askhistorians

Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
I recently heard colonialism provided the market expansion needed to sustain industrial growth in 18th and 19th century Western Europe. How dependent was the industrial revolution on European colonization? Can we really speak of the colonial origins of the industrial revolution in Europe?	5
During the Spanish Civil War, Republican militiamen were known for digging up the bones of dead nuns and priests, reassembling them and then dancing with them in the street. Why?	5
What makes systems of Western European domination and oppression so different from systems of domination and oppression that existed in the past or that existed in other cultures? Why are Western European systems of domination and oppression so much more noteworthy?	5
How come we only hear about legalized racial segregation in societies colonized by Anglo-Saxons and nowhere else?	4
Up until the mid-1960s, the United States had a nativist immigration policy ("free white persons only"). How and why did Americans come to embrace an unofficial policy of multiculturalism and mass immigration from developing countries in less than a few years?	2
Why wasn't there widespread discontent among the Soviet population with the Soviet ruling class and communist economic system? Why didn't most people want to see it overthrown and replaced with some other system, especially by the Brezhnev years when the system's weaknesses became more obvious?	1
Were Russians ever brainwashed into believing Soviet ideology in the same way Germans were brainwashed into believing Nazi ideology? Just how thorough was Soviet indoctrination compared to Nazi indoctrination?	0
When people hear the word "libertarian," they think of Christian nationalists, racist gun nuts, tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists and generally selfish a-holes. Why is libertarianism now associated with right-wing conservatism when it was originally a leftist political philosophy?	0
Why has the US government officially recognized genocides in places like Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq and Darfur, while refusing to officially recognize the genocide it committed against Native Americans as an actual genocide?	0
Up until the 1950s, the United States was a racist, white supremacist and patriarchal society with a nativist immigration policy. How and why did Americans come to embrace an unofficial policy of multiculturalism and mass immigration from developing countries in less than a few years?	0

« < > »