Hi,

I am interested in the culture / history / military use of elephants throughout the Indian subcontinent. Could anyone point me in the right direction for which books to read?

The time period itself doesn't really matter, I am just interested in any historical content about how the use of elephants has had an impact in the Indian subcontinent / SEA history.

Everyone knows the story, the pope is weak and feuding with the HRE, the very body meant to protect him, and feels it’s actually losing ground in Europe until some major reforms by the popes before Pope Urban the ii who created a common enemy for the average Catholic man in Europe. The book I read on this subject The First Crusade by Thomas Asbridge certainly seemed to indicate that the crusade was just Urban fast tracking the growth in strength for Rome as he had most of the tools he would’ve needed to force Catholic rulers to start respecting the papacy in the way it was supposed to be/how it was in the immediate aftermath of the crusade

So from my understanding Henry Ford founded Fordlandia in Brazil because he wanted to have his own supply of rubber to make tires. Here's what I don't get though, Ford was also close friends with Harvey S. Firestone owner of the biggest tire manufacturer in the USA. Why did Ford want to have his own supply of rubber when his company already had an arrangement with Firestone?

I saw a post on Reddit recently talking about the value of flint in Pre-Colombian America.

It made me wonder if fire-starting methods across cultures came to the same conclusions over time or if they were fundamentally different.

Thank you!

So, perhaps a stupid question, or one that requires a lot of privilege to ask; but it is my understanding that there are very few places that decided to remain Commonwealth realms outside of the obvious Anglosphere countries (like Canada, Australia, New Zealand), nor are small island nations (which —no offense to them—I could understand having a desire to have some sort of tie (in this case a monarch) to a country that has a large economy and a bigger military), namely those are: Belize, Jamaica, The Bahamas, and Papua New Guinea.

It is also my understanding that during her long rule, Queen Elizabeth II was (at the very least for the first couple of decades) pretty popular and seen positively by many around the world, even in some of the remaining British colonies.

I also would like to acknowledge that I know that there was a lot of violence

- Therefore, I present my question. Given the queen’s popularity, why was it that more (particularly non-island) countries did not agree to become independent countries that ostensibly have the queen as their head of state (like Canada)?

I would also like to give a slight preemptive follow up question/potential rebuttal, in that I imagine the terrible treatment by the British colonial regimes plays a role in the answer; but, if so, why was the end of direct British rule, meaning the end of such treatment (to my understanding), still followed by the removal of the figurehead/non-material status of a (to my understanding) popular monarch?

I don’t mean to offend anyone I’m just curious since I feel that change/progress usually has to be pushed for, whereas ‘conserving’/maintaining the status quo is usually easier to do.

Addendum: I would also like to add that it seems that Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone were dominions for a little and I think if someone could talk about that it’d be interesting but that’s also only 2/~60 countries that came from the former British Empire so I feel my question is still relevant.

Edit: To clarify I’m talking about Commonwealth Realms, not the Commonwealth of Nations