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  1. Shi'a Central Asia

    Iran was converted to Shi'a Islam under the Safavid Dynasty, but despite having considerable influence in Central Asia, particularly what is now Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and the areas around Samarkand and Bukhara in modern Uzbekistan, Shi'a Islam is not widely spread there, being limited mostly...

  2. AHC: Mao Zedong's 1936 Vision of East Asia

    In 1936, American journalist Edgar Snow travelled to the base of the fledgling Chinese Communist Party in Yan'an, Shaanxi to speak with its charismatic leader, Mao Zedong. During his interview, Snow asked Mao about the issue of former Chinese territories, particularly those in the hands of the...

  3. What happened to the Cham?

    The Cham dominated central Vietnam from the beginning of the 1st millennium CE until the 19th century. Nowadays, however, while the ethnic Kinh Vietnamese population in Vietnam alone numbers up to a staggering 82 million, the entire population of ethnic Chams in the world is only 400,000, less...

  4. Indigenous Southeast Asian World Religion

    Southeast Asia has always been a crossroads of trade between different civilizations -Initially India and China, but later the Islamic and Western worlds as well. Initially, the indigenous cultures practiced localized forms of animism, until Indian merchants and missionaries brought Hinduism and...

  5. Is a united Indochina possible?

    Is it possible to have French Indochina become a unified, independent country comprising modern Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos? By the modern day, it would have a population of about 120 million people, with around 65-70% Kinh (Vietnamese), 10-15% Khmer, 5% Lao, and 10-15% Other (Thai, Han Chinese...

  6. 外西北, The Outer Northwest

    A lot is said about the lands of Outer Mongolia and Outer Manchuria which were once (at least nominally) part of the Qing Dynasty but later lost to Russia and Mongolia. What isn't discussed in great detail, aside from circles of ultra-nationalist Chinese, is the concept of "外西北" (Wai Xibei), the...

  7. AHC: Manchu diaspora

    The Manchu are the largest Tungusic ethnic group, but are almost exclusively found in mainland China and Taiwan. Along with their close relative ethnic group, the Xibo, they can be found all across northern China, from Heilongjiang to Hebei to Xinjiang. There aren't many Manchu to be found...

  8. AH Challenge: “Reverse Gypsies”

    With a POD no earlier than 1 AD, create a mass migration of people from Europe to the Indian Subcontinent that results in the formation of one or more new ethnic groups similar to the Romani and Sinti. Based in Pakistan or India, they should speak a European-derived language (Slavic, Germanic...

  9. AHChallenge: Chopsticks in Europe

    Chopsticks. They're a Chinese invention, and overseas Han Chinese communities have taken them everywhere from Singapore to San Francisco. They've also found their way into the traditional cultures of Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and are often used for noodle dishes in Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand...

  10. AHC: Spread yogurt earlier

    Yogurt has been consumed since the time of the ancient Egyptians and Israelites. The "milk" that flowed in the Promised Land alongside honey was likely a fermented milk drink. It's been a staple in the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe Even the classical Greeks had their...

  11. Iranian-speaking Anatolia

    Anatolia has been a crossroads of many civilizations, and has gone through several major shifts in language - From Hittite to Greek to Turkish, with many other languages spoken in its vicinity over thousands of years of history. Knowing that Anatolia was once in the hands of the Persian Empire...

  12. AHC: Make Spring Festival Popular in the West

    Despite having miniscule Christian populations, Japan and China have embraced many of the aesthetic elements of Christmas. Japan has done this moreso than China, but in both countries it's not uncommon to hear Christmas songs playing on department store radios, see Christmas trees and lights in...

  13. Marajoara Wank

    Okay, I'm not really looking for a wank here (;)), but I'd like to find a way to bolster the mysterious civilization of Marajó Island of Pará State in Brazil, and make it at least on par with the other great American civilizations of the Andes and Mesoamerica. This culture at the mouth of the...

  14. Let's wank Sri Lanka!

    Sri Lanka: A huge, populous island right off the coast of India and smack-dab in the middle of very profitable Indian Ocean trade routes, from the Swahili Coast and the Persian Gulf all the way to the East Indies. Occasionally conquered by Tamil powers based in southern India and often divided...

  15. Who else could fill up the space of Russia's land?

    For most of the world's history, the northern parts of Eurasia weren't part of any organized polity. They belonged only to the various groups of small-scale subsistence farmers, hunters, and reindeer herders who etched lives for themselves in the frozen vastness, speaking Uralic and Altaic...

  16. Volga Europeans

    Toward the end of the 18th Century, Catherine the Great issued a call inviting Christian Europeans to settle and farm in the lands around the Volga River as a buffer against the Mongols and Tatars. The Europeans who accepted the invitation would be allowed to maintain their language and customs...

  17. Are the Thirteen States viable alone?

    In a world where the Americans win the war of independence but fail to form a more perfect union, can each of the states survive as independent countries? Obviously New York and Virginia can do it, but what about, say, Delaware? I can see the New England states perhaps merging together, but can...

  18. No Zoroaster / Iranian Polytheism

    Lately I've been reading about the religious development of the Indo-Aryans and the origins of Zoroastrianism, which I had never really delved into before. I was fascinated (but not entirely surpised) to find that the devas of Vedic India also existed in pre-Zoroastrian Iran, and their...

  19. Chinese Dionysus

    How come the ancient Chinese never developed the ecstatic, sexual-open fertility cults that the Mediterranean civilizations had? How could one come about, what would it look it, how popular could it become, and how long could it last?

  20. Pre-1492 Chinese Cuisine?

    As someone very interested in food history, I'm very curious about the effects of the Trans-Atlantic trade on local diets. There's certainly a lot of information available about what people in Europe and the Americas were eating prior to 1492, but it's much harder for me to contemplate Hunan and...
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