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Ras Het posted:In one Pentti Linkola book he's like "what they're doing in Cambodia seems good, but I haven't really looked into it" at one point they exported a bunch of endangered wildlife and nature products to china in exchange for more weapons, seems kind of unprimitivist 2 me
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# ? Nov 1, 2018 22:17 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 04:19 |
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WerthersWay posted:What's the best book on the French Revolution for a reader whose knowledge of the events is cursory? I've heard Citizens by Simon Schama is good but I'm looking for something a little more concise than 950 pages... Checking in again. Pretend I said "warts and all" at the end of my question so you get mad online.
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# ? Nov 4, 2018 23:25 |
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WerthersWay posted:Checking in again. Pretend I said "warts and all" at the end of my question so you get mad online. I’m sorry you can only learn ideologically correct history here.
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# ? Nov 5, 2018 00:03 |
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WerthersWay posted:Checking in again. Pretend I said "warts and all" at the end of my question so you get mad online. The Peter McPhee book that guy talked about is only like 500 pages
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# ? Nov 5, 2018 18:32 |
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Christopher Hibbert's book is written for the general reader and is apparently very accessible.
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# ? Nov 5, 2018 19:50 |
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I’m going to be visiting Israel and Jordan in December. I’m interested in digging deeper into the history of the area. 1. First and foremost like a book that details the ancient history of Israel (prehistory - 1000AD) 2. Then another book on the crusades period. 3. Finally a book on the creation of modern Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If there is a good book that does 1&2 together or just a broad overview that’s fine, but out of all 3 topics I’m most interested in the early period, so I don’t want a book that skimps on that. If there is a short book that can give me history on ancient Jordan (sites like Petra) as well that would be great. Don’t know how I’m gonna read all of this in a month but I’ll try!
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# ? Nov 9, 2018 13:19 |
for the crusades, The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land. goes through all of 'em e: by Thomas Asbridge chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Nov 9, 2018 |
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# ? Nov 9, 2018 14:56 |
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chernobyl kinsman posted:for the crusades, The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land. goes through all of 'em This one’s really good. I’m also fond of James Reston Jr’s Warriors of God but that’s very specifically focused on Richard the Lionheart and Saladin so may be a little more narrow in focus for what you’re looking for.
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# ? Nov 9, 2018 16:52 |
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Megasabin posted:3. Finally a book on the creation of modern Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History by David W. Lesch
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# ? Nov 9, 2018 17:00 |
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I think I asked for too narrow a scope when I asked about the crusades period earlier. I’m reading a great book now on the ancient history of Palastine/Israel (Israel's History and the History of Israel by Mario Liverani), but it’s gonna end right before the Hellinistic period. I plan to also read a book on modern history of the area, but I need something to fill in the gap between. I ignorantly asked for a book on the crusades, which is far too small a scope. I actually want something that will cover the 300BC - 1800, so the Hellenistic, Hasmonean, Roman, Byzantine, Crusades, Mamluk, and Ottoman periods. This is a very wide scope and I’m not sure such a book exists. I find it difficult to search for this on google because the only things that come up are about the ancient history or the post-British mandate period. Anyone know of anything that covers he history this broadly? If not, maybe a few different books that cover those years? Separate but related question. Will reading a book on the Israeli-Palastinan conflict like the one suggested above basically give me a good rundown on the modern history of the area? Will I be losing anything by reading a book that’s sole focus is the conflict of will I still get the general gist of all important events in the modern time period? dokmo posted:The Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History by David W. Lesch I've read great things about this book, and often seen it compared to "A History of the Arab–Israeli Conflict" by Bickerton. Anyone have thoughts on a comparison between these two books? I ask because Bicerkton's book is available in digital format, and Lech's is not, and I prefer to read on my ereader whenever possible. Megasabin fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Nov 13, 2018 |
# ? Nov 13, 2018 14:17 |
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Could anyone recommend a book about the Medieval West African kingdoms (Songhai, Ghana, Mali)? If it also covers Sub-Saharan Africa (Kongo, Loango) or Kanem-Bornu that would be pretty nice as well.
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# ? Nov 15, 2018 18:45 |
Michael A. Gomez, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa
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# ? Nov 15, 2018 20:54 |
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chernobyl kinsman posted:Michael A. Gomez, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa That's the one I had my eye on, I'll probably pick it up.
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# ? Nov 15, 2018 21:17 |
it's really good. i actually just attended a talk by him the other day, cool dude
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# ? Nov 15, 2018 21:20 |
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Return Of A King The Battle For Afghanistan, 1839-42 by William Dalrymple Very readable and interesting.
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# ? Nov 18, 2018 21:37 |
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Just a recommendation, but I'm reading Douglas Smith's "Forgotten People", about the Russian nobility after the Revolution. Spoiler...it doesn't go well for most of them.
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# ? Nov 19, 2018 00:51 |
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Epicurius posted:Just a recommendation, but I'm reading Douglas Smith's "Forgotten People", about the Russian nobility after the Revolution. Spoiler...it doesn't go well for most of them. Good.
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# ? Nov 19, 2018 01:01 |
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A human heart posted:Good. I dont know. Politics aside, it's kind of draining to read. It's story after story of people being dispossessed and murdered or fleeing without anything, never knowing if they'll see their home again.
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# ? Nov 19, 2018 02:00 |
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Yea kind of like what happened to millions of people during the murderous world war European nobility started. Or what serfs endured for a millenia.
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# ? Nov 19, 2018 02:18 |
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Mantis42 posted:Yea kind of like what happened to millions of people during the murderous world war European nobility started. Or what serfs endured for a millenia. Yes. Human suffering is bad.
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# ? Nov 19, 2018 02:27 |
except when it’s my ideological opponents suffering, then it’s goodMantis42 posted:Yea kind of like what happened to millions of people during the murderous world war European nobility started. Or what serfs endured for a millenia. no those are really more like the millions who starved and died in the holdomor
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# ? Nov 19, 2018 02:31 |
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Epicurius posted:Just a recommendation, but I'm reading Douglas Smith's "Forgotten People", about the Russian nobility after the Revolution. Spoiler...it doesn't go well for most of them. Yeah this is a legit good book, both accessible to non-specialists and still with a good level of academic rigour.
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# ? Nov 19, 2018 06:44 |
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vyelkin posted:Yeah this is a legit good book, both accessible to non-specialists and still with a good level of academic rigour. Thirded. Not as depressing as some other books I've read on Russian history, but had its own level of crushing sadness.
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# ? Nov 20, 2018 19:07 |
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Is Figes' book still the default to read on the Russian revolution? I recently read Peter Holquist's "Making War, Forging Revolution" and I'd like to refresh my knowledge of the revolution.
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# ? Nov 20, 2018 19:56 |
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Any good suggestions for books on FDR and the New Deal?
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# ? Nov 20, 2018 20:18 |
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The Glumslinger posted:Any good suggestions for books on FDR and the New Deal? American Made by Nick Taylor is very good, though it focuses primarily on the Works Progress Administration.
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# ? Nov 20, 2018 22:23 |
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Michael Hiltzik's "The New Deal" is good, and so are, for more critical views, IRA Katznelson's "Fear Itself", which is a look at the compromises the New Deal made with segregationalist Southern Democrats, and Amity Schaes, "The Forgotten Man", which is a more critical, conservative look at it.
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# ? Nov 20, 2018 23:18 |
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Epicurius posted:Michael Hiltzik's "The New Deal" is good, and so are, for more critical views, IRA Katznelson's "Fear Itself", which is a look at the compromises the New Deal made with segregationalist Southern Democrats, and Amity Schaes, "The Forgotten Man", which is a more critical, conservative look at it. There we go, I like Hitzik's LA Times writing, so I'll check that one out
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# ? Nov 20, 2018 23:24 |
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Minenfeld! posted:Is Figes' book still the default to read on the Russian revolution? I recently read Peter Holquist's "Making War, Forging Revolution" and I'd like to refresh my knowledge of the revolution. Figes's book is okay but he's kind of an unreliable weirdo which nobody knew when he wrote that book but everybody knows now, so a lot of people have stopped using his stuff as much. There was a big wave of books on the revolution last year for the centenary, so there's no need to go to something 20 years old anymore. In my opinion the two standouts of the ones I've read personally or read reviews of or talked to others in the field about are S. A. Smith's Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890-1928 and Mark Steinberg's The Russian Revolution, 1905-1921. Both are really excellent and aimed at non-specialist readers, and both are written by field-leading senior scholars who have spent their entire careers studying this time period in Russian history. You really can't go wrong with either one.
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# ? Nov 21, 2018 06:25 |
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vyelkin posted:Figes's book is okay but he's kind of an unreliable weirdo which nobody knew when he wrote that book but everybody knows now, so a lot of people have stopped using his stuff as much. I've been a little wary of Figes since the revelations about his Amazon review habits came to light. He didn't seem--as you say--reliable. I'll take a look at what you've listed here. Thank you.
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# ? Nov 22, 2018 00:02 |
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I know size isn’t everything but Figes book on the Russian Revolution is like 700 pages long excluding the index and bibliography while most other books on the subject top out at like 300 which to me just seems too short to be an exhaustive account of the subject. Just don’t read anything by Pipes.
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# ? Dec 3, 2018 00:40 |
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Is there anything else Figes did other than the fake Amazon reviews? Is there criticism of his scholarship, rather than general ethics?
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# ? Dec 3, 2018 03:02 |
scholarship is heavily entwined with reputation and being shown to be bugfuck crazy casts doubts on both
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# ? Dec 3, 2018 03:19 |
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He may have made up a Soviet anecdote in The Whisperers.
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# ? Dec 3, 2018 03:23 |
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Does anyone have recommendations for either the Habsburgs or for London?
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# ? Dec 3, 2018 05:28 |
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Epicurius posted:Is there anything else Figes did other than the fake Amazon reviews? Is there criticism of his scholarship, rather than general ethics? Yes. https://www.thenation.com/article/orlando-figes-and-stalins-victims/
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# ? Dec 3, 2018 05:43 |
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It's a minor thing, I know, but I was always really puzzled/troubled by a throwaway line in People's Tragedy, where he blithely states that the Brusilov offensive was broken up by "air attacks", which seems unlikely in 1916.
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# ? Dec 3, 2018 14:07 |
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I enjoyed The Whisperers. I got it when it came out and have it still in hardcover. That's insanely disappointing. Is there some other book that does the topic?
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# ? Dec 3, 2018 16:24 |
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Minenfeld! posted:I enjoyed The Whisperers. I got it when it came out and have it still in hardcover. That's insanely disappointing. Is there some other book that does the topic? I haven't actually read The Whisperers because Figes is such a weirdo so I can't say if they cover the exact same territory, but here are a few other books I like that deal with private lives under Stalinism: Stephen Kotkin's Magnetic Mountain, which if you're into weighty tomes of history should be right up your alley. Less specifically about private life but includes a lot of stuff about how people learned to live with Stalinism. Jochen Hellbeck's Revolution on My Mind, which in my opinion is the best book I've read on actual internal lives under Stalinism. Hellbeck got access to a pretty mind-blowing collection of personal diaries and so was able to write about people's subjective experiences of how they saw their lives during Stalin's time in ways nobody else has really been able to match yet. Really fascinating, especially if you're interested in the historiographical debate over whether or not people actually believed in the Soviet project or if everybody was just going along to get along. Douglas Smith's Former People which is about a couple prominent aristocratic families through the late imperial, revolutionary, and early Soviet periods. Maybe the last third of the book deals with what happens to all these people under Stalin and it's really good, I recommend it in this thread all the time. Unlike the previous two it's also a popular history rather than one designed exclusively for academics, but the author has a PhD from UCLA and maintains a high level of scholarly rigour in his research and writing. I like it a lot.
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# ? Dec 3, 2018 16:44 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 04:19 |
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I've read Magentic Mountain and I enjoyed it. I'll check out the others.
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# ? Dec 3, 2018 16:51 |