askhistorians

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How was Ancient Rome's wealth tax actually assessed? Was the same publican/official who profited from the tax also the guy who decided how much your property was worth? Could wealthier Romans litigate their assessments down the way wealthier people do today? What about poorer Romans?	9
What did the "mental map" of the world look like for Parthian and Sasanian Persia? Was the Iranian plateau at the center of the world? If not, where? Was far western Europe distant but knowable, or was it inherent inaccessible and mysterious?	9
Why is arms & equipment procurement so messy? How long has American military procurement been messy? Were people lamenting over (equivalent) billions spent on decades-long R&D programs only to result in minor incremental improvements & cancellations back in 1922?	9
How, if at all, did contact with the West influence 19th and 20th century historiography in East Asia (esp. Korea, Qing and post-Revolution China, Japan)? What independent schools of formal historical study existed in these places before extensive Western contact? And are they still relevant today?	9
How should I imagine life in the Teutonic crusader state in the 14th century? Pop history coverage is almost solely concerned with its military history.	9
Was the Spanish Catholic Requerimiento to indigenous Americans inspired at all by the Islamic military & literary tradition of ultimatums before conflict with non-Muslims? Was the Requerimiento Catholic Jihad?	9
Was there an gendered aspect to early modern European and colonial American fears of "turning Turk" and "going Native"? Was there particular paranoia about women in particular adopting the customs of "alien" peoples?	9
In popular Russian cultural memory today Лихие 90-е (likhie devyanostye/the hard 90s) is discussed as an almost apocalyptic era of decline. But did Russians of the time actually perceive it as such, especially compared to the crises of the late Soviet Union?	9
How visible (and audible) was women's public life in the central to eastern Mediterranean and nearby inland areas in the early modern period, especially among elite and/or urban women?	9
Were there linguistics prescriptivists in Ancient Rome?	9

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