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Koramei posted:Anyone have recommended readings that cover the whole sweep of prehistoric human migrations in an overarching way? I started on Against the Grain based on recommendations here about state formation (thanks everyone) but then decided I wanted to go even earlier. My understanding is genetic evidence has advanced light years just in the past decade and it'd be cool to get an up to date reading of the topic to ground with first. I doubt (but would be pleasantly suprised if I am wrong) that there is anything good published yet about that. Prehistoric human migrations are pretty hard to pick out in the archaeological record outside of genetics, and even that has a relatively small sample size (by this I mean people are not running genetic tests on every bit of HR they find so you have an even smaller window than we normally do in archaeology). I figure you could maybe get a good article out of it but I'm hesitant to think we could have a good book from it.
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May 13, 2024 17:17
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Koramei posted:Anyone have recommended readings that cover the whole sweep of prehistoric human migrations in an overarching way? I started on Against the Grain based on recommendations here about state formation (thanks everyone) but then decided I wanted to go even earlier. My understanding is genetic evidence has advanced light years just in the past decade and it'd be cool to get an up to date reading of the topic to ground with first. You might like books by Peter Bellwood. The First Farmers of Europe by Stephen Shennan is great, focuses on Europe of course but also discusses the beginnings of agriculture in the Middle East.
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May 14, 2024 06:12
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Koramei posted:Anyone have recommended readings that cover the whole sweep of prehistoric human migrations in an overarching way? Steven Mithen's After the Ice maybe? It's a few years old, though.
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May 14, 2024 06:53
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It'd be many pages back but someone recommended "Burgundy a vanished empire" by Bart Van Loo and it was a great read thankyou
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May 14, 2024 09:05
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Koramei posted:Anyone have recommended readings that cover the whole sweep of prehistoric human migrations in an overarching way? I started on Against the Grain based on recommendations here about state formation (thanks everyone) but then decided I wanted to go even earlier. My understanding is genetic evidence has advanced light years just in the past decade and it'd be cool to get an up to date reading of the topic to ground with first. You might find this review of The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins interesting. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/...nos-book-review
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May 14, 2024 15:41
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Koramei posted:Anyone have recommended readings that cover the whole sweep of prehistoric human migrations in an overarching way? I started on Against the Grain based on recommendations here about state formation (thanks everyone) but then decided I wanted to go even earlier. My understanding is genetic evidence has advanced light years just in the past decade and it'd be cool to get an up to date reading of the topic to ground with first. You're right that some of the better books of the previous generation don't incorporate the quickly accumulating genetic evidence, so are becoming outdated pretty quickly. I enjoyed Europe Between the Oceans by Barry Cunliffe, but it's from 2011, basically right before ancient human genetic evidence started to become widely available. It is a good overall review of the archaeological evidence, however, so when you read papers associating genetic types to certain archaeological groups, you can at least know what they're talking about. David Reich's book, which you've already read, is a great overview of beginnings of the work from one of the big names in the field, but is already a little outdated and is written by a geneticist instead of a historian or archaeologist. In lieu of up to date books, I would suggest that Stefan Milo has a pretty good YouTube channel that covers ancient humans and hominid evolution, and he is good about putting his bibliography in his video descriptions if you want more to read. Dan Davis History is another channel that covers a lot of early European archaeology (as well as a few more recent historical topics); he tends to wax a bit more poetic in his descriptions (it seems that his main job is a fantasy writer, based on his channel's description), but he usually does a good job of signaling what the researchers actually support versus what he is extrapolating -- he'll explicitly say, "I like to think... but it's impossible to know."
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May 15, 2024 03:44
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plogo posted:You might find this review of The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins interesting. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/...nos-book-review Just got finished The Invention of Prehistory, actually! Really excellent work.
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May 15, 2024 12:59
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Lawman 0 posted:About halfway through Mary Beards SPQR and it'd pretty good although nothing ground breaking. Is it a good introductory history of Rome? I've never been able to find a good hopping-on book for Ancient Roman History, pretty much all the reccs I get are "well you have to have learned about Rome extensively in school first to follow this but then it's a great time" and unfortunately my school did not offer Classical History back in the day. Either that or they say to listen to Hardcore History's rome series and let me tell you, I cannot learn from podcasts. Or stand listening to Dan Carlin talk, tbh.
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May 15, 2024 16:17
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Gato posted:Does anyone know of a decent history of Sengoku Japan? (Yes, I have been watching Shogun) Pop-history would be ok if there's nothing else seconding this, espcially after new asscreed trailer.
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May 15, 2024 17:57
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Strange Cares posted:Is it a good introductory history of Rome? I've never been able to find a good hopping-on book for Ancient Roman History, pretty much all the reccs I get are "well you have to have learned about Rome extensively in school first to follow this but then it's a great time" and unfortunately my school did not offer Classical History back in the day. Either that or they say to listen to Hardcore History's rome series and let me tell you, I cannot learn from podcasts. Or stand listening to Dan Carlin talk, tbh. It’s not a book to read if you want a full picture of all the events and emperor’s lives and whatnot. More a book giving an introductory overview of what Roman culture and politics were like, with discussions of specific events as highlights. I’m not sure what book to read for that, I’ve been relying on Mike Duncan’s History of Rome podcast to get the details.
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May 16, 2024 02:17
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Anybody help a brother out with a good informative book on the life and legacy of Oda Nobunaga?
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May 19, 2024 07:03
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FPyat posted:It’s not a book to read if you want a full picture of all the events and emperor’s lives and whatnot. More a book giving an introductory overview of what Roman culture and politics were like, with discussions of specific events as highlights. I’m not sure what book to read for that, I’ve been relying on Mike Duncan’s History of Rome podcast to get the details. Sounds like SPQR is just what I'm looking for then. Thanks!
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May 20, 2024 16:37
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Anybody got a good recommendation on McCarthyism/Red Scare in America?
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May 25, 2024 02:03
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The Crucible by Arthur Miller
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May 25, 2024 02:08
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Just read A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal and was pretty engrossed by it. It's crazy just how easy it was for him to spy and just never be caught for years solely cause he was 'of the right people'. Any recs on additional books on spies? Either specific spies or just the spy game in general Cold War era be a plus but not requirement
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May 27, 2024 04:22
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The Billion Dollar Spy, about Adolf Tolkachev, is some prime high Cold War crushing paranoia. The Quiet Americans by Scott Anderson is not quite as good, but does get into early Cold War intelligence insanity, with coups and paramilitary revolutionary teams getting dropped behind the Iron Curtain. I don't have a good rec for a biography of just Frank Wisner, but he's definitely one of the more bizarre and influential figures of the era.
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May 28, 2024 17:50
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Digital Jedi posted:Just read A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal and was pretty engrossed by it. It's crazy just how easy it was for him to spy and just never be caught for years solely cause he was 'of the right people'. You've read one Ben Macintyre book, why not read more? I like all of his spy books. Agent Zigzag, Double Cross and Operation Mincemeat. I like these books so much because they do a good job demystifying spies and the art of spying. It's no James Bonds and slick and smooth operations, but mostly just a case of boring nerds and fuckups throwing poo poo at a wall and seeing what sticks. There's a bit of crossover with these books as they touch on some of the same themes and people, because they are all set in the same time period. So dont read them all at once.
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May 28, 2024 20:34
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I enjoyed The Woman Who Smashed Codes. It's about a particular codebreaker involved in Bletchley Park and Alan Turing and all that. It's spy... adjacent.
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May 28, 2024 21:56
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