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{ "a_id": [ "cbbl1z9" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "I can only speak to your final question about the UK at the moment. \n\nIn some part, rationing continued after the war in the UK due to the destruction wrought by the war. Beginning in 1944, the UK went into a sharp recession that didn't end until around 1948. There was also the dislocation of decolonization. The UK lost control over many vital colonies contributing to the disruption of production. Despite all of this, the Labour government at the time had still committed the British army to the occupation of Germany and to rebuilding other parts in Europe. The government was still exercising the significant war-time controls over most of production and ended up over-committing what was a shrinking pile of resources, necessitating rationing. \n\nIf you're looking for more serious scholarship on the matter, I suggest [Post War](_URL_0_) by Tony Judt. It captures what is was like for many of the Western European countries to endure conquest, outside liberation, and then the difficulty of rebuilding as they were severed from their empires. It's a good book if you want to understand the dismal state of affairs that produced the shortages and continued rationing in the UK, as well as its context within the rest of Europe. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.amazon.com/Postwar-History-Europe-Since-ebook/dp/B000SEGSB8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374959724&sr=8-1&keywords=post+war" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ek9egzf" ], "score": [ 40 ], "text": [ "Excellent question!\n\nWhile there’s a fair amount of variety, depending on the context of the capture, the timing or the nationality of the volunteers in question, there’s no doubt that Franco’s Nationalists could be quite brutal towards the foreigners they captured. Such brutality, of course, might extend to whether or not they were taken prisoner in the first place: there are numerous indications that foreign volunteers were sometimes shot immediately if captured in battle. A group of British volunteers, captured during the Battle of Jarama in February 1937, were convinced that they were going to be shot by their captors. One of their officers, an Australian named Ted Dickinson, was indeed shot – allegedly crying ‘Salud!’ with a clenched fist salute, although this has never really been verified. Another, Phil Elias, was shot on the spot when he reached for a packet of cigarettes. The others feared meeting a same fate, but were saved by the intervention of a passing Spanish officer. Whatever doubts there were about their survival were resolved when a *Daily Mail* reporter managed to get a picture of them in captivity. While the *Daily Mail* soon published a predictably scathing story about the 'misguided and hapless' prisoners they had seen, with their photos in print it became unthinkable that the Nationalists would be able to quietly make them disappear.\n\nIn another account from March 1938, a Spanish conscript serving alongside the foreigners recalled their captors separating out the (American) foreigners from the Spaniards by asking them questions, in Spanish, about their homes. The foreigners were marched off together, and the remaining Spaniards eventually heard gunfire in the distance, though whether these shots in fact came from the execution of the captive Americans has never been verified. I personally don’t doubt that execution, particularly in the early months of the war, was the common fate of most international captives. Tellingly, Franco himself issued an army-wide command in April 1937 that foreigners should not be shot, ordering that:\n\n > \\[Foreigners\\] lives be respected so that they can be repatriated to their country of origin, since a large number of those enlisted in the International Brigades want to defect if they know that their lives will be safe.\n\nThe necessity of issuing such an order is, to me at least, a strong indication that up to that point, executions of captured foreign fighters had been common practice. I also doubt that this order ended the practice entirely: the lack of foreign captives taken in a number of major battles is, I think, an indication that summary executions were fairly common, particularly for smaller groups of prisoners or individuals. The only British prisoner, Robert Beggs, taken at the Battle of Brunete, for instance, appears to have survived by convincing his captors he was seeking to defect having been deceived by the tricksy communists into coming to Spain – he was however a well-known member of the Communist Party of Great Britain in Glasgow!\n\nFor those that were captured alive, the process was not all that different to what Spanish prisoners of war experienced. Most ended up in a prisoner of war camp, where the regimes were generally harsh, conditions poor and violent treatment at the hands of the guards common. Yet although the prisoners themselves made the comparison with German concentration camps, it’s worth noting that the conditions were not so bad as that: there were few deaths among the prisoners, and they were often able to receive packages and money from home. Some governments were able to make representations on behalf of their nationals – the British, for instance, were fairly effective at ensuring that British prisoners were treated relatively well, although there were in practice limits to such diplomatic efforts to shield prisoners from harm. British diplomats, for instance, were somewhat too willing to trust to the ‘gentlemanly’ commanding officers’ good intentions, and were predisposed to disbelieve the generally left-wing, working-class volunteers’ claims of mistreatment. Such mistreatment was certainly a reality though – the aforementioned Beggs learned this the hard way, when he ran afoul of a guard sergeant, who beat him so severely Beggs ended up in the camp hospital for weeks. This incident, among others, earned the sergeant the nickname of ‘Sticky’ among the English-speaking prisoners. This was less a remark on his adhesive qualities, but reference to his apparent fondness for carrying around and using a large stick to beat the prisoners with.\n\nFor volunteers from fascist countries such as Germany, the reach of the secret police was an added danger. At the camp of San Pedro de Cardeña, where just about all foreign prisoners had been concentrated by early 1938, there was a ‘Gestapo’ presence that paid particular attention to the German prisoners, subjecting them to especial interrogations. All prisoners, however, were interviewed extensively. Aside from the usual pursuit of intelligence, there were some truly bizarre efforts to analyse the captives. Many prisoners of war were subjected to detailed physical and psychological examination by the Spanish psychiatrist Antonio Vallejo Nágera, who sought to discover the psychological causes of Marxism. Vallejo Nágera subjected groups of Portuguese, American and British prisoners to an array of strange and often humiliating tests, seeking to prove the latent inferiority of ‘Reds’ and connect their deviancy with their lack of exposure to Christian religion and traditional values. Interestingly, Vallejo Nágera’s experimental results are the best source of some key demographic data about the foreign volunteers, as the International Brigades themselves neglected to record volunteers’ religion or marital status.\n\nThe volunteers made efforts to mitigate their circumstances. Senior communists managed to form secret committees in an effort to organise the prisoners, though their efforts were hampered by the belief that the Nationalists would execute anyone suspected of being a Political Commissar or officer. It also didn’t help that many of the volunteers were extremely demoralised, even going so far as ‘openly declaring their preference for Fascism’ and ‘applaud\\[ing\\] the Italian officers.’ Tensions also came to the fore in the various ‘sharp divisions’ that cropped up throughout their imprisonment, on issues as varied as whether they should agree to shout ‘Franco’ on parade, or if they should campaign for better food. While the organisers boasted of their efforts to set up a camp ‘university’ to give lectures and teach inmates new skills, privately they admitted that it ‘had to be discontinued due to the activities of informers and the attitudes of the officers.’ Despite this, they were able to establish a camp fund that was used to buy luxuries such as extra food and cigarettes.\n\nFor those with governments able to intercede on their behalf, eventual repatriation was the most common fate for those in such camps. The first large group of British prisoners, taken at Jarama in February 1937, were released by May the same year, though not before they had gone through what amounted to a ‘show trial’, and handed down sentences ranging from execution to varying spells of imprisonment. While these were obviously not enforced, they were required to swear an oath not to return to Spain and take up arms again. Several chose to ignore this promise, and re-enlisted in the International Brigades. One, Jimmy Rutherford, had the misfortune of being captured again in March 1938. He was eventually recognised by one of his interrogators, and sentenced to death – a sentence which this time was carried out swiftly. British official protests at the execution were muted – as the Foreign Office privately acknowledged, the Nationalists had a fairly watertight case. Yet Rutherford’s fate was unusual, and most British prisoners had been sent home by the end of 1938, with the final few repatriated by February 1939. Those with no nationality, or were from countries which didn’t want them back, could languish for far longer in Franco’s camps – some were still imprisoned five years after the end of the civil war in 1944.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**Sources**\n\nThis is one of those posts where I could draw on my own research a lot - the above manages to cram in references to primary sources held at the National Archives and the Marx Memorial Library in London, the *Archivo General Militar* in Avila, Spain, the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History in Moscow, as well as some oral testimony and Antonio Vallejo Nágera's publications in *Semana Médica Española*.\n\nThese secondary sources also have some useful info in them:\n\nRichard Baxell, *British Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War* (2004)\n\nCarl Geiser *Prisoners of the Good Fight* (1986)\n\nOn Vallejo Nagera: Michael Richards, ‘Morality and Biology in the Spanish Civil War: Psychiatrists, Revolution and Women Prisoners in Málaga’, *Contemporary European History* 10:3 (2001), pp. 395–421. \n\n\n**Edit: I had to finish this up a little quickly, so have gone back and added a couple of details, and some more sources.**" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c7sigxr", "c7slj5n" ], "score": [ 8, 2 ], "text": [ "We can temper our expectations of human behavior with history. We can see the heights of human kindness and the depths of human evil. We can see how crowds have behaved and how others have behaved regardless of contemporary standards and options. \nIndeed, we can even see people accurately and inaccurately predicting the future with history. One of the hardest emotional hits I've taken from reading ancient documents are from Thucydides, the ancient Athenian historian (and one of the first historians we have to attempt neutrality), as he imagines walking through the ruins of Athens and Sparta, comparing them to the ruins he himself had already walked through. He remarks how impressive Athens would seem, and how weak Sparta, as Athens had more marble to leave behind, and it would be hard for future generations to believe that Sparta which left so little behind was the stronger power. \n\nIf you are interested in science fiction, Isaac Asimov's Foundation series deals with your premise.", "From another thread:\n\n > ... History isn't a social science like economics or sociology where one looks to simplify and separate independent from dependent variables in processes that are mind-blowingly complex to be able to predict the future. Instead, we recognize the interdependence of variables; history isn't the kind of field where you look at the past as a series of blueprints for the future. We only think this way because we have the power of hindsight, because looking back we can see how historical processes played out and we try to explain why. You can't do that with the present, because there are so many variables that we don't know, and even more whose significance we don't know either.\n\n > Think about the Hitler's decision to launch the Second World War: in 1939 and later in 1941, everything seemed as though it would go in Germany's favour, but variables that were unknown to the German government (like the level of industrialization in the USSR and the USA, Britain's will to fight, Stalin's control over his bureaucracy and population etc.) were what ultimately decided who won. Things the Germans thought would be most significant in order to achieve victory, like nifty tanks, guns, aeroplanes and rockets were ultimately proven not to be a deciding factor - things we think of as significant in affecting change today might be proven to be insignificant by the way history plays out. Most of these things can only be seen with hindsight, so claiming we can change the world by looking at what happened in the past only seems possible if we have access to every variable related to that change, and if we know which of those variables are more significant than others.\n\n > It should be noted that I'm not arguing against social change (I'm actually quite for it), I'm just pointing out the flaws in trying to change the future by using the past like a road map.\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d4b3mz7" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "To be honest I really like the idea, engaging with the lay community seems to be one of the big goals to AH and this seems a great way to go about doing that. Though I'm sure there'd be issues with timing, security, et al." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c5lub79", "c5lzwlu", "c5m1h5v", "c5m7k7h" ], "score": [ 9, 9, 333, 2 ], "text": [ "I would recommend that you read Legionary: The Roman Soldiers Unofficial Manual by Philip Matyszak. It's humorous, but contains some surprisingly spot-on information about the daily life of a Roman soldier and goes into extensive detail on training and fighting. ", "You probably should be more specific. The training that Roman soldiers received depended a lot on the time in which they lived.\n\nAlso, read Vegetius' [De Re Militari](_URL_0_)", "**EDIT: I'm going to shameless plug [this](_URL_0_) thread. If you enjoyed this and wish to learn more about the ancient peoples I love the most. Read it please, comment and ask questions! ;)**\n\nLike reginaldaugustus said Vegetius wrote about the doctrines of the Roman Legions.\n\n**Some relevant sections about infantry training;**\n\n*\"Right at the start of their training, therefore, recruits should\nbe taught the military step. For on the march and in the battle line\nnothing should be safeguarded more carefully than that all the troops should keep in step. This can be achieved only if through repeated\npractice they learn to march quickly and in formation. An army which\nis split up and in disorder is always in grave danger from the enemy.\nSo, 20 miles should be completed with the military step in five hours,\nbut only in summer. With the fuller step, which is quicker, 24 miles\nshould be completed in the same time… The soldiers should also be\ntrained in jumping so that they can leap over ditches and surmount\nany height blocking the way, and consequently when difficulties of this\nkind appear, they can cross them without trouble\"*\n\n*\"All recruits without exception should during the summer\nmonths learn how to swim. For they cannot always cross rivers on\nbridges, but during a retreat or pursuit an army is frequently forced to\nswim\"* \n\n*\"Recruits should be compelled frequently to carry a burden\nof up to sixty pounds and to march with the military step, since on\ntough campaigns they face the necessity of carrying their provisions as\nwell as their weapons\"*\n\n*\"The younger soldiers and recruits normally were\ntrained in the morning and afternoon with every kind of weapon. Veterans\nand experienced troops had one uninterrupted arms drill session every\nday… It is excellent to train them at a fencing post using wooden sticks,\nsince they learn how to attack the sides or legs or head with the point\nand edge (of the sword). They should also learn how to strike a blow\nwhile simultaneously leaping up, to spring up with a bound and crouch\ndown behind the shield again, to charge forward with one rush and then\ngive way and charge back to the rear. They should also practise hurling\ntheir javelins at the posts from a distance in order to develop their accuracy\nand the strength of their throwing arm\"*\n\n**Vegetius also wrote about some cavalry training regiments;**\n\n*\"An ancient practice has survived, for which provision has also been\nmade in the enactments of the divine Augustus and Hadrian, that three\ntimes each month both the cavalry and infantry should be led out for\nmarching exercise; for this word is used to describe this type of drill\n(ambulatura). The infantry wearing their armour and equipped with\nall their weapons were commanded to march for 10 miles and then\nreturn to the camp at the military pace, although they had to complete\npart of the route at a quicker speed. The cavalry, drawn up in squadrons\nand equipped in the same way, completed the same distance and\npractised cavalry drill, sometimes pursuing, then giving way, and then\nrenewing the attack vigorously\"*\n\n**Arrian also has something to add to this discussion;**\n\n*\"(The Cantabrian manoeuvre) works as follows. A cavalry formation,\nfully equipped, is drawn up in the usual way on the left of the platform,\nexcept for the two cavalrymen who are to receive the direct barrage of\njavelins. They charge from the right as before (?) and wheel to the right.\nBut while they are charging another charge begins on the left of the\nplatform and wheels in a circle. These cavalrymen use not light javelins\nbut full-size spears though with no iron tip; but their weight makes them\nawkward for the throwers and not without danger to the men who are\nthe targets. They have orders, therefore, not to aim at the heads of the\ncavalrymen riding past or to throw a spear at the horse, but before the\ncavalryman wheels his horse and exposes any part of his flank, or his\nback becomes exposed while he is turning, to aim at the shield and strike\nit as hard as possible with the spear. The skill of this manoeuvre lies in\nthe fact that the man in position in the Cantabrian formation should get\nas close as possible to those riding past and hit the centre of the shield\nwith his spear, either striking a resounding blow or piercing it right\nthrough; then the second man attacks the second in the other formation,\nthe third man the third, and so on in the same way\"*\n\n**Josephus explained why all this training was important**\n\n*\"Indeed, as if they had been born fully armed they never take a holiday\nfrom training and do not wait for crises to appear. Their training\nmanoeuvres lack none of the vigour of genuine warfare and each soldier\npractises battle drill every day with great enthusiasm just as if he were\nin battle. Therefore they sustain the shock of combat very easily. For\ntheir usual well-ordered ranks are not disrupted by any confusion, or\nnumbed by fear, or exhausted by toil; so, certain victory inevitably\nfollows since the enemy cannot match this. Indeed one would not be\nwrong in saying that their training manoeuvres are battles without\nbloodshed, and their battles manoeuvres with bloodshed.\"*\n\n**Emperor Trajan Hadrian Augustus tell's us about some battle manoeuvres that must have required some intense training, these are excerpts of his commendations for the legates of his legions**\n\n*\"Military manoeuvres have their own rules so to speak and if anything\nis added or taken away from them the drill is made either less effective\nor more difficult. Indeed the more complications are added, the less\nimpressive it appears. Of the difficult manoeuvres you have completed\nthe most difficult of all, throwing the javelin while wearing metal corslets.\"*\n\n*\"You did everything in order. You filled the plain with your exercises, you\nthrew your javelins with a certain degree of style, although you were\nusing rather short and stiff javelins; several of you hurled your lances\nwith equal skill. Just now you mounted your horses agilely and yesterday\nyou did it swiftly. If anything had been lacking in your performance I\nshould have noted it, if anything had been obviously bad I should have\nmentioned it, but throughout the entire manoeuvre you satisfied me\nuniformly. Catullinus my legate, distinguished man, shows equal concern\nfor all the units of which he is in command.*\"\n\n*It is difficult for cavalry attached to a cohort to win approval even on\ntheir own, and more difficult still for them not to incur criticism after a\nmanoeuvre by auxiliary cavalry; they cover a greater area of the plain,\nthere are more men throwing javelins, they wheel right in close\nformation, they perform the Cantabrian manoeuvre in close array, the\nbeauty of their horses and the splendour of their weapons are in keeping\nwith their pay. But, despite the heat, you avoided any boredom by\ndoing energetically what had to be done; in addition you fired stones\nfrom slings and fought with javelins; on every occasion you mounted speedily. The remarkable care taken by my legate Catullinus,\ndistinguished man, is obvious from the fact that he has men like you\nunder\"*\n\n**Note that the Romans also trained their legions with building excersizes, not to mention the near daily routine of having to build fortified camps when on the march**\n\n*\"that two years ago you\ncontributed a cohort and four men from each century to supplement\nyour colleagues in the third legion (III Cyrenaica or Gallica), that many\noutposts in different locations keep you far apart, that in my own\nmemory you have not only changed camp twice but also built new\nones. For these reasons I would have excused you if the legion had\nbeen dilatory in its manoeuvres for any length of time. But you have\nnot been dilatory in any respect at all\"*\n\n**Please let me know if you have more questions =)**\n\n\n\n", "Thanks for writing that. Hollywood always gives us certain impressions on how historical battles were conducted. so reading this was extremely interesting because i could make the comparisons" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Re_Militari" ], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/xh64d/can_anyone_describe_to_me_vividly_the_mayhem_that/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "em300ck" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Here's an update to where I am at,\n\nI've switched from closing doors to the assimilation-pluralism dichotomy debate, and have chosen the following literature to support it through three paradigm shifts.\n\n1st Paradigm\n\nBecoming American : an ethnic history / Thomas J. Archdeacon. New York: Free Press ; London : Collier Macmillan, [1983]\n\nSincerity and Authenticity / Lionel Trilling. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, [1973, c1972]\n\n2nd Paradigm\n\nAssimilation, American style / Peter D. Salins. New York: Basic Books, [1997]\n\nBeyond white ethnicity: developing a sociological understanding of Native American identity and reclamation / Kathleen J. Fitzgerald. Lanham: Lexington Books, [2007]\n\n3rd Paradigm\n\nDisciplinary Spaces : Spatial Control, Forced Assimilation and Narratives of Progress since the 19th Century / Sophie Wagenhofer, Andrea Fischer-Tahir. Bielefeld : transcript-Verlag, [2017]\n\nBlood will tell: Native Americans and asimilation policy / Katherine Ellinghaus. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2017]\n\nThe first paradigm indicates a approach for inclusion for assimilation, whilst the second paradigm gives the reasoning that they combine there culture and the naturalization process. The third revisits these, but also shows that these things were implemented through the altering of behavior and dis-empowering of these individuals to allow for assimilation." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cbkqaln" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "/r/AskAnthropology is a better place to ask \"What was daily life like during X time and Y place?\" questions." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cu5q6ol", "cu5rfef" ], "score": [ 10, 39 ], "text": [ "The only Axis nation I know of that felt the effects of the Garand and decided to implement a version like it were the Japanese. They created a ten round rifle called the \"Type 4\". It was essentially a carbon copy but with a magazine inserted underneath, rather than a \"clip\" inserted at the top.\n\n\nThe Germans had not experienced the M1 in combat until 1941/2, but after France Hitler understood the practical benefits a semi-automatic rifle could have in infantry units. He ordered the production of the \"Gewehr 41\". This was a complete failure, regularly breaking due to an overly complex design. This was manufactured with a bolt action and semi-automatic system in place, so it could be used as both if one failed. This was also capable of being loaded with a magazine underneath or with two Karabiner 98K \"stripper clips\" directly into the top. Being a complete failure, it was later redesigned as the \"Gewehr 43\", a much better weapon.\n\n\nSo, although they originally designed a semi-automatic weapon before American's fought them, the German's definitely realized the implications of having a rapid fire rifle in combat.", "No other nation equipped their armies with semi-automatic rifles to the extent of the Americans - this was due to a multitude of reasons.\n\nThere's a fundamental difference in European and American infantry rifle squad tactics during ww2. \n\nThe Americans believed the rifle squad could provide its own covering fire with semi-automatic rifles and neglected machineguns, light, medium and heavy. A German 1943 Grenadier battalion had 44 MGs (MG 34 and/or MG 42) while a US infantry battalion had 8 (35 if you count the BARs, but without interchangable barrels, they were not capable of sustained fire). All the US machine guns were mounted on tripods, making them heavy and hard to move with the infantry. Generally, I feel the sentiment both by historians and the US army post-war was that this doctrine was wrong - a rifle squad was generally unable to provide its own coverering or supressing fire, and the US army introduced MGs on the squad level.\n\nThe US did introduce the M1919A6 as a belt-fed bipod mounted squad MG for its paratroopers, but not for the general infantry. Immediately after the war, the they started to develop a squad MG and introduced it in the belt-fed M60 in 1957.\n\nAs you can see, the Germans focused on the belt-fed MG and the sustained fire it could provide. The British focused on heavy watercooled HMGs (Vickers) and light magazine-fed LMGs (Bren). They used their heavy MGs with advanced tactics developed during the latter part of ww1, setting them up to fire indirectly and cover areas with fire to deny them to the enemy (they could not move in the bullet-riddled area) or keep enemy soldiers down while their own soldiers advanced.\n\nThat said, while the Germans were impressed with the quality and performance of the M1 Garand, it did not fit into their own unit tactics - they did supply sharpshooters with their own semi-automatic Gewehre 43 rifles but did not aim to supply the general infantryman with a semi-automatic rifle. Instead they, from experience saying the combat distance of infantry was almost always below 300 meters, they attempted to merge the SMG and the rifle into the assault rifle - their MP 43/StG 44. \n\nOnce the Germans encountered large amounts of US troops equipped with semi-automatic rifles, they had already focused on the heavy general purpose MG (MG 34/MG 42) and SMGs and later merged the rifle and the SMG into the assault rifle.\n\nThe full power semi-automatic rifle as a general armament for all riflemen remained a US curiosity, even after the war with the US M14.\n\nThe British focused on Bren LMGs (up to two per squad) and SMGs ot increase the firepower of their squad. After the war, they eventually replaced the rifles and the SMGs with the L1A1 assault rifle in 1957.\n\nThe Germans focused in general purpose MGs (MG 34 and MG 42) and SMGs and then merged SMGs and rifles into the MP 43/StG 44.\n\nThe Soviets focused on SMGs, creating an entire company in each rifle regiment equipped with only SMGs and LMGs. They also used a lot of LMGs (DP-28). After the war, they went the same way the Germans had, merging the SMG and the rifle into the assault rifle, in their case the AK-47.\n\nAs you can see, while other powers might have been impressed by the M1 Garand, it did not fit into their infantry tactics and doctrine, and viewed over the world and historically, it was a dead end only used in the US.\n\nNomenclature:\n\nSMG = Sub-machine gun.\n\nMG = Machine gun.\n\nLMG = Light machine gun (most often magazine fed).\n\nGPMG = General purpose machine gun (on bipod, belt-fed).\n\nHMG = Heavy machine gun (on tripod, most often belt-fed)." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ezpe8mb", "ezpm6zu" ], "score": [ 20, 8 ], "text": [ "There were three main groups of non-Christians who partook of 18th century American society: enslaved Africans (of whose religious practices I know very little), Native Americans, and Jews. Native Americans typically received Christian baptisms as a prerequisite to joining colonial societies after choosing (or not choosing) to opt out of a Native-controlled setting. The best examples of this are the \"praying towns\" in 17th and 18th century New England and the *réserves* along the St. Lawrence River in New France. They still, of course, faced racial discrimination, but the religious discrimination these Natives face typically boiled down to doubting the sincerity of their conversions (less of a problem in some places than others).\n\nJewish people experienced discrimination across the entire continent. New France and Louisiana banned Jewish migration outright. Religious toleration in general was usually qualified with a clause saying something to the effect of \"*except Jews and Catholics*\" in British colonies. There are many, many episodes of Jewish discrimination including banning synagogues or just general anti-Semitism, but New Netherland (later New York) has an interesting history in that many of these legal barriers were *stricken down.*\n\nThe Dutch founded New Netherland as a trade outpost for procuring furs from the Iroquois in exchange for guns and manufactured goods. But even though Dutch Republic allowed Jewish residency and commerce in the Netherlands, New Netherland was envisioned as an entirely-Dutch enterprise. That meant Dutch migrants and only Dutch Protestantism. The governors were appointed with a mandate to preserve this Dutch-ness.\n\nBut Jews were involved in Dutch colonialism outside of New Netherland. They were essential to Dutch claims to Brazil, as they had established a Dutch-jewish outpost with which to compete with the Portuguese for control of the region. The Dutch lost in 1652, rendering the Dutch Jews homeless and vulnerable. They began relocating to New Netherland in 1655 to a mixed reception.\n\nDirector-General Peter Stuyvesant and Domine Johannes Megapolensis protested angrily about this influx of Jews. They had already been forced to compromise their vision for a Dutch-only colony by allowing English Protestants and Swedes to settle in order to bolster the colony's very low population. They had tried to prevent thee migrations or even expel them, but their Dutch superiors ordered Stuyvesant to allow them to stay, citing Dutch principles of tolerance and a need for a larger population.\n\nThe Dutch lords responded in 1655 that any attempt to ban Jewish migration would be \"unreasonable and unfair\" due to their vulnerability following their forced migration from Brazil. They also cited how important Jewish investments were among the capital of Dutch West India Company. So Jews were allowed to stay, but still faced legal discrimination. As in the Netherlands, they were not allowed to operate open-to-the-public stores, though they could still make sales in an unofficial capacity as private salesmen. Neither were they allowed to open synagogues under Stuyvesant's tenure, which lasted until England conquered the colony in 1664. They were, however, specifically allowed to trade with the Natives at Fort Orange. \n\nThese barriers weakened over time. By 1657 Dutch Jews were operating open-front stores and were allowed to continue despite grumblings from Stuyvesant and Dutch pastors. Stuyvesant even capitulated in allowing the Dutch Jews citizenship in 1658, which gave them commercial freedom on par with a Dutch Protestant. The prohibition on open practice of Judaism via synagogues remained, but Jews were allowed to practice in private ceremonies within private homes.\n\nEdit: I can't believe I forgot to mention enslaved African as non-Christians. I don't really know enough of African religious practices in North America to comment on them, unfortunately. I changed the beginning so I don't implicitly exclude enslaved Africans.\n\nSources:\n\nJames Axtell - *The Invasion Within*\n\nGeorge Procter-Smith - *Religion and Trade in New Netherland*", "I'll see if I can get back to this later to expand on it, but in the meantime, in a [past answer here](_URL_1_) I briefly discussed this in terms of how Jews were treated in British colonies (in addition to what u/DarthNetflix wrote about New Netherlands and French colonies)-\n\n > Bear in mind- being in the British colonies didn't necessarily mean escaping religious persecution, depending on how one defines the term. It could mean taking it on. That first Jewish community in New York technically didn't have the legal right to worship in public until about 1700 (long after the right had been granted in England), and it was implicit that they were tolerated for as long as they kept their heads to the ground. (That first synagogue established at that time, Shearith Israel, still exists today.) Until the United States were established (and even, to an extent, after that), each colony had its own policy on acceptance of the Jews, from Rhode Island (which was entirely tolerant) to Maryland (where doubting the Trinity was a capital crime on the third offense). Even in places where Jews had the right to worship, though, they didn't necessarily have equal rights under the law- for periods of time in New York and Jamaica, Jews could not vote, for example. Some colonies retained test acts- whereby only men who affirmed faith in Jesus could attain public office- until long after they'd become states.\n\nJews also came to Spanish-ruled American colonies from Spain in order to escape persecution, and were actually successful for a while, until the Inquisition was brought across the Atlantic- for more about this, see [my past answer here](_URL_0_)." ] }

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[ [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aqihgn/crypto_jews_in_northern_mexiconuevo_leon_coahuila/egha94n?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/c2386a/many_early_european_settlers_who_came_to_the/eriadb1?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dh9f1ij", "dha1ng8" ], "score": [ 42, 13 ], "text": [ " > The British lost about 1/10th of that, and half of those (5000) because the Luftwaffe sank one of the ships they were fleeing in\n\nThe British Expeditionary Force (BEF) lost much closer to 50-60 thousand men killed, missing or captured during the Battle for France, which was kicked off by a Brilliant deception by the German High Command and tactics that allowed the German armies to not only separate the allies, but also trap the BEF in a pocket away from help ([Forgotten soldiers](_URL_1_) gives the story of one of the German Sergeants who led one of the attacks).\n\nThe decision to withdraw the BEF was made when it was certain that their position was untenable and the British ran the very real risk of losing their entire army (men and material), and even then, the withdrawal from Dunkirk resulted in the BEF losing nearly all of their equipment, such as heavy guns and lorries etc. \n\n > British propaganda then blamed German victories on the French and Belgian lacking fighting spirit\n\nI haven't heard that, but I am not as well read on this topic as others. The Allies were defeated by combination of Allied Complacency, excellent German strategy (and tactics) as well as a bold new approach to fighting (Blitzkrieg).\n\n > Having Hollywood now making films to try and make the British look good and their unspeakable betrayal at Dunkirk heroic is just further bullshit added to insult to the injury. \n\nThe British withdrawal from Dunkirk could be considered a victory, or sorts... Assuming that you don't account for the loss of the equipment, the half a dozen destroyers etc. Dunkirk should be remembered for the \"Irregular Navy\" of civilian boats that made the withdrawal possible.\n\n > Oh and by the way, when the French leadership asked the USA to enter the war, they were told to fuck off\n\nThe US was not interested in fighting a way in Europe. In fact, the US had an isolationist policy which meant that the US was only looking after US interests, and lead (I believe) to the attacks on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. -Until that point, the US had rebuffed everyone's attempts to get them involved in the war in Europe.\n\n > The USA would not enter that war until they were themselves attacked years later\n\nI wouldn't say that 18 months is \"years\" personally...\n\n > US history books are of course chock full of references to French (who declared war on Hitler) appeasement of Hitler\n\nThe appeasement policy was an approach taken by most of Europe, including the UK, the French and the Belgians in order to prevent war breaking out in Europe. \n\nI recommend reading some of these books:\n\n* [Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk](_URL_2_)\n\n* [Dunkirk: From Disaster to Deliverance - Testimonies of the Last Survivors](_URL_5_)\n\n* [The Road to Dunkirk: The British Expeditionary Force and the Battle of the Ypres-Comines Canal, 1940](_URL_4_)\n\n* [Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory](_URL_0_)\n\n* [The Miracle of Dunkirk](_URL_3_)\n\nHope this helps.", "When Germany invaded France their armoured forces punched through the Ardennes region, reaching the Channel coast near Abbeville on the 20th May after only ten days and encircling the Allied 1st Army Group that included the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Allied forces were in disarray; Gamelin, the French Supreme Commander, had just been replaced by Weygand and the British War Cabinet ordered Gort, commander of the BEF, to attack to the south-west, but heavily engaged against German Army Group B (the anvil to the hammer of Army Group A) this was impossible.\n\nWeygand convened a conference in Ypres on 21st May to co-ordinate with French, Belgian and British forces and plan a counter-attack to break through the encirclement. Billotte, commander of the 1st Army Group, was late and mortally injured in a car crash after returning to his headquarters; Gort could not be reached until after Weygand left Ypres and they never spoke. The plan was for an attack to be launched on 26th May, 1st Army Group attacking south-west and a newly formed French army pushing north-east, but was hopeless from the start, requiring repositioning and co-ordination between disorganised and weakened French, Belgian and British forces. Churchill, unaware of the numerous difficulties, was enthusiastic. Gort was completely unconvinced, and with the situation deteriorating ordered a withdrawal of the BEF towards the Channel ports on 23rd May to secure his line, disobeying Weygard's orders without referring to London who would not have countenanced the action. Weygand used this as a pretext to cancel the attack, casting Gort as scapegoat for the failure. At that point the BEF had no option but to retreat and attempt to evacuate, with Dunkirk the only option after the fall of Boulogne with Calais under siege.\n\nThere is, therefore, a nub of truth in Churchill's assurances of continued support not being reflected by Gort's (independent) actions, but the original post is appallingly skewed. *The Battle for France and Flanders: Sixty Years On* is a collection of essays with three on the History and Historiography of the Battle from the French, German and British views that are helpful for understanding how the events are presented; the \"Miracle of Dunkirk\" has been mythologised by many in Britain, glossing over the defeat, whereas a popular French view is of \"Perfidious Albion\" abandoning their allies as exemplified by the original post, neither terribly helpful or accurate." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.amazon.com/Dunkirk-Retreat-Victory-Julian-Thompson/dp/162872515X", "https://wordery.com/forgotten-soldiers-brian-moynahan-9781847243874?currency=AUD&gtrck=dGk5NzhPSkZTNy9OMllSWkdpRTF4OU1lenkvc0hPNmt5Qktab0h0WUFwS2FOS2NPaWNzUVR0U2JhYVVva2NWbmIyMjhEZ0JFQnRJb0oyUC9qMFZ2ZlE9PQ&gclid=CKzqgf_q3tMCFRObvQodlUoJwQ", "https://www.amazon.com/Blitzkrieg-Rise-Hitler-Fall-Dunkirk/dp/0007531192", "https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Dunkirk-Library-Walter-Lord/dp/1433223775", "https://www.amazon.com/Road-Dunkirk-British-Expeditionary-Ypres-Comines/dp/1848327331", "https://www.amazon.com/Dunkirk-Disaster-Deliverance-Testimonies-Survivors/dp/178131294X" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cl3xmmn" ], "score": [ 34 ], "text": [ "Unfortunately I cannot answer your question directly. \n\nIn the West, very very few people read Greek and there was hardly any Greek for them to read, so any notion of Greek democracy they had came from Romans who generally thought Athenian democracy was wacky (as did most Greeks). They are used by Cicero and others as an example of the disadvantage of popular participation. The Romans viewed it as a danger leading to mob rule and violence.\n\nWhat I can address is the way Roman ideas of government influenced the Holy Roman Empire.\n\nWe don't usually think of the HRE as a democracy or a republic, but the Germans did. They elected their emperor for life at a diet of all the lords of Germany. They viewed this election as a popular election that gave the emperor a mandate from the people. This is in direct imitation of the *lex de imperio*, an acclimation from the people of Rome to give the emperor specific powers. We have a surviving example called the [Lex de Imperio Vespasiani](_URL_0_).\n\nSo wrapped up in this vote is a notion of popular sovereignty. The people then vote to give the emperor their powers. The Germans imitated this, except that their notion of \"people\" aka citizens was limited to the nobility. This can be seen in some of their language. The word usually translated as \"diet\" is *curia*, which has its root as a deliberative body of citizens. They also used the word *comitia*, a elective assembly in ancient Rome to describe deliberative groups in medieval Germany.\n\nIn the 12th century, Frederick Barbarossa marched on Rome because the Romans would not acknowledge his authority over them because they had not given him their powers by a formal *lex*. He responded by saying that the Roman people (German lords) had given him their authority by vote, and that the City was thus his *possessio*, a term used specifically for property under his full authority. This is detailed in Otto of Friesing's *Deeds of Frederic* 2.30. This argument rests not only of Roman traditions, but also on Biblical notions of empire, and Medieval notions of nobility. " ] }

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[ [ "http://droitromain.upmf-grenoble.fr/Anglica/vespas_johnson.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7cq05m", "c7cq4ku", "c7cq7ax", "c7cq7q8", "c7cqjoi", "c7cqo1h", "c7cv7ez", "c7d1ee7" ], "score": [ 2, 67, 22, 9, 6, 9, 4, 2 ], "text": [ "I wouldn't say that about Portuguese colonies, both the US and Canada have more Natives than Brazil.", "I recommend Elliot's *Empires of the Atlantic World*. Essentially, and I speak more from my own experience in the Spanish American field, the populations of Mexico and the Andes were always larger than the North American Southeast and Northeast. Disease did destroy entire communities in the New World, but there were more people in the Spanish American regions so that the human landscape was not eliminated. This was the case in Hispañola, Venezuela, and the areas of Spanish Florida ( eastern coast of US to Chesapeake). \n\nFurthermore, the Spanish invaders found that by marrying Indian nobility, they could consolidate local power and acquire resources faster than if they went about life alone or with a European mate. Mestizos were fairly common and treated well in the first half century of conquest. If the elites could marry Indians, though, the lower classes could to. This created a class of people that did not correspond with the Spanish social ideal. Twinam's *Public Lives, Private Secrets* discusses how those undesirables were accepted or rejected by their families. Anyway, the British were less open to including natives within their settlements. It was a closed environment that made it difficult for the two worlds to interact in the same way the Spanish and Portuguese did. \n\nSlavery played a role in both worlds, but I would argue that it was more complicated in North America. If we talk about slavery and not encomiendas, church service, and labor taxes, the Spanish crown stopped the spread of Indian slavery, opting for African slaves from the Portuguese traders. They did continue to abuse them which clearly damaged the population, but they made sure Indians could not move to new areas without severe punishments. In North America, the English invaders and settlers engaged in Indian slavery for a much longer time that the Spanish. Alan Gallay edited a fantastic collection of articles on this called, appropriately, *Indian Slavery*. Slave raids in the British controlled areas were destructive, forcing the indigenous groups to move away from the Europeans. Since the British did not integrate Indian populations the way the Spanish did, those fleeing Indian groups merged, migrated, and repopulated less settled areas of North America. \n\n**TL:DR** - Populations in the Spanish American world were greater and could withstand European interaction more than less populated ones. Spanish America accepted levels of interaction between the European and indigenous communities that the English could not. ", "There's a number of reasons for the separate treatment of Native Americans between British North America and Colonial Latin America.\n\nFirstly, the approach toward colonization of Latin America by the Iberian powers in the early years was decidedly of resource extraction, as suggested by aNonSapient. This, however, proved disasterous to indigenous populations, as the introduction of epidemic disease coupled with the brutal *encomienda* system led to a massive depopulation. The reason indigenous peoples were not displaced on the Caribbean islands is because they were driven nearly to literal extinction. Several West Indian cultures were completely extirpated.\n\nSimilar results accompanied colonization in South and Central America, but the time it took the Iberians to institute a system of colonization in the much larger territories also allowed them time to recognize their unsustainable approach to resource extraction. Certainly this approach continued, but protections were placed on the endangered native population to prevent a repeat of the extermination of peoples on many Caribbean islands.\n\nThe British were also focused on resource extraction early on, but they were also focused on self-reliance. British colonies were expected to pay for themselves through the labor of slaves and whites nearly from the beginning, and slavery of native peoples proved ineffective.\n\nMore importantly, the British were dealing with a much, much smaller space of land. They really didn't expand beyond the thirteen main colonies until the 1750s, while the Iberians controlled virtually everything south of the modern US-Mexico border by that time. The British could consolidate and become self reliant in North America, while the Spanish were stretched thin across entire continents, requiring a reliance on Native labor and cooperation.\n\nThe religious aspect is an important one as well. There were many among the British who attempted to convert native peoples, and there are notable successes, but it was rarely national policy. The Portugese and Spanish, by contrast, were adamant about the conversion of native peoples. Wiping them out or displacing them would work directly against one of the main objectives and justifications for Irberian colonization.\n\n**TL;DR**: The Iberians needed native labor because they didn't have enough colonists to support the land on their own, and they needed them as converts. The British had much less land and were able to support themselves through slavery and white labor, and weren't as concerned with conversion.", "The English brought their wives. The Spanish didn't. Think about the implications of that.", "Can't speak for the Portuguese, or the English, but the Spanish wanted to extract wealth by inserting themselves into the previously existing power and labor structures. This required that they basically leave most of the native people alive, so that their source of labor continued to exist. In the case of the Inca, the Spanish 'encomienda' system was adapted so that each 'encomendero' was essentially given an 'allyu', or a portion of one, and allowed to extract labor from these people through the Incan 'mita' labor system, a type of corvee labor. This resulted in the continuation of native people, their culture, in a way that did not occur with the British. This isn't to say that Spanish conquest or rule was benevolent or beneficial to the native people, far from it, but the goals were just different, and led to a different outcome.", "A big factor in areas like the Andes and Mesoamerica is simple demographics; they had the largest and densest populations of indigenous people. Even the slow moving genocide that was colonization couldn't completely exterminate those millions of people.\n\n\n", "One other aspect that has been touched upon but not explained by other comments here is the nature of Spanish conquest and colonialism vs. British conquest and colonialism. The Spanish conceived of the conquest as an extension of the long process of reconquest which had been completed in 1492. This had several by-products. 1) Conquistadors were drawn to the process because in previous centuries service in Reconquest campaigns led to financial, social, and legal rewards from the Spanish crown. 2) The Reconquest provided models for later systems, the encomienda was an institution used in the Reconquest to reward individuals who expanded royal power into new areas. 3) Unlike colonization based on settlement and economic development, Spaniards who travelled to the Americas to conquer did not want to stay (ideally anyways) nor did they want to work as yeomen farmers/homesteaders. Conditioned by the reconquest they wanted to serve the king, expand his dominions, and petition for rewards (as well as get spoils of war).\n\nWhat does this all mean for Native Americans? Spaniards strictly speaking did not want the land in and of itself. They wanted to control people who could be coerced initially via slavery then after 1512 through the encomienda and then repartimiento. Because the survival of native labor was vital to the success of the colony efforts were made both by the crown and individual Spaniards to preserve the native population. This is not to say that they Spaniards were 'good' to natives just that the eradication or removal of native populations was not in the long term interests of Spanish residents or the colonial authorities. This helps explain why during the 16th c there were so many debates over how to treat the natives. Everyone clerics, bureaucrats, encomenderos, settlers, etc. had a slightly different view over how best to structure European control over native laborers. \n\nIt is also important to note that one reason that the Spanish were able to conquer the large native empires of the Americas was because they found allies among rival native groups. Without the help of Tlaxcala, Huejotzingo, and others the Aztec Empire probably would have defeated Cortes. The same is true for Pizarro and his conquest of the Inca. He stumbled upon a civil war between rival claimants to the Inca throne. Because numerous native communities aided Spanish conquests those communities and their leaders often received special privileges. \n\nFor a good overview of the conquest and native participation in it see these two books\n\nRestall's [Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquests](_URL_1_)\n\nMatthew and Oudijk's [Indian Conquistadors](_URL_0_)", "If I recall correctly, when the spannish arrived in the south there were still plenty of native americans but when the europeans arrived to the north, most of the population had been decimated by disease. Land that had been reported as densely populated was found to be deserted. (such as around the Mississippi river where the largest city had more people than London at its peak.) " ] }

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[ [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://books.google.com/books?id=RSPE2oaa8ZkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=indian+conquistadors&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Rk3CUNTMCon29gSD3YDQDg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA", "http://books.google.com/books?id=2hMp9z_OsUMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=seven+myths+of+the+spanish+conquest&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JU3CUPPBNYyc8gS66YDACw&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAA" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cv9kg69" ], "score": [ 74 ], "text": [ "Our best ancient account of Alexander's conquests is Arrian's *Anabasis*, which talks about the reactions of Tyre and other local leaders to Alexander's advance. Arrian was a Greek historian and politician born in Roman Asia Minor in the late 1st century AD. He was a friend of Hadrian's and would go on to become a senator, provincial governor of Cappadocia, and later Archon of Athens in the 2nd century. His *Anabasis* draws form other previous ancient sources and deals mainly with Alexander's takeover of the Persian empire.\n\nAt the time that Alexander crossed the Hellespont in the spring of 334BCE, the Persian Emperor, Darius III, was thousands of miles away and it would be months before his army arrived in Asia Minor. Arrian describes how the local satraps (the Persian equivalent of a provincial governor) had differences of opinion over whether or not they should oppose Alexander directly by themselves:\n\n > The Persian generals were Arsames, Rheomithres, Petines, Niphates, and with them Spithridates, viceroy of Lydia and Ionia, and Arsites, governor of the Phrygia near the Hellespont. These had encamped near the city of Zeleia with the Persian cavalry and the Grecian mercenaries. When they were holding a council about the state of affairs, it was reported to them that Alexander had crossed (the Hellespont). **Memnon, the Rhodian, advised them not to risk a conflict with the Macedonians, since they were far superior to them in infantry, and Alexander was there in person**; whereas Darius was not with them. He advised them to advance and destroy the fodder, by trampling it down under their horses’ hoofs, to burn the crops of the country, and not even to spare the very cities. “For then Alexander,” said he, “will not be able to stay in the land from lack of provisions.”It is said that** in the Persian conference Arsites asserted that he would not allow a single house belonging to the people placed under his rule to be burned**, and that the other Persians agreed with Arsites, because they had a suspicion that Memnon was deliberately contriving to protract the war for the purpose of obtaining honour from the king. - Arrian, 1.12\n\nSo at least one satrap, Memnon of Rhodes, considered resistance to be futile at this stage. The rest, however, distrusted Memnon (ironically, since he seemed to be the most capable of them) and seemed confident in their strength and ability to deal with Alexander directly and swiftly. The result was the fateful battle of Granicus in May 334BCE, where the Persian satraps were soundly defeated by Alexander. \n\nAs for Tyre, it would seem that the city's leaders (who did not have the same sense of sense of loyalty to the Persian emperor as the satraps) initially agreed to cooperate with Alexander:\n\n > Thence he advanced towards Tyre;ambassadors from which city, dispatched by the commonwealth, met him on the march, announcing that **the Tyrians had decided to do whatever be might command**. He commended both the city and its ambassadors, and ordered them to return and tell the Tyrians that he wished to enter their city and offer sacrifice to Heracles. - Arrian, 2.15\n\nThe Tyrians, however, later decided to deny him access access to the city and the temple of Herakles within it:\n\n > To this Tyrian Heracles, Alexander said he wished to offer sacrifice. But when this message was brought to Tyre by the ambassadors, **the people passed a decree to obey any other command of Alexander, but not to admit into the city any Persian or Macedonian; thinking that under the existing circumstances, this was the most specious answer**, and that it would be the safest course for them to pursue in reference to the issue of the war, which was still uncertain. When the answer from Tyre was brought to Alexander, he sent the ambassadors back in a rage. - Arrian, 2.16\n\nThus, it seems the Tyrians were trying to maintain a pragmatic position of neutrality. They wanted to cooperate with Alexander just enough to keep themselves out of the way of his onslaught, but not too much in case the Persians re-took control of the neighborhood. The Tyrians had reason to think that they had at least some bargaining power. The island city was exceptionally defensible and had resisted several sieges in past centuries with varying degrees of success. In addition, while Alexander had previously defeated Darius himself at land at teh battle of Issus the previous year, Alexander's siege and naval power was relatively untested, and his own fleet had been disbanded after the siege of Miletus. Of course, the city's gambit proved to be ultimately foolish when Alexander successfully lay siege to with the help of the fleets of his eastern Mediterranean allies, by constructing a massive dam to the island.\n\nTyre was not the only city to misjudge their ability to resist Alexander. As he moved south into Egypt, at least the governor of one city thought he had a pretty good chance of resisting:\n\n > Alexander now resolved to make an expedition into Egypt. All the other parts of what was called Palestine Syria had already yielded to him; but a certain eunuch, named Batis, who was in possession of the city of Gaza, paid no heed to him; but procuring Arabian mercenaries, and having been long employed in laying up sufficient food for a long siege, **he resolved not to admit Alexander into the city, feeling confident that the place could never be taken by storm.** - Arrian, 2.25\n\nHe was not entirely foolish to think so. The city was well fortified and Alexander's engineers were not entirely convinced they could breach its walls. As he had done at Tyre, however, Alexander refused to be stopped and captured the city through the construction of a massive ramp:\n\n > The city of Gaza was large, and had been built upon a lofty mound, around which a strong wall had been carried... When Alexander arrived near the city, on the first day he encamped at the spot where the wall seemed to him most easy to assail, and ordered his military engines to be constructed. **But the engineers expressed the opinion that it was not possible to capture the wall by force, on account of the height of the mound.** However, the more impracticable it seemed to be, the more resolutely Alexander determined that it must be captured... he therefore resolved to construct a mound right round the city, so as to be able to bring his military engines up to the walls from the artificial mound which had been raised to the same level with them. - Arrian, chapter 2.25-26\n\nSo despite Alexander's great victories at open land battles, some well-fortified cities certainly seemed to think they had a chance at resisting. Although these were ultimately unsuccessful, Arrian's account emphasizes that Alexander was only able to overcome these cities with massive siege works and an unprecedented amount of ingenuity. So even though in hind sight we know nothing was able to successfully resist Alexander from the Hellespont to the Indus river, it wasn't too crazy for a few of these cities to try and hold out (even though some commanders, like Memnon, realized how impossible this would be from the beginning)." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ceufntx" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Pre-Columbian population figures are a matter of considerable debate. New information is constantly being uncovered, and old colonial era documents once thought to be hyperbole are more often then not validated in the process. The numbers are always shifting (generally upwards), so pinning down specifics like the precise population densities is somewhat difficult. Pre-Columbian demographics are a moving target.\n\nWith that in mind, there are some generalities we can make. I can only speak about the eastern portion of the continent; I know there were relatively dense populations in the Pacific Northwest as well, but that's significantly outside my area and I'll leave it for someone else to hopefully address.\n\nCahokia famously sets the high water mark for population centers in the east. Located near modern-day St. Louis, Cahokia was once home to several thousand people at its peak in the early 13th Century. But whether \"several thousand\" means something as low as 5,000 or as high as 40,000 is debated; 20,000 seems to be an estimate most archaeologists can tolerate for the site. If the high end estimates are right, though, it would have been one of the largest cities in the world at the time. It also wasn't alone in the area. Cahokia likely served as the capital for a large polity, incorporating [several notable communities nearby](_URL_1_), as well as extending its influence far and wide over the eastern part of the continent, especially into the Southeast.\n\nLong after Cahokia went into decline, polities influenced by it dominated the American Southeast. Of those, Apalachee is one of the best known because it was encountered early and often in the century after Columbus. Apalachee was located [between the Ochlockonee River and the Aucilla River](_URL_0_) (the Aucilla is not labeled on that map, but it is the river that separates separates Jefferson County from Madison and Taylor Counties). It had too major towns, Anhayca and Ivitachuco, on its western and eastern borders respectively, and several smaller towns. In 1608, a Spanish priest named Martin Prieto visited Ivitachuco, where he was greeted by (according to his estimate) some 36,000 people, which he thought was the entire Apalachee population. This is one of those early reports that was once thought to be exaggerated but has since been validated. If anything, Prieto's estimate is under-reporting the population of Apalachee. He has come to help negotiate a peace between the Apalachee and the Timucua (themselves a very populace, but political fractured, people living in northern Florida east of the Suwanee River and in neighboring portions of southeast Georgia, with an estimated population of perhaps 200,000). Because of the priests diplomatic endeavors, a council of 70 prominent Apalachee political leaders had been summoned to Ivitachuco. This certainly would have drawn a crowd, but it was unlikely to have pulled the entire population of the region into the capital (Anhayca had been the dominant one of the pair, but over the 1500s, power shifted to Ivitachuco). This has caused the estimate to shift even higher, perhaps as much as 60,000, for the entire Apalachee territory, a relatively compact area no more than 40 miles across in any one direction. \n\nWith the Apalachee and the Timucua, among other groups, Florida was certainly a contender for most densely populated region in what has become the continental USA and Canada at the time of Contact, but I should warn you that there is significant selection bias here. Florida was close enough Spanish controlled areas in the Caribbean and Mexico to receive frequent early visitors, so we have a lot of documentary evidence along with archaeological evidence of life there before the epidemics began (which were one of the causes responsible for the particularly severe population decline in Florida - the slave trade being the other notable one). Beyond Florida, information gets sketchier. " ] }

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[ [ "http://geology.com/state-map/maps/florida-rivers-map.gif", "http://www.alef.net/ALEFAncientPlaces/AmericaCahokia/CahokiaMap02.Gif" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d07h4mf", "d07rv41" ], "score": [ 13, 3 ], "text": [ "I am not sure if there were other organized parallel resistance cells within the German military during wartime, but at least for the most famous and successful one - which I will call the Stauffenberg-Tresckow group (the ones behind Operation Valkrie/July 20, and apart of the Schwarze Kappelle officer group) - it is known that the officers comprising the group were mostly conservative nationalist types who had initially supported Hitler and Nazism before turning against Hitler. As such, the reason why they went against Hitler was because they saw that he was leading them into destruction and a total reversal of all gains they had made, as well as many being against the genocide that was being carried out against Jews. But just because many (or all) were opposed to the systematic mass-killings of Jews didn't mean that they were against all Nazi racial policies. In fact, some of them wished to continue many of its racial policies if possible and were known self-confessed supporters of its racial objectives (including Stauffenberg himself). They also didn't really wish to give up all the land Germany had occupied during wartime, and agreed on demanding the allies to let them annex portions of Poland, if not all of it, into post-wartime/coup Germany, as well as all of Sudetenland and Austria. Hence, its clear that the main motive behind anti-Hitler motives amongst the resistance officers were driven by the wish to secure what Germany still had at the time and avert calamitous military disaster, foreign occupation and invasion, and a loss of their gains. As for assassinating Hitler, not all officers initially gave support for an assassination as they were mostly divided into two opinions on whether to assassinate him or to make him stand trail, but all agreed on his DEPOSITION, although there was a marked shift to the former opinion after the staggering casualty figures started coming in from the eastern front and the need for an immediate removal of power became apparent. This apparent urge to act culminated in the failed July 20 plot where they hoped and agreed to the need on assassinating the Fuhur (and Himmler). After the assassination, they hoped to smoothly trigger their takeover coup as per implementation of Operation Valkyrie wherein command of the Wehrmacht and executive powers were transferred to a senior military member of the Tresckow-Stauffenberg group, with the SS merging into the Wehrmacht (a still-independent SS was a potential obstacle to their coup, so their merging with the Wehrmacht would put them directly under the control of the resistance). The officers also planned to have the secretly-allied German military commander of France (a senior member of the Schwarze Kapelle officer group, the military resistance group the Tresckow-Stauffenberg stems from) immediately negotiate an armistice with the allies, ending the war. They had already planned and set aside all key German government offices for resistance members from both military and civilian circles, with a larger share going towards officers within the Tresckow-Stauffenberg/Schwarze Kapelle group. This planned government would be a continuity of the former Nazi one, keeping intact all state institutions for the most part whilst removing all Nazi elements, and will retain control over most - if not all - of the occupied German-inhabited territories of Austria, Sudetenland, and maybe Alsace and Lorraine. ", "Their plan was bound to fail. From a military point of view, Germany had lost the war already by July 1944. The Allies would have insisted on unconditional surrender, and the military leaders would have had to accept their terms. That would have given Germany a new \"Dagger in the Back\" legend: Hitler would have saved Germany from defeat, had his generals not assassinated him." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dlfuh9q" ], "score": [ 45 ], "text": [ "As with so much in the Middle Ages, the answer depends on when and where. Famously, for instance, there are the Oaths of Strasbourg vowed in 842 between the sons of Louis the Pious, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, in their war against their stepbrother Lothar. The oaths survive in Latin, Old High German, and a very early French (Gallo-Romance). Louis swore his oath before his brother’s army in French; Charles swore before his brother’s army in Old High German so that the troops, many of whom were probably bilingual anyway, would understand them. Their grandfather, Charlemagne, was multi-lingual according to his biographer Einhard:\n > He was not satisfied with command of his native language merely, but gave attention to the study of foreign ones, and in particular was such a master of Latin that he could speak it as well as his native tongue; but he could understand Greek better than he could speak it.\n\nBy comparison, in England by the 13th century, members of the upper classes were usually proficient in their mother tongue, English, and French (Anglo-Norman). Walter of Bibblesworth wrote a French vocabulary in the mid-1200s to instruct a noble lady in proper French, not basic French, “which everyone knows.” Many of them, men and women alike, would also know at least rudimentary Latin, the language of government documents. So they would be trilingual. Those who lived and worked along the Welsh Marches would also likely know some Welsh. This kind of bilingualism can’t be assumed for the lower classes. There is the case of a bishop preaching to a Welsh congregation who had to have a friar translate for him. I can’t document this—I’m sure others can—but I’ve always suspected people of whatever class living along language borders probably had some basic bilingualism, much as people along the US southwestern border know some Spanish. It’s worth noting that there was incredible linguistic diversity all over Europe. In the Middle Ages “French” and “Italian” as we know them were only regional dialects centered around Paris and Florence respectively. Even in 19th-century France, people living just a few miles from each other might have a hard time understanding the neighboring dialect, as Graham Robb’s wonderful *The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography* notes.\n\nThat brings us to the clergy. Those with at least some education would be proficient in their mother tongue wherever they lived and in Latin, the language of learning. This is especially true of those men who had some university education where all the classes were taught in Latin. Still, at the University of Paris, for instance, students were divided into “nations” (French, Normans, Picards, English, Germans) according to the vernacular they spoke when not in class. Universities at Oxford, in Italy, Prague and elsewhere made their own national divisions. When the upper clergy assembled at international councils and synods, Latin would be their *lingua franca*, as it remained for centuries later in educated circles. \n\nThere was another true *lingua franca* in use around the Mediterranean among merchants. Sometimes called *Sabir*, it was a pidgin grab-bag with elements from several Romance languages, heavy on Italian and French.\n\nEDIT: One more thought. In cosmopolitan places like Sicily or parts of Spain where several cultures came together, there are interesting examples of trilingualism, most famously [the tombstone in Latin, Greek, and Arabic](_URL_0_) that the priest Grisandus put on his parents' grave in the late 12th century or the [trilingual psalter](_URL_1_) compiled for King Roger (1130-54) of Sicily for use in a chapel served by both Greek and Latin rite priests with texts in Greek, Latin, and Arabic.\n\nSources: For English bilingualism I’m using Michael Clanchy’s classic *From Memory to Written Record*. I’m sure others among Ask Historians can provide much more detail than I offer here.\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.mondes-normands.caen.fr/angleterre/archeo/Italie/sculpture/149.htm", "http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/tripsalter.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cjc4fmt" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "This is the third question of this caliber which I've had to remove today. We do not allow broad or unspecific questions in this subreddit. Every question has to ask about a specific time period or in your case, a specific historical figure." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d05nd4j" ], "score": [ 98 ], "text": [ "The V2 rockets were a strategical weapon, not a tactical one. Accuracy was horrible and they barely managed to hit a target as close and as large as Greater London.\n\n[BBC has a map on the rocket hits on London](_URL_0_). Note how spread out these are.\n\nAnother sign on how inaccurate these rockets were are that one crashed - in Sweden - during testing in June 1944. Swedish authorites gathered the junk and sold it to Britain in return for mobile air search radar stations (that were dated by British standards, but since Sweden had no air search radar was top notch for Sweden).\n\nBy the time the V2s were ready, in September 1944, Finland was leaving the war, Romania had been over-run and the Soviet were just outside Warsaw.\n\n[See this map for the frontline on the 19th of August and how Romania was over-run](_URL_1_).\n\nThe only time the Germans tried to use the V2 as a tactical weapon was against the Ludendorff Bridge captured by American forces at Remagen. On the 11th of March 1945 they fired 11 V2 rockets against the brigde. The closest one landed about 500 meters away, while the furthest missed by 64km.\n\nThe range of the V2 rocket was only about 320km , which means that by the end of September 1944, there's nothing in the Soviet Union they can hit - the front is further away from Soviet territory - perhaps with the exception of the Kurland pocket, but sending your top technological devices into a surrounded pocket might not be a good idea. And they would be unable to hit anything vital anyway." ] }

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[ [ "http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/1600_900/images/live/p0/26/bv/p026bvdd.jpg", "http://www.privateletters.net/MAPS/ETO/SovietOffensives%2819August-31December1944%29.png" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cd7h9m3" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I do not have the books in front of me, but I seem to remember that Parker's study of Phillip II and his work on the military suggested that the Army of Flanders spent a surprising amount of Spanish silver and gold in the Netherlands. The Dutch accepted Spanish coin in exchange for the food and supplies the Army of Flanders required to continue fighting and keeping the Dutch rebels in check. Since this kept the army at fairly consistent levels under Phillip and his son, the Dutch became more powerful economically and allowed them to lay the groundwork for the VOC and other enterprises. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cyyancs" ], "score": [ 27 ], "text": [ "* ['Colossal Cracks'] (_URL_1_), thesis by Stephen A. Hart\n* [Monty's Legions] (_URL_2_), thesis by C. J. Forrester\n* [*British Armour in Normandy*] (_URL_3_), by Jonathan Buckley\n* [*Montgomery's Scientists*] (_URL_0_), edited by Terry Copp\n* *Fields of Fire: The Canadians in Normandy*, by Terry Copp\n* *Raising Churchill's Army*, by David French\n* *Firepower: The British Army and Theories of War, 1900-1945*, by Shelford Bidwell and Dominick Graham\n\n^ I'd recommend checking out these sources, which are excellent for the information they give on the British (and Canadian) Armies in WWII. \n\n > early years of the war, the British Army seemed to lurch from one failure to another, at least when fighting German forces\n\nCertainly that was the case on the surface for the British Army, more often than not resulting from bad strategy. In the case of France, 1940, Gamelin's decision to send the French strategic reserve (7th Army) into the Netherlands denuded the Allies of a force capable of parrying the German advance through the Ardennes. In the case of Greece, British and Greek forces were overwhelmed and out manoeuvered by German, Italian and Bulgarian forces; Crete was a more close run thing, with the British withdrawing from Maleme Airfield unaware of the sorry state of the Germans, allowing their enemies to fly in reinforcement and tip the scales. \n\nPoor strategy, command and control, as well as coordination of combined arms, plagued the British early on in the desert. In 1941, O'Connor's forces outran their supply lines and suffered losses in a number of Italian rear-guard actions, well before Rommel's arrival, at which point weak Australian, Indian and British armoured forces were left strung out when Rommel attacked, larger forces being tied up by Greece and Eastern Africa. While Auchinleck's command somewhat revived British fortunes, concentration of fire and forces, as well as cooperation between infantry, artillery, armour and air support, still left much to be desired. \n\n > How did the quality of British training, leadership and equipment compare to that of their axis adversaries?\n\nUnder Montgomery's command, the British Army's methods greatly improved, with an emphasis on careful preparation and accumulation of supplies, munitions, and ground forces, prior to offensive operations, a return to the methodical approach which characterized Gen. Plumer's Bite-and-Hold style set-piece attacks, which the BEF had utilized successfully in the later years of WWI on the Western Front. Utilizing this operational method (known by Monty as \"Colossal Cracks\"), the British 8th Army enjoyed success at Alam el Halfa, Second El Alamein, and the Mareth Line.\n\nBy the time of the Italian Campaign, the British forces had improved greatly; as Patrick Rose demonstrates in his examination of Anglo-American command culture in Italy, 1943-44, *Allies at War* (Journal of Strategic Studies), the British 8th Army was implementing 'mission command' based on it's own doctrine, \"the man on the spot\" which predated WWI, by at least 1944. Despite bloody fighting at Cassino and around the Liri Valley, 8th army would go on to achieve great success in operations such as *Grapeshot*, under Richard McCreery's command, from late 1944 in 1945. \n\nWhile leadership was something of a weak area initially, British Second Army which fought in Northwestern Europe produced or included a number of skilled, able general officers, including 'Pip' Roberts (11th Armoured), Percy Hobart (79th Armoured \"The Funnies\"), Richard O'Connor (VIII Corps), Brian Horrocks (XXX Corps), and Miles Dempsey (GOC, 2nd Army). Although Montgomery tended to keep a tight 'grip' on operations, owing both to the shallow depth of British attacks, and his concern for the manpower shortage that was rearing it's ugly head in 1944-45, there was opportunity for subordinates to demonstrate initiative, notably Roberts and O'Connor in Operation *Bluecoat*, and Roberts and the 11th Armoured's capture of Antwerp. \n\nBritish artillery in Northwestern Europe was crushingly superior to the German's, although it did not become truly devastating until late 1944, based off Operational Research demonstrating the inaccuracy and mixed results of indirect fire artillery bombardments in Normandy. The 17 pounder was an excellent anti-tank gun, even more so mounted on the Sherman and the M10. The Churchill's armour by the end of 1944 was stronger than a Tiger I's, while the Sherman and Cromwell were fast, reliable tanks, although their comparatively lighter armour suffered in the close-in fighting of Normandy, against German heavy tanks (Tiger I, arguably the Panther) and anti-tank guns. \n\nWhile their performance was by no means stellar, and adjustments had to be made to the needs of new campaigns in 1943 (Italy) and 1944 (Northwestern Europe), the British Army of 1945 was more than a match for it's German foe. " ] }

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[ [ "http://lmharchive.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/The-Full-Monty2.pdf", "https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/2927568/283396.pdf", "http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1753/1/C.J.Forrester_PhD_History_Montgomery_and_his_Legions.pdf", "http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/144243/b6a70fba3f368e2a78118e982027a5d1.pdf?sequence=1" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d6ru5qk" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "The British Army of the 18th and 19th centuries theoretically operated on a system of \"platoon firing\", outlined in Sir Henry Dundas' *Principles of Military Movement*: the 1000-man battalion was split into ten units of 100 men each known as companies or platoons (the platoon was theoretically the administrative unit while the company was the tactical one; in practice both terms were used interchangeably), which when the battalion was deployed in line, would be deployed in three ranks, the first two firing, and the third to provide solidity to the whole line if it came to a melee, provide reserves, and pass reloaded muskets forward. The battalion would \"fire by platoons\", with each company (or two companies together, known as a grand division) firing individually, the aim being to create a continuous barrage while at least a quarter of the battalion's companies still had loaded muskets should something unexpected happen.\n\nIn practice, this would last a couple of volleys before the noise, the smoke and the fear led to firing degenerating into men loading and firing their muskets as fast as they could manage. If two battalion lines were caught in this, it would inevitably lead to a mounting trickle of casualties on both sides as they blazed away at each other until one side summoned the courage to launch a bayonet charge and sweep the enemy away. At Waterloo, two battalions of the Middle Guard – the 1er/3e Chasseurs and the 4e Grenadiers – successfully formed into line while facing Maitland's Guards Brigade of two battalions, the 2/1st and 3/1st Foot Guards. A long exchange of musket volleys followed, causing heavy casualties on both sides: From a starting strength of around 1,080 men on June 18th, Maitland's two battalions recorded 492 casualties, or 45% losses.\n\nSimilar experiences during the American Revolution had prompted a rethink in British infantry tactics. During the Peninsular War, battalions tended to dispense with the third rank entirely in favour of including it in the first and second ranks, thus increasing the number of muskets available to their battalion by 30%. Furthermore, it was accepted that the entire battalion firing at once to create a massive explosion of fire at close range, followed by a bayonet charge, was more effective in driving the enemy away and reducing casualties on your own side rather than getting into long musket duels. It was that coupled with the reverse slope defence that gave French columns so much grief in Spain and Portugal.\n\nSources:\n\nPhilip Haythornthwaite, *British Napoleonic Infantry Tactics, 1792-1815*\n\nPaddy Griffith, *French Napoleonic Infantry Tactics, 1792-1815*\n\nPaul K. Davis, *Masters of the Battlefield: Great Commanders from the Classical Age to the Napoleonic Era*" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cf89s35" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "The term \"The Dark Ages\" was first used by Caesar Baronius. He was an Italian Cardinal and Catholic church historian.\n\nIt was in his twelve volume history \"Annales Ecclesiastici\" 1588-1607, that he used the term \"The Dark Age\" (\"Saeculum Obscurum\" in the Latin in which he was writing) to refer to the period between the end of the Carolingian Empire in 888 and the Gregorian Reforms in 1046.\n\nSource: _URL_0_\n\n\n\"Dark Ages\" can mean two things. First, that the times referred to are not illuminated for us by written records. Second, that the times themselves were \"dark\" (violent, uneducated, impoverished) for the people living in them. Baronius probably meant both for the period which he labeled.\n\nAfter Baronius, the term was used by others, first to refer to the entire Medieval Period, from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, to the rise of the Italian Renaissance (or roughly the 6th century to the 14th).\n\nLater, historians objected that the High Middle Ages (era of cathedral building, troubadours, expanding cities, growing trade, expanding populations) were not so dark, and in the 20th century, the term began to be used mostly to describe the 6th through 10th centuries. (Back towards Baronius' original timeframe.)\n\nLater still, historians began to object that these centuries were not so \"dark\" everywhere. The Eastern Roman Empire was still thriving for example, and the term has fallen into disfavor and become somewhat politically incorrect (among responders on this sub-reddit for example).\n\nThere are parts of Medieval Europe where it is still a very good descriptive term, however. One of these is British history (which, of course is one of the most important parts of Medieval history for English and American historians). British history from the 5th century through the 10th century was pretty \"Dark\" in both senses of the word.\n\nWe have very little information, and very few sources about what really happened in Britain (whether England, Scotland or Wales). In England, Roman civilization did seem to collapse. Cities were depopulated. Roman buildings decayed. Christianity was lost. Literacy decreased severely.\n\nQuite a lot happened that we wish we knew more about. How did both Brythonic and the Pictish language disappear in Scotland to be replaced by Anglo Saxon derived Scots and Gaelic? How did the Angles and the Saxons come to dominate England so completely and rapidly? What caused the collapse of Romano/Celtic Britain?\n\nIt's all pretty dark. While I have some sympathy for Medievalists objections to the over use of the term \"The Dark Ages\", its a dramatic and descriptive term when applied to British history.\n\nWhile there probably was some technological progress (in a very few areas) in Britain during this period, there was not much. In fact, there was a general technological backsliding, and technologies which had been used in Roman Britain (building in stone, making good roads, building cities) fell out of use.\n\nWhen applied to Britain it is not a misconception that there was very little technological progress during the \"Dark Ages\"." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_Baronius" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cbv00k7", "cbv08pz", "cbv2qy5" ], "score": [ 34, 288, 22 ], "text": [ "The german poet [Walther von der Vogelweide](_URL_2_) wrote a song called \"Palästinalied\" (\"song about palestine\" in english) about the crusades which can be seen as a very early piece of propaganda. It acknowledges that while all major (abrahamic) religions have claims on Jerusalem, only christianity's is legitimate. [Here is a translation of the text into modern german](_URL_1_). [A very beautiful modern rendition of the song](_URL_0_) has been done by the band \"Qntal\".", "There was a huge influence on the development and introduction of new musical instruments. I'll give a few examples, and hopefully others knowledgeable in this area can expand on my info:\n\n* The modern tympani are derived from the Arabic or Persian naqqara (aka naker), which scholars speculate came to Europe with returning Crusaders. (If you do any further reading on this, note that \"tympanum\" are cited in earlier sources as well, but that the Latin word at the time simply meant \"drum\", not specifically a bowl-shaped pitched drum like it does today).\n* The shawm, a double-reed instrument, is thought to be the precursor of the oboe and possibly the bassoon (although its sound is quite different from either of them). It appeared in Europe around the 12th century, and is thought to have spread through its use in the Arabic naubat, a military band employing shawms and drums. Similar instruments appear throughout the world, often in areas along trade routes or previously subject to Arabic control, and are known by a variety of names throughout Europe, the Middle East, China, and India: zurna, suona, al'gaita, shehnai, chalemie, and schalmei, just to name a few.\n\nA few other instruments are known to have come into Europe through muslim influence, but it's not always clear whether they arrived through Spain, by returning Crusaders, or by other means:\n\n* The oud likely came to Europe through Spain prior to the Crusades, and evolved into the Medieval lute and the modern guitar. Modern ouds look almost identical to lutes, although the performance techniques are quite different.\n* The rebec appeared in Europe before the Crusades (possibly 9th century?), and later evolved into most of the modern bowed string instruments of Western Europe, most notably the violin and viol families.\n\nSources:\n\n* Bachmann, Werner, ed. Musikgeschichte in Bildern. Vol. 3/2, Islam, by Henry George Farmer. Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1966.\n\n* Jairazbhoy, Nazir A. “The South Asian Double-Reed Aerophone Reconsidered.” Ethnomusicology 24/1 (Jan. 1980), 147-156.\n\n* Jenkins, Jean and Poul Rovsing Olsen. Music and Musical Instruments in the World of Islam. London: World of Islam Festival Publishing Company Ltd., 1976.\n\n* Remnant, Mary. Musical Instruments: An Illustrated History from Antiquity to the Present. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1989.\n\n* Sadie, Stanley, ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. London: Macmillan Press, 1984.\n", "The Knights Templar in Jerusalem produced some very moving chants, some of which have survived thanks to [a 12th century breviary manuscript from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre](_URL_4_). The Early Music group [Ensemble Organum](_URL_2_) did a recording of it; some samples are on Youtube - *[Crucem Sanctam Subiit](_URL_1_)*, *[Salve Regina](_URL_3_)*. \n\nThat's about the extent of my knowledge on this topic, but I'd like to know if there was a more widespread effect on vocal music. A lot of 12th century Christian chant seems to have an arabic flavor that I can't quite describe - [example](_URL_0_)." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INJ1A5R4nbU", "http://turba-delirantium.skyrocket.de/bibliotheca/walther_vogelweide_palaestinalied.htm", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_von_der_Vogelweide" ], [], [ "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IXH0JWq2oQ", "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDxgPdOo1TI", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensemble_Organum", "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv_2x6JmuaE", "http://musicologicus.blogspot.com/2009/03/chant-of-templars.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dxarnq8" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "This is a very interesting topic. During the struggle of independence in the 19th most people focused mainly on Ancient Greece (most Europeans were crazy about Ancient Greece as well) and some Greek scholars also demonstrated a negative view of Byzantines, affected by the general impression of west historians at this time. Yet, this changed some time in late 19th century officially when the most important Greek historian of his time (Paparigopoulos) proposed the scheme of continuity of Ancient-Byzantine-Modern Greeks. The role of the Orthodox Church was also important towards this. But, the mania for everything classic was still present for decades, e.g. archeologists were almost destroying in some cases the medieval and Byzantine layers to discover the classical antiquities. \n\nNowadays, between Greek people it is a matter of preference. Usually, people originating from modern Greece areas tend to prefer Ancient Greece and modern history (independence from the ottomans and formation of the country). On the contrary religious people or Greeks originating from Turkey (ancestors of the 1922 Greek refugees , about 20% of the population) have a tendency to love and prefer Byzantine history. In the last decades, Byzantinism becomes very popular you can see everywhere in Greece byzantine flags (the one of the double headed Persian monster :) and the original one, the red with the yellow cross and the four “B”). \n\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c731sqf" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Here's my short crack at responding to this question, if not answering it.\n\n**Problem with the metaphor.** \n\nI think it's usually best to avoid anthropomorphizing non-human entities. Your question is predicated on using a person as a metaphor for a government. But there doesn't seem, intrinsically, to be too much evidence suggesting that it's a particularly robust metaphor. So it's not clear to me that \"typical lifespan\" is a useful thing to ask about with regard to governments. \n\nThat said, it's almost certainly the case that you could usefully compare the recent histories of two countries to show that one is more stable than the other. For example, [this map](_URL_1_), comparing the tenure of world leaders, suggests a good deal about the countries with excessively long tenures. \n\n **Tricky history of such history**\n\nThe question calls to mind someone like [Toynbee](_URL_0_) whose theories of a nature rise and fall of civilizations are largely discredited, and before him, the Marxist and Hegelian visions of a world in which there was a specific end or aim. What's similar in those all is the predestiny of countries: something I think most of us are very uncomfortable \nwith.\n\n**Clarify your terms?**\n\nMaybe you could clarify your terms? There are specific models at work here: the U.S. system switches heads of state every 4 to 8 years (assuming no one dies); the British system switches according to the rules of their parliamentary elections. Even if you could analyze each and come to the conclusion that they are stable (which seems correct), you would likely be comparing apples and oranges if you simply compare the duration of a U.S. President and a U.K. Prime Minister. All the more so as systems diverge." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_J._Toynbee", "http://i.imgur.com/JN5HF.png" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ejm9076" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The concept of a 'unit' does not really exist in the modern sense for most of the Sengoku period. Each daimyo has multiple vassals, who when called upon to war, will bring a certain number of men - samurai, ashigaru (yari, teppo, depending on the vassal), mounted horsemen/cavalry, and so on. The number varied depending on the vassal's relationship with their daimyo as well as how wealthy they were - usually about 20 or so (this would include the logistical component of your army - people who carried rations/gear/etc) is usually what is seen, though it could be more or less depending on the above factors. The vassals themselves were responsible for recruiting, training, housing, and gearing up their men. The vassal also commands them - though there are of course grander tactics and strategy in play, ultimately the vassal is the one who issues orders to those he has brought with them. That being said, you still had troops reorganised into larger components, which you could argue is a 'unit' of some kind.\n\nAs for what types of soldiers you saw during the era - it is important to note that the 'Sengoku' period goes for about 130 years, and during the time you have notable changes in both strategy and pure equipment. Most notably, contact with the West introduced early matchlocks that many of those in the southwest of Japan used, while those in the northeast 'lagged' behind in technological development. In any case, you would find yourself most commmonly seeing spear groups (yari most common), archer groups (yumi most common), often gunners (teppo), as well as their mounted complements. There were cavalry mixed in with heavy infantry, and of course you can't forget those who were brought in with standards (flags) to communicate throughout the fight, as well as those involved with logistics.\n\nBook recommendations - I'd say *War in the Early Modern World* edited by Jeremy Black has a good overview chapter on warfare during this time, though it does go beyond the Sengoku era it would probably help inform exactly the tactical composition of armies during this time. Thomas Conlan's *Weapons and Fighting Techniques of the Samurai Warrior* does have (from memory) what would be called 'battle formations', though there are errors in there (still better than any of Turnbull's works though). More recently is Fusao Nishimata's *Army of Sengoku daimyo seen from modern military science*, but this is in Japanese and as far as I'm aware there exists no English translation. Similarly Nakanishi Ritta *History of Japanese Armor* has illustrations, though I do not have a physical copy of this myself, when I read through it previously it also looked very good at illustrating how armies could be decomposed." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dmklgru" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Firstly, \"honour\" is dependent on context. That means that there are always rules sensitive to time period, culture, social class, and other factors. Secondly, it's worth noting that various words for \"honour\" in various historical contexts are sometimes interchangeable with \"reputation\". One fights with honour in order to preserve or progress their reputation, in essence making some kind of point or argument about their reason for fighting. This distinguishes a duellist from a soldier; the former is often fighting as a means of social expression (or representing someone else's expression), whereas the latter is fighting as proxy for some kind of authority.\n\nOne point of interest comes from late medieval duelling practices. In ancient and medieval Germanic societies, there was a tradition of judicial combat for use when a court of law could not determine guilt or innocence of a defendant. Note that \"Germanic\" here predates a unified Germanic state, referring to cultures that spoke Germanic languages and/or inherited Germanic ways. As an example, modern Anglo culture might be considered \"Germanic\" as influenced by Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Norman settlement. \n\nHistorically, these judicial duels have diverse rules according to time, place, social class, and even gender. From the 15th century Holy Roman Empire, we have examples provided by [Hans Talhoffer](_URL_0_), a master-at-arms in matters of both individual duelling and warfare. His works detail duels with both conventional weapons and weapons expressly designed for the judicial context, such as an unwieldy hybrid between spear and tall shield. Such weapons exist particularly because of the lawful framework that existed around such duels; two private individuals could not agree to a duel and have it as a lawful affair, with duels requiring the approval of a lawful authority. Such approval was, I believe, unlikely to be granted outside the context of unclear guilt or innocence in a lawful trial. In Christian Europe, the winner of the duel would assumed to have God's favour; older, pagan traditions might have invoked the favour of deities as well, but you'll need someone informed on their specifics. \n\nWhile a modern fist fight in the street might lack an official, lawful framework, many instances of unarmed violence are of social intent rather than mortal intent. There are elements of honour and individual reputation in play that may not necessarily exist in warfare (but sometimes do). In essence, honour rules are about the validity of a fight's outcome in the eyes of observers or even just the combatants; warfare is more severely predicated upon \"objective\" power (but not always), which is why an ambush is more or less \"honourable\" (but not always). Note an exception; in ancient Roman martial culture, it was uncommon to use ambush tactics because they were not considered befitting a professional warrior, which at times cost the Romans against forces that observed different forms of honour (including the Germanic tribesfolk mentioned prior). \n\nI suppose one could summarise this by differentiating between \"law\" and \"need\". Even if there is no official law to frame individual combat, individuals might adhere to honour rules in order to safeguard the validity of the outcome. In the case of large scale conflict, the outcome takes strong precedence over its validity. As always, though, there are exceptions in both cases. '\n\nThis is just a tiny slice of duelling culture, though! Famously, as commonly expressed in modern entertainment media, Japan had a comparable duelling culture to historical Germanic societies, albeit less lawfully observed, especially during the Edo period following the Warring States period. And as is often the case, historical rules and laws will flow into our modern period if they are not arrested or replaced in some respect. So it might be said that our rules of social honour in single combat are the remnants of old Germanic laws dictating judicial engagement. " ] }

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[ [ "http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Hans_Talhoffer/W%C3%BCrttemberg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d4coa5z", "d4kimno" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "In general left republican Catalanism has looked favorably upon the Roma. In north Catalonia around Perpignan they are the only people who speak Catalan as a first language. \n\nIt seems likely that Orwell may have been confused as he didn't speak much Catalan (great book though , it's why I got my PhD in Catalan history!). I believe they were able to compete as a \"nation\" in the 1936 popular games but I should check that before I state it with certainty. \n\n I have come across Romany people serving in the international brigades which suggests they felt somewhat alienated by \"Spanishness\" but supported the cause of the republic. When you consider the alternative, it makes sense to do so! ", "I cannot speak for Catalan nationalism's view of the Roma, but Republican Spain offered little prospects for Roma people. Republican national identity, while more inclusive than previous incarnations of Spanish nationalism, was still heavily Castile-focused. Much Republican propaganda made political capital out of the idea that Franco's forces were \"foreign invaders\". The most famous example of this is in the Spanish Civil War song \"Viva la Quinta Brigada\", also known as \"Ay, Carmela!\"\n\nIn the song, the chorus goes : \"Luchamos contra los moros...!\": We fight against the Moors. They are also referred to as \"fuerzas invasoras\"... foreign invaders. \n\nObviously, the Moors and the Roma are not the same people, but it gives you a sense of the racialized representation of the Nationalists. While it is true that much of Franco's forces came from Morocco, it was an oversimplification to refer to all of his forces as \"moros\". Republicans were not immune from Spanish racism. \n\nSource: Sandie Holguin, \"Creating Spaniards: Culture and National Identity in Republican Spain\", Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.\n\nViva la quinta brigada, performed by Rolando Alarcon: _URL_0_" ] }

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[ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2nrbiq/panel_ama_the_spanish_civil_war/" ]

[ [], [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fko5fYIBJFU" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cr9dwnu" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "A good case could be made for Victorian England. The repeal of the Corn Laws, the reduction in other tariffs (leading to complete free trade), the eradication of most indirect taxes and a minimal income tax all led to a tiny role for government. As Matthew Arnold wrote in _Culture and Anarchy_ (1869):\n\n > ...we are left with nothing but our system of checks, and our notion of its being the great right and happiness of an Englishman to do as far as possible what he likes, we are in danger of drifting towards anarchy. We have not the notion, so familiar on the Continent and to antiquity, of the State--the nation in its collective and corporate character, entrusted with stringent powers for the general advantage, and controlling individual wills in the name of an interest wider than that of individuals.\n\nDespite some social reforms during the Edwardian period, the Victorian structure remained in essentials up until the First World War. A. J. P. Taylor famously wrote in his _English History_:\n\n > Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy, or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence. Substantial householders were occasionally called on for jury service. Otherwise, only those helped the state who wished to do so. The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale: nearly £200 million in 1913-14, or rather less than 8 per cent of the national income. The state intervened to prevent the citizen from eating adulterated food or contracting certain infectious diseases. It imposed safety rules in factories, and prevented women, and adult males in some industries, from working excessive hours. The state saw to it that children received education up to the age of 13. Since 1 January 1909, it provided a meagre pension for the needy over the age of 70. Since 1911, it helped to insure certain classes of workers against sickness and unemployment...Still, broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cyztoi6" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Benedict Anderson, R.I.P., *Imagined Communities*, one of the most influential books on the topic." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ctd5xrm" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "This month, *Amable Sablon du Corail*, the director of Middle-Ages and Ancien Régime departments at the French National Archives and author of *1515, Marignan* wrote an article in the paper *'L'Histoire nb 68*. The edition is dedicated to King Francis I of France and there is a very interesting page about the battle of Marignano in 1515 and the composition of the army.\n\nSo keep in mind that the numbers below are about the French army in the early reign of Francis I ( ruled 1515-1547 ) and not about the whole Renaissance. \n\n----------------\n\nFrancis, as his predecessors had done since Louis XI managed to buy the quietness of England ( with some 5% of France's annual revenue ) allowing him to fully commit his army to the French *Italian ambitions*. In July 1515 when Francis gathered his forces and headed toward Italy, the army was composed of some 40,000 men ( maybe 45,000 but not more ) , almost twice as much as the other big powers in Europe. This was mostly due to the huge demographic explosion France knew, meaning it was the most populated country in Europe at the time. \n\nQuite a novelty, the army was mostly composed of infantry. However, cavalry was still a big thing and Francis had *2,500 lances and 5,000 archers on horses* ( direct quote from Sablon du Corail ). To that, the army had 56 [culverins](_URL_0_) of ordinary or extraordinary calibers.\n\nWhat is interesting to see in Renaissance armies ( at least France's ) is their reliability on mercenaries. Still in Francis' 1515 army, most of the infantry was composed of German troops, around 23,000 [Landsknechts](_URL_1_) formed the heart of the army. The Renaissance saw the advance of firearms ( artillery but individuals as well ) however the French army relied heavily on its 8,000 thousands crossbowmen from Gascony. This enormous army was extremely expansive; a monthly cost of around 300,000 livres tournois of the time ( Maybe someone could try to find an equivalent ? But the author only says this was what the Duchy of Milan made every year at the time ). Armies were far from being fully professionals at the time and countries relied a lot on buying the services of mercenaries ( German or Swiss for examples ).\n\nThe army was also followed by many glory seeker adventurers, unpaid but attracted by the spoils of war and the chance to make a name. These men were, still according to Sablon du Corail several thousands at the battle of Marignano but a more precise number is close to impossible to find. \n\nIn the same paper, a small article written by *Emilie Dosquet*, PhD student in military history at Paris-Sorbonne writes that the armies of time ( especially France, she does not say anything about other powers so I only speak for France ) knew a huge increase in numbers. Twenty years before Francis I, King Charles VIII and his vassals could gather around 18,000 men ( compared to the 40,000 of Francis ). By 1515, the army was composed of three infantrymen for one horseman when 20 years ago the army was composed of two third cavalry. At the time of Marignano, France had the most powerful and modern artillery in Europe thanks to technological advances ( lighter cannons,...Etc ).\n\nHowever, if France had the number it also lacked the use of lighter guns ( individual ones ) which were beginning to spread in other powers like in Italy and Spain. It still relied very much on the cavalry and the *spirit of knighthood*. A mix of Middle-Ages and Renaissance military doctrines that made Francis pay a heavy price in 1522 at Bicocca where the Swiss mercenaries launched a *beautiful* but foolish assault on fortifications and then in 1525 at Pavia where the army was crushed and half the aristocracy killed or captured. \n\nRemember this is specific to France in the early 16th century. At Marignano, France left around 5,000 dead soldiers ( French or in French service ) and ten years later at Pavia the casualties on the French side were close to around 12,000 dead, incapacitated or captured soldiers ( including the king and many captains ). It changed drastically the composition of army. " ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culverin", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsknecht" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "canoatw" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "A) Mesoamerica **is** North America. Much of it falls into what is now Mexico; however, even Central America is part of North America.\n\nB) Mesoamerican societies actively traded with Ancestral Pueblo societies. While northern groups did not have writing per se (an alphabet or syllabary), they conveyed informed visually, for instance through designed painted on ceramics, which can be \"read.\" [Casas Grandes](_URL_1_) in Chihuahua, Mexico was a major outpost facilitating trade from the north and the south. Ernest H. Chrstman wrote *[Casas Grande Pre-Columbian Pottery Decoded: Of Gods and Myths](_URL_0_)*, which discusses the meaning between the colors, designs, and shapes of the ceramics.\n\nC) Iroquois people had symbolic means of communication through tree glyphs; bead designs; wood, bone, and antler carving; and most famously wampum belts. So while not technically \"writing,\" these media all recorded and conveyed information." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.amazon.com/Casas-Grandes-Pre-Columbian-Pottery-Decoded/dp/0912329165/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371851588&sr=1-1&keywords=Christman+casas+grandes", "http://www.nps.gov/cagr/index.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dc4bq6z" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Yes, [Pliny the Elder](_URL_0_) mentions the wine from the year of the consulship of Lucius Opimius (122 BCE) as noted to be particularly good. This was of course two hundred years before Pliny wrote, and as he himself notes it is quite undrinkable now, and the few remaining amounts are only used to flavor newer wines. Cicero also mentions the Opimian vintage as part of a moral passage about not overvaluing old things (Brutus 287). It is sort of amusingly fitting, incidentally, that Cicero mentions it in an elegant didactic passage while Pliny mentions it in a bit about commodity valuation.\n\nAs for the general wine culture, gong by Pliny the Elder you can definitely see plenty of similarities in that Romans talked about vintage years, and terroir, and obsessively valued the location of growing. There were a few differences, however, the big one being that the Romans were more liable to drink their wine mixed. The ancient tendency to drink wine mixed with water is pretty well known (there are plenty of mentions of drinking unmixed wine, however), but wine might also be mixed with snow to cool it, seawater, honey, sparrow eggs, and who knows what else. I suspect this is where Duncan gets the idea that wine was a concentrate, which is a good demonstration of how information can get garbled when you go two or three removes from the sources." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D14%3Achapter%3D6" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d6jmpix" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Answered here: _URL_0_ by /u/coinsinmyrocket\n\nTL;DR - FDR was for entering the war and the US provided aid to the allies, but the US had strong isolationist ideals at that time." ] }

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[ "https://twitter.com/askhistorians/status/765447788402319361?s=09" ]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1wx6w9/would_the_us_have_still_gone_to_war_with_germany/cf6g970" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cjirbuc" ], "score": [ 33 ], "text": [ "Guns being used in crime (generally robberies) preceded the advent of modern \"street crimes\" (i.e., getting mugged walking home from work) as we think of them, because guns preceded the heavy urbanization that was a prerequisite for most such crime being commonplace.\n\n**Guns**\n\nHandguns first came into existence, probably, around the mid-late 15th Century, in the form of \"hand cannons,\" and by the 17th century, a variety of somewhat easy-to-use pistols were available. A major revolution in pistol technology came with the advent of the [flintlock](_URL_0_), right at the turn of the 17th century. Flintlocks (along with better techniques for manufacturing black powder, shot, and gun barrels) allowed for smaller, more reliable, pistols to be produced in large numbers. These proliferated around much of Europe very quickly, through a variety of means.\n\n**Robbery**\n\nHowever, as I said, urbanization was not high at this time, and one of the most important ways people (especially merchants) made money was by traveling from town to town, delivering goods. This was all before railroad, needless to say, so for getting to more inland towns, the main option was coach, cart, or horseback. High-ranking people often traveled, as they do today, between town and country, also inland. And of course, there was the mail, often delivered by postboys on horseback. All of these traveled along thoroughfares called \"highways,\" and these highways became a place for mounted bandits known as \"highwaymen\" (sometimes called \"road agents\" in America, or \"bushrangers\" in Australia) to waylay and rob people. \n\nHighwaymen were, along with pirates, probably history's first really well-known criminal types. They were to be distinguished from another class of robber known as a \"footpad,\" as highwaymen were mounted and were considered a higher \"class\" of criminal. You will sometimes hear thieves referred to with disdain as \"common footpads,\" and this is the origin of that derision. \n\nSome highwaymen became a sort of celebrity, much like famous pirates. This was also history's first really common and well known employment of guns (at least handguns) in common crime. Highwaymen famously brandished their \"pistols and rapiers\" when they waylaid a coachman, shouting their equally famous: \"Stand and deliver!\" command, ordering the coachman to stop and deliver his goods. \n\n\n**Guns and Highwaymen**\n\nBut famous or not, there's no doubt that guns were widely employed by highwaymen. The most famous highwayman of all is undoubtedly Dick Turpin, who is well known for having robbed many a man with the Essex Gang, his group of bandits, using pistols. We know from court proceedings, for example, that he and his men waylaid a man named Sheldon outside Croydon, and relieved him of his possessions; all were armed with pistols. Later, the same gang made a brutal raid at Loughton, as recounded in *Read's Daily Journal* from 1735:\n\n > *On Saturday night last, about seven o'clock, five rogues entered the house of the Widow Shelley at Loughton in Essex, having pistols & c. and threatened to murder the old lady, if she would not tell them where her money lay, which she obstinately refusing for some time, they threatened to lay her across the fire, if she did not instantly tell them, which she would not do. But her son being in the room, and threatened to be murdered, cried out, he would tell them, if they would not murder his mother, and did, whereupon they went upstairs, and took near £100, a silver tankard, and other plate, and all manner of household goods. They afterwards went into the cellar and drank several bottles of ale and wine, and broiled some meat, ate the relicts of a fillet of veal & c. While they were doing this, two of their gang went to Mr Turkles, a farmer's, who rents one end of the widow's house, and robbed him of above £20 and then they all went off, taking two of the farmer's horses, to carry off their luggage, the horses were found on Sunday the following morning in Old Street, and stayed about three hours in the house.*\n\nThis was by no means an uncommon version of events. So, we can see that highwaymen moved from robbing along the roads to assaulting houses, burglary, lying in wait, etc., all with ever-present pistols, easily by the early 18th century. Things were changing bit by bit as the 18th Century gave way to the urbanization of the late 19th, and as railroads replaced highways, thus ending highwaymen and their phenomenon, but giving way to more urban crime.\n\nIt is also worth noting that as highwaymen became more prevalent and aggressive in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, merchants and travelers took steps to defend themselves, as well. More than a few highwaymen were killed when they ripped open the door of a carriage only to find the lady inside was herself armed with a pistol and ready to use it. \"Riding shotgun\" became a famous trope from the American West, as stage coach riders took security personnel, also armed, with them. As guns proliferated among criminals, so too did they among their putative victims. \n\n**\"Street Crime\"**\n\nIt must be clear, then, that by the time urban street crime had come about, guns were already in widespread use by criminals. This was likely the case throughout much of the world, but the largest centers of urbanization at this time were in Europe, so it's not impossible to believe that they were widespread in Europe and America, as well.\n\nSources: \n\n* Sharpe, James (2005), The Myth of the English Highwayman, London: Profile Books\n\n* Seal, Graham (1996), The outlaw legend: a cultural tradition in Britain, America and Australia" ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flintlock" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cgjgw53" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "It depends on the time period of the war. German submarines went from being a terrible menace early in the war to being a mostly contained threat by late 1943.\n\nEarly on, the weapons available to escorts were depth charges (basically bombs that quickly sink and explode after reaching a certain depth), gunfire, and ramming. To detect submarines, there was ASDIC (sonar), hydrophones, and vision. Detection is the biggest problem. Poorly trained operators and limited equipment often meant that German submarines had the way clear to ships within a convoy. Also, the lack of radar meant that submarines at night were usually safer on the surface than submerged, and uboat aces like Kretschmer used this to great effect, using their submarines like silent torpedo boats to slip through a screen in the dark, torpedo vessels from close range, and race away on the surface, only diving when seen or lit up.\n\nTo prevent attacks, lookouts kept an eye out for surfaced submarines, periscopes, or torpedo tracks, obviously. In addition, the convoy escorts were usually stationed as a screen out in front and off to the sides of the convoy, sometimes, cutting back or tracking in and out while pinging with ASDIC to detect a submerged submarine trying to slip through.\n\nIf a submarine was spotted on the surface near the convoy, the primary goal, besides sinking it, was to force it to submerge. A submerged submarine couldn't travel fast enough underwater on batteries to keep up with even a slow convoy for long. This typically involved gunfire and charging towards it.\n\nWW2 submarines did not have the sophisticated sonar or computer-controlled firing computers that modern submarines have, so once below periscope depth and out of range posed almost no threat to the convoy vessels. Once the submarine was submerged, or if a submarine had first been detected while submerged, ASDIC was used to \"look\" into the water to get the enemy boat's position, and then the escorts would drop a barrage of depth charges around the most likely depth for the enemy to be. However, this was difficult to accomplish accurately, and there are records of both German and American submarines surviving several hundred depth charges dropped at them. \n\nASDIC operated like a \"flashlight cone\" in the water, with a defined field of view. A big drawback to this was that unless multiple escorts were present to keep the submarine located, the submarine would necessarily escape this field of view when the escort passed above dropping charges. A frequent submarine evasion technique would be to wait until the depth charges began to explode, and then go full speed with a sharp turn to clear the area, using the turbulence of the explosions to dampen the noise. If the submarine did manage to break contact, the escorts would attempt to use hydrophones to listen for the faint noise of the motors and propellers. If the attack did somehow damage the vessel and force it to surface, gunfire and ramming would be used to try to sink it.\n\nLater in the war, there were three transformative elements: HF/DF \"Huff-Duff\", radar, and aircraft. All of these stopped submarines from approaching convoys on the surface, limiting opportunities to attack. After the closure of the mid-atlantic air gap, convoys frequently had air cover all the way across the Atlantic, with patrol aircraft or even American blimps orbiting the convoy for hours at a time. Before the gap was covered, the Allies used small \"escort carriers\" to sail with convoys to supply air cover. These aircraft, as well as those on routine patrols and not attached to convoys, could cover a great area, spot and report uboats, and attack and sink them when given a chance, especially with an element of surprise. More German submarines were lost to aircraft during the war than to any other cause. Aircraft also could carry depth charges, usually set to explode at or just below periscope depth as the submarine dove to escape. There was also homing anti-submarine FIDO torpedoes late in the war, as well as strafing with machine-guns, rockets, and large aircraft-mounted cannon. Radar, obviously, allowed aircraft and convoy escorts to cover a greater search area, and removed the night-time advantage of surface attacks. HF/DF used triangulation to locate the origin of radio signals near the convoy as German submarines radioed to eachother and back to BDU to coordinate attacks, allowing an escort or aircraft to be detatched to attack it before it got close.\n\nOn a more macro-scale, late in the war saw the rise of the hunter-killer group, a task force sailing the atlantic with the sole mission to sink submarines. If a submarine attacked a convoy or was spotted one, odds were good that a hunter killer group would later arrive on the scene, supported by their own escort carrier, to sink the sub. These groups had the freedom to loiter, while convoy escorts needed to keep moving after scaring a submarine off, and could therefore wait around until the submarine began to run out of air and power and was forced to surface.\n\nFinally, new ASW weapons were introduced on surface vessels late in the war. Hedgehog and Squid anti-submarine mortars could lob explosives ahead of the escort, allowing it to engage submarines while keeping them in the ASDIC beam. The Hedgehog launched dozens of small fin-stabilized charges that landed in a big circle at a fixed range ahead of the escort vessel and exploded on contact with a solid object like a submarine, while the squid simply launched depth charges ahead of the ship rather than dropping them off the stern or firing them off the side with K-guns.\n\n[This](_URL_0_) USN report is a great source of info, especially on the actual details of depth charge attacks, which I glossed over.\n\nAlso, [this](_URL_1_) website is a fantastic resource for all things German submarine related." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/ASW-51/ASW-11.html", "http://www.uboat.net/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ci7kf6d", "ci7l6vn" ], "score": [ 12, 14 ], "text": [ "What sports are you referring to that are unique to the United States? The typically cited popular sports in the United States are ice hockey, basketball, baseball, and American football; all of these are played outside the U.S., especially in Canada.\n\nBasketball was invented by a \"Canadian\" (province of Canada at the time, a still British colony) living in MA, with ice hockey as we know it today invented in Montreal (though various forms of ice and stick games were played in Europe including England as early as the mid to late 1700s). American and Canadian style football developed from rugby.\n\nBaseball likely developed from the popular British and Irish game rounders, and is now played in many countries outside the U.S. I'm not aware of any sports that are unique to only the U.S. and all of the popular ones that I am aware of are derivatives of earlier British sports.\n\nWith relative geographic isolation from mainland Europe and a separately developing sociocultural and political system, North America was free to develop culturally and this included variations on earlier sports that evolved as they were adopted or not in various communities.\n\nAs for why soccer in particular is not as popular in the U.S. as compared to many other countries, I could only speculate, so I'll leave that up to someone else.", "hi! not discouraging additional in-depth responses, but this question has come up a few times, so get started on previous responses:\n\n* (from the FAQ) [Why isn't Soccer the most popular sport in the former 'white' dominions of the British Empire?](_URL_6_)\n\n* [How did the dominant sports in the USA come to be so different from the rest of the world?](_URL_4_)\n\n* [Why isn't soccer as popular in the U.S.A. as other countries?](_URL_10_)\n\n* [Why did soccer become more popular in Europe than in America?](_URL_8_)\n\n* [Why is football not a major sport in many countries of the former British Empire?](_URL_1_) -- also includes cricket\n\n* [Why did soccer become more popular in Europe than in America?](_URL_8_)\n\n* [Why is soccer the sport of the world instead of, say, cricket, or baseball?](_URL_11_)\n\n* [Why and how did football (soccer) skip India?](_URL_2_)\n\n* [How did cricket get so popular in India](_URL_5_)\n\n* [Sports historians: Ifs there a specific reason Cricket is not more popular in America?](_URL_7_)\n\n* [Why did cricket not catch on in Canada like it did in the rest of the former British Colonies?](_URL_0_)\n\n* [Why did cricket become popular in some former British colonies (India, Pakistan, West Indies, Australia etc) but not others (Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, USA, etc)?](_URL_3_)\n\n* [Canadian sports](_URL_9_)\n" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1o9uga/why_did_cricket_not_catch_on_in_canada_like_it/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1u5p6l/why_is_football_not_a_major_sport_in_many/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1lis3f/why_and_how_did_football_soccer_skip_india/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1tu4f3/why_did_cricket_become_popular_in_some_former/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1f731k/how_did_the_dominant_sports_in_the_usa_come_to_be/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16z2zj/how_did_cricket_get_so_popular_in_india/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/yzglf/why_isnt_soccer_the_most_popular_sport_in_the/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1sjvzf/sports_historians_ifs_there_a_specific_reason/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1bdrn2/why_did_soccer_become_more_popular_in_europe_than/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gfi76/canadian_sports/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vod3s/why_isnt_soccer_as_popular_in_the_usa_as_other/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1mmphe/why_is_soccer_the_sport_of_the_world_instead_of/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cbu25m4", "cbu490w" ], "score": [ 78, 2 ], "text": [ "If the woman is free, then the child is free. Same happens if a freed female slave had a child. Since the mother has no owner, neither does the child. \n\nThe only thing I am not sure of, is if hypothetically the mother is evil or crazy, and wanted to sell her child into slavery. I don't know would would be the legality of that (although I doubt the government would try to prevent it.)", "As a related question, same scenario, would Dred Scott decision have prevented the child from being a citizen? Assuming it was obvious the child was at least part black?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ca0q43m" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I think this is pushing into politics much more than history.\n\nAsking if people are 'actually happy' is not historical, it's subjective, and you're talking about today, not historically.\n\nMany people 'really were' happy in 1950s Russia. Or 1930s Russia for that matter." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ci7fewo" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "There are a lot of variables here, and I'm mostly just addressing the latter years of dueling, from the late 1700s onwards. [I've written previously about the etiquette of a duel](_URL_1_), which I'll repeat here as it will help with the answer:\n\n > There was a very rigid procedure to dueling, and various dueling codes came about, the most famous being the Irish Code Duello, which was very popular in the late 1700s through the 1800s, and from which I draw most of this.\n > \n > Now, lets say you insult me, and I challenge you to a duel! As the challenged party, you may choose the weapons. The traditional weapons are swords or pistols, but uncommon ones were sometimes chosen. If you chose swords, and I am not a swordsman, I can request a different weapon, but must accept the second choice.\n > \n > Now, there are all kinds of minor rules which I'm going to gloss over and instead cut to the chase. The underlying idea of the duel is to satisfy honor. Seconds are chosen, and generally, the seconds are going to attempt to stop the duel by agreeing to terms under which you, the offender, can agree to apologize to me, the offended, to which I would agree. This will go on right up to the point when we are standing *en garde*. But, once at that point, it would be considered extremely bad form for you to *now* apologize. \n > \n > The common trope is a duel to first blood. This was not the case. To agree to a duel to first blood was very poor form. Rather the duel was *at least* to first blood. If with swords, once the duel began, you can't ask to be pardoned for your offense until I've drawn blood, otherwise you'd be in very poor form. If with pistols, you can't ask for a pardon until shots are exchanged. The duel would continue until I, the offended party, either agree to accept your apology, or else have decided honor is satisfied. In many cases though, the offender merely showing up to the duel would be enough, and no fight would even occur! On the subject of first blood, while agreeing to first blood was poor form, that isn't to say there wasn't an implicit understanding - especially by the mid-1800s, that it was the point the duel would end, but still, to vocalize that was frowned upon.\n\nNow, what that all is to say is that a duel might be very quick and end with nothing more than a pin prick, or it might keep going and going until one (or both) were too bloody and incapacitated to continue the fight, or else dead. The biggest part of what we see in the movies that *isn't* true is the fancy swordplay. Thats a good way to get stabbed. In a real duel, the biggest priority is not getting killed yourself! Because duels happened well into the 20th century, we actually have some real ones captures on film, which might give you an idea of how they were fought. Here is one from [1967](_URL_0_) and here is one from [1958](_URL_2_). The second one is of particular interest as it shows something that became pretty common by the late 19th century. After blood was drawn, the action would be stopped, the blade resterilized, and the wound bandaged if needed. While obviously there was still, in theory the chance of death (and some duels certainly had that intention), it kind of illustrates how much it was just about honor for both parties, and not about the ultimate revenge. While when one swordsman was clearly the better it might not last very long, more generally a lot of the duel was spent on these small, positional movements and light feints.\n\nSo TL;DR Duels went until honor was satisfied, which could be a single wound, or a dead swordsman.\n\n[I've also written a piece about some 20th century duels you might find of interest.](_URL_3_)" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e68nuAcSuWQ", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1l6pz5/tuesday_trivia_its_simply_not_done_historical/cbwfy6v", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL9BWkN-Wcg", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1s2w6n/tuesday_trivia_frivolous_fights_historys_least/cdtebr3" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cc12zhv", "cc172ef" ], "score": [ 94, 19 ], "text": [ "The Whig party was built by three distinct groups. The first, and by far the largest and most important, was the National Republican party which was one of the two factions of the old Jeffersonian Republican party ( the other being Jacksonians eventually Democrats). The National Republican wing was lead by Henry Clay, the figure we most associate with American Whigs, the platform was built around economic issues particularly a protective tariff, federally funded internal improvements, and a second national bank ( the least supported leg of the American system). Another faction was the anti-masonic party, which as you might gather was against free masonry and was a largely single issue party whose most prominent member was William Wirt. Henry Clay's failure to embrace the anti-masonic party greatly hindered his chances in the election of 1832. The final wing of the whig party was comprised of state rights whigs who feared the \"executive tyranny\" of Jackson and lent the party its platform of opposition to tyranny and the immortality of the spoils system. As could be gathered the states rights and national republican alliance was very fragile, and once the Whigs actually came into power many of the state rights whigs, lead by John Tyler and Abel Upsher, bolted the party for the more relative safety of the Democratic party.\n\nIn terms of geographic strength, both the Democrat and Whigs parties were truly national parties, the first and only national parties until the mid 20th century in the United States. Certain regions however were always stronger for one party over the other, although as William Freehling points out in *Secessionists at Bay* an examination of voting history over the course of the second party system reveals that the five geographic regions he divides the country into each party only held a 3-4% advantage in the popular vote (although certain elections like 1840,1852 will badly distort results). Speaking broadly the border South tended to go Whig plus New England and Louisiana, Democrats tended to be strongest in the border north( those states bordering slave holding states) and Deep South, New York and the Upper South were often heavily contested territory. Looking at the geographic centers of power for each political party reveals why the Whigs were the first to break up by the mid 1850's while the democrats lasted a few years longer. The border north democrats were often southerners themselves and were far more likely to accommodate slave politicians then those located in the upper North. A political tactic by the mid 1840's was to attempt to make the other party appear soft on slavery, the problem was that every time a deep southern whig used this tactic he normally lost, whereas with the Democrat strongholds in the lower North would bow to their southern brethren. After the split many Whigs joined the democratic party, but many more probably essentially stopped voting. In the Upper and Border South many joined the Union party which deeply opposed secession, or attempted to hop on the anti-immigrant parties as a union saving measure, basically anything that wouldn't make slavery the keystone issue. Whig political ideology however lived on forming the base of the economic platform of the Republican party and former northern Whigs often tended to dominate the new party ( Lincoln, Seward etc..) Whigs tended to attract businessmen, evangelicals, those who tended to be better off, and by the end of the party those who opposed the new wave of immigration.\n\nAntebellum historiography has traditionally been dominated by historians who favor the Democratic party (see *Age of Jackson* or more recent take Sean Wilentz's *Rise of American Democracy*). Whigs were often slurred as being Federalists rebranded (they weren't outside of support for BOTUS they have different platforms) or the party for the social-elite opposing the party of the common man. Recent years however have seen the stock of Jackson drop dramatically and a host of new works that challenge old ideas, in particular in David Walker Howe's *What Hath God Wrought* sees the Whig Party as the true party of change and herald of America's future, he tends to harp on how the Whigs gave better protection to blacks, women, and native peoples while triumphing economic advancement (although he ignores that it was minority Whigs who tended to introduce the harshest slave power measures not democrats) see also Howe's book *The Political Culture of American Whigs* which very much brought the Whig Party back into the historic mainstream. Of course no answer would be complete without noting Michael Holt's premiere work *Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party*, while a very dry read it nonetheless remains required reading for any understanding of the Whig Party. When reading Whig history it is easy to place too much emphasis on Henry Clay and boil the party solely down to him, however it goes without saying that Clay was the most important Whig and any reading should include a political biography of the man. There has yet to be a signature biography of Clay but I always recommend Merrill Peterson's *The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun* with its emphasis on the three men it helps places the politics of the era within context.\n\nAs to comparing to modern parties? A National Bank, internal improvements, and the tariff are hardly issues for the 21st century. As to the demographic breakdown compared to modern parties is something you will have to decide for yourself.\n\n\nEdit: If you were asking about British Whigs than I have entirely wasted your time", "Can someone answer this question, except regarding the British Whig party?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cxkcu6h", "cxkgebk", "cxko4fd", "cxkyvch", "cxl4i8t" ], "score": [ 5, 24, 12, 6, 9 ], "text": [ "I have studied the Middle East for a long time and I don't think you will find an unquestioned source. Almost all historians, researchers, and journalists are questioned by some party who think they are not analyzed well. If you find yourself an objective reader just start with the basics, the history and culture of the Middle East, although it may not be unquestioned you can do research for yourself. Events and facts that are mentioned are easily re-searchable nowadays.\n\nPersonally I am a big fan of several Israeli and Jewish authors regarding the Middle East (and more precise the history of Israel).\n\nEasy accessible sources with Good information are:\n\n* A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time - Howard M. Sachar\n* The Great War for Civilisation; The Conquest of the Middle East - Robert Fisk\n* The Foreign Policies of Arab States: The Challenge of Globalization - Bahgat Korany And Ali E. Hillal Dessouki (written in 2010 just before the Arab Spring started)\n* From Beirut to Jerusalem - Thomas L. Friedman (I just love Friemand a lot)\n* What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East - Bernard Lewis\n* The Modern Middle East: A History - James L. Gelvin\n* The Middle East: A History - William Ochsenwald and Sydney Nettleton Fischer\n* State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East - Roger Owen\n* A lot of information can be found at sites such as _URL_0_ and you can find the columns of Friedman in the New York Times \n\nIt is also interesting to read sources with a strong opinion. You don't have to agree with them but it gives you a basic understanding of how certain people think. I think a famous example of someone I don't totally agree with is Edward W. Said. He makes strong points about the Occident and The Orient, social constructions, arguments I can really use in general but I don't agree with him overall. I don't think it makes The West necessarily the bad one and The Orient the victim. Regardless it is an interesting read.\n\nExamples:\n\n* Orientalism - Edward W. Said (and other publications)\n* Islam and the West - Bernard Lewis (and other publications, and I am aware that I mentioned him above as well, but I think that I should also mention him here because of his famous clashes with Edward W. Said)\n* World Order - Henry Kissinger (and any other Book or Work published by him dealing with American foreign policy and partially with the Middle East when required)\n\nIf you are interested in a Book about how the Middle East is portrayed, the influence of Media, then there is also a specific Book that I would like to suggest:\n\n* They are just like people. Images from the Middle East - Joris Luyendijk\n\nOfc there are many more Books and Works but I think you can start with the snowball method from here (use the sources the Publications above use for example), online material as Al-Monitor are also Good to start your research from and come in touch with experts and authors, much to find.\n\nDon't try to find the objective masterpiece explaining everything that is going on in the Middle East, form your own opinion based on several sources, you can do the fact checks to large extents yourself (or make comparisons between authors).\n\n", "A personal note, the word \"unbiased\" instantly raises red flags for any academic who'll call up in his/her brain the entire history of social theory and the problems of presuming there can be such a thing.\n\nBut we of course, understand what you're getting at. An alternate phrasing for future reference might be \"accessible and academically well-regarded.\"\n\nIt means roughly the same as what you're getting at, but the word \"unbiased\" tends to bring the knives out.", "Rather than giving you foreign policy/political-science books; the two books I highly recommend for interested people, to getting a proper understanding of today's Middle East, would be these two books:\n\n[\"The Arabs: A History\"](_URL_1_) Eugene Rogan \n\n[A History of the Modern Middle East](_URL_0_) William L Cleveland, Martin Bunton\n\nIf you want to understand the situation today, its important to take a historical approach to it, rather than a political-science one, written by pundits and politicians, who carry a lot of the interests of their respective backers. \n\nThey are standard University texts, very well written, and updated as well. To understand the \"present\", one must first understand the \"past\". And so if you want a truly *unbiased* understanding of the Middle East in 2015, its important to understand how events got to there. ", "There is no unbiased source. Every source leans one way or another. The question is how far they lean, and whether they are aware/provide other perspectives too. That is crucial.\n\nFor history on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, *Righteous Victims* by Benny Morris is good. He leans pro-Israel. For contrast, Charles D. Smith's *Palestine & the Arab-Israeli Conflict* goes the other way. Both are well-respected in the field and stray away from the major extremes on either side, like Efraim Karsh on the pro-Israel side and Rashid Khalidi on either side.\n\nAs a note, be aware of two things:\n\n1) Biased sources hold a lot of value. They shouldn't be perused at first/alone, but they tell a significant amount about perceptions on either side of a conflict. That's extraordinarily important. History is not just a list of events that occur and move on, in books. It does tell a story that is important for today's implications, which is what most want to learn about. Also, more biased sources can include what might seem trivial to outsiders, like an event others don't think (as observers) is important, but which informs a key part of a group's psyche and historical narrative. As an example, a history book that tries to be neutral might stray away from documenting both narratives of what happened or did not happen in a particular massacre during war (preferring to simply pick whatever it feels is most credible), while a biased source and its counterpart would tell you more about the event's importance through how it tells that story.\n\n2) Broad sources are good. It's nice to get a broad overview of things. But be wary, and don't think you're an expert for it. Broad books tend to seem unbiased, but actually have some biases because they're so constrained for space. It's hard to include both sides of a complex issue if you have little space because you're covering so much. Broad books are a place to start, not a place to feel you are hugely informed from. They can help you know more than most, but if you bump in a discussion against someone who's done more than broad reading, they'll be able to quickly inform you of events you had never even known existed in history. So be wary of overestimating your knowledge based on them. I don't mean to discourage you from exploring them, but far too often I see someone who read a book by Morris, Khalidi, or someone else who thinks they know it all. It just isn't that simple.", "Hi There! The responses can be a bit off-putting so far because such a seemingly simple question sparks a *huge* nerd fight over who is any one given contributor's favorite/least favorite author. In stead of giving you a list of books, instead let me give you some insight up front, regardless of whose book(s) you read.\n\nFirst, there is no such thing as \"unbiased\" - it is a nice idea, but most historians, politicians, and journalists have certain sympathies. The key question is \"are they honest about their biases.\" By that, I mean is the author telling the reader that they are coming at the subject from a certain perspective (usually in the foreward) such as mentioning why they felt the need to write this book, where they studied, and so on. With that said...\n\nSecond, don't let the debate raging here (and it would get hotter if it was allowed to) dissuade you from reading some of the books mentioned by the contributors, such as /u/Slarotimov and /u/The_Turk2. Don't worry about whether historians take so-and-so seriously when choosing a book recommended here; that's an academic debate that has its roots in the fact I mentioned above. It is better, by far, to read a controversial book than it is to rely upon news stories. \"As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers\" - Thomas Jefferson\n\nFinally, be specific in your desires to read; when you say \"the conflict in the Middle East\" I immediately wonder \"which one\" - the civil war/Saudi intervention in Yemen? The war against Daesh in Iraq and Syria/The Syrian civil war? The Israeli/Arab or Israeli/Palestinian conflict? and so on. If you want to know about any one of these topics, there are numerous books upon them, but I would recommend, in general, that you stick to University presses. By-and-large university press books are more thoroughly researched and scrutinized than commercial presses. Additionally, I'd wave you off of pundits (i.e. Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, etc.) as they mask their agendas with plausible-sounding disinformation or a distorted analysis. Interestingly enough, a good place to start is right here on /r/AskHistorians as there are a **LOT** of threads and FAQs on the many conflicts in the Middle East, from sectarian to political to resource-based and everything in between. Best of all, you get a feel for what the hot topics and brightest thinking is in the field today without having to wade through books that can, at times, be really dry. Search through this thread and you'll see what I mean.\n\nGood luck and we hope to see you again here soon." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/home.html" ], [], [ "http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Middle-East-5th/dp/0813348331/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449082241&sr=1-4&keywords=Modern+Middle+East%3A+A+History", "http://www.amazon.ca/The-Arabs-History-Eugene-Rogan/dp/0465025048" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cmdln4e" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "I can't comment to the accuracy of this particular reproduction however there are several prehispanic Mesoamerica wind instruments that have been called \"Death Whistles.\" While it is likely that these instruments were used for ritual purposes, the specifics of their usage are not known. It is certainly true that instruments played a part in battle, specifically drums and shell instruments, I can't say I've vread of hundreds of these whistles being used as a prelude to war. \n\nEDIT: I see MexicoLore put out an article on this, they're usually pretty good for introductory information:\n_URL_0_" ] }

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[ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9QuO09z-SI" ]

[ [ "http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/music/death-whistle" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c9q4yi9", "c9p5ma7", "c9p63k3" ], "score": [ 4, 6, 7 ], "text": [ "Don't know about pre-Columbian, but Choctaw people called the earth \"yakni,\" which can also mean country/nation, land, homeland, dirt, ground, dust, or coast.", "The world for Earth in Ojibwe is Aki ^[1](_URL_0_), but that also means land & ground. Ojibwe people call North American \"Mikinaak Minis\", or Turtle Island because of the Ojibwe creation story, where the world was rebuilt after a great flood on the back of a turtle.\n\nThe Navajo word for earth also comes from their word for dirt or land, Nahasdzáán. Interestingly enough, the root, asdzáán, means woman. \n\n\nThe Dakota word, Maka, is also their word for land or dirt.\n\nI don't know if there was a concept of the whole planet, or if the words referred to the globe pre-contact. \n\n*edit for spells.", "The Nahuatl term for \"world\" would be *tlalticpac*, but since that literally means something like \"of/on the ground,\" that's probably not what you're looking for. The most fanciful expression would be *cemanahuac*, which can also mean \"world,\" but has the more literal meaning of something like \"the entirety/place entirely between/adjacent to the waters\" and is more specific to Mesoamerica. Remove the \"cem\" (one/wholly/entirely) and you get Anahuac, which was the term for the Basin of Mexico. \n\nKarttunen, in her *Analytical Dictionary of Nahautl* also argues for an interpretation that *cemanahuac* could be derived from *cemmaniyan*, which would mean the term would have nothing to position relative to waters, but would instead mean something more like \"something extending perpetually.\"" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/main-entry/mikinaak-na" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ex79js7" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Yes, in the infamous propaganda film \"The Eternal Jew\", Einstein is characterized as follows:\n\n\" The relativity-Jew \\[Relativitätsjude\\] Einstein, who concealed his hatred of Germany behind an obscure pseudo-science.\"\n\nHere are academic presentations that analyze this film:\n\n[_URL_2_](_URL_2_)\n\nHere are the frames and narration excerpts from the film on a Holocaust history website, including the one with Einstein:\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nThis can be taken to be the standard official presentation of Einstein in the Nazi Germany.\n\nMore information can be found in this article (in German):\n\n[_URL_1_](_URL_1_)\n\nThe moniker \"relativity-Jew\" seems to have stuck, as it is seen used in the Stürmer in 1941.\n\nIn this article he is criticized for allegedly extolling the virtues of the Old Testament (the Stormer author then goes on to criticize the \"Jewish\" Old Testament and the \"Jewish\" biblical morals)." ] }

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[ [ "https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/der-ewige-jude/stills.shtml", "https://scilogs.spektrum.de/relativ-einfach/relativitaetstheorie-antisemitismus/", "https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/der-ewige-jude/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cawr5fx" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "While they weren't 100% criminal organizations, Tongs in Chinatowns throughout the U.S. participated in gang-like activity until about the 1910s.\n\nEarly on, the Tongs (especially the Hip-Yee Tong) participated heavily in sex trafficking of Chinese women, at some points being accountable for upwards of 80% of the Chinese women immigration to the U.S. Once here, the Tongs continued to take advantage of the prostitutes by charging them a \"tax\" for protection, threatening violence if they refused. If the Tongs wanted a bit more money, they'd go around and tell the prostitutes that the Chief of Police was coming and wanted an additional fee to be payed off. The Tongs, of course, were lying and would pocket the money on their own.\n\nThe Tongs also operated other, various vice industries, most popularly opium dens and gambling houses. They also offered protection for a fee to independent vice houses owned by other Chinese. Each Tong controlled some amount of territory, and hired gunmen to perform an array of duties, including protection of affiliated businesses, protection of the territory from rival Tongs, and even the murder of witnesses about to participate in criminal proceedings.\n\nWhile the non-Chinese were typically kept out of any Tong conflict (out of fear of interference by the white police forces/government), there was an occasion in the San Francisco Chinatown where two whites were accidentally murdered in a Tong shootout. The resulting race riots were huge and included 15 Chinese being hung on some light poles.\n\nSources:\n\nIvan Light, “From Vice District to Tourist Attraction: The Moral Career of American Chinatowns, 1880-1940,” *Pacific Historical Review* 43 (1974).\n\nLucie Cheng Hirata, “Free, Indentured, Enslaved: Chinese Prostitutes in Nineteenth-Century America,” *Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society* 5 (1979)." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cq93x1s" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "I can't speak for the American side of this, but in the case of Great Britain, at least, this option was not actually given to the bereaved. A massive scheme of universal interment was devised by the Imperial War Graves Commission under the guidance of Sir Fabian Ware; the scheme ensured that the British fallen would be buried in (more or less) the same earth upon which they died rather than being sent back across the Channel either piecemeal or en masse. I am sure there are individual cases that slipped through the cracks, but in the main this was established as policy.\n\nOur own /u/CrossyNZ has an excellent (and sharply critical) [post about the subject here](_URL_0_); you may also wish to check out David Crane's marvelous book, *Empires of the Dead* (2013), which tells this story in greater depth." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1iuwrx/were_many_people_upset_when_they_announced_they/cb8bich" ] ]