askhistorians

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Describing someone as "awake" was a compliment often used in the 19th century in obits and other writeups. Why was awakeness laudable at the time?	4
When did weight loss and dieting cease being a niche pursuit and started being the continuous way of life for large numbers of people in the US?	4
Was Malthus correct in his disparaging remarks made about foreign cultures when attempting to shoehorn them into his Malthusian Trap dynamic?	4
I don't see much discussion of evil in Western civilization before Christianity - just things considered bad, or Ill luck, or dispreferred. Did the ancients have a concept of evil?	4
The huge colonial empires of France, Britain, Spain, and Portugal made mercantilism and autarchy feasible. How did smaller European states like the Netherlands navigate imperial trade barriers? To what degree did the larger empires trade among themselves and with smaller states?	4
US and international businesses have incorporated in the small state of Deleware for decades. Deleware doesn't tax companies if they don't do businesses in the state, so has this brought it any advantages?	4
Did heat and humidity slow development and productivity in the global south before the invention of air conditioning?	4
Are there instances where modern science totally overturned a prior belief because newfound data or a new theory was a better explanation than the body of evidence that already existed?	4
How has experimental archeology changed your area of expertise/interest?	4
What role did Napoleon's monetary (Bank of France) and legal reforms play in his popularity in France? Was France's justice system and economy lagging before Napoleon took power?	4

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