of which he was accompanied by his mother and sisters. Considered a minor threat, Vladimir was exiled to Shushenskoye in the Minusinsky District, a settlement that Vladimir described as \"not a bad place\". Renting a room in a peasant's hut, he remained under police surveillance, but was able to meet with other radicals (see below). His girlfriend was also arrested in 1898, and was allowed to move to the same town on the proviso that they were wed. He was allowed to do [intellectual work](_URL_2_)(1), gave legal advice to the locals gratis and the government gave him a gun to go hunting. [He was also able to visit other radicals in exile.](_URL_4_) [Here's a picture](_URL_0_) of where he stayed. This ‘luxury’ of course was due to Lenin's wealth, other exiles had a different experience.\n\nThe Tsarist government made use of a large network of prison camps and areas of exile on the verges of its empire to deal with dissidents and criminals and by 1897 there were 300,000 Russians in these prison camps. Life for the non-rich (say what you like about Lenin, he was certainly rich) was obviously harder and common criminals were sent to labour camps. “Some prisoners helped to build the Trans-Siberian Railway. Others worked in the silver and lead mines of the Nertchinsk district, the saltworks of Usolie and the gold mines of Kara. Conditions were vicious - those convicts who did not work hard enough were flogged to death. Other punishments included being chained up in an underground black hole and having a 48 pound beam of wood attached to a prisoner's chains for several years. Once a sentence had been completed, convicts had their chains removed. However, they were forced to continue living and working in Siberia.” From George Kennan (uncle of the American statesman), the author of Siberia and the Exile System (1891) - writing from the time. \n\nKennan’s work is problematic, largely due to his tendency to mudsling in what seems like a fit of proto-Cold War polemics. There are hundreds of Russian sources on the system of exile, but a lack of English ones - the major reason for this neglect seems to have been the limitations the Cold War placed on archival access. However, Siberian archives hold far more sources on exile than the Central state archives, and this could be restricting historians (travelling to Siberia is a lot more difficult than to the Russian capitals). As such, I'm probably not as qualified as any Russian historians who may answer.\n\nIt's important also to understand there was a differing reason for exile under the Tsars as well. While it did allow them to be rid of dissidents, it was also a way of populating the sparsely populated Far-East, at a time when Russia was trying to expand eastwards. Soviet expansion tended to be focused around the industrial cities, Magnitogorsk and the like, and there was a clear distinction between these and the Gulags. Instead prisoners were mostly used as free labour (In the Soviet system). From Kennan’s book: \"When criminals had been thus knuted, bastinadoed, branded, or crippled by amputation, Siberian exile was resorted to as a quick and easy method of getting them out of the way; and in this attempt to rid society of criminals who were both morally and physically useless, Siberian exile had its origin. The amelioration, however, of the Russian criminal code, which began in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and the progressive development of Siberia itself gradually brought about a change in the view taken of Siberian exile. Instead of regarding it, as before, as a means of getting rid of disabled criminals, the Government began to look upon it as a means of populating and developing a new and promising part of its Asiatic territory.\"\n\nThis basically argues that the Tsarist government began to view sending criminals to Siberia as both punishment and as a way to redistribute the population, as part of Russia’s eastward expansion, and this does seem to follow, with the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, so I am wont to agree with Kennan here. \n\nSiberia was used during WW1 and the Civil War as a place for prisoners as well - [this source](_URL_3_) refers to “German and Austrian prisoners running loose over the countryside.\"\n\nAs for the system of imprisonment in the Soviet Union, and how it changed from Tsarist prisons, I could write a whole essay, but this is already a pretty long work. I’m trying to interpret if you’re asking “Why did it change?” or “What were the differences?” so before I ramble on about Gulags and so forth, would you mind clarifying that for me?\n\n\n\n\n\n(1)In 1897, Lenin was exiled to Siberia and in 1899 published the book The Development of Capitalism in Russia. That work was one of 30 theoretical works Ulyanov wrote while in exile.\n\nSources: Rice, Christopher (1990). Lenin: Portrait of a Professional Revolutionary. London: Cassell.\n\n_URL_5_ - This covers Kennan’s arguments in Siberian and the Exile System, if you want the book it’s [here](_URL_1_)\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://stalinsmoustache.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/lenin-in-siberia/", "https://archive.org/details/siberiaexilesyst02kenniala", "http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2818/", "http://31stinfantry.org/Documents/Chapter%202.pdf", "https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/lifework/worklife/1897.htm", "http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSsiberia.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "devoqm4", "dew2i3y" ], "score": [ 53, 104 ], "text": [ "I'm very much interested in hearing a separate evaluation of Chivers's argument in general. He is obviously fiercely critical of to initial rollout and introduction of the M16, but how valid are those criticisms?", "I think chiver's book is mostly pop history.\n\n > In 1964, the Army was informed that DuPont could not mass-produce the IMR 4475 stick powder to the specifications demanded by the M16. Therefore, Olin Mathieson Company provided a high-performance ball propellant. While the Olin WC 846 powder achieved the desired 3,300 ft (1,000 m) per second muzzle velocity, it produced much more fouling, that quickly jammed the M16s action (unless the rifle was cleaned well and often).\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > In 1970, the new WC 844 powder was introduced to reduce fouling.\n\n > In October 1967, the Ichord Subcommittee released its 51-page report on the M16's troubles in Vietnam. The Army and Department of Defense (DOD) were faulted on a total of 31 points. The switch-over from IMR to Ball powder was the focus for much of the criticism.\n\n > \"The change from IMR extruded powder to ball propellant in 1964...was not justified or supported by test data.\"\n\n > \"...the sole-source position enjoyed by Olin Mathiseon on ball propellants for many years and their close relationship with the Army may have influenced the decision-makers.\"\n\n > \"The failure on the part of (Army) officials... to correct the deficiencies of the 5.56mm ammunition bordered on criminal negligence.\"\n\n_URL_1_\n\n > The tide began to shift toward Ball powders in the '50s; indeed, in April 1954, the Chief of Ordnance wanted every small arms cartridge to be loaded with it. Declared \"the greatest development in the field of explosives in nearly 100 years\" by W.H.B. Smith\n\nBall powder is faster, it's more efficient to make, it stores better and longer.\n\nWhat would take two weeks (originally it took 6 months) with non-ball powder can take 2 days with ball powder.\n\nBall powder is safer to make.\n\nMaking ammunition with ball powder is easier and cheaper.\n\nArmaLite developed 5.56mm nato with \"IMR 4198, IMR 3031, and an unnamed Olin Ball propellant\"\n\nWhen the frankford arsenal started manufacturing 5.56mm nato they initially made it with IMR 4475, the same powder used manufacturing 7.62mm nato ammo, but they found that 4475 5.56mm nato didn't reliably reach the 3,250fps needed to meet the helmet penetration requirements.\n\nThe military held fast on the 3,250 requirement, but also wouldn't accept an increase in chamber pressure. Remington, winchester, and federal refused to bid to manufacture ammo to those specs.\n\nThe pressure requirement was 52,000 psi, the manufacturers wanted 53,000 or 54,000.\n\nIn late 1963, remington asked for permission to change from IMR 4475 to Olin WC846 and got it.\n\nThe military needed 149 million rounds, and IMR 4475.\n\nThe alternatives were WC846 and the rod dupont CR 8136, they used WC846 which caused an increase in the cyclic rate (rate of fire), but the Air Force simply changed the cyclic rate spec to fit, and the army signed a series of waivers. Remington was owned by dupont, and chose CR 8136. When the army started receiving lots with CR 8136 they stopped issuing waivers allowing WC846 powder. Unfortunately, CR8136, like 4475 fluctuated too much from lot to lot.\n\nAcceptance testing, though, was completed with CR8136 ammunition.\n\nProduction switched to dupont ex 8208-4.\n\nBetween '65 and '66 5.56mm nato was delivered to troops in vietnam at a 9:1 ratio with CR 8136 in the minority and WC846 in the majority\n\nColt's analysis of the WC846 pressure was that, if anything, it would improve rifle performance.\n\nThe fouling problem with WC846 was with the calcium carbonate content, an additive that reduces the acidity of the ammunition, and different lots would have different amounts." ] }

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[ "http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a25677/ak-47-history-1110/" ]

[ [], [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle#Adoption", "http://web.archive.org/web/20160101074134/http://www.thegunzone.com/556prop.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "djhjhsy" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Strychnine has long been used as a rat poison (or other mammal/bird pest poison). During the 19th century production increased dramatically and it became practically a household item. Pest control has always been a major concern and in the early industrial age it was something many people took into their own hands.\n\nStrychnine is an alkaloid so it has a quite bitter taste, which is an evolutionarily derived signal to avoid it. However, humans have acquired the habit of ingesting alkaloids such as caffeine (and theobromine in chocolate), quinine (a malaria treatment), nicotine, cocaine, and others, so we've overriden the natural instinct to avoid bitter flavors. This has made it possible for people to imbibe a lethal dose of strychnine without necessarily being immediately aware that they are doomed, and a lethal dose might be just a fraction of a gram. Indeed, there's the case of writer Henry Randolph who in 1892 mistook strychnine for quinine when mixing his tonic and accidentally killed himself.\n\nGiven strychnine's wide availability and the ease with which it could be used to kill someone it became used as a poison and, more so, became famous in literary tales in that role. Strychnine kills by causing convulsions which result in asphyxiation. One of the reasons it was a popular poison in the literature is because it's generally fairly obvious as a poison after the fact, leading to the classic scenario of a victim dying by poison with many potential suspects. As such things tend to do one generation of fictionalized portrayals of the use of strychnine as a poison gave rise to the next, and so forth. It developed into shorthand for \"poison\", everybody knew about it either from other media or from first hand knowledge of its use in pest control." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cedfh0w", "cedk5nb" ], "score": [ 2, 3 ], "text": [ "Hopefully someone can contribute more info/detail regarding long-distance communication during that period, but you can get started on this section of the FAQ - the posts in subsection \"ship-to-ship\" is the most relevant for the time-period you're interested in \n\n[Communications](_URL_0_)\n\n*see the popular questions link on the sidebar or the wiki tab above", "Australia's first post office was officially born in 1809 in Sydney and was led by former convict [Issac Nichols](_URL_3_). He was put in charge of all mail arriving in New South Wales, as there quite a lot of mail theft from the incoming ships. He ran the post office out of his own home and townspeople would know they had letters waiting for them through messages in the Sydney Gazette. \n\nIn 1828, Australia's first postman began delivering mail around Sydney. The [overland mail routes](_URL_1_) also began in the late 1820s, sort of like the Australian version of the Pony Express which included regular horse and coach deliveries to towns just outside of Sydney. It wasn't until the 1830s when mail delivery started to move further from Sydney itself. The [discovery of gold in the 1850s](_URL_0_) also brought a huge amount of people to Australia, which meant mail delivery became even more important.\n\nShips would be the means of transportation for letters to and from places like Britain, although most people in 1820s Australia were either convicts or descendants of convicts whose education was limited. So the common person may have had a bit of trouble with reading and/or writing. However, post office's in the colonies would have had to have a postmaster who could read and write so he could transcribe their messages for them.\n\n[The Australia Post](_URL_2_) actually celebrated 200 years in 2009. Their website had a lot of interesting historical facts. I hope this helps!" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/economics#wiki_communications" ], [ "http://200years.auspost.com.au/pdf/1851_Eureka.pdf", "http://200years.auspost.com.au/pdf/1838_OpeningUpTheNation.pdf", "http://200years.auspost.com.au/#", "http://200years.auspost.com.au/pdf/1809_AustPostalServiceIsBorn.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fhtwnrl" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "To answer this question, we first have to take a moment to consider the nature of mental illness. Mental illness is not a 'static' thing the way that physical illness is - the prevalence and the expression of mental illness is hugely dependent on the culture and surroundings a person was raised in, and the mental illnesses that we are familiar with in modern western industrialized nations often look very different than mental illnesses in non-western societies, or in pre-industrial societies. A person with untreated diabetes in modern America is going to have the same symptoms as a person with untreated diabetes in modern China or in colonial America, but a person with a mental illness is going to potentially have very different symptoms in those different settings. \n\nOur culture and our surroundings shape who we are as people, our values and beliefs, our patterns of behaviour, and the bounds of what is 'acceptable' behaviour and what is not - when something goes wrong and we experience mental illness, it tends to happen in a way that makes sense within the greater context of our cultural surroundings. An American who experiences depression is likely to experience loss of motivation, feelings of sadness or numbness, and social withdrawal; these are symptoms that make \"sense\" to us culturally, and that we understand to signal depression. A Chinese person, on the other hand, is likely to experience depression as headaches, fatigue and insomnia; these symptoms are more accepted and make more sense within the bounds of this culture, and they tend to be much more prevalent among people who are experiencing what we would consider depression. \n\nIt is also possible for a mental illness to exist only within the bounds of one single culture, as a response to a pressure or stress that is unique to that culture - elderly Japanese women, for instance, experience a mental illness called 'One's Husband Being at Home Syndrome' that is common to them, but not found anywhere else in the world. The structure and power dynamics found in older Japanese couples - along with Japan's lack of social safety net - cause Japanese women to suddenly find themselves in a unique stressful situation when their husbands retire, leading to the development of a \"new\" mental illness that makes sense within their culture, but not anywhere outside of that particular place and population. Mental illness is flexible, and reflects the circumstances of a person's life. Eating disorders are particularly prone to cultural influence. Although they do exist all over the world, they are most prevalent in Western cultures that highly prioritize thinness as a cultural beauty standard, and we have actually watched rates of eating disorders rise as non-westerners are increasingly influenced by western cultures. We have also seen eating disorders rise in males recently, as beauty standards for men become increasingly rigid - eating disorders have a very strong tie to the culture they exist in, and are very responsive to changes in cultural ideals.\n\nSo when we think about what eating disorders - or any mental illness - was like in the past, it's important for us to consider that eating disorders may have looked very different hundreds of years ago, and that behaviours that resemble modern-day eating disorders may have had completely different origins and motivations. Since we cannot assess people who lived in Colonial America, we cannot formally diagnose them with eating disorders or assume that their unusual eating patterns were the equivalent of similar eating patterns we see today. We do have reports of behaviours in the past that outwardly resemble modern-day anorexia to some degree, but it's just not possible for us to conclusively say that we're looking at the exact same disorder - in the past, sudden and unexplained loss of appetite could have been the result of a disease, parasite or accidental poisoning. \"Sally throws up after she eats\" could mean anything from \"Sally is allergic to something in the food and we just don't understand that\" to \"Sally is coming down with dysentery\". \n\nWith that said, we do have historical evidence of pre-industrial people appearing to intentionally deprive themselves of food, to the point of physical harm or even death. These behaviours were often tied to religious fanaticism; early Christians prized self-sacrifice, suffering and the denial of earthly pleasures as signs of a person's purity and piousness, and many of the early accounts we have of people intentionally starving themselves to death come from people who were heavily engaged in this mindset. For people living in strict puritanical cultures, fasting was a sign of spiritual strength. \"Sally doesn't eat at mealtimes\" could be understood by the community and by Sally herself as \"Sally is fasting to be closer to the Lord\", even if there was an underlying psychopathology at play. Again though, it is not clear if this behaviour is an exact parallel for modern-day anorexia; people who deprive themselves of food to a dangerous extent for predominantly religious purposes do still exist today, and they are sometimes diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, but their stated motivations have more to do with spiritual purity than physical appearance." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ccpysx1" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Average compared to whom? If you're referring to average compared to modern-day height, than historically they would have appeared to be quite large.\n\nIt may also have been hyperbole on the account of historians; the Vikings were ferocious, as I recall, so may have simple been viewed as \"giants\" because of their fighting, rather than literal giants.\n\nThis is only conjecture on my part though, as I'm not well-versed in this aspect of history!" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c7ozmsn" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Russia ignored western Europe until the rule of Peter the Great (1682-1725)." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c9tgrp0", "c9tkxxn", "c9tvwil", "c9twtxm", "c9u2h8b" ], "score": [ 5, 11, 2, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "I'll be a jerk and not give names, since I can't remember them, but a buddy and me wrote a treatment for a film about dueling paleontologists during the heyday of bone hunting. these guys would reconfigure the other guy's skeletons into different animals, and once even hopped onto a moving train in order to steal a new find. There were shades of Indiana Jones in these guys.\n\nNot true historians, but close.", "Even though not exactly a duel, the [Historikerstreit](_URL_0_) (\"historians' dispute\") was a major controversy in German historiography concerning the singularity of the Holocaust.\n\nBasically, historian Ernst Nolte held two speeches (one in 1980, one in 1986) in which he argued that Hitler had good reasons to treat the Jewish people as \"prisoners of war\" and in which he explains the \"asiatic deed\" (i.e. the crimes) of the Nazis as a reaction to the Russian treatment of the Germans:\n\n > \"War nicht der ‚Archipel Gulag‘ ursprünglicher als Auschwitz? War nicht der ‚Klassenmord‘ der Bolschewiki das logische und faktische Prius des ‚Rassenmords‘ der Nationalsozialisten?\"\n\n\n > \"Wasn't \"The Gulag Archipelago\" primordial to Auschwitz? Wasn't the \"class murder\" of the Bolsheviks that logical and factual prius of the National Socialist \"race murder\"?\"\n\nThese and other theses provoked the reaction of philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who answered with a now famous article titled *Eine Art Schadensabwicklung*, in which he attacked Nolte and other historians (namely M. Stürmer, A. Hillgruber and K. Hildebrandt) for their \"apologetic tendencies\" regarding the crimes of National Socialism and especially the singularity of the Holocaust.\n\nA *huge* debate ensued involving numerous historians, journalists, and philosophers and which is still talked about today from time to time (even in mainstream newspapers and journals). Topics were the German *Sonderweg* (separate historical path), the uniqueness of the NS crimes, the comparability of genocides and the nature of the National Socialist crimes in general.\n\nThe collection of the original articles can be found in:\n\n- Augstein et. al.: *Forever in the Shadow of Hitler? Original Documents of the Historikerstreit, the controversy concerning the singularity of the Holocaust*.\n\nSorry for the broken English.\n\n\n", "On the Strict academic level, Hayden White has a long standing Quarrel against Carlo Ginzburg. One, defending the prevalence of Narrative in the creation of historical discourse, meaning Alterity can not be reached versus a heavily Documentalist, source based approach that says the past as it was is accessible to present people via diligent study of Sources. \n\n\nThey are at this for quite some time, one writing articles against the other, but never really considering each other's ideas. The Theory of history has been on an Aporia, Stalemate for quite some time. Jörn Rüsen has tried to make a bridge between the two, but so far his viewpoint has not been turned into standart.", "Only time for a quick note before bed on this, but you may be interested in the career of the English military historian Basil Liddell Hart. A remarkably popular figure in his day, and still amazingly influential and widely published even now, his strategic theory of the \"indirect approach\" as taken by many as a ground-breaking reappraisal of the causes and conduct of the infantry stalemate of the First World War. His ideas were widely admired, and seem to have some impact on the thinking of certain German generals in the inter-war period.\n\nWhere he figures as an answer to your question, however, is that Liddell Hart could with some justice be said to have become the *de facto* \"pope\" of First World War historiography from the 1930s until his death in 1970. It was very hard for other historians in England -- particularly younger ones still making their names -- to get their manuscripts published without them first having been examined by Liddell Hart and given his imprimatur. The consequences of this were sometimes quite arduous: Liddell Hart's ideas about the \"proper\" interpretation of the war and its conduct were idiosyncratic, even if widely hailed, and he did not respond well to those who offered alternate views. On several occasions he is known to have instructed friends of his to produce \"independent\" \"reviews\" of books to which he objected -- using his carefully prepared notes -- to be published in a variety of periodicals with the aim of consequently creating a \"consensus\" that the book was a failure and should not be taken seriously. The eminent historian John Terraine was one victim of such treatment, though he'd have the last laugh (of a sort) in the end.\n\nIndeed, it was the involvement of the likes of Terraine and Correlli Barnett in the production of the unprecedented 26-episode BBC documentary series *The Great War* (1963-64) that saw Liddell Hart resign from his position with the production and announce as much in a scathing public letter. His objections were varied, but some centered around the series' treatments of Sir Douglas Haig as a person and the Somme Offensive as a campaign; Liddell Hart, like many of the establishment historians of the time (like A.J.P. Taylor), firmly believed the former to be an incompetent monster and the latter to be an irredeemable catastrophe, so a counter-example urging greater nuance did not please him much.\n\nStill, this nuance really has won out in the field of military studies, if not yet entirely in that of cultural memory. The next generation of military historians -- among them Terraine, Barnett, Brian Bond, Richard Holmes, Gary Sheffield, Dan Todman and William Philpott -- have been more cautious in their historiography and less willing to start from a position of naked outraged and then work their way up. We can see a sort of last gasp of the other school in 1988 and 1991, with Denis Winter's *Haig: A Reassessment* (it wasn't) and John Laffin's *British Butchers and Bunglers of the First World War* (the title alone...), but the views of the historians listed just above are beginning to take the field. Neither book now commands much attention, and some of the claims of the first have been quite thoroughly assailed.\n\nUnfortunately, the position of the \"Lions Led By Donkeys\" myth so industriously propagated by Liddell Hart is quite firmly entrenched in the popular memory, and with the centenaries fast approaching the military historians are going to have their work cut out for them. We'll see.", "The History Wars of Australia are ongoing _URL_0_ particularly Windshuttle vs Reynolds." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historikerstreit" ], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_wars" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7su7ch" ], "score": [ 45 ], "text": [ "For the period prior to the third century BCE this is a very controversial question among the people who specialise in this area: probably you'll scarcely find two Homerists with the same opinion.\n\nIt's universally agreed that the text didn't change after the time of Didymos, a scholar who lived in the 1st century BCE. There is precisely one specialist who thinks the text changed between the third century BCE and the time of Didymos, but since he's the editor of the current standard edition of the *Iliad* (i.e. M. L. West), you can't really reject this as a fringe opinion, even if he is on his own. Almost all other Homerists would agree that the editions of Aristarchos in the 3rd cent. BCE settled the text in its final form (excepting transmission errors). So let's say it's a *majority* opinion that it didn't change from Aristarchos onwards.\n\nPrior to Aristarchos -- including the date you specify, 495 BCE -- things are a lot muddier. There are two main schools of thought: \n\n1. Some scholars believe that the text went through a kind of \"crystallisation\" process in the transition from oral transmission to written versions, so that it moved from a fluid, changeable text to something more fixed, but with lots of variation depending on where and when any given transcription was made. \n2. Others believe that the poem was written down straightaway when it was composed, so that any variation between then and Aristarchos' time was caused by avoidable errors in transmission.\n\nThose in the second group tend to regard those in the first group as delusional, since there's no *concrete* evidence for the first view. In fact there's no *concrete* evidence for the second view either; both views are driven by *a priori* considerations. The first view is driven by a belief that every aspect of the *Iliad* is traditional: traditional language, traditional scene-types, traditional plot-types, traditional myths. The second is driven by the fact that that's how *every other* ancient text works: an original version gets written by the original author, then people copy it and make mistakes.\n\nHowever, everyone's agreed that there was a fair bit of variation between the 6th and 3rd centuries. We know for a fact (because ancient commentators tell us so) that Aristarchos and other editors made use of many types of copies of the *Iliad* in their efforts to put together an authoritative text. There are three main categories: \n\n1. \"City\" texts, that is, official texts kept by individual city-states; these were normally high-quality texts with few \"errors\" (see above on the problem of deciding what \"error\" means in this context). Some city texts were especially prestigious, such as the Athenian one (and a few people believe that the Athenian city text was the first time the *Iliad* got written down; the reasons for thinking so aren't at all solid, but it is *possible*.)\n2. \"Vulgar\" texts: that is, the text of the *Iliad* as known to Joe Bloggs (assuming Joe has had a decent education). While not *radically* different from the core tradition, vulgar texts did have differences that seem very major to a textual critic. It is often suspected that many differences in vulgar texts were inherited from ongoing oral traditions preserved by performing rhapsodes.\n3. \"Private\" texts: high-quality texts in the possession of major scholars, like Eratosthenes or people of that ilk. These were on a par with city texts.\n\nHow *big* was the variation? Well, don't go expecting scenes playing out totally differently or anything like that: we're talking about things like one word or one line being substituted for another, maybe a group of lines in some cases, or lines being omitted. Some specialists would say that the presence of book 10 in the *Iliad* was caused by the Athenian city-text: that would be by far the biggest single variation. But you could expect the overall plot, the scene-by-scene structure, and most of the actual words to be the same across all versions.\n\nEDIT. A good example of the kind of variation that you could expect can be seen if you compare the text of the *Hymn to Apollo* (not the *Iliad* itself, alas) (a) [as preserved in the manuscript tradition](_URL_0_) (scroll down to lines 140-178), and (b) [as quoted by Thucydides](_URL_1_) at the end of the 5th century. Fairly big textual differences, but same poetic imagery, train of thought, etc." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.theoi.com/Text/HomericHymns1.html#3", "http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_Peloponnesian_War/Book_3#3:104" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cuamukt" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "From to the OED: The name Scandinavia, which appears in the existing text of Pliny, is a mistake for Scadinavia, < Germanic *Skadīnaujā, whence by normal phonetic development Old English Scędenig (Beowulf 3336) = Old Norse Skáney (adopted in Old English as Scónég), the name of the southern extremity of Sweden; the terminal element is *aujā, Old English ég, íg, island.\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "fnges1e" ], "score": [ 21 ], "text": [ "Because you don't need germ theory to understand hygiene and general cleanliness. Some reading I dug up for you:\n\n* u/Somecrazynerd offers a [general overview on hygiene](_URL_1_);\n* u/BRIStoneman here examines [Anglo-Saxon and Norman hygienic practices](_URL_2_);\n* and u/DownvotingCorvo [looks at Aztec hygiene](_URL_0_), showing that thoughts of hygiene and cleanliness aren't limited to Europe." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6qiuu0/was_aztec_tenochtitlan_relatively_hygienic/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/do0iof/what_level_of_hygiene_was_expected_of/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bqjfh7/what_was_the_reason_for_the_decline_of_basic/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dxnbach", "dxo82ia", "dxrzfjk" ], "score": [ 16, 20, 30 ], "text": [ "Well I must say I'm quite surprised to learn that the notion of feodalism is being challenged. As a young medievist from a non anglo-saxon country, I've yet to find a single questionning of this concept, and the term is still very relevant in the medieval schoraly works that are written today. Now ti wouldn't be the first time that my country is a little behind in term of historiographic innovation, but could you please link me to some of those rebuttals ? I'm more than a little interested by those views and the arguments utilized.", "I'm not really qualified to comment on your overall question, but I can offer some thoughts on this:\n\n > Bonus question: The other place it still seems pretty popular is in medieval \\*military\\* history. Are the MilHist medievalists just behind the times, or are they less concerned about the terms applicability in a strictly military conceptualization as opposed to a socio\\-political?\n\nMilitary History has a not entirely undeserved reputation for being one of the more ‘backwards’ fields in academia. It’s a bit of a broad, sweeping statement but MilHist has generally been less willing to engage with new developments in historiography, and certainly has been reluctant to adopt less traditional historiographical methods/frameworks \\(there aren’t a lot of Radical Feminist MilHist scholars, for example\\). Military Historians, I would argue, are more likely \\(when compared to their peers\\) to take the view of ‘just doing history’ rather than exploring the epistemological framework of their research.\n\nI don’t want to paint an entire discipline with one brush, however, and there are many excellent Military Historians who do engage with broader historiography and methodological matters in the pursuit of their research. This brings me to another difficulty when discussing MilHist, though, which is that it’s very popular. I would argue that it is second only to Political History \\(that old classic\\) in terms of its popularity with a general audience, and it draws in one of the widest pools of non\\-academic authors \\(it’s particularly wide if you include ex\\-soldier’s memoirs, but even excluding that a lot of ex\\-military types write MilHist books\\). This popularity is far more prevalent for modern military history than medieval \\(*Band of Brothers* and its ilk are a lot more famous than anything focusing on the Middle Ages\\), but more than any other discipline the modernists dictate the tone of Military History, so what’s happening there has an impact on what medievalists are doing in the same field. I read a great article on how medieval military history has been influenced by the dominant focuses of other periods \\(mostly modern\\), but I can’t find the link right now. I’ll see if I can dig it up when I’m back home, I think I saved a copy on my laptop. It’s a very subjective account from a military historian, so I wouldn’t say it’s the definitive word, but it’s a really interesting read.\n\nThe presence of a ready popular audience influences the kind of works that get published in Military History. There’s a lot of focus on generals, battles, campaigns, and military equipment than on broader cultural, social, etc. issues. This could be roughly described as the ‘Historical Badasses’ history. I want to reiterate here that this is not the totality of the field, and the best books cover a wide range of topics, but there are so many of these pop histories that it can kind of dilute the excellent books, particularly if you’re coming into it from the non\\-academic side. There also tend to be fewer academic posts specifically for military historians \\(it’s not seen as the most necessary area for a department to cover\\), which generally means more scholars are located outside of academia. I’m not one to suggest that people not working within universities can’t publish great history \\(I don’t, and I still aspire to write a book\\), but I think the different setting, and how common it is in the field, impacts the broader trends within the scholarship \\(at the very least, the need to make money off of ones books probably helps skew the more popular trends in book subjects/styles/methodology\\).\n\nThat’s a lot of words where I’m not answering your question, all building to a rather meek answer of: it depends. I would say broadly that medieval Military History doesn’t engage with the question of ‘Did Feudalism Exist?’ but for two very different reasons. I will continue my trend of sweeping categorisations by classifying them into two groups: Battle Histories and Logistic Histories.\n\nI have, in the past, shown some contempt for Battle Histories \\(probably unfairly, but you’ll never hear that from me\\). These works focus on detail on battles or campaigns. Some of the best books in this area are on all aspects of a single battle \\(see Anne Curry’s *Agincourt* for a great example\\), while others link together multiple battles to form a larger narrative \\(see\\* DeVries Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteent\\*h Century for another good example\\). The best of these are great scholarly works, the worst are usually ^(a)t least a good read.1 These accounts often start at the beginning of the campaign or battle, and don’t spend a lot of time on how the armies were assembled or what led to them getting there \\(soldiers were summoned, they came, that’s enough\\). Some do \\(Curry is famous for it\\), but it’s certainly not required and in pretty much all cases these histories don’t have to engage with Feudalism on a critical level, and so they don’t. \\(As an aside, for my part I dislike most Battle Histories because I think they ignore too much of the broader context of the battle in favour of charts and diagrams showing precise troop movements and what I feel is often needless detail about the conflict\\).\n\nLogistic Histories focus more on the financing, supplying, and complex paperwork involved in the waging of war. In my mind the poster child for these kinds of histories is Michael Prestwich, whose *Armies and Warfare in the Fourteenth Century* is an excellent example. Few of these books/articles, that I’ve read anyway, deal directly with the issues around the Feudalism Debate, but I would argue in another way they kind of do. Prestwich doesn’t say whether Feudalism is real or not, for the most part his work is largely disinterested in it \\(he may personally find it interesting, though, I don’t know the guy\\). What these books do, however, is show – often in great detail – how armies were assembled, supplied, and transported from conception until pretty much right up until the battle. In this way I would argue that they often show the nitty gritty of how feudal government worked in a very specific circumstance. The difficulty with the Feudalism question largely lies in attempts to apply a singular form of government/management to the entirety of medieval Europe, and these types of histories largely avoid that by being so specific.\n\nI’ve outlined two of the most common areas of medieval military history above, and why I think they mostly ignore the Feudalism debate. You could, in fairness, probably boil it down to the idea that both tend to be so specific in focus that they kind of sidestep the issue, even if they don’t realise it. What I have neglected to discuss is the General History, the Big Book of War where someone writes their magnum opus on A Medieval War. I’ve kind of avoided this because I think it’s a really tricky thing to pin down in the Middle Ages. Medieval military history is a small field, and by and large it focuses on the sort of detailed studies in the above two categories. Sweeping general histories of wars tend to be covered in political history \\(in the Middle Ages anyway\\). Take my other flair for an example, there are tons of histories of The Crusades, an event \\(or series of events\\) of a primarily military nature that could be classified as ‘a war’, but very few of them are written from a military history background. There are detailed histories of parts of the Crusades and its battles/sieges, but general histories tend to come from a more Political/Religious history background. The same is often true for The Hundred Years War, or the Anarchy, or any number of other major medieval military conflicts. I think this is in part due to the small size of the field, but I also think it’s an acknowledgement of just how closely intertwined warfare was with politics in the Middle Ages \\(not that they’re not intertwined everywhere else, Clausewitz wasn’t talking completely out of his ass with ‘War is politics by other means’, I think it might just be that medievalists are slightly more aware of it\\). I would say that by and large I don’t think most general histories of medieval wars engage with the problems of the Feudalism question, but I also wouldn’t say they’re much more egregious than any other general medieval history. I don’t think Anne Curry’s very military focused *The Hundred Years War* is worse for this than David Carpenter’s more politi*cal history The Struggle* *for M*astery.\n\nI’ve also completely ignored the other classic area of medieval military history, and the one closest to my own heart, the history of military technology. These only sometimes deal with people or society, so they basically just ignore Feudalism entirely, except for a handful of more popular histories that have a tendency to make egregious overstatements about how English archers represented the working plebes rising up to prominence because something something plucky British Tommy. I probably don’t have to point out that these latter works generally don’t represent the greatest level of engagement with society and culture in the Middle Ages.\n\nFinal disclaimer, this answer is a lot more subjective than I usually like. As a late medieval Medieval MilHist research myself \\(although for branding purposes when I was briefly still hopeful of a job in academia I was a Historian of Technology\\) I’m less able to pretend towards objectivity than normal and discussing a field as a whole always requires sweeping statements based at least in part on one’s own experience. I haven’t read every book on medieval military history, and my reading has necessarily focused more on my areas of research/interest than others, so I’m sure there’s plenty of room for others to dissent with my take. I am particularly ignorant in early medieval military history, so it’s entirely possible that they’re having some great aul’ discussions of Feudalism there and I’ve totally missed it.", "My apologies for the delayed response!\n\nYou're making one very big assumption here, which is that early modernists care what medievalists say. ;)\n\nI'm being uncharitable, of course, but not entirely inaccurate. As it turns out, rethinking feudalism isn't really a paradigm changer for early modern European historiography--but that doesn't mean that early modernists can ignore what's happening in medieval studies. To understand this, let's look at what the feudalism debate is and isn't, and the era of scholarship in which the idea of \"feudalism\" and \"feudal society\" took root. For current purposes, feudalism will be used socio-politically, to designate a practice of one person holding land in exchange for fealty and service to a superior, *not* an economic/Marxist definition.\n\nAs I mentioned elsewhere, the two \"feudalism didn't real\" works everyone knows are Elizabeth Brown, \"The Tyranny of a Construct,\" and Susan Reynolds, *Fiefs and Vassals.* Essentially, Brown pointed out that the way modern medievalists use the word \"feudalism\" means something different in every scholar's use! Thus, the word itself has no ability to convey actual information; it's a proxy for what each reader *thinks* it means. Reynolds, on the other hand, argued that not only does feudalism lack a solid modern meaning, but the words that make it up - f.ex. fiefs and vassals *bet you didn't see that one coming!* - lack a consistent meaning in *medieval* sources.\n\nIn other words, she read a billion and a half surviving charters (documents memorializing property transfer) from 900-1100 and *analyzed the meanings of individual Latin words.* This is the most medievalist of medievalists' research, and goes at least part of the way towards why early modernists' eyes glaze over and also why we say \"read book reviews of Reynolds\" instead of the actual book.\n\nBut herein lies the other, less sarcastic wrinkle: 900-1100. Supporting Reynolds' argument against set meanings for words like *feodum* in this era is a larger argument about the status of standardized law (customary law, but still rather standardized) in the central Middle Ages. Although there are slowly gathering scholarly and political forces earlier, it's really the century *after* 1100 that works out systematized conceptual structures of law. (And as current scholarship is showing, it took even longer for the concepts and the paperwork to implement them to have a *major* 'standardizing' effect on medieval governance.) There are a lot of years between the Ottonians and Maximilian, and a *lot* of regularization of the concepts of nobility, hierarchy, property rights and liberties, government, and law.\n\nBut while the terms of debate over \"feudalism\" don't bear so heavily on 1500+ historiography, the broader movements in scholarship to which it contributes absolutely do. This is where we have to consider what \"the Middle Ages\" and \"the Renaissance and Reformation\" looked liked to scholars when the idea(s) of feudalism took root(s) - there was no \"early modern era\" yet. I will have to swing a sledgehammer here and miss a lot of nuance in the beginning, but seeing as I have already determined to way overanswer your question, I might as well go all the way. ;)\n\nThere are two really defining features of late 19th/early 20th century medieval scholarship, one of which is rather known but somewhat misunderstood today, the other of which is generally forgotten to popular/school education knowledge. First is the gradual circumscription of \"the Dark Ages.\" From Petrarch's \"middle age\" to Gibbon's Christianity-shadowed decline and fall of Rome to Burckhardt's \"civilization of the Renaissance,\" the long-entrenched idea was the whole shebang as a Dark Age (which nevertheless cultivated the seeds of modern European nation-states). The so-called revolt of the medievalists said no, not so much--but by focusing on the twelfth and eventually the thirteenth century. The Dark Ages got pushed back to pre-1000; meanwhile, the centuries after 1300 were seen as a morass of unending Crisis.\n\nFuture generations of medievalists attempted a rebranding: the early Middle Ages and the late Middle Ages (surrounding the high or central MA). But \"early\" and \"late\"--or in French, \"high\" and \"low\" (haute, bas)--carry different connotations that continued to paint the late MA as a bad time to be alive.\n\nMedievalists have of course been complicating and disputing *that* narrative for awhile now. And they have been doing so by fixing the other big problem/characteristic of earlier scholarship I mentioned above: the reintegration of religion into medieval history.\n\nI know that sounds odd, borderline unbelievable--medieval history without religion? Yup. The geopolitical nation-state-building paradigm was strong, retrojecting modern Europe onto the Middle Ages. Heck, Haskins' *The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century* centers entirely on secular revival of Latin classics; it's not until Leclerq publishes *Love of Learning and the Desire for God* in 1961, around the time of Giles Constable's early \"reformation of the 12th century\" lectures, that scholars began to accept the intellectual role of monks! (Nuns will take more time, although *Haskins* at least name-checks Herrad of Hohensburg). This ties in with the general turn towards cultural and religious history, which will go on to overwhelm and permeate every inch of subsequent medieval scholarship.\n\nThis is not to say history of religion was *ignored*. Hardly! I fangirl so hard the 19th century German scholars who did *stunning* paleography, editing, and basic fact-compiling scholarship on so many religious texts and people, including marginal women (!). But this work was not part of Mainstream History--it was boxed off as \"confessional\" and sometimes even \"devotional,\" meant for adherents of a particular branch of Christianity mostly for spiritual edification (or the opposite--to debunk it). \n\nBut what has this to do with early modernists? Well, confessional religious history was even stronger there--until the 1970s or so, Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist/Reformed, and Mennonite scholarship on the continental Reformation *did not talk to each other*. And they were competitive: religious history meant \"this is why we were right and are better\" the same way political history \"proved\" the solidity and priority of modern nation-states.\n\nSo when *medievalists* began revisiting the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages paradigm, one of the big ways they did so was by uniting geopolitical and religious history: they observed the ways the medieval Church acted as a \"polity\", a political entity. This had been invisible earlier thanks to the retrojecting of modern politics onto the medieval map. Ditching a teleological \"*state* formation\" narrative and focusing on what polities were acting, what they looked like inside and out, had helped medievalists trace a trajectory of consolidation and expansion over even the \"crisis stricken\" \"late\" Middle Ages.\n\nTHIS is the narrative that early modernists need to heed. And there are absolutely signs of this--Thomas Brady's *German Histories in the Age of Reformations* is a stunning example. He traces the 15th century imperial reforms in conjunction with the failure to reform the Church at the international level, but with the German nobility mirroring their secular political reforms over their *territorial* churches and monasteries.\n\nBut there is still one big intellectual stumbling block between medievalists and early modernists communicating. (The structure of the historical profession is another problem, but that's another thread). That is the *early modern* narrative of state formation/modernization, known as confessionalization. This is the idea that states centralized political power and social power (solidification of sovereignty in the international scene, and legitimacy of rule/power to enforce law over people living in its borders) with the aid of the confessional church in their region (Catholic, Lutheran, etc)--but along *parallel* trajectories, not special ways.\n\nAs asserted thus, it is *impossible* to trace a prehistory of confessionalization because there are no confessions before 1523. Early modern scholarship and medieval scholarship speak incompatible languages.\n\nThere are a few early modernists who are trying. Erika Rummel's *Confessionalization of Humanism* asserts a common intellectual origin for the eventual bitter divide of the intellectual world between Protestant scholars and Catholic humanists. William Bradford Smith's book on territorial politics in Franconia traces a gradual split and political distinction between two local polities in the 15th century that, after the Reformation, will adopt different religious confessions thanks to their political and economic ties/needs. I consider this one of the most influential history books I've read, but he (and Rummel) have gotten A LOT of pushback. Because you can't have confessionalization without confessions.\n\nSo to conclude this massive overanswer, the crisis of feudalism scholarship hasn't really affected early modern political-social history. However, the ideas and problems that play into it--state formation, social hierarchy and discipline, and the power of modern names for phenomena imposed on a past--are absolutely something that both medievalists and early modernists need to negotiate. To negotiate *together*." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ep7j3ml" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "We don't know how the earliest martial arts styles developed. For later martial arts, there tend to be three types of origin stories:\n\n1. Divine inspiration. For example, received the techniques in a dream or vision, in a flash of enlightenment while praying, or being taught by god(s) or other supernatural beings (e.g., tengu).\n\n2. Development of the new style during a period of solo study. This includes tales such as watching animals fighting and adapting those techniques to the human body, solo training in the mountains as a hermit, etc.\n\n3. Learning one or more existing martial arts styles, and combining them or improving techniques in them.\n\nThe first two usually include prior experience in martial arts, and thus elements of 2 or more of these stories are often combined. The last type cannot explain how the first martial arts styles developed, and, realistically, neither can the second - the first martial arts styles (\"with an organised syllabus and distinct style\") would have developed from pre-existing techniques, with the new part being an organised syllabus.\n\nHow formal the syllabus is affects what is recognised as a style. Whether or not those who train under the founder of the style go on to teach their students the same style, and call it the same style, affects what is recognised as a style. For example, we see a variety of styles in boxing, but these are (usually) devoid of formal syllabi that distinguish between them - different coaches teach to the same formal syllabus, and the differences in what they teach are informal. Thus, the styles don't have the same recognition or persistence that we see in, e.g., karate or kung fu - each coach has their own individual style.\n\n > How did they develop effective techniques\n\nTraining and experimentation.\n\nTake two children, give them sticks, and tell them to fight each other, and they will learn techniques (play can be training). The most basic techniques are very natural - untrained people can punch, slap, kick, grapple, and hit each with sticks. These things don't need to be rediscovered. What needs to be developed is how to do these things well. Training (whether play or deliberate) that includes a level of competition motivates improvement. If one member of the group develops an improvement, the others can learn it, and it spreads through the group.\n\nA playful environment (which can still be present in serious training) affords the opportunity to experiment. People can try things, different things, and see what works.\n\n > and whst would influence the differences in one style from another?\n\nReal differences in styles can result from:\n\n1. Weapons. At the most obvious level, wrestling is different from archery which is different from swordsmanship. Similar weapons tend to result in similar martial arts. For example, there are many similarities between Japanese swordsmanship using the katana and Medieval European swordsmanship using the two-handed (or, if you prefer, hand-and-a-half) longsword. Differences between similar weapons can result in significant differences - for example, the Japanese katana is shorter than the European longsword and single-edged and curved, and some techniques differ as a result.\n\n2. Rules. The major old unarmed martial arts are sports-oriented - they are mostly wrestling. Typically, there is a method of obtaining victory that is far short of killing or even incapacitating the opponent (e.g., throwing, pinning), and this greatly influences the style. Modern boxing differs from Kyokushin karate because boxing rules don't allow kicks or throws, and Kyokushin doesn't allow punches to the face (among other differences). Where rules are similar, fighters from different styles will usually fight in very similar ways. We can call this \"the kickboxer effect\", and it suggests that different styles are more different ways of learning how to fight than different ways of actually fighting.\n\n3. Chance. As different groups train and experiment, and develop new techniques, their body of techniques will develop differently. For many things, the differences are minor, but in some cases, bigger differences arise. For example, some styles use a hook punch with a horizontal fist striking with the first two knuckles while others use a vertical punch striking with the last three knuckles (and the same for straight punches, too).\n\nWe can also add:\n\n* Deliberate changes to make a new style difference from another (or simply to have a \"secret technique\" that can be taught to paying students).\n\nThis doesn't always result in real differences. Sometimes, two styles can be distinguished from each other only by their names - their techniques are identical! Sometimes, the only difference between two styles is their kata/forms/patterns while their body of techniques remains identical.\n\nThe evolution of taekwondo shows a succession of changes. Initially, the only difference was the name (and the use of Korean language in teaching and for naming techniques, but this difference was present while the art was still considered \"karate\"). Next, an emphasis on spectacular techniques (such as jumping spinning kicks) was added, largely for marketing purposes, but also to make taekwondo a little different. Later, the Japanese karate kata (which were still being used in taekwondo into the 1960s) were replaced by a new set of patterns. At this stage, the base of technique was still essentially the same as that of Shotokan karate. Later, the WTF (now WT) competition rules (used for Olympic TKD) drove changes in technique, and modern Olympic taekwondo competition looks very little like the ancestral art.\n\nA simplified story - martial arts other than Shotokan, including other Japanese karate styles and Chinese styles - influenced TKD, and TKD itself has a diverse range of styles, some with more influence from those other arts. The above story is the evolution of the predominant style. For further reading on this, see Alex Gillis, *A Killing Art: The Untold History of Tae Kwon Do*, ECW Press, 2011." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dqt6yd8", "dqxk9sf" ], "score": [ 2, 22 ], "text": [ "You might also try /r/AskAnthropology", "#What do you need to decipher a script?\n\nIn order to successfully decipher a writing system, you must understand the language(s) written with that writing system. Most successful decipherments are based on bilingual or trilingual inscriptions and/or knowledge of the underlying language(s). \n\nBeginning with an example of the latter, the successful decipherment of Linear B began with Alice Kober, who compiled over 180,000 attestations of signs, created frequency lists of signs, and noted their positions (word initial, final, or medial). Kober noted that the first two syllabic signs often stayed the sign, whereas the final signs changed, indicating an inflected language. Linear B was finally cracked by Michael Ventris, who used phonetic values from the already deciphered Cypriot syllabary to analyze Linear B inscriptions. When he substituted the known phonetic values, he immediately recognized familiar place names like Ko-no-so (Knossos) and A-mi-ni-so (Amnisos). Correctly identifying the language as (Mycenaean) Greek, Ventris and his classicist collaborator John Chadwick were able to figure out words known from later Greek dialects. For example, a-ku-ro corresponds to Greek ἄργυρος (\"silver\") and pa-te is instantly recognizable as Greek πατήρ (\"father\"). \n\nThe decipherment of cuneiform, on the other hand, required a multilingual inscription, since Akkadian was not a known language. Historians in the 17th century realized that two scripts were used at the site of Persepolis in Iran for monumental inscriptions, what we now call cuneiform and Old Persian cuneiform. In 1778, Carsten Niebuhr realized that some of the inscriptions at Persepolis were written in three styles of cuneiform, one of which was alphabetic. Based on copies of inscriptions, Georg Grotefund, a Greek teacher in Germany, began to decipher the Old Persian inscriptions. Figuring out that the inscriptions contained the names of kings as well as words like \"king\" and \"son,\" Grotefund began using the known names of Persian rulers to decipher Old Persian cuneiform. Ultimately, however, the inscriptions did not vary enough to provide sufficient vocabulary. The next stage in the decipherment of cuneiform began with the copying of the Behistun inscription, a very lengthy trilingual inscription written in Akkadian, Elamite, and Old Persian. With this wealth of new information, along with knowledge of later stages of Persian, the decipherment of Old Persian was completed. With the Behistun trilingual in hand, scholars began to tackle the Akkadian text, beginning with the identification of Akkadian anaku (written as a-na-ku), the first person singular personal pronoun \"I.\" The decipherment of Akkadian was a somewhat lengthy process that needn't concern us here, but suffice it to say that knowledge of other Semitic languages helped a great deal in the decipherment. By the 1850s, cuneiform had been more or less deciphered.\n\nUnfortunately, there are several writing systems where the language is unknown **and** there are no multilingual inscriptions. The Indus script is one example; Linear A is another. These are still undeciphered and will likely remain so in the absence of lengthy inscriptions and/or bilingual inscriptions. \n\n#Complicating factors\n\nWriting systems are easiest to decipher when the corpus is extremely large with lengthy inscriptions. The corpus of IVC inscriptions is fairly large (around 4000), but most are extremely short, consisting of about 5 signs on average. The longest inscription has only 26 signs, which is quite short indeed compared to inscriptions of the ancient Near East. Moreover, about half of the corpus consists of duplicate inscriptions, which considerably reduces the amount of material decipherers have to work with. In other words, we have the following problems preventing the successful decipherment of the IVC script:\n\n* The language(s) that used the IVS writing system are unknown.\n\n* The corpus of discrete inscriptions is not very large.\n\n* Almost all inscriptions are extremely short.\n\n* No bilingual or multilingual inscriptions have been found.\n \n#Establishing the basics: directionality and type of writing system\n\nIn order to decipher a writing system, one must determine the direction in which texts are read and the type of writing system (i.e. alphabetic, logosyllabic, etc.). \nThe directionality of writing is fairly easy to determine. If a text has signs that align neatly with the right edge of the writing surface but don’t quite meet the left edge on each line, it’s probably written right to left. Likewise, if signs begin neatly on the right edge but become squished and close together as one approaches the left edge, the text was probably written right to left. Incidentally, right to left is the normal direction of Indus writing, although there are some examples of left-to-right writing as well as a very small number of boustrophedon inscriptions. \n\nClassifying a writing system requires creating a comprehensive and accurate list of attested signs. If the number of signs is relatively small, perhaps two or three dozen, you’re dealing with an alphabetic script. Examples include Old Persian cuneiform (36 phonetic signs) and Ugaritic cuneiform (30 phonetic signs). If you have several hundred signs, you’re probably dealing with a logosyllabic writing system like cuneiform and Maya glyphs. \n\nEstablishing the number of signs in the IVC script has not been easy. For one, different scribes tend to write signs a little differently, making it more difficult to determine whether two similar signs are the same sign or subtly different signs. Furthermore, the IVC script - like many others - has allographs, different versions of the same sign. For example, someone trying to decipher our alphabet may immediately recognize lower and upper case x/X, z/Z, and k/K as the same letters, but he may mistakenly classify r/R, g/G, t/T, and l/L as eight distinct signs. This is one area in which technology helps quite a bit. Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) is extremely useful for picking out tiny details in inscriptions, a vast improvement over raking light photography or a bare eye and magnifying glass.\n\nThe current estimate, based on the work of Asko Parpola, is around 425 signs, so the IVC script is probably logosyllabic. \n\n#What advancements have been made in decipherment?\n\nDetermining word boundaries is the first step. While some writing systems have convenient word dividers, others have continuous writing with no division of words (*scriptio continua*). There are no clear word dividers in the IVC writing system, so decipherers have had to identify probably word breaks based on “pairwise frequencies,” the number of times two signs are attested next to one another. In English, for example, the letters -t-e-d or -i-n-g often mark the end of a word. If you see the sequence xxxx-i-n-g-r-e-xxxx, you’d probably guess that the words are divided between the -g- and -r-. \n\nDecipherers have since moved to identifying affixes in the writing system (prefixes and suffixes) using a system much like Kober’s for Linear B. Two probable affixes have been identified, the fourth and fifth signs in [this sign chart](_URL_0_). Parpola also noticed that these signs could be ligatured with an additional sign to form new signs. Guessing that this was a plural marker, Parpola proposed that the suffixes were case markers. Since the inscriptions are all so short, they are probably either dative (to/for Person X) or genitive (of Person X) singular and plural constructions. New discoveries proved this hypothesis incorrect, as the two suffixes were sometimes found next to one another, but most people agree that they are inflectional markers of some sort, perhaps gender. \n\nIn addition to the recent work on affixes, there have been tentative “decipherments” of particular signs. Taking as his point of departure the likelihood of a Dravidian language lurking behind the IVC writing system, Henry Heras noted that one of the most frequently attested signs is a fish sign. The word for “fish” in Dravidian languages is *mīn*, which is also often the word for “star.” Stars are often identified with divinities, so Heras proposed that the fish is a component of theophoric names, which are common in India. Expanding on Heras’ work, Parpola has proposed an astronomical reading of the fish sign, in which numbers associated with the fish sign indicate clusters of three, six, and seven stars, which refer to constellations. This remains, however, purely speculation.\n\nAs another example of \"decipherment\", Parpola identifying an overlapping circles sign as a logographic writing of “bangle” and gave it the phonetic reading *muruku*. This is quite similar to Murukan, the name of a war and love god, and the same sign may have been used for both.\n\nDecipherment of the IVC writing system in continuing in this vein. As you can see, the decipherment of the IVC writing system is still in its infancy and will likely remain so until lengthy inscriptions have been recovered - and preferably at least one bilingual inscription. Inscriptions in Mesopotamia indicate translators were associated with the trade between Sumer, the lands of the Gulf, and the Indus Valley, so the new excavations in the Gulf region may uncover a bilingual inscription holding the key to decipherment. \n\n#Sources and further reading:\n\nMahadevan, I. (1989). What do we know about the Indus script? Neti neti ('not this nor that'). *Journal of the Institute of Asian Studies*, 7: 1-29.\n\nParpola, Asko (1994). *Deciphering the Indus Script*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.\n\nPossehl, Gregory (1996). *Indus Age: The Writing System*. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. \n\nRobinson, Andrew (2007). *The Story of Writing: Alphabets, Hieroglyphs & Pictograms*. New York: Thames & Hudson." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d7cbfy3" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I can answer in the case of one patriarch of Constantinople: Nestorius. Firstly, how was Nestorius chosen? His election came in the midst of a controversy over whom to elect to the position and his election was that of an outside candidate, so as not to give in to one of two factions in the city. He was at the time a monk at the monastery of Euprepius, trained in the Antiochene tradition. He was selected by the Emperor and installed in 428 as the Patriarch of Constantinople. To let you know just how much power this wielded, at least within the city walls, within five days of Nestorius' election he sent a police force to an Arian chapel (which was illicit, but there were places in the Empire where the laws were pretty lax) to destroy it. The Arians decided not to go down without a fight, so they set their own chapel ablaze! The police were not ready for this and the fire ended up burning down several buildings in that quarter of the city. \n\nThis sort of civic privilege continues in the Empire through the early and late Byzantine periods. \n\n\nLouis Duchesne, *Early History of the Christian Church From Its Foundation to the End of the Fifth Century. Vol. 3, The Fifth Century.* trans. Claude Jenkins. New York: Longmans, Green and Co. 1924: 219. \n\nSocrates, *Ecclesiastical History* 7.32. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d05f40i", "d05gkc7" ], "score": [ 5, 5 ], "text": [ "Yes and no. \n\nJosef Stalin was certainly OK with losing as many men as necessary-I don't know how it is possible for the mildly historically cognizant to come to any other conclusion. The man just did not value human life, period, and it amply showed during episodes like the \"Rzhev Meat Grinder\" of 1942, a case where the Soviets did essentially do what you described. However, so was Adolf Hitler. The first of the two dictators to issue a \"Stand or Die\" order (and enforce it, brutally albeit successfully, during the retreat from Moscow) and use punishment battalions was Hitler, not Stalin. He was every bit as fine with throwing away the lives of his soldiers as Stalin-the Germans did not lose for a lack of squeamishness on Hitler's part. Stalin himself noted that he took these ideas, that he would use during Stalingrad, from the Germans in one of his 1942 speeches. \n\nAnd this also underestimates the tactical skill of many Red Army commanders, men like Chuikov and Rokossovsky. The Stavka showed strong finesse as the war went on. Nowhere was Red Army skill more specularly on display than in Operation Bagration, where they used deception and a Soviet style of Blitzkrieg that emphasized wider rather than narrow attacks. The Soviet victories over the Japanese before the war also showed some of the skill of the Red Army. While the Red Army was far from perfect, as seen in the Winter War and much of the early fighting against the Germans, they could hold their own on more than just numbers.", "I feel /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov put together a pretty good series of comments on this subject in this thread:\n\n_URL_0_" ] }

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[ [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/33gpww/where_did_the_myth_of_the_soviet_union_throwing/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cg6mscx" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "The legitimate government of Poland, the Polish Government in Exile based in London. Was staunchly opposed to the annexation of Eastern Poland and the willingness of the Western allied powers to allow the Soviets to get away with it. The British government, specifically Winston Churchill was opposed to it, until the Yalta conference where it was agreed to make the Curzon Line the eastern border of Poland. Unfortunately, the Polish government in exile's protests meant very little. The Western allies were in no position to force the Soviets to relinquish eastern Poland, the Polish Government in Exile had their authority and legitimacy challenged by the provisional government for Poland set up by the Soviets, and the Polish Home Army ( a huge, anti communist, partisan group) were decimated in the Warsaw uprising, and by advancing Soviet troops. Without the Home Army there was no serious opposition to the Communist Polish government. \n\nAlso, its worth nothing that many of the lands east of the Curzon Line had been taken by the Poles in the Polish-Soviet war. And that while many of the cities were filled with Poles many areas and much of the countryside was not a Polish majority.\n\nEdit: Partisan is a better term than rebel." ] }

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[ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Curzon_line_en.svg", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oder%E2%80%93Neisse_line" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "cp38lbe" ], "score": [ 10 ], "text": [ "Yes and no.\n\nSweden had a treaty with Britain and Germany ready at the outbreak of war to allow a certain number of ships through the British blockade and through the German minefields in the North Sea and Dogger's Banks. In theory, the Germans could strangle this trade after they had captured Norway in June 1940, but there were several other factors.\n\nGermany purchased about 10 million tons of Swedish iron ore. While they were not as dependent on it after they had captured the French and Belgian mines in Summer 1940, it was still a major boon to German steel production, as Swedish ore was high in iron content, pure and suited for making high-quality steel through the Bessemer process.\n\nSweden was also dependent on German coal and coke for its own steel production and power generation.\n\nThe whole trading business was thus a back and forth, where both sides needed each other. Sweden generally held a strong advantage though - Arne Beurling had broken the German landbound codes and the *Geheimschreiber* and the Swedes could often read the instructions the Germans sent to their legation and trade negotiatiors and knew beforehand what their highest and lowest acceptable levels were.\n\nSweden did have an effective rationing system and large strategic reserves of raw materials - from October 1944 until the end of the war, Sweden was cut off from trade as they stopped exporting iron ore to Germany (at Allied insistance) and was able to live on its reserves.\n\nSweden also fronted for grain shipments to Finland that Germany was to provide when the ice situation in the Baltic was unsuitable for shipment.\n\nBottom line - while the Germans had som leverage, so did the Swedes, and the whole thing was a see-saw back and forth as the war progressed." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c9wqku5", "c9wqvqu" ], "score": [ 2, 7 ], "text": [ "I don't know about the first reference in history, but the [Song Dynasty in China]( _URL_0_) is known for introducing paper fiat currency. By the 13th century they were issusing paper currency faster than it could be backed by metal coins and inflation was the result.", "The pay increases of Roman legionaries imply inflation occurred in the imperial period. [Source](_URL_1_) for legionary pay over time. In addition the reforms to currency under Nero may have been a response to inflation (he reduced the weight of various coins, in theory devaluing them). Miriam Griffin discusses this I believe in *Nero the End of a Dynasty* as well as others elsewhere (will need to check as don't have a copy with me atm). Finally the Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices is an attempt by the Augustus to control inflation caused by various factors, including the minting of new currency by the succession of Emperors during the 3rdC 'crisis' - coins were an important 'PR' tool for new emperors. It set fixed maximums for the prices of a large variety of items from basic goods, wages for workers, industrial products to luxury items such as lions, silk etc. However, due to the creation of lots of new coins at the same time it almost immediately became outdated as inflation outstripped its limits. (Source unfortunately is undergrad lectures, though you can see the edict's text [here](_URL_0_)). \n\nNot sure if this is what you are looking for however, were you looking for an historical source identifying inflation as a concept?" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Song/song-econ.html" ], [ "http://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=Edict%20of%20Diocletian%20Edict%20on%20Prices", "http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/301286?searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Droman%2Bmilitary%2Bpay%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff&amp;Search=yes&amp;searchText=pay&amp;searchText=roman&amp;searchText=military&amp;uid=3738032&amp;uid=2&amp;uid=4&amp;sid=21102271161747" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dun2gj3" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "I’m not quite sure where you’re getting the impression that the United States or it’s neighbors do not have stone houses. The US has plenty of stone construction for both residential (see colonial-style homes as a major example) and public (the US Capitol, for instance) buildings. Many older houses feature a stone foundation or stone walls in the first floor. While there are plenty of houses made of other materials (brick comes to mind, as do wood and aluminum siding), that also isn’t to say that European houses don’t use those materials as well. \n\nIf you’re interested more in distribution, areas that are near quarries are generally more suited to stone construction, as building materials need to be transported over less distance and are this cheaper. There’s an interesting post on AskHistorians right now discussing the recycling of stone in European cities (which have, of course, been inhabited much longer than the major American cities) that might be of interest as well. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ejzg5pg" ], "score": [ 10 ], "text": [ "Hi! I have an answer to an earlier question that I think will help you out:\n\n* [What happened if the crown didn't fit?](_URL_0_)\n\nHere's the most relevant bit:\n\n[Some kingdoms did have crowns passed down from monarch to monarch, but rarely with importance attached to individual material crowns.] Crown-wearing was an activity limited to very specific occasions--coronation, wedding, major feast days, knighting ceremonies for the most important young noblemen...or Frederick Barbarossa parading into the church in the Jerusalem he'd negotiated from Saladin, donning the crown as King of Jerusalem basically to anger the pope. \n\nAnd yet it was typical of kings and queens to possess a whole host of crowns, some made specifically for them, some inherited from a parent or relative. If one didn't fit, well, there were plenty more whether that came from--Isabella of France received twelve crowns as gifts on her wedding day alone.\n\nThere was nothing specifically \"royal\" about crowns like these, except when they were in the possession of the monarch. Blanche of Navarre, queen to Philip VI of France very very briefly in the 14th century (he died fast), willed eight crowns to her goddaughters--including one that, her will notes, she lent out to female friends to wear at their own weddings.\n\nAnd, interestingly, there was nothing particularly gendered about individual crowns, either. Philip willed all of his crowns except for one to Blanche; the one he reserved for his son had sentimental value, since Philip had worn it to John's knighting. And Philip's first wife, Jeanne, split her crowns between her son and her daughter.\n\nBut her daughter got all her books." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5yuhxi/what_would_happen_if_the_crown_was_literally_too/det6eb6/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d6mmfdo", "d6mrtqc" ], "score": [ 9, 4 ], "text": [ "This is more of an archaeology question since bows are prehistoric. The oldest bow found is the 'Holmegaard bow' found in a bog in Denmark, dated from 7500BC. This is the earliest proof of a bow, but not the first. It just happened to survive because it was preserved in a bog. Earlier bows would have just rotted away, and the only evidence left behind are stone arrow points which could be from arrows, javelins, darts etc so it starts to become guesswork from there.", "Hiya, you'll find more info in the FAQ \n\n* FAQ section [Origins and dispersal of bow and arrow technology](_URL_0_) " ] }

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[ [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/science#wiki_origins_and_dispersal_of_bow_.26amp.3B_arrow_technology" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cfladwh" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Check out [The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy by Peter H. Wilson](_URL_0_) . I'm not a scholar and I'm obviously not flaired, but I read this book two years ago and, though it can be a bit of a slog, I haven't found anything better yet about the subject apart from primary sources. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.amazon.com/The-Thirty-Years-War-Europes/dp/0674062310" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cqo74nf", "cqo9n4s" ], "score": [ 9, 7 ], "text": [ "Piggyback question: why is *Tiger* such a popular name for the Miccosukee (and maybe the larger Seminole Nation)? There are no tigers in Florida, and panthers are exceedingly rare. ", "During the boarding school era, students were banned from using their native language and given new names. Not sure if that's the whole story as to the English surnames, or not, though. \n\nAs an aside, many Native Americans in the northern part of the US Midwest have French last names.\n\n_URL_0_" ] }

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

{ "a_id": [ "dbh40rs" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I actually had this question, in a slightly different form, on my Russian History final. The question there was: Did the Romanovs, Rasputin or historical forces lead to the collapse of the Tsarist regime. I will try to answer this as best as I can remember from that test (would be awesome if I had kept the test booklet...) Essentially what I stated was that not one single aspect led to the downfall of Nicholas II and the entire Tsarist regime, but if Nicholas wasn't Tsar, no revolution in 1917. Revolution eventually if no change, but not in 1917. So in that Regard, yes.\n\nNicholas certainly was no help to himself, abandoning St. Petersburg for the front lines (when he was told that was a terrible idea), allowing Rasputin to saddle up next to the Royal family and exert influence on policy thus alienating the Court, and simply not adjusting to the needs of the country. His reign saw the disastrous loss in the Russo-Japanese War, Bloody Sunday and the 1905 Revolt. On paper concessions were made such as the 1906 Constitution, but they were bandaids holding together everything. \n\nThere were long term issues that were never fixed, just crushed and buried. The Decembrist Revolt in 1825 practically marks the beginning of the fall of the Romanovs. That was followed by the January Uprising. Alexander II abolished the reforms he instituted under pressure, and Alexandrer III's reign all led to simmering problems between the people and the Government, but not nearly enough on their own to turn the tides. Two attempts at stirring up revolts failed. \n\nThat's all I can really remember (with some help from Senior Google), but like I said, Nicholas is truly only repsonsible for his own failures. That they compounded against other problems and led to revolution is another detailed manner. Lenin himself was cunning and led to his Bolsheviks taking over the Menshoviks and the Petrograd Soviet that stepped in during the February Revolution when Nicholas and Alexi (the heir) abdicated. So another point to remember, is that it didn't go Tsar-Bolsheviks/Soviet, there was a Civil War that was fought between February and October in between. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cfnrg32" ], "score": [ 17 ], "text": [ " > I read that Beer/Cider/Wine was drunk as water to poor in quality to be drunk in middle ages.\n\nThis is frequently found in books (especially general readership books) but this can not be substantiated with primary sources and fails many logic tests.\n\nThe main point to consider is that poor water quality is a problem when you have high population density in an area without an adequate sewer system and no infrastructure to bring in fresh water. For starters, in the middle ages there were very few high population density areas in western Europe. Until the 18th century it was a world that was by far almost exclusively rural and agrarian. People built small villages and homesteads in areas where they had easy access to fresh clean water and eventually this was even easier with the advent of artesian wells. Lack of clean water was just not an issue faced by people prior to widespread urbanization.\n\nBut even in the biggest cities that did exist, you might be surprised at how sophisticated water delivery systems were in the middle ages. London had the \"great conduit\" for example. It seems that the poorest of the poor would have had to drink river water but they were a minority in a minority. Clean water was simply not an issue for the average person living in the middle ages.\n\n > But by the 19th century water was clearly a large part of the diet again (as seen from the amount of people infected by cholera in water pumps). When did this shift back to beer to water occur?\n\nThere was never a shift. 19th century London had the cholera outbreak because population density was finally outstripping their ability to have clean water. \n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c7kqc84", "c7kr4qr" ], "score": [ 6, 10 ], "text": [ "Cool question, I hope it gets answered. I just wanted to pop in real quick and say that no, the Romans in Pompeii did not carve penises into the street to point the way towards the brothels. I know that someone will mention that because someone *always* does, but it just isn't true.", "I admit that this is all conjecture based on my experience as an art student who specialized in print-making and typography, and years of experience in archery. I don't have much proof for this specific question other than knowledge of older representations of arrows indicating direction or attention (like bullet points)\n\nIf you look at old arrow symbols, they're [fletched](_URL_4_) like the projectile. If you look at old [flint-headed arrows](_URL_5_), you'll see that they more closely resemble the arrow symbol than [modern practice arrows](_URL_3_), which is what most people think of when they think of arrows today. A lot of hunting arrows still keep the [original shape](_URL_0_), simply because there are many advantages to having barbs on them. Over time, moveable type foundries started eliminating the fletching for simplicity's sake, and everything else followed their lead. If you look around, some modern [arrows](_URL_6_) [keep](_URL_1_) [the](_URL_2_) [fletching](_URL_7_). \n\nArrows go in one direction. Humans have been raised with this knowledge for many thousands of years. It's just a natural way to indicate direction or attention.\n\n**tl;dr** they look like the projectile, which has an obvious direction of travel, thus \"pointing\" to whatever needs to be indicated.\n\n**edit** added more info and references to ¶2" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.outdoorbasecamp.com/new/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/shutterstock_26232631.jpg", "http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/rtimages/rtimages1011/rtimages101100033/8297149-a-rusty-old-retro-arrow-sign-with-the-text-gas-and-oil.jpg", "http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/jkunnen/jkunnen0707/jkunnen070700010/1282185-receiving-sign-with-arrow-on-an-old-red-barn-wall.jpg", "http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/abhbah05/abhbah051207/abhbah05120700048/14373882-isolated-crossbow-arrows-with-broadhead-and-practice-arrowheads.jpg", "http://www.icsm.gov.au/mapping/images/arrow_old.jpg", "http://www.beyond2000bc.co.uk/images/!arrow1.jpg", "http://stock-image.mediafocus.com/images/previews/dining-room-arrow-directional-weathered-sign-vg1128153.jpg", "http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/1/17166/1083965-pizzarrow_large.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "fij82o0", "fika5da", "fig5xz1" ], "score": [ 16, 32, 178 ], "text": [ "Not exactly what you're looking for since 16th-17th century western/central european literature is well outside my area of expertise, however I have written an answer that describes the composition of the 8th century force that conquered some territory and laid the groundwork for the development of al-Andalus. You can find that answer [here](_URL_1_).\n\nIn reference to some of what I've written in that post I would like to point out a few things. Firstly, as I've said before - \"moors\" isn't really the best term for a modern person to use. It's a vague term that christians used to lump all sorts of different people from different places and eras in together. I think if you're talking about Islamic Iberia it's best to just refer to the people there collectively as \"Andalusis\" if that's who you mean. \n\nIt's more specific and identifiable who you're referring to and doesn't have the awkwardness of terms like \"moors\" and \"saracens\". It's also a term that can be inclusive of Christians and Jews, many of whom were important figures in the administration and academia of al-Andalus. If you mean a more specific group, then you can refer to them specifically: \"Andalusi christians\" or \"iberian christians\", \"Andalusi berbers\" etc. This all brings me to my next point, one that really is important for a question like what you're asking here.\n\nSo, secondly: Who is it exactly that you're asking about? Which people in al-Andalus are you asking about? There's a reason why \"moors\" isn't really an accepted term. One of those reasons is that it's never really clear who the author is actually talking about, and sometimes it isn't even clear what period they're describing. People like to imagine that those living in Islamic Iberia were all just arab muslims, but that's far from the case. In fact, most weren't, not even most muslims. They were diverse. So when we hear \"moor\", we have to wonder - who do they mean? And from what era? Time is important because the ethnic composition varies drastically between 8th century Gibraltar and 13th century Valencia.\n\nAre they talking about Andalusi christians descended from Hispano-Romans in Iberia? or perhaps Visigothic Andalusi christians? Are they talking about Visigothic Andalusi Muslims like Ibn al-Qūṭiyya? Are they talking about Mizrahi jewish immigrants from places like Baghdad? Are they talking about local Andalusi Sephardim instead? Or perhaps Arab migrants to al-Andalus? Or even local Arabs? Are they talking about Berbers, descended from the original conquering force in the 8th century? Or perhaps Berber migrants from Ifriqiya? As Ruggles notes, al-Andalus even in the late years of the 15th century was still known for an unusually high level of diversity for the time, something still remarked on by the common usage of the term 'convivencia', a term [Ruggles](_URL_0_) says is used to describe the richness of artistic styles produced by that diversity.\n\nAnd when you examine descriptions of prominent Andalusis - for example, via Ibn Hazm we have descriptions that show almost all of the Umayyad caliphs as being primarily blonde haired and commonly blue-eyed, as Christian women from the north were commonly the fathers of those caliphs. Abdul Rahman III's mother, for instance, is now generally thought to have been either Frankish or Basque. The point here is that al-Andalus wasn't remotely as uniform ethnically as the later western & central european literary sources might give you the impression of being. \n\nSo I can't really answer your specific question, I can just give a bit of detail on the diversity and ethnic makeup of al-Andalus. At this point, I would suggest that, given how the historiography of al-Andalus has developed and changed over time, that perhaps many of these playwrights and authors simply weren't well informed on the cultural and ethnic makeup of al-Andalus. Equally possible is that accuracy just wasn't their concern.", " > Judge Ford stared at the table, at Theo\nTheodorakis’ hand. A calloused hand, a healed cut, the shiny\nslash of a burn on the deep bronze skin. She lowered her hands\nto her lap. His Greek skin was darker than her “black” skin.\n\n > \n\n > *-Ellen Raskin, 'The Westing Game'*\n\nWhat we think of as classifying people by skin color has, of course, little to do with actual skin color. This was true in the European (and Near Eastern, and West African) Middle Ages; this was true in the early modern era; this is true today. \n\nWhat has changed, however, is the criteria for dividing people into groups to which to apply an ideology of skin color. Factors like religion, geographic origin/ancestry, and social status--especially enslavement--rise and fall in importance in calculations of \"black\" and \"white.\"\n\nI've talked before on AH about how black/brown and white in medieval Europe operated *in general* under the conveniently linked ideas of climate and religion. That is, the further south, the darker the skin color. Medieval Arab writers also repeat this theory, stressing the 'whites' to the north as well as the 'blacks' to the south. (They actually use the term 'blacks' as a noun).\n\nIn the medieval Christian European view, unlike the Muslim North African-Near Eastern one, there was Christian Europe in the north, Muslim Africa to the south, and eventually pagan Tartar Asia to the east. The simplification of \"Muslims\" and \"south\", along with the trans-cultural tendency to equate darkness with bad things, generally resulted in Muslims/Saracens= > Moors being associated with dark skin.\n\nThere is definite weirdness here, though--and a prime example actually comes up in your quotes: Ethiopia. Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th century uses \"Ethiopian\" as a substitute for \"dark skin\"; in the 15th century, with Ethiopian Orthodox Christians in residence in Rome and attending Church councils, they're sometimes depicted in art as white-skinned with red hair. And \"Europe\" and \"Ethiopia\" are even mixed up (the words) in some copies of popular texts!\n\nBut even that example demonstrates how religion and geographic origin of ancestor kind of swam around each other in determining *ideological* skin color, moving from the medieval period into the early modern era.\n\nOver the course of the 17th century, however, religion changed and decline in importance (but definitely did not vanish), and social status rose in prominence. What happened here can basically be summed up as: slavery.\n\nThis wasn't new. In medieval Iberia, maurus/moro was more associated with enslavement than Saracen/sarraceni (also linked to whether Castilians or Aragonese were writing the text) and Turk also less so. But it doesn't seem to have been that big a deal, as your examples show.\n\nIt's a complicated process that wraps its tendrils around Native Americans and conversion (or lack thereof) to Christianity as well. But scholars have shown that, in general, ideas of \"enslaved\" and \"black\" built up each other in 17th century British North America. Social status--enslavement or free--became the metric for determining what it mean to be black.\n\nThe *really* interesting thing to me--mostly because I learned this literally 36 hours ago (nearly to the minute)--is that this development followed some centuries later on a development that had occurred among medieval Arabic writers and West African elites. Regardless of similarities or differences in skin color, \"black\" was associated (though not always) with enslaved members of the population.\n\nThe answer can be summed up as \"It's Complicated,\" I suppose, with lots of flexibility and fuzziness and steps forward and backward. I also need to read more about the Ottoman Empire and see how changing European perceptions of it might play a role. But this is at least a messy version of filling in your question.\n\nMy apologies for the delay in answering.", "While there's always more to be said, this previous [answer](_URL_0_) by /u/sunagainstgold is a good start." ] }

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[ "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37223/37223-h/37223-h.htm", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pray_thee", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_English_Moor", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface" ]

[ [ "https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/39579948/Ruggles.Mothers_of_Hybrid_Dynasty.JMEMS.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DMothers_of_a_Hybrid_Dynasty_Race_Genealo.pdf&amp;X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&amp;X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20200223%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&amp;X-Amz-Date=20200223T052325Z&amp;X-Amz-Expires=3600&amp;X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&amp;X-Amz-Signature=0c0c6edaab3bd7de8299aa61b8efeca8508424c67cfe3ec20a31f2dc12633f42", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/53uhvi/how_different_were_the_peoples_of_northern_spain/?st=jvaxy1g9&amp;sh=d383e2ee" ], [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9gj27c/why_are_moors_often_depicted_as_black_in_european/e64myut/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "denjibm", "denmmvk" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Meat, meat, and meat.\n\nFirst, don't overlook Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes were crucial to the development of the region - shipping iron ore from Minnesota to Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to be smelted into steel using coke from Pennsylvania and West Virginia to be built into cars in Ohio and Detroit. While Chicago didn't participate in this particular industry, they did participate in the meat industry.\n\nIn the 19th century, ranchers spread out across the western states, from Texas through the Dakotas, west. The livestock that they raised couldn't be processed out there - with no refrigeration, animals had to be processed closer to the consumers in the East. Chicago became the gateway. Cattle would be driven to railheads and then shipped to the Union Stockyards in Chicago where they were then sold off and sent further east. With advances in technology, mainly refrigeration and transportation, Chicago became home to the first industrial production scale meat packing facilities from Armour and Swift, some of the largest producers of meat to this day.\n\nFurther, during the Civil War, the Union bought massive amounts of meat to feed the soldiers and the Confederacy blockaded the Mississippi River, effectively shutting off transportation in the west and forcing everyone to use the railroads through... Chicago!\n\nSo, the location on the Great Lakes, being a railroad hub, the Confederacy blockade of the Mississippi, the Union demand for meat, and the investments of meat barons like Armour and Swift is what laid the foundation for Chicago to become the city it is today.", "Chicago was perhaps the world's best example of an *entrepôt.* That is, a place where things have to be shifted from one mode of transport to another. Since you're moving the stuff around anyway, it's a good place to set up a factory or processing plant to add value to the stuff before reshipping it.\n\nThe city's situation is at the southernmost point that the Great Lakes reach into the North American continent, and a short portage let *voyageurs* move across into the Mississippi River system to reach most of the rest of the continent. French explorers saw that a short canal would make that possible for bigger vessels, and the city's early history was connected with building that canal. Now goods from around the Great Lakes—and after the 1825 construction of the Erie Canal, from the East Coast—could move into the interior rivers, while agricultural products from the Mississippi Valley could move eastward.\n\nThe same year the canal opened, 1848, the first railroad also came to Chicago, and several more followed by 1855, including important continental ones from Michigan and from southern Illinois. Now this entrepôt had four types of transport converging on it. Not just passing through, but meeting, with cargo needing to be moved from one mode to another.\n\nBesides the situation as an entrepôt, William Cronon in *Nature's Metropolis* points out how Chicago is situated at the boundaries of various North American ecologies. The great North Woods of Michigan and Wisconsin on one side; the vast agriculture-suited plains on the other side. Wood from the north can be turned into windows and door frames and furniture in Chicago and shipped to the treeless prairies, while grain and livestock from the prairies is turned into packaged food in Chicago that can be sent east to the big cities. The iron ore of Minnesota lies just to the west; the coal of southern Illinois and limestone of the Ohio Valley to the southeast. So Chicago and adjacent Northwest Indiana became the world's primary steel producer.\n\nThe trade infrastructure of this economic activity lingered long after the original trade faded. So Chicago is still a globally important warehousing and distribution hub even in the air age; still an important center of machine tools and highly skilled manufacturing when consumer manufacturing has shifted to other countries. The advertising and marketing and business support services that first aided the city's 19th century businesses remain at the heart of a highly diversified economy today. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c8t52tw", "c8t6gcx", "c8t9vpl" ], "score": [ 5, 10, 5 ], "text": [ "I'm not an historian but Italy is a nation state which unified fairly recently. For centuries various city-states, kings, emperors, and the church ruled what is now Italy, taking land and power from each other at various times. \n\nAncient Rome as was ruled in Rome whose people conquered lands in the name of Rome. I do not believe they would not consider a town in northwest Italy Rome. ", "Rome dominated the Italian peninsula in a way Athens never could. It was also unique in that the national identity of a region was tied to a single city. This was due to Rome's practice of granting citizenship to people who may have never seen the city. Since it was politicaly advantageous to be a Roman citizen it was highly sought after.", "They identified themselves as Romans, that's good enough for me." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dex4m41", "dezzcjm" ], "score": [ 6, 2 ], "text": [ "I used to have a really good lesson plan for APUSH on how the Korean War was viewed by Americans in the 1950's, but for the life of me, I can't seem to find the damn thing.\n\nThe long and short of it is that the Korean War is called \"America's forgotten war\" for a [reason](_URL_2_). Returning GIs desperately wanted to forget it - Korea's frigid winters, crushingly humid summers, and ubiquitous ridgelines coupled with the endless stalemates made for a very miserable experience. Most just wanted to pick up their lives where they left off and not dwell on their time in the war.\n\nFurthermore, the Korean War was overall [incredibly unpopular](_URL_1_) with the American people. While public opinion tended to fluctuate with how well the UN forces were doing at the time, it wasn't uncommon to see nearly half of Americans saying that going into Korea was a mistake or that it was going to lead to World War III. [Polls conducted by the Eisenhower administration](_URL_0_) upon Ike assuming office in 1953 were particularly grim: over half of Americans thought the war wasn't worth fighting, and a vast majority just wanted an armistice as soon as possible.\n\nIn short, no to both on your questions. The end result of the Korean War was that Americans wanted nothing to do with Korea and wanted to forget about the place as soon as possible. (This even extended into academia - the study of Korea as an academic field didn't really begin until the 1960s, when Edward W. Wagner, James Palais, and Gari Ledyard more or less founded Korean Studies in the United States.)", "The Korean War resulted in the exportation of one thing: people. Immigration law was changed in 1952 which removed some racial restrictions and allowed GI's to bring back foreign wives and children. Holt International Children's Services was created in 1955 to help people adopt Korean War orphans, especially bi-racial children of Korean women and US soldiers. [This article from Time](_URL_0_) has some good photos of orphans in the 60's and discusses the Korean government's racial views and plans to remove bi-racial children through adoption.\n\nFurther, while the Korean War ended in 1953, the US has maintained a sizable presence ever since then. From 1955 until 1970, there were between 50 and 70 thousand US soldiers in Korea at any given time. In the 70's, the numbers dropped to around 40k, and in the mid 90's, the numbers dropped to the mid 30's and finally in the mid 2000's to just under 30k. It's important to remember that these soldiers usually spend a year in Korea with the option to extend to a second year, so besides the soldiers who fought in the Korean war, the US military has rotated millions of people through Korea over the years.\n\nClearly with the exportation of people through war brides and orphans, and the rotation of so many US soldiers, there was some exportation of Korean culture. But I think it's all relative. Orphans don't take very much culture with them. Compared to the recent exportation of Korean culture via television dramas, K-Pop, movies, and technology, the amount of cultural exportation following the Korean War was a trickle." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_documents/korean_war/Public_Opinion_1953_06_02.pdf", "http://www.gallup.com/poll/7741/gallup-brain-americans-korean-war.aspx", "http://www.historynet.com/interview-melinda-pash-why-is-korea-the-forgotten-war.htm" ], [ "http://time.com/3605816/joo-myung-duck-portraits-of-mixed-race-orphans-in-postwar-korea/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cemfpfg" ], "score": [ 34 ], "text": [ " The problem was with the Bank itself. You can't compare this bank to the modern Federal Reserve system, because the US Government controls the modern Fed completely, and the US Government only owned 20% of the Second Bank of the United States. The bank was even more powerful than the current Fed in some ways though. It's directors were able to control the flow of capital throughout the country, and could reward and punish their political friends and enemies as a result. They were also making a huge amount of money off of their investment. From Jackson's POV the Federal Government was enabling a small cabal of super rich citizens to exercise so much influence over the rest of the country the amount of power they had was in and of itself corrupting and undemocratic. Jackson wanted to eliminate the Second National Bank and form a new Federal Bank as part of the Treasury Department.\n\n Here is a link to Jackson's letter to Congress explaining his veto of the renewal of the bank's charter: _URL_0_\n\n This letter is a bit dense for a modern reader, but well worth reading. It is one of the most important documents in American history, close to the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Emancipation Proclamation in importance. This was the turning point where the American Government ceased to be the enterprise of the rich and powerful only, and began it's journey to a truly representative democracy of a wide electorate. The Jackson Presidency is a watershed because of his fight to open democracy to the masses, and the fight over the bank charter renewal was where this all played out." ] }

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[ [ "http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ajveto01.asp" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c5pw1tm" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "Put very succinctly, a little from Column A and a little from Column B. \nOn the phone in class atm, so can't be all that detailed (and I hope someone weighs in with considerably more detail) but suffice to say Hitler was not the only one deeply offended by the punitive measures of Versailles, by the 'threat' of the Jews who conspired to cause economic turmoil, by Marxists who did the same and (to some) the Weimar Republic itself. He was both popular and populist. \n\nHis later political manoeuvrings were artful and a textbook demonstration of how to achieve absolute power and maintain, even grow, popular support. His ability as orator and charismatic leader of course were considerable. \n\nQuestions like this are always going to have infinite shades of grey because really, both criteria are necessary for the result. Could the desires of Germany have forged a strong leader with no political skill? That gets a little too close to \"A Hitler was inevitable\" for my taste. Could a 'politically skilled' individual exact 'progress' in a content society that demanded no radical change? That gets too close to \"Hitler pulled the wool over the eyes of the whole nation\". " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c8dsp6g", "c8dtdnt" ], "score": [ 3, 4 ], "text": [ "The elite have pretty much always worked out.\n\nUp to fairly recently, a nobleman was expected to be able to ride, fence, shoot, row or box. An Eaton schoolboy had to play rugby and a samurai's son had to master the bow and the wooden sword. This is because of the nobility's origin and continuing role as a warrior/officer caste in most societies.\n\nBut to answer the question, actual weight training was a small subculture until the 1970s, and not really fashionable in high society unless you were slumming. Very few gentlemen would touch a barbell; it was too much like manual labor, and not considered a proper sport. Only with the growth of physical culture and gyms in the 1980s can weight training have been said to have gained any kind of popularity among the (younger members of the) upper crust.\n\nWeight training even breaking into the middle classes can be traced back to [Eugen Sandow](_URL_1_) who opened the first luxorious \"Institute of Physical Culture\" in the Piccadilly district of London in 1897, which made bodybuilding acceptable to white-collar and even upper middle class workers concerned with their physical well-being.\n\nAn excellent book about the beginnings of weight training as a middle and upper class pastime is [Sandow the Magnificent](_URL_0_) (1994) by David Chapman.\n", "I'm going to politely disagree with theamazinghanna, who I am sure is in fact amazing. It's true that what we recognize as current weightlifting culture is a creation of the fitness craze of the 1970s. But if we're not talking about weightlifting solely, there was a fitness and health craze in the 1890s, one that many historians ascribe to a reaction against increasing urbanization, the rise of technology, and a growing professionalization of the middle class -- shopkeepers, clerks, and the like. Over several decades, various fads for sport, outdoor exercise, and fitness pursuits that might be appropriate for gentlemen and ladies were popularized; some of these were referred to as the \"polite sports\" and included cycling in the 1890s, boxing and field sports, weightlifting, hiking, swimming, sport or big game hunting, and various others. Your Sandow reference is surely a part of this.\n\nI like the sections of Gail Bederman's book, *Manliness and Civilization* that cover Teddy Roosevelt:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nClifford Putney's *Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920* _URL_2_\n\nBeyond this, I'll say that there's an incredible proliferation of academic sport history right now. Several recent edited volumes have come out -- one from Routledge, the *Companion to Sport History* -- and there's a huge body of work in the *Journal of Sport* and elsewhere. _URL_1_" ] }

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[ [ "http://books.google.se/books?id=79QappH54EYC&amp;hl=sv&amp;source=gbs_navlinks_s", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Sandow" ], [ "http://books.google.com/books?id=KVtKszMHWbcC", "http://www.journalofsporthistory.org/", "http://books.google.com/books?id=tkgpnpfWm2gC" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ce0lvfi", "ce0lyg1" ], "score": [ 210, 43 ], "text": [ "After the war, Virginia never directly challenged the legitimacy of West Virginia but did dispute whether two counties in particular (i.e. Berkely and Jefferson Counties) belonged to West Virginia. These two were disputed because there were concerns regarding the elections held for secession. When most of the counties seceded, Berkeley and Jefferson did not because they were under rebel military control. They held elections at a later time and approved of secession and joining West Virginia. Virginia challenged their withdrawal based on alleged irregularities in those elections and because by the time that Congress approved the transfer of the counties from Virginia to West Virginia, the war had ended and Virginia had rescinded its permission for the transfer. The Supreme Court found that the counties were part of West Virginia and the issue has not been significantly challenged legally since (it has been challenged among academics).\n\nSource: [Virginia v. West Virginia](_URL_0_)\n\nEdit: Fixed a mistake by changing 'Virginia' to 'West Virginia'", "It is currently legal for regions to secede from a state. The Northeastern counties of Colorado just attempted to secede from Colorado a few months ago.\n\n_URL_0_" ] }

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[ [ "http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/78/39/case.html" ], [ "http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/11/rural-colorado-residents-vote-to-secede-as-metro-areas-shift-more-liberal.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ciq1hxu" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "[This is a nice site](_URL_0_) featuring the possibilities in a wide variety of languages (including Klingon!). In general, people were aware of the planets out to and including Saturn, but not beyond. Words for Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are based either on the living languages adoption of terms or the names of the gods who lent their names to these planets after discovery.\n\nIn opposition, Uranus is on the limits of visibility for people with extraordinarily good eyesight, but it is so dim and slow moving from the earth point of view that it was not recognized as wandering across the star field until after the invention of the telescope." ] }

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[ [ "http://nineplanets.org/days.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dv5dfib" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "NOOOOO!\n\nThis was only thing that bugged me more than the portrayal of Cleopatra. AC:O is amazing but the game's portrayal of social divides in Ptolemaic Egypt along ethnic and racial lines is inaccurate in many ways. For one thing ethnic segregation was never enforced in Egypt because it would just be impossible and impractical, even if we ignore the ways in which divides between Egyptians and Hellenes were cultural rather than ethnic.\n\nI do not have time to type out a full length answer to this but fortunately I have already written a lot of answers to similar questions which you may enjoy:\n\n[Did the Ptolemaic dynasty try to Hellenise or segregate Egypt?](_URL_3_)\n\n[How much did Ptolemaic Egypt resemble modern colonialism? Is there any way it’s helpful to look at the period this way?](_URL_0_)\n\n[What was a typical day in a Ptolemaic-era Egyptian village?](_URL_4_) (focuses on a village in the Faiyum specifically)\n\n[How would an Egyptian in Alexandria at the turn of the millennium have perceived race and skin tone?](_URL_1_)\n\n[Was discrimination based on skin tone present in Ptolemaic Egypt?](_URL_2_)\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/79l6u4/how_much_did_ptolemaic_egypt_resemble_modern/dp2zlqn/?st=j9elcru8&amp;sh=f4165335", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/69nsex/how_would_an_egyptian_in_alexandria_at_the_turn/?st=jec72wht&amp;sh=21c48492", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7aw4xr/was_there_severe_tension_between_greek_settlers/dpg38t8/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6raais/did_the_ptolemy_dynasty_really_try_to_hellenize/dl3s121/?utm_content=permalink&amp;utm_medium=front&amp;utm_source=reddit&amp;utm_name=AskHistorians", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6z84h7/what_was_a_typical_day_in_a_ptolemaicera_egyptian/dmxn8kl/?st=jec74j5m&amp;sh=0cb1b9a3" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cb2qewq", "cb2qj3f" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "I have a feeling most countries, had they won the war they actually lost, would be stronger than they are today. For example, had Germany won WWI, there would've been no need for Nazi Germany. Had Germany won WWII, then that means Britain, the US, the Soviet Union and most of Europe would've lost too. There are a lot of what ifs in questions like this", "This question belongs in /r/HistoricalWhatIf" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d7ngz19" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "There was no name for the group, at least not as preserved in the sources. \"Delian League\" is a modern terminology based on the fact that Delos was the de facto headquarters of the alliance. Thucydides (1.97) essentially calls it a *hegemonia* and distinguishes that term from what the group would become later -- an *arche* (what we usually term \"Empire\"). In the beginning it was a collection of willing and autonomous allies with a common goal: the continued fight against the Persians. The Spartan Pausanias had been slated to be leader, but his overbearing behavior got him ousted and the Athenians were asked to \"lead\" instead. We don't know exactly what this means, and though we know that the group met in a congress, we don't how exactly decisions were made in the early period. Eventually, of course, the Athenians would come to call all the shots, though we need not but a lot of stock in [Aristotle](Ath. Pol. 12.2.2), which accuses the Athenians of tyrannical behavior from the very beginning. No source mentions any symbol or the like for the group.\n\nA great place to read about the Athenian Empire is:\n\nMorris, I. 2009. \"The Greater Athenian State,\" in *The Dynamics of Ancient Empires,* I. Morris and W. Scheidel, eds., 99-177." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "counpzl", "couwem7" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "hi! you might try skimming this section of the FAQ; there are a few external references mentioned/linked here & there\n\n* [Historians' views of Jared Diamond's \"Guns, Germs, and Steel\"](_URL_0_)", "You might find \"The Human Web\" by McNeill and McNeill interesting. There's an element of geographic determinism in it, in as much as they consider a growth of networks (trade, communication, migrations, etc.) a key factor. I'm not sure if I'd call it a geographic determinism outright. If it is, than it is mostly through geography making communications more or less difficult. In any case, its scope and topic are close to Diamonds' but I consider it a much better work. So for a paper on a debate, a less extreme determinism, and frankly a much better work, might be useful on a pro side." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views#wiki_historians.27_views_of_jared_diamond.27s_.22guns.2C_germs.2C_and_steel.22" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cgcxms0" ], "score": [ 57 ], "text": [ "Your first sentence, though commonly held, is thought to be debunked by genetic evidence. The modern English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish are genetically very similar, almost to the point of being identical. The idea of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes immigrating to Britain in vast numbers and displacing the native Celts* seems to be a myth. The real truth, according to the genetics, seems to be a cultural and military subjugation, more on the lines of the Roman conquest of Britain. The Anglo-Saxon invasion contributed less than 5% of modern English DNA.\n\n*It is worth noting that the Celts were not the original inhabitants of Britain either. There were people in Britain before the Celts came over, though sources disagree to the culture and language of this earlier population (but most likely Iberian/Basque). Again, the Celtic 'invasion' (for want of a better word) resulted in less than 5% of the genetic imprint being changed.\n\nIn fact, genetic studies show there is very little difference between any of the modern Western Europeans; English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Belgian, Dutch, Germans, French, Spanish etc, show little genetic difference. The explanation is that groups and tribes continually migrated, invaded and mixed with each other. The idea that Britain was wholly 100% Celtic and different to mainland Europe before the invasion of the Romans seems to be false. The fact that there are very few Celtic placenames in England seems to confirm this - \"Celtic\" England may not have been speaking a Celtic language before the Romans came.\n\n_URL_1_\n_URL_0_" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.sott.net/article/263587-DNA-shows-Irish-people-have-more-complex-origins-than-previously-thought", "http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/mythsofbritishancestry/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ckp048k", "ckp38xz", "ckp83b4", "ckpayod" ], "score": [ 121, 38, 5, 13 ], "text": [ " > I want an unbiased answer of which group has the right of ownership of the land?\n\nI feel this is your real question, the heart of the matter, and that's something no one in this subreddit can answer. Who can say that people even have the rights to the land? Who's to say the original inhabitants deserve the rights? The question is such a political one, and not historical, that it can't be answered historically.\n\nAs for who the indigenous people are, well, its akin to asking a question like \"are modern Welsh directly descended from the Celts?\" We know that there was in history a state in historical Palestine called Judea, and a large portion of Jews from around the world (Ashkenazi and Sephardi) can be genetically traced back to this area. When the original Judea (or Yehuda, to use the Hebrew) was founded, how the Jews arrived in Palestine, if they were immigrants as the Bible says or indigenous people or both, is a mater of scholarly debate. We also know that the Palestinian Arabs have lived in historic Palestine since the Arab conquests and before.\n\nSo who has the right to the land of historic Palestine, or Israel and Judea, or Canaan? I don't think its for historians, at least in our capacity as historians, to say. Both Jews and Arabs can trace their history on that land since before the concept of nationalism, or the idea that indigenous peoples have a right to self-determine on \"their\" land. So I'm afraid you'll have to answer that political question for yourself.", " > According to the bible, Israelis were the original inhabitants of the land\n\nUmm... No! According to the Bible, Israelites were not the original inhabitants of the land. In fact, according to the Bible, they were lead onto the \"promised land\" by a prophet and conquered it from the autochthonous peoples before dividing it among its various tribes. These ideas, of course, do not have any basis in genetics (Jews are native Canaanites), history (there was no mention of a conquering nomads from Sinai anywhere outside of the Bible), or even religion (pre-Judaic Yahwism was an offshoot of a typical Canaanite religion of, for example, Phoenicians).\n\nBut, to answer your question - as far as historical times are concerned, original inhabitants of modern-day Israel would be Israelites/Jews. Not that it matters in any real way - historical inhabitants of modern-day England were Celts most closely related to the modern-day Welsh, while historical inhabitants of modern-day Crimea were, first, Iranian tribes, then Greeks.\n\nThere is no such thing as \"right of ownership of the land\" based on its possession thousands of years ago. Vast majority of ancestors of what we know as \"Western Civilisation\" was herding sheep in the modern-day Russian steppe just a few thousand years ago, while Europe was in control of people like modern-day Basques. Should we all just go back to the steppes? :)", "The question of 'who has the right to own the land' is not properly satisfied by an appeal to history, although it's a common enough mistake. ", "I'm going to talk about the time period far before what the FAQ covers, just to not step on any toes.\n\nBefore I begin, I'd like to echo the other people answering this question:\n\nAs far as if this has any bearing as to which group somehow right to any part of the Levant, it doesn't. The issue between Palestine and Israel is a modern one, and has very little to do with the people who would be considered indigenous or which one of them arrived there first. That being said...\n\nAs far as the indigenous people of the section of the Levant we know today as Israel/Palestine, that answer appears lost to history. Considering that the earlier people in the region also are the inhabitants of one of the oldest towns, Jericho, I would think that, if you were using the Bible as a completely trustworthy historical source, which you shouldn't with anything, then the question would be settled, and the answer would be the Canaanites, who likely are not the anscestors of the Palestinians. As we progress further back to the first habitation level of Jericho, the type of population changes, and it appears that we won't have an answer to this. However, let's look at some of the earliest records of people that appear to be native to the region. \n\nFor this, we will first have to head North, to modern day Syria and Lebanon. Let's start this discussion around 2500 BCE, as speakign any earlier has been shown moot here. Looking first at the city of Ebla, we have a group of people writing in Sumerian cuneiform, but in Amorite, which is a Semitic language most closely related to Canaanite, Phoenician, and Hebrew. Strictly speaking, I think it may be related to Aramaic. They are living in the northern half of the Levant, and represent the earliest confirmed Semitic speakers after the Akkadians. Some argue, though I am not convinced, that a tablet here is the first reference to Canaan. For our purposes, it doesn't matter, as you'll soon see. At this point, major population centers in the Southern Levant tell us that there is quite a bit of [socio-political integration](_URL_2_), but the identity of the peoples here appear no more than proto-Canaanite. Canaan is a geographic region, and doesn't represent a single people. \n\nThis brings us to the meat of the discussion, the first section in which we have solid written records about the political state of the region. the Late Bronze Age. Important players here are the Hittites and the Egyptians, both at the height of their power, each owning about half of the Levant. [Egypt owned the Southern half.](_URL_3_) During this time, northern and southern Levantine cities prospered. However, it is during this time that we see good distinction between Canaanites and non- Canaanites. The North Levantine city of Ugarit has an impressive number of tablets, and when speaking about Canaan, they speak as though they are separated from it. It is here, then, that we have a distinction. We also have fairly frequent references to the land of Canaan as an important Egyptian owned area in the Amarna letters, alongside a reference in a Hittite treaty with Egypt. This brings us to the end of the Bronze Age, and the reason for much of this confusion. We have a [stele](_URL_1_) of the pharaoh Merneptah. He proclaimed wictory over various groups of people, one of which is the Canaanites; another is the people of Israel. There is much linguistic debate over exactly what the connotation of the way it is written, but unless it is asked for, I will leave it for now. This is, to my knowledge, the first reference to Israelites. \n\nThis reference happened in the context of the Bronze Age collapse ca 1200 BCE, and it is unclear whether the Israelites were a nomadic group, or a settled one in Canaan. In any case, the Bronze Age collapse was a time of great upheaval of peoples, and saw the collapse of every major power in the region. During this time, we also see the first reference to a group called the Pelset. They are mentioned by the Egyptians as well, and are believed to be the first reference to the Philistines. They are supposedly part of the larger group called Sea Peoples who settled in various places along the coast of the Levant and Turkey. During this time, many populations moved throughout the region, and who was where before this comes a bit muddled. It is in the time period just after the collapse that the first widely accepted to be historical part of the Bible takes place. The conquest, while unattested by written records, does fall in line with what we see happen in the Levant during this time. cities fall and population centers move. it is unlikely that the was due completely or in majority to the Israelites, but it would be surprising if they played no part in it. In fact, it is almost certain that they did, because after this point we do have an Israelite kingdom, then two, which are well attested by archaeological and textual evidence. It is at this point that people the would become the Palestinians and the people the Israelis of today call their ancestors were living together for certain. Between 1000-900 BCE.\n\nHowever, if we look at the cultural touchstones of each, they are likely derived from the same or very similar peoples throughout the bronze age, with much intermarriage for much of their history until the diaspora, and evidence suggests that for much of their history, the [Israelites may have been polytheistic](_URL_0_), worshiping the same gods as the other Canaanite groups, perhaps with a later emphasis on Yahweh. The whole thing is rather muddled, but it is worthwhile to understand it." ] }

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[ [], [], [], [ "http://www.michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/Ayn%20Dara%20Parallel%20to%20Solomons%20Temple.pdf", "http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Merneptah_Stele/Merneptah_Stele.htm", "http://www.academia.edu/1833095/Rise_and_collapse_in_the_southern_Levant_in_the_Early_Bronze_Age", "http://i.imgur.com/Rt0P942.jpg?1" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e5cj184" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "follow up: could you elaborate on \"in its modern form\"? what's different between that and the *old* TCM?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d82keci", "d82n3kx", "d840ale", "d840m0i" ], "score": [ 604, 106, 2, 5 ], "text": [ "False. Jesus is mentioned twice by the historian Josephus.\n\nSpecifically, he says:\n\n > [...] so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of **Jesus, who was called Christ**, whose name was James, and some others [...]\n\n(Antiquities of the Jews Book 20, Chapter 9, 1)\n\nBefore that he wrote:\n\n > About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.\n\n(Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3, 3)\n\nThe second quote is a bit controversial, because historians agree it has been altered, making Josephus' judgement of Jesus more positive than what he had originally written. However, they also agree that the passage definitely mentioned Jesus and that he was executed by Pilate.\n\nFurthermore, Christianity itself is often mentioned in Roman writings. Suetonius tells us that under Nero's reign:\n\n > **Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.** He put an end to the diversions of the chariot drivers, who from immunity of long standing claimed the right of ranging at large and amusing themselves by cheating and robbing the people. The pantomimic actors and their partisans were banished from the city.\n\n(The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, 16)\n\nAnd last but not least, we know the Emperor Domitian declared Christianity *religio illicita* (impermissible religion) during his rule, sometime in the 80s AD. And we also have Pliny the Younger's letter dating from 112 AD to Trajan, asking the Emperor for counsel on how to deal with Christians in the province of *Bithynia et Pontus*, of which Pliny was governor.", "In addition to the mentions by the historian Josephus that were already brought up, Christ and Christianity were also mentioned by the historian Tacitus. \n\n > Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. \n\n*Annals*, Book 15", " > In all the known Roman writings, there is no mention of Christianity\n\nThis is quite an audacious statement considering the many Roman emperors who were Christians!\n\nIn addition to the mentions by Josephus and Tacitus of Jesus, the emperor Marcus Aurelius mentions Christians briefly:\n\n > What a soul that is which is ready, if at any moment it must be separated from the body, and ready either to be extinguished or dispersed or continue to exist; but so that this readiness comes from a man's own judgement, not from mere obstinacy, as with the Christians, but considerately and with dignity and in a way to persuade another, without tragic show.\n\n[Meditations Book Eleven](_URL_0_)", "I just want to clarify your question, /u/MDDIY. It's more likely that the quote you recall didn't mention Christianity, only Jesus. It's a common trope among certain circles to argue against the existence of Jesus on the basis of a lack of evidence from outsider writers (i.e., non-New Testament). These same groups don't argue that Christianity didn't exist, because there is clear evidence that it did. (The top response in the present thread misunderstands your question slightly. Josephus was not a \"Roman\" in the sense meant by your quote, which means that there are indeed no \"Roman\" writings that mention Jesus.[1])\n\nI would recommend heading over to /r/AcademicBiblical as well, which is jam-packed with scholars of the exact period involved in your question, and they can provide further detail if you're interested.\n\n[1] With the debatable line in Tacitus a *possible* occurrence." ] }

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[ [], [], [ "http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.11.eleven.html" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c606na4", "c60874m", "c60ci4t" ], "score": [ 7, 6, 4 ], "text": [ "I'm in no way a knowledgeable source, but I believe they had fairly large awnings and the rice paper most likely had a waxy outside coating, but this is just conjecture. Sorry I couldn't be of more help!", "You mean shoji? \nI've lived in Japan, usually there are windows in front of it, if not, then straw.", "In Korea it was a custom in some parts for the old women of the village to poke holes in the paper walls. During the wedding night. To \"check up\" on the couple." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "chmes5q", "chmfuxq" ], "score": [ 5, 94 ], "text": [ "The answer is going to be a little infuriating. Simply the Western (roman rite) Church developed into the Roman Catholic and then Protestant sects. The Eastern Church developed into the Eastern Orthodox Church. The churches were functionally unique and autonomous well before the East-West Schism. The primary reason for the split was both cultural and political although there were some theological differences between the churches well before the official split in 1054. Possibly the biggest theological difference comes form this lingual and cultural difference. (I cited Pelikan, Jaroslav in my paper here but I can't seem to find a good online version of his work The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700)) The first big theological difference is know as fillique. Basicly the Roman Rite (I dont mean this in a conspiratorial way) inserted the phrase filique into the Latin recital of the Nicene Creed. This phrase means [\"and from the son.\"](_URL_0_) This is not in the Original Greek. The Catholic church has since removed this phrase from its greek recital of the the Creed although they [stick behind their reasoning behind the phrase](_URL_1_). (link 255 for a quick glimpse) This has been an area of major theological contention for quite some time with the earliest documented case of the insertion popping up in the latin coming from the the 6th century. Although this is phrased in my source (linked above) in such a way as to imply that this was because earlier records are gone rather than the 6th century was where the change originated from. Another area of difference is the idea of theoria versus metaphysics. Unfortunately my sources for this area are not up to snuff so I will save this for another poster to expand on.", "I wasn’t going to comment, I really was going to let this one go. But then I read the answers posted, and I couldn’t stop.\n\nSo, just to set ourselves up, we are talking about 1000 years of history here, from the arrival of Christianity in Rome in the mid to late 1st century (I would say at least by the 50s), and the Great Schism in 1054. The thing we must first realise is that Western Christianity (and by ‘West’ I mean basically draw a north-south line on your map roughly where Tirana, Albania is) diverged from its Eastern (and I will primarily talk about Eastern Orthodoxy, not about the non-Chalcedonian Church of the East and Oriental Orthodox churches) counterpart long before that Great Schism occurred, in fact, was probably moving in different directions almost from the start.\n\nThe first factor is simply language. The western half of the Empire was dominated by Latin, and the East by Koine (and later Byzantine) Greek. Although the church in Rome, and possibly in Gaul as well, originally functioned in Greek, they later switched to Latin (the liturgy switched around the 4th century; first Latin theological writings appear around ca 180; the most important western theologians apart from Irenaeus begin to write in Latin: Tertullian, Novatian, Cyprian, and so a Latin theological tradition develops). \n\nNow, while Rome maintains links to the East, most of the churches west of Rome, and to some extent North Africa, maintain their primary connections with Rome. So ‘western’ churches are operating almost entirely in a Latin sphere. You see one evidence of this in the fact that all the so-called Ecumenical councils (Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, etc..) occur in the East, and have very, very poor attendance by Western, Latin bishops. They deal with theological disputes that occur primarily in Greek.\n\nThis linguistic divide is tied up with cultural divisions that develop over time, and also with liturgical development that runs along different trajectories. \n\nSecondly, you have to deal with political matters. Once the empire was not merely nominally but effectively divided in two, they begin to operate relatively autonomously. This doesn’t go so well in the West, as we should mostly know by now, and the successive migrations of Goths, Vandals, Lombards, etc., and especially the Franks, causes significant change in the political, social, and cultural landscape of Western Europe. Especially when Illyricum (the modern Balkans) come to be dominated by the Huns, inter aliis, it severs the land-connection between East and West, further dividing their relations.\n\nConnected to this, in the early to mid Middle ages, the rise of the Franks as the only real major consolidated power in Europe, and the only kingdom that is following Catholic Christianity (as opposed to the non-Nicene versions prevalent among Goths and Vandals), also has an influence on the general cultural and political milieu of Western Catholicism.\n\nIn all this time *the East is not static*. It is sometimes apologetically cute to say the Orthodox church has an unbroken tradition back to the earliest church (kind of true), but it changed and developed. in the East you have long and protracted theological debates over the natures of Christ (monophysitism on the one hand, dyohypostastism on the other), the development of a distinct Monastic culture, several periods of Byzantine intellectual flourishing, and of course the development of icon theology and practice in the midst of iconoclastic debates, which touch upon Western Catholicism but not in the same way.\n\nThirdly, of course, the Western Church has the development of the Papacy as both institution and theological dogma. It orients the Western church in a more ‘monarchic’ way than the Eastern church, which continues to practice a more collegial hierarchy. One example of this would be that when dealing with mission efforts among Slavs and Bulgars, the Western Catholics insisted Latin be the language of worship, whereas the Orthodox promoted the use of Slavic, translated both Scriptures and Liturgy, and established the Bulgarian church as a separate and independent hierarchical institution. \nIt is simply and patently untrue to say, as another poster has, that E.Orthodoxy remains relatively unchanged since the 11th century. While there has probably been slightly less liturgical innovation in the Greek Orthodox churches than the Roman (especially with Vatican II), there has been plenty of theological development. I would not actually want to venture a proper answer to OP’s question, of whether the pre-Schism Western church was more similar to contemporary Roman Catholicism or contemporary Eastern Orthodoxy. It’s a no-win question that flattens the historical field in what I think is an inappropriate way\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/ecumenical-and-interreligious/ecumenical/orthodox/filioque-church-dividing-issue-english.cfm", "http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P17.HTM" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cigpgue", "cigpqq3" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "The Libyan Embassy incident in London comes to mind, where automatic weapons fire from inside the embassy killed a London policewoman. No one was ever prosecuted.\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n", "Sorry, we don't allow [throughout history questions](_URL_1_). These tend to produce threads which are collections of trivia, not the in-depth discussions about a particular topic we're looking for. If you have a specific question about a historical event or period or person, please feel free to re-compose your question and submit it again. Alternatively, you may PM /u/caffarelli to have your question considered for an upcoming [Tuesday Trivia](_URL_0_) thread." ] }

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[ [ "http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2519&amp;dat=19840418&amp;id=3aFdAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=-FwNAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=3533,2942629", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Yvonne_Fletcher" ], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/features/trivia", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_no_.22in_your_era.22_or_.22throughout_history.22_questions" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c5tjonj", "c5tldcv", "c5tmlf5", "c5to5d9", "c5trg01", "c5tu3ly" ], "score": [ 41, 10, 4, 12, 8, 2 ], "text": [ "Well, from around 700-200BCE China was divided into warring states (the severity of the warring definitely increased over time), and there were many a wandering scholar.\n\nThey went from state to state looking for employment. They often subscribed to a school of thought, or had invented their own with a following. This is really cool in and of itself; the most famous of said scholars would probably be Confucius, but I actually came here to talk about a guy named [Mozi](_URL_0_) and the movement he started.\n\n[Mohism](_URL_1_) at its core (in my opinion) advocated universal love. This was greatly at odds with Confucianism which thought some people (such as parents) deserved better treatment than anyone else. \n\nThe Mohists were against war in general, as it was wasteful, but they recognized that defensive war was a necessary evil. Mozi himself was actually a great engineer, and his disciples became well-known for their sound defensive strategies especially in siege situations. They wore special, plain robes to distinguish themselves from other wandering scholars and also to show their value on utilitarianism (why wear a fancy robe if all you need is a plain cheap one?). This emphasis did however result in one belief that I strongly disagree with however: they didn't like music and art because they thought it was a waste of resources without alot of benefits.\n\nThe long period of disunity ended when a state that was based around a new philosophy (Legalism) managed to reunite China with a much more imperial style of feudalism (advocated state rather than noble control of land). The new group set a precedent of state orthodoxy, when they were overthrown Confucianism became the standard philosophy more or less until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1911/12. \n\nAlthough Mohism ceased as a school after the rise of the Qin, the basic ideas of Mohism were known by most Chinese scholars and likely had an impact on Chinese thought right through the present day.\n\nTL;DR Mohists were cool wandering scholars in classical China who sought employment wherever a king/lord was willing to hire them. They excelled in defensive (particularly siege) warfare. They advocated universal love and utilitarianism.", "I don't know what you'd class as cool but leading up and around the French Revolution (the Romantic era) you had many counter-culture movements, especially in philosophy, art and literature. The poets Wordsworth, Coleridge and Blake believed in the dissolution of marriage, free love, no organised religion and other such ideals that made the hippies seem like johnny-come-latelys. De Quincey also did a lot of opium (that was readily available back then as medicine) and wrote several books on dreams and reveries that can easily be compared to some of the writings of the Beat movement. Additionally, the Shelleys (Mary and Percy) and Byron, also known as the second generation of Romantic writers, also were proponents of this philosophy. Mary Shelley's mother and father (Mary Wollstoncraft and William Godwin) were famous philosophers of that era, in addition to political philosophers like Thomas Paine. They advocated different philosophies like women's rights, free-love and anarchism. You might find this Kate Beaton comic helpful: _URL_0_ (It refers the author Goethe who wrote \"The Sorrows of Young Werther\" that you might want to Wiki. Plus I just love Kate Beaton. Make sure to check out Part II, too!)\n\nA word of advice: rarely will you find many counter-culture movements that were on a grand scale like that of the 1960s-now. That is because the enormity of the boom of population after the Second World War had never happened before. Never before in the course of human history had the young generation vastly outnumbered the old. This is something that we are still feeling the effects of today (especially in politics) and will do in the so-called \"Great Boomer Die-Off\" when countries like China and America (especially China) will shrink considerably in population because people are not having enough kids to replenish those who are dying. Chances are that this will prompt another counter-culture revolution when this happens as the population will balance out again.\n\nEdit: TL;DR: Romantic era hippies were pretty cool; 60s counter-culture happened because of Boomer generation and you will rarely find a counter-culture on that (demographic) scale in human history (to my knowledge).", "At the start of the century (pre Word War I) there were some interesting social experiments that could be described as counter-cultures. See for instance the 'Wandervögel' movement (in some ways a precursor to the hitlerjugend) but also to environmental movements. See 'Fanny von Reventlow'; who hosted bacchanalia-like events; 'Wilhelm Diefenbach' who started a nudist vegetarian commune, the hippie avant-la-lettre 'Gusto Gräser' (hermann Hesse used to be part of his commune), the mystical 'Madame Blavatsky' (George Bernard Shaw based some of his ideas on her), she sort of started the theosophical movement, which Rudolf Steiner became a part of (and parted from, because of his radically independent ideas). These people and their movements were more or less cults, but they were profoundly counter-cultural. This all comes out of Phillipp Blom's 'The vertigo Years'", "Julius Caesar and the hip young crowd he ran with apparently wore their togas \"loose\", whatever that means.", "I know you asked about before the 20th century, but there's a little known group I find pretty awesome: The Stilyagi were a 1940s counterculture group in Russia that dressed how they imagined stylish americans did and listened to western music cut into x rays (rocking on the bones)\n\nThe government opinion of them can be summed up by the slogan \"today he dances jazz, tomorrow he sells his homeland\"", "Ars Subtilior composers. Basically the avant-garde of 14th century France.\n\n_URL_0_" ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozi", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohism" ], [ "http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=228" ], [], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_subtilior" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cqu6v1q" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Sexuality wasn't a central concern of Confucianism, not as it is in Abrahamic religions. Propriety and temperance (as in, avoiding any physical excesses) are the main emphasis. \n\nSo, there's an old book called *The Ethics of Confucius* by MM Dawson that pulls teachings from a few different Confucian (or credited-to-Confucius) texts and organizes them by topic for Western readers. The section [down the page here](_URL_0_) on \"Sexual Propriety\" ties a lot of different passages together, most of which a little... non-specific. \n\n\"The scholar keeps himself free from all stain,\" from the *Book of Rites*. \n\nAnd: \"To find enjoyment in extravagant pleasures, to find enjoyment in idleness and sauntering, to find enjoyment in the pleasures of feasting—these are injurious,\" from *The Analects*. \n\nAnd even, from one of the commentaries on the *I Ching*: \"Heaven and earth are separate and apart, but the work which they do is the same. Male and female are separate and apart, but with a common will they seek the same objects.\"\n\nMen and women each have their own spheres of control, in other words, and shouldn't be mixing too much. \n\nDawson also quotes Mencius: \"When a son is born, what is desired for him is that he may have a wife; when a daughter is born, that she may have a husband. All men as parents have this feeling. If, without awaiting the instructions of their parents and the arrangements of the intermediary, they bore holes to steal a sight of each other, or climb over a wall to be with each other, their parents and all others will despise them.\"\n\nOne of Mencius' big ideas was balancing internal (mmmaybe \"spiritual\") and external (let's call this \"biological\" for now) needs to cultivate the *xin* or \"heart-mind\". Elsewhere in the book that bears his name ([*Mencius*](_URL_1_)(pdf), book 6A4), he has a dialogue with Gaozi (definitely another sage, probably another Confucian) that dips really briefly into biological imperatives: \n\n > Gaozi said, “Appetites for food and sex are part of our nature. \n\n > Humanity (*ren*) is internal rather than external; right (*yi*) is external rather than internal.”\n\n > Mencius said, “Why do you say humanity is internal and right external?”\n\n > Gaozi said, “If a man is my elder and I treat him as an elder, there is nothing of the elder about me. It is as if he were white and I treated him as white, I merely follow the external fact of his being white. This is why I treat it as external.”\n\nAnd it goes on from there. \n\nThe bit about sex being a necessary appetite is really not remarked on directly in the exchange... they wind up talking about roasted meat, in fact. The appetites seem more or less *morally* the same. \n\nPrior to that dialogue, (in Book 5A), Mencius refers to sex (or \"taking a wife\") as a \"fundamental human relationship,\" but places it in a kind of hierarchy of how we ought to love: \n \n > “When we are young, we yearn for our parents. When we are old enough to have sexual desires, we yearn for youthful beauty. When we are old enough to have a family, we yearn for wife and children. When we are ready to take office, we yearn for a lord, and without a lord’s approval dissatisfaction burns within us. But the greatest filiality yearns for parents to the end of life. In Shun, I see a man who yearned for his parents even at fifty.”\n\nSo you can maybe see that earlier quote about the young lovers as an expression of \"good\" versus \"bad\" ways of dealing with biological drives versus personal cultivation and social mores. \n\nWell after Mencius, the neo-Confucians were considerably more uptight, but I'll let someone with better chops get into what they were all about. \n\n\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.sacred-texts.com/cfu/eoc/eoc08.htm", "http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Mengzi.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c5am7ap" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Can anyone link to the referenced thread?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "crite1k" ], "score": [ 14 ], "text": [ "There were plans made for such an attack. In 1941 and early 1942, Australia posed a major threat to Japanese plans. Troops and ships escaping from the Dutch East Indies could flow southwards to bases in Western Australia. Aircraft based in the Northern Territory could interfere with Japanese movements towards Papua New Guinea, and of course, Australia could provide a base for an Allied counterattack. \n\nThe Imperial Japanese Navy had a doctrine that sought to keep the Allies consistently on the defensive. To this end, they planned attacks into the Indian Ocean, and towards Hawaii with Midway as an objective. During this time, they also drew up plans for an attack on Australia. Plans for this were in place, and being pushed by the Navy's general staff as early as December 1941. These plans sought to capture several strategic positions on the northern and north-Eastern coasts of Australia. As it was considered difficult for Australian troops to reach these locations, it was thought that these locations could be captured with a minimum of shipping and expenditure of troops and materiel. (The lack of strategic mobility on land came from a lack of rail lines and roads to much of the north coast) Navy estimates suggested that between 45,000 and 60,000 men would be needed to capture their chosen targets. \n\nHowever, the Army had a different outlook. Their commitments in China, Manchuria and South-East Asia made it difficult to find the men needed for further expansion and offensives. Instead, they preferred a defensive strategy, which they felt more fitting with Japan's capabilities. They believed that an invasion of Australia would need to capture more of the eastern coast, which was more heavily defended. Their estimates for the numbers of troops needed for such an invasion were closer to 150,000 to 200,000 men. This number was impossible to find without heavily weakening the Japanese force in Manchuria, which the Army was always unwilling to do. In addition, they calculated that 1.5 - 2 million tons of shipping would be needed to support these troops, an amount of tonnage that could not be found without destroying the foundations of the Japanese war economy. Realising the need for offensive operations against Australia, they instead proposed a strategy based around cutting its lines of communication with the USA, by taking New Caledonia, Samoa and Fiji. They were supported in this project by Japanese PM Hideki Tojo, who was always opposed to an invasion of Australia.\n\nThese two sides fought it out in bitter bureaucratic warfare through February and early March 1942. An Imperial Liaison Conference on the 7th March made only oblique references to an attack on Australia, with its report making statements that could be referenced as supporting an attack, but concluding that Japan should be \"building a political and military structure capable of withstanding a prolonged war\", phrasing that implies caution about opening new fronts. However, on the 13th, a new strategic plan was reported to the Emperor. This new plan relegated an attack on Australia to \"a future option to demonstrate positive warfare\", with the qualification that the situation with the Soviet Union and China allowed it. Instead, the Army's plan, modified by the capture of Port Moresby, was to be followed. \n\nUnfortunately for Japan, they wouldn't get a chance to put these plans into action. The Battle of the Coral Sea scuppered the attack on Port Moresby. Midway caused a postponement of the attacks into the South-West Pacific, and allowed the US to intervene with the preliminary attacks into the Solomon Islands.\n\nReferences:\n\nBrown, G., Anderson, D., *Invasion 1942? Australia and the Japanese Threat*, _URL_0_\n\nFrei, H. P., *Japan's Southward Advance and Australia*" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/bp/1992/92bp06.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d5e6qlc" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "The first mattresses of the Neolithic period were made of animal skins, possibly supported by leaves, grass, or hay. Later in history, everybody had their own types mattresses, Persians would use goat skins filled with water, while Egyptians used bundles of palm leaves. 3,000 years later, Romans slept on bags filled with hay or wool, sometimes reeds. If you happened to be in a wealthy neighborhood you would find the rich folk sleeping on beds stuffed with feathers.\n\nDuring the Renaissance, beds mostly consisted of mattresses stuffed with straw or feathers. In the early 1700s mattresses are stuffed with cotton or wool. During the mid 1700s we start to get mattresses that we would recognize today (bed frames come about, mattresses are buttoned). In 1865, the first coil springs for bedding are patented, and in 1871 German inventor Heinrich Westphal invents the innerspring mattress. Rather sadly, he dies poor, never profiting from his invention. In 1873 the waterbed is invented, as a sort of hydrotherapy for back problems. In the 1930s, innerspring mattresses become commonplace in American homes. 20 years later, foam rubber mattresses are introduced as an alternative to other artificial fillers. In 1999, the queen size mattress is the most popular choice for mattress size in America. That brings us to today, were we can sleep comfortably knowing that we've come a long way from animal skins stuffed with hay." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "digvtpl" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "This was Ginza Street in Mudanjiang, Manchuria, China. It was under Japanese occupation since 1931, hence the name \"Ginza\" after a district of Tokyo, and the city was called \"Botankou\" by the Japanese. That's the reading of the Chinese characters in Japanese. \n\nThe top of the postcard gives the location read right to left: Botankou, Ginza Avenue. (牡丹江 銀座 通り) (I've written it here left to right in the modern way)\n\nThe shop signs are in Japanese, and your great-grandfather mentions that a lot of the buildings aren't there anymore, so I guess this was a postcard left from its heyday as a shopping street. Here's a [1942 photograph of the same street](_URL_0_) from Wikipedia.\n\n**ETA:** I'm rather interested what your great-grandfather was doing there in September, since Mudanjiang a) is inland b) was liberated by the Soviet Union in August. \n\n**ETA 2:** This may help you with further research. the battle that took place in August is written as \"Mutanchiang\" in most sources, according to older transliteration rules. The battle was very destructive, no wonder a lot of the buildings were gone when your great-grandfather wrote your grandmother." ] }

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[ "http://imgur.com/a/5CBGt" ]

[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudanjiang#/media/File:Mdj-1942.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c3bx9jf", "c3c291z", "c3bx9jf", "c3c291z" ], "score": [ 2, 8, 2, 8 ], "text": [ "I have a book I never finished. Let me go and see if I can find it. Pretty much what you're looking for if I can recall", "You might like [My Khyber Marriage](_URL_3_) and [Valley of the Giant Buddahs](_URL_6_). They are autobiographical reports by a Scotswoman who married a Pashtun and moved to Afghanistan in the 1920s. [My Life: From Brigand to King--Autobiography of Amir Habibullah](_URL_1_) may also be of interest. It is an as-told-to autobiography of an Afghan brigand who briefly overthrew the King about ten years after the first two books were written. [The Road to Oxiana](_URL_5_) is a bit clunky but offers a Western perspective on Afghanistan in the 1930s. \n\nThe more general [Afghanistan of the Afghans](_URL_7_), written by the husband of the woman mentioned above, focuses a lot of culture and cultural history, [Afghanistan](_URL_9_) is a more general history and this [Afghanistan](_URL_8_) claims to be more about the military history but I haven't read it myself to judge.\n\nIf you want something more contemporary, [The Places In Between](_URL_0_) is a decent travelogue by an adventurer/preservationist/mercenary who walked through parts of the country. It didn't blow me away but it is interesting and most contemporary Afghan books from the West are such trash that this one shines in comparison. The author really did go to areas of Afghanistan about which most people know very little.\n\n[Ghost Wars](_URL_4_) is a popular book that focuses on the US involvement in the area during the Soviet Afghan war. [Taliban](_URL_2_) is another popular book, and focuses on the Taliban in the 1990s and early 2000s. The link is to the second edition which I believe is updated.", "I have a book I never finished. Let me go and see if I can find it. Pretty much what you're looking for if I can recall", "You might like [My Khyber Marriage](_URL_3_) and [Valley of the Giant Buddahs](_URL_6_). They are autobiographical reports by a Scotswoman who married a Pashtun and moved to Afghanistan in the 1920s. [My Life: From Brigand to King--Autobiography of Amir Habibullah](_URL_1_) may also be of interest. It is an as-told-to autobiography of an Afghan brigand who briefly overthrew the King about ten years after the first two books were written. [The Road to Oxiana](_URL_5_) is a bit clunky but offers a Western perspective on Afghanistan in the 1930s. \n\nThe more general [Afghanistan of the Afghans](_URL_7_), written by the husband of the woman mentioned above, focuses a lot of culture and cultural history, [Afghanistan](_URL_9_) is a more general history and this [Afghanistan](_URL_8_) claims to be more about the military history but I haven't read it myself to judge.\n\nIf you want something more contemporary, [The Places In Between](_URL_0_) is a decent travelogue by an adventurer/preservationist/mercenary who walked through parts of the country. It didn't blow me away but it is interesting and most contemporary Afghan books from the West are such trash that this one shines in comparison. The author really did go to areas of Afghanistan about which most people know very little.\n\n[Ghost Wars](_URL_4_) is a popular book that focuses on the US involvement in the area during the Soviet Afghan war. [Taliban](_URL_2_) is another popular book, and focuses on the Taliban in the 1990s and early 2000s. The link is to the second edition which I believe is updated." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.amazon.com/Places-Between-Rory-Stewart/dp/B002IT5OS4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325141336&amp;sr=1-1", "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0863040470/ref=oh_o04_s00_i00_details", "http://www.amazon.com/Taliban-Militant-Fundamentalism-Central-Second/dp/0300163681/ref=pd_luc_sim_01_01_t_lh", "http://www.amazon.com/Khyber-Marriage-Experiences-Scotswoman-Chieftains/dp/0863040551", "http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325141153&amp;sr=1-7", "http://www.amazon.com/Road-Oxiana-Robert-Byron/dp/0195325605/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325141309&amp;sr=1-6", "http://www.amazon.com/Valley-Giant-Buddhas-Memoirs-Travel/dp/0863040659/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325140790&amp;sr=8-1", "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0900860995/ref=wms_ohs_product", "http://www.amazon.com/Afghanistan-Military-History-Alexander-against/dp/0306818264/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325141153&amp;sr=1-2", "http://www.amazon.com/Afghanistan-Cultural-Political-Princeton-Politics/dp/0691145687/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325141153&amp;sr=1-1" ], [], [ "http://www.amazon.com/Places-Between-Rory-Stewart/dp/B002IT5OS4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325141336&amp;sr=1-1", "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0863040470/ref=oh_o04_s00_i00_details", "http://www.amazon.com/Taliban-Militant-Fundamentalism-Central-Second/dp/0300163681/ref=pd_luc_sim_01_01_t_lh", "http://www.amazon.com/Khyber-Marriage-Experiences-Scotswoman-Chieftains/dp/0863040551", "http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325141153&amp;sr=1-7", "http://www.amazon.com/Road-Oxiana-Robert-Byron/dp/0195325605/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325141309&amp;sr=1-6", "http://www.amazon.com/Valley-Giant-Buddhas-Memoirs-Travel/dp/0863040659/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325140790&amp;sr=8-1", "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0900860995/ref=wms_ohs_product", "http://www.amazon.com/Afghanistan-Military-History-Alexander-against/dp/0306818264/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325141153&amp;sr=1-2", "http://www.amazon.com/Afghanistan-Cultural-Political-Princeton-Politics/dp/0691145687/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325141153&amp;sr=1-1" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dy6uzu9" ], "score": [ 14 ], "text": [ "I’ve never heard of any such areas and highly doubt they exist. \n\nFirst things first seawater is extremely corrosive. Rust stains on ships are common even before they’re completed. Spend some time on r/WarshipPorn, extensive rust pops up every couple days. In a recent thread some sailors discussed the current *Wasp* class, which is apparently always covered in rust. This is why regular drydockings and painting are essential. \n\nMany museum ships have unfortunately been victims of rust even in a very short time. *Drum* and *Laffey* required extensive repair work, the latter was in such bad condition [her entire bottom had to be replaced](_URL_1_). *Yorktown* has sunk at her moorings and needs a massive cofferdam built around the ship. *Clamagore*, the last GUPPY III submarine left, is due to be sunk as a reef due to neglect. *Olympia* and *North Carolina* are using small mobile systems to do spot repairs on their leaking hulls. And then there’s *Texas*, which is in such bad shape she needs to get out of the water as quickly as possible. The damage is so extensive the foundations under the engines were almost gone, and they apparently nearly fell out of the ship before money dedicated to the dry berth project went to completely replacing those foundations. Most of the ships I mentioned are from WWII and all have been drydocked within the last 40 years (most in the 90s), so we’re talking a similar age. \n\nTake that and apply it to mines. Floating mines long ago flooded and are now on the bottom. Bottom mines long ago leaked. Both have had rust attack their detonators and internal mechanisms, contact, magnetic, acoustic, or otherwise, and are now effectively safe. They won’t explode easily and certainly aren’t a danger to nearby shipping, but you don’t want to go messing with them if you can avoid it. \n\nAnd that’s those that survived the war. Most mines had a shelf life, only good for a few weeks or months before timers or corrosion rendered them inoperative. Yes, mines had timers that automatically made them inactive or only activated them after a certain amount of time, intended to protect the ship laying the mines, make life easier for replenishing your own minefields, and thwart enemy minesweeping efforts (“Didn’t we sweep that area?”). Minefields required constant renewal to replace these mines with new ones. Those that survived the war were largely swept afterward, as you knew the areas where you laid the mines and didn’t want your own ships hitting them. For this purpose the major navies has thousands of minesweepers, some purpose built but many converted trawlers, just for this task. Well, technically they were built/converted before or during the war for this role, but their job didn’t end when the enemy surrendered. \n\nA few weeks ago I was perusing [this US report on the beginnings of the occupation of Japan](_URL_0_) (which has many fascinating details and anecdotes) that discusses the sweeping operations off Japan. The relevant section alone is a good summary answer:\n\n > Although minesweepers are usually the first vessels to operate at the scene of impending landings, their mopping-up work continues long after the other major naval forces have completed their missions, with the result that the reports of major task organization commanders frequently contain only sketchy coverage of the preliminary minesweeping. The minesweeping operations in connection with the Allied occupation of Japan were no exception to this rule.\n\nSome 510 US ships were involved along with about 100 Japanese minesweepers. However, pressure-sensitive mines required special “Guinea Pig” ships with skeleton crews working in mattress-lined rooms with helmets and life jackets. Two Japanese destroyers were lost in this role, though to date I’ve only found the name of one, [*Kuri*](_URL_2_). A US minesweeper, *Minivet*, sank while supervising Japanese efforts (12 killed, 19 missing, 5 wounded), while another 18 ships were lost in two typhoons. However, by the middle of December some 84,000 square miles had been swept, and many other areas were waiting for the timers to run out before sweeping operations began (February 1946). \n\nHowever, some mines still dot the seabed, though as with the explosives in thousands of wrecks are effectively harmless if undisturbed. So if you happen to find one while fishing or diving, don’t go anywhere near it. Alert the local authorities and they’ll send an EOD team in to take care of it. Good training for your military. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA438971", "http://www.laffey.org/2009_dry_dock_photo_page_courtes.htm", "http://www.combinedfleet.com/Kuri_t.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e0mhk0v", "e0mhq3g" ], "score": [ 2, 8 ], "text": [ "[I have previously written on the case of Battlefield V and the case of British women in this post. ](_URL_0_) If you have any further questions about this, the reception of Battlefield V, or the case of \"historical accuracy\", feel free to ask.", "More can be written, but to start, you might like to see this discussion: [\"How many female soldiers saw combat in WW2?\"](_URL_0_) . /u/fell-like-rain had a direct answer. /u/Searocksandtrees and Georgy_K_Zhukov linked to previous discussions by /u/Bernardito (the British case that they already pointed to), /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov (including about video games and a Battlefield game specifically), and armdoc.\n\nThis is not to discourage discussion. Further questions, data, and debate are welcome.\n" ] }

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[ [ "https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8lmzi9/in_the_new_battlefield_v_trailer_a_women_is_seen/" ], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8lxrl3/how_many_female_soldiers_saw_combat_in_ww2/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eaiievw", "eaiovqp" ], "score": [ 3, 9 ], "text": [ "I'm no expert, but my understanding was that China was pretty disorganized and very ill equipped. China wasn't a nation so much as a fractured land ruled by local warlords following the fall of the Qing dynasty and the civil war between Communists and nationalists. Hopefully that at least partially answers your question until someone more knowledgeable can answer.", "China was actually very active in the Second World War. They don't often get a lot of credit due to the fact that they were absent on the European front, but they absolutely played an integral role in the Pacific. \n\nFor one, when China was invaded in 1937, it's country was in complete shambles. The invasion happened at the time of a civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists, and China was anything but united. The Communists and the Nationalists attempted to begin an alliance to fight against Japan, but had so many ideological differences between one another that a united coalition force never worked out. As a result, most of the fighting against the Japanese was done by the Nationalists (most not all). In addition, the Nationalists did not have complete control over their portion of China, but was rather a loose string of alliances between several different warlords, many of whom had their own ideas and agendas. Japan had long desired China's rich resources, and found the perfect moment to invade a weak and divided China. \n\nEstimates of Chinese killed during the conflict with Japan (1937-1945) range from a staggering 10-20 million. The divided Chinese fought resiliently, but were outmatched by superior technology, weapons, and leadership. However, the Chinese did succeed in getting a handful of important victories against Japan despite massive casualties. U.S. pilots that were often forced to crash land in China were rescued by Chinese citizens who were more than willing to assist them. It is because of this that many American pilots were able to walk away alive, and in many cases, continue to fight in the war. (See Doolittle Raiders)\n\nBecause of the conflict in China, Japan was unable to commit all of it's forces to fighting the United States and the British in the Pacific. They were forced to keep a decent number of their forces in China due to their refusal to surrender. In my opinion, the efforts in China played a integral role in dividing the Japanese forces, helping the United States and Britain to make the advancements in the Pacific that they did. Had the Chinese surrendered in 1937/38, Japan's forces could have easily turned towards the USSR, British India, or even the United States. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cpixfus" ], "score": [ 26 ], "text": [ "[We totally know where Carthage was](_URL_0_), and [a friend of mine](_URL_1_) wrote her dissertation on the Roman reconstruction under Augustus. The \"salting the earth\" thing was elaboration." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?oe=UTF8&amp;t=h&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;msa=0&amp;mid=zE6LRdzK6Ss4.kMlgSrYVGU_Q", "http://havc.ucsc.edu/people/alumni/jessica-ambler" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dxueyf5" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I think that the best example of this in the colonial period is the Marranos who left Spanish-controlled lands in order to return to Judaism. In 1391 was the first massive wave of coerced conversion of Spanish Jews, and in 1483 the Spanish instituted the Inquisition in order to police these New Christians. By 1492 the Inquisition had successfully convinced Ferdinand and Isabella to kick all practicing (non-converted) Jews out of Spain. In a sense, that could count as an emigration to escape religious persecution- Jews generally went west to Portugal, south to North Africa, and east to the Ottoman Empire. In 1497, the king of Portugal forcibly converted all Jews in the country, and by 1536 the Inquisition established itself there as well. Spain and Portugal (soon to become one country under the Iberian Union). Thousands of New Christians remained on the Iberian Peninsula. \nMany of these New Christians were completely Christian as far as their religious theology and conduct. However, due to the Spanish policy of limpieza de sangre (blood purity), these New Christians were limited by their Jewish ancestry in terms of their social status and ability to socially climb. This was the first time that converts were given a racial distinction. Previously, once a Jew converted (and the Church worked HARD to get Jews to convert), s/he was as Christian as any other. Now, there was a social barrier created by one's ancestry. People had to have family pedigrees in order to prove that they were Old Christian- of course, forgeries abounded which masked New Christian ancestry. \nOf course, right around the same time as the Expulsion was Columbus's expedition to the New World (in fact they were within a few days of each other), and the New World ended up providing not only a source of wealth but a way for many to start anew. Many of these New Christians who were Christian at heart but resented being judged by their or their ancestors' former Judaism often traveled to the New World, where they could make new names for themselves and improve their situations. \nWith those New Christians, often called Marranos, who continued to secretly observe Jewish practice, many of them traveled throughout the world, including to the communities of the Spanish-Jewish post-expulsion diaspora, in order to return to Judaism in the several hundred years after the expulsion. By the 1600s, this had expanded past the areas mentioned above and a very large community had been established in Amsterdam, which became renowned as a center of Sefardic Jewish life and trade. However, many also traveled to the New World, where, conveniently, an Inquisition was not yet established (it wouldn't be until 1571) and it was easier to stay under the radar. Even after the Inquisition was established, there were still clandestine communities of Marranos who observed Judaism- the most famous is probably the family of Luis de Carvajal el mozo/Joseph Lumbroso, whose story is absolutely fascinating. \nAlmost all of Central and South America were controlled by the Spanish/Portuguese and ended up with an Inquisition at some point, but in 1631 Recife/Pernambuco, an area on the coast of Brazil, was captured by the Dutch and soon became known as a haven for Jews, whose population at some points purportedly was twice that of the Christians. Many Marranos either lived as Marranos in peace there or returned to normative Judaism. However, Recife was recaptured by the Portuguese in 1648 and that period of Jewish utopia ended. Jews also settled in areas like Suriname (which had a city called Jodensavanne, or Jewish savannah) and Jamaica, which were controlled by the British, and Curacao and Sint Maarten under Dutch control. Of course, in 1654 when the Dutch took control of New York, Spanish Jews (some of whom were escapees from Recife) became some of its first settlers. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "fltptbh" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Apologies, but we have had to remove your submission. We ask that questions in this subreddit be limited to those asking about history, or for historical answers. This is not a judgement of your question, but to receive the answer you are looking for, it would be better suited to /r/MuseumPros.\n\nIf you are interested in an historical answer, however, you are welcome to rework your question to fit the theme of this subreddit and resubmit it." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cdf639m", "cdf81iw", "cdf9ej0" ], "score": [ 3, 21, 10 ], "text": [ "_URL_0_\n\nIf I could suggest it, I'd take a quick backstep before you dive into the Federalist Papers and check out the first two or three chapters of \"Radicalism of the American Revolution\" by Gordon Wood. I don't think we have a full grasp of how stratified the society was and how engrained the concept of patriarchy was. If you're trying to get at the cultural context, Wood explained how alien this society was to the one that we've become familiar with in the 20th century.\n\nThis is Hamilton who believed (really!) in the \"unthinking populace\" and a more virtuous aristocracy.", "Keep in mind the problems that the new United States was facing at the time between the Treaty of Paris in 1783 and the eventual ratification of the Constitution in 1789. Here are some of those problems, in a nut shell:\n\n The Articles of Confederation made the central government extremely weak. It had no power to tax or even to require states to pay their share of the Confederation's budget. Debts kept piling up as different states either paid far less of their share of the Confederation's debts or ignored the bills altogether. This spiral of debt and non-repayment, coupled with the massive crushing debt incurred during the Revolutionary war, cause the American dollar - called the \"Continental\" - to become worthless (especially since specie - or physical money, usually made of silver - was increasingly hard to find forcing the government to print paper money; this led to the phrase \"as worthless as a Continental.\") This led to increased interest rates on loans, which in turn harmed everyone from Merchants in ports like Boston to farmers in the western regions of the New Republic. A good example of this is Daniel Shay's Rebellion - a spontaneous uprising of disaffected farmers who prevented (sometimes violently) the operation of civil courts, thus stopping the foreclosures of family farms. Shay and his neighbors were being crushed by the relatively high taxes imposed by the State of Massachusetts, the increasingly high interest rates on their loans, and the lack of hard currency so they took up arms. This rebellion certainly played a role in the formation of the Philadelphia Convention's ideas on economic policies of the proposed \"Federal\" government while they were drafting the new constitution.\n\nWorse, there was no true executive branch - sure, there was a \"President of the Congress\" but as Alan Brinkley points out in his textbook *Unfinished Nation*, the position became largely symbolic with the President acting as little more than a secretary who recorded, cataloged, and disseminated the edicts of the ineffectual Congress. Congress had little ability to force states to acquiesce to the demands of the Confederation (or even compel state representatives to show up for their jobs), so in essence, the body was impotent.\n\nOn top of that, there was no judiciary branch to hear cases regarding the constitutionality of Congressional laws nor to resolve disputes between states. This was predicated on the idea of \"States Rights\" i.e. that states, as sovereign members of a loose association, were the ultimate authorities in the land and the Confederation's government had no authority to impose its will. This *may* seem like an ideal situation to the hyper-sensitive political ideologues of the early American republic - a weak central government ensures that no one despot would arise to rule with absolute authority AND that a Parliament dissociated from the everyday concerns of the populace, would be unable to pass onerous laws similar to the Tea Act, the Coercive Acts, and the Stamp Act - but the problem with that approach was, however, there were no mechanisms to defuse disagreements between the various states. For example, the Ohio valley was coveted by Pennsylvania and Virginia; both of whom claimed their original Royal charters (or other documents) offered them said territory. Both were on the brink of going to war over the valley until the Northwest Ordinance was passed, making the region a new territory with a mechanism to become an independent state in its own right. Similar disagreements led to breakdowns in commerce as different states printed different amounts of money in different denominations; some states would not recognize the documents from others; and other disputes ranging from support of the Anglican church to the issue of slavery threatened to rip the Confederation apart.\n\n As if that wasn't bad enough, while the provisos in the Articles *did* provide a mechanism to change or alter these articles, the requirement was impossibly high: that *all* states must ratify any Amendment to the Articles. With no unifying enemy to rally against, the states acted as petty and jealously towards each other as the Princes of Renaissance Italy did; they worked hard to undercut each other at every turn; when most New England's ports closed themselves to British shipping in protest of British economic and military intimidation, price fixing, and market manipulation, Connecticut rolled out the red carpet (so to speak) to British merchants and reaped the rewards while its brothers further north fumed.\n\nHowever, that is not to say it wildly unpopular. Some Founding Fathers disagreed with the idea that there needed to be a strong central government and, indeed, looked at the troubles of the Confederacy not as problems, but the expression of true freedom and democracy. For example, during Shay's Rebellion in 1786, while George Washington wrote to David Humphreys lamenting that \"I am mortified beyond expression that in the moment of our acknowledged independence we should by our conduct verify the predictions of our transatlantic foe and render ourselves ridiculous and contemptible in the eyes of all Europe...\" (see _URL_0_ ), Thomas Jefferson gleefully quipped to James Madison that \"a little rebellion now and then is a good thing\" and \"[such rebellions were] as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.\" (see _URL_1_ ). Interestingly, when the convention was convened, Thomas Jefferson referred to those crafting the new document as \"demigods\" of the new nation and sought to instruct them. Only after the details of the Constitution came out did he begin to really oppose it, writing under the pseudonym \"Cato\" and \"Brutus\" countering the arguments of John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison (who wrote collectively under the pseudonym \"Publius\").\n\nOne of the main issues in the controversy over the Constitution was the very nature of its crafting; that it was done in secret and only after the document was finished was it revealed to the wider public. This led to charges that the elite statesmen who had crafted it had, instead, created a \"monster.\" The fact that the Federalist papers make a favorable case for a certain level of elitism (which you'll see in the papers) didn't really help ease people's fears about a betrayal of the egalitarian rhetoric of the American Revolution. \n\nNew York was one of the last states to ratify the Constitution and was a microcosm of the country at large; a unified but minority Federalist core against a larger but more fractured anti-Federalist majority. New York had plenty of rural land and farmers, a long history of prominence in Colonial and Early Republic politics, and was the 'canary in the coal mine' as it were - if the Federalist argument could succeed here, it stood a very good chance of being ratified throughout the country. \n\nA really good gauge of how divided the country was over this issue would be to also read some of the exchanges of insults between people like Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton during the ratification debate. \n\nI know it was a huge nut shell, but hopefully this helps you understand some of the background and context of the Federalist papers.", "One of the more important things to understand is that both Madison and Hamilton considered the Constitution a failure. In particular Madison cited the lack of a Federal veto of the states and the states having representation within the senate. As such some of the arguments should be viewed as arguments that they thought would be effective rather than arguments they themselves believed. We also have no comprehensive voting data for any state outside of Massachusetts until the early 19th century, so attempting to analyze support and opposition to the Constitution is difficult outside of broad pictures. Know that New York was doing extremely well in the mid 1780's, it had by and large pulled itself out of the depression much of the rest of the country was in. Furthermore New York lacked the western discontent that other states had, partially because of their very sound printed currency (which traded on par with gold and silver). The New York state government also earned between 1/3 and 1/2 of its' revenue from import taxes allowing the state to keep real estate taxes low, contributing to happier westerners the new Constitution threatened their import taxes. New York had also seized a lot of land from loyalists at the end of the war and had sold most of it to tenant farmers, giving the state over three million dollars and helping to breakdown the power of New York's wealthy elite, the confederate congress had pushed for states to return loyalist property and New York feared it would have to return the funds and George Clinton in particular would lose a large portion of his voting base of middling sorts and reverse a miniature social revolution to the political elite families that dominated New York politics. Finally its important to remember that even within New York there is little evidence that the papers played a meaningful role during the debate. In fact many of the Federalists within New York noted that while the *Federalist* sat well with the elite it was poorly written to address the poorer farmers who would decide the election and the *Federalist* was not distributed in large numbers to the Anti federalists parts of the state(New York allowed all White men to vote in the election for delegates to the convention as opposed to only those with the suffrage). John Jay did write a pamphlet entitled *An Address to the People of New-York, on the Subject of the Constitution* which Federalist leaders did find effective and publish throughout the state. When all was said and done however anti federalists outnumbered federalists more then two to one at the ratification convention.\n\nJay, Madison and Hamilton are primarily addressing as their audience three demographics\n\n1- The Remaining Manor Lords- Afraid of the States laws seizing Loyalist estates and fearing the power base of George Clinton ( which tended to be more middle class and farmers)\n\n2- Tenant Farmers- Who could be coerced by the elite ( who owned the land they worked) into siding with the Federalists, although because of the recently introduced secret ballot this would prove more difficult\n\n3- Merchants, tradesmen, urban professionals- Who, like in most states, hoped the Federal government would revive the economy and foreign commerce" ] }

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[ [ "http://books.google.cz/books?id=6lGinKwz7l8C&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;hl=cs&amp;source=gbs_ge_summary_r&amp;cad=0#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false" ], [ "http://shaysrebellion.stcc.edu/shaysapp/person.do?shortName=george_washington", "http://shaysrebellion.stcc.edu/shaysapp/person.do?shortName=thomas_jefferson" ], [] ]