/u/Masaryk's posts in /r/AskHistorians
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Why are African people (and people from the African diaspora) called "black?" Was it by simple analogy of Europeans being "white," or did that come later? Were Africans labeled "black" as a method of dehumanizing or demonizing them?
154 upvotes
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Thomas Barfield claims that in Turko-Persia and the middle east, legitimacy to rule was gained essentially by the act of conquest itself, and that rebellions after the fact were just "quasi-ritual" tests of the conquerors military (and therefore governmental) competence. Is this true?
106 upvotes
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Did people living in regions with apes, chimps etc. make any sort of mythological connection between themselves and primates?
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How did the Shafi'I school of Islamic jurisprudence come to be dominant in eastern Africa and the Indonesian archipelago when those areas are so geographically separated?
61 upvotes
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Did anti-semititic attitudes in the Arab world increase significantly after the expulsion of the Palestinians, or did they already exist in the same proportion pre-Nakba?
51 upvotes
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During pre-modern times, did famines affect gentry/aristocracy with the same severity as peasantry? Would their diets have changed at all in response to harsh conditions?
42 upvotes
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