MichaelF

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11134

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I got my BA in History even though I haven't used it for employment, I have pursued my studies more for enjoyment. While I work in tech I still spend time researching and studying history, concentrating in the Colonial American period and Asian cultures.

I pursue an interest in other topics as they come up, the more you learn the more you want to know is my general theme of topics. As a historian I try to see both sides of the question, in general History is written by the winners so one often needs to look deeper into the subject to get a balanced view. Much of what I have learned growing up has already changed which goes to prove the axiom - nothing is constant but change.

	3,797 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	1 year, 7 months
11134 badges		location	Massachusetts		seen	4 hours ago

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Nov 7	comment	What unique personal experiences contributed to the formation of Mao's brand of Communism? Yes, agreed. That seems to have been his road towards the Cult of Mao and his continual cry of "I'll take it to the people" when he did not get his way.
Nov 5	comment	What were the reasons that the British colonies in North America rebelled but not others? I have to give it to you for the detail. Thanks, that's really good.
Nov 5	accepted	What were the reasons that the British colonies in North America rebelled but not others?
Nov 4	comment	How would a large kingdom be ruled? Or make the vassals come to them and spend money so they couldn't raise armies, like the Shogun used to do in Japan. It also kept the vassals close so they could not be far away plotting mischief.
Nov 4	comment	Which came first: Polytheism or monotheism? An interesting question but if you consider one God who is considered a leader then you can look at most Pantheons and consider them monotheistic. Zeus was a god, and the leader of Olympus, does that make the Olympian worshippers monotheistic? You can trace a group back to a source but unless that source is worshipped without reference to the others you still end up with polytheism.
Nov 4	comment	Which came first: Polytheism or monotheism? +1 Ohhh...that is good. I never thought about that but you are correct in many respects, Saints are always given god-like powers such as miracle cures or miraculous events if given prayers. The fact that they act as Agents of God does tend to get past thinking of them as Gods, but in an ancient society they might be considered as such.
Nov 4	comment	Do most of today's democratic nations with two-party system exhibit a civil war in recent past? I don't think a civil war is necessary to have multiple political parties, many countries have them without civil wars. What tends to generate parties are social issues that are not sufficiently addressed by either major party IMO.
Nov 4	comment	Do most of today's democratic nations with two-party system exhibit a civil war in recent past? @Joe let's also not forget that until about 100 years ago Senators were not directly elected either, the people elected their representatives who then elected Senators. As to everything else you are saying, I wholeheartedly agree.
Nov 3	comment	Do most of today's democratic nations with two-party system exhibit a civil war in recent past? I'd also like to note that the US has had multiple parties in the past, such as the Know-Nothings, Moose Party and some others. Although the entrenchment of the Democrats and Republicans makes it harder to create a third party in this country that is viable, but we still have the Greens, Ross Perot's party and others around just not as viable independent parties on a national level who can run candidates for general elections.
Nov 3	comment	Do most of today's democratic nations with two-party system exhibit a civil war in recent past? If you look at the origins of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists their creation was more about Unification than about Division. Although you could argue it's helped more to define our divisions. I think you need to reformulate your question WITHOUT using the US as a basis of Civil War creating two-party systems since that had nothing to do with the two-party system which existed before it happened.
Nov 3	comment	Do most of today's democratic nations with two-party system exhibit a civil war in recent past? While this doesn't answer the question, to me, it does reflect the reality of the US situation in that we had a two-party system in place BEFORE the civil war. So in the US's case it did not need a Civil War to create the existing system.
Nov 2	comment	Why did China shut itself out of the world in the 15th century? Just note the Ming and Qing dynasties rather than the time period, I did know what you mean though.
Nov 2	comment	What unique personal experiences contributed to the formation of Mao's brand of Communism? This is much the same as what I learned in a History of Modern China course, mostly Mao shunned cities and stayed in the countryside rallying the peasants to him to fight the government. Although some of his politics at the time seemed kind of sketchy, he never seemed a reliable Communist Cadre but in many ways was more an opportunist.
Nov 2	comment	Why did Huldrych Zwingli and Martin Luther stand for clerical marriage? I always thought that the celibate priest concept was more about economy and control rather than belief, this at least lets me think that I am onto something.
Nov 2	comment	What is the most widely accepted theory on the ancient “Sea Peoples”? It's just linking to a wikipedia article and asking something off it without much detail here, that doesn't really add much to our site. I'd expect more detail here on the question. Just to note I didn't downvote, I just asked about the question.
Nov 2	answered	Why did China shut itself out of the world in the 15th century?
Nov 2	awarded	Quorum
Nov 2	comment	What is the most widely accepted theory on the ancient “Sea Peoples”? Sorry, but if you are linking to wikipedia in your question, which has information on them, what are you trying to get here in addition? Theory is nice but it's pretty broad.
Nov 1	answered	What was the religion of the Arabic people before conversion to Islam?
Nov 1	awarded	Beta