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Any recommendations regarding India and Japan history during the Middle Ages?? Also what would be the best choice for a brief history of the Vikings?
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Aug 3, 2015 18:09
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It's not a history book in the non-fiction sense, but if you want to scratch a viking itch then The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson is the best thing you will ever read about vikings (and possibly the best thing you will read about anything).
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Aug 3, 2015 21:26
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"Europe's Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Years' War" by Peter Wilson, which I seem to recall being recommended in the military history thread, is currently free on Kindle in the UK (guessing due to a pricing error, as it's normally about £8): http://www.amazon.co.uk/Europes-Tra...europes+tragedy
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Aug 6, 2015 10:16
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Has anybody read Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World ? The premise is pretty interesting and I'd like a fairly light, entertaining read as a break from denser stuff. I can't find many reviews of it though. Alternate suggestions very welcome!
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Aug 8, 2015 01:21
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Behemuff posted:Has anybody read Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World ? Nope, but I do have The Poison King about Mithridates of Pontus by the same author which is supposed to be very good (haven't read it yet). 
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Aug 8, 2015 04:16
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Does anyone have a recommendation for a book about 20th/21st century LGBTQ history?
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Aug 11, 2015 02:55
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Behemuff posted:Has anybody read Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World ? I haven't finished it yet, but I think you'll get exactly what you're hoping for from it.
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Aug 11, 2015 04:53
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^^^ Thanks dudes I'll give it a go. Content: I just finished Diamonds, Gold and War by Martin Meredith. It covers the formation of South Africa and Rhodesia etc. by looking at the driving forces behind the industrial colonisation of southern Africa in the C19th. I didn't know too many specifics about this period, and I was absolutely engrossed. He writes very accessibly but it still felt serious and obviously had a wealth of research behind it. A particular strength being the abundance of asides about various major and minor actors. He seems to have written quite a few books about SA and Zimbabwe so I'm definitely going to grab another one.
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Aug 11, 2015 19:17
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Ah, thanks for mentioning that, I think I might give that a read simply because I have a distant fond memory of having read a particularly large and excellent book on South Africa and Rhodesia, but I don't think it was that one so this might rekindle it for me. I wonder if that's the book...nah.... I wonder if the Soviet-Afghan situation is covered in any form as thoroughly as say, the Vietnam War? Maybe not because of Russian sources?
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Aug 11, 2015 20:15
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Deffo worth it man! I'd be interested to know that as well. I'd presume not though, just because of the lack of proliferation into the public consciousness compared with Vietnam. Perhaps in Russian and Slavic popular history though?! I'm sure it works both ways a lot of the time.
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Aug 11, 2015 22:49
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TheFallenEvincar posted:Ah, thanks for mentioning that, I think I might give that a read simply because I have a distant fond memory of having read a particularly large and excellent book on South Africa and Rhodesia, but I don't think it was that one so this might rekindle it for me. I wonder if that's the book...nah.... I don't know if it's what you are looking for, but The Hidden War, A Russian Journalist's Account of the Soviet War in Afghanistan, by Artyom Borovik is a pretty harsh look at the war through the eyes of the average Soviet soldier. There's also a couple of books out, The Bear Went Over the Mountain & The Other Side of the Mountain that are more of a look at the war at a tactical level. I'm not sure if those are US books or Russian.
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Aug 12, 2015 01:39
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Can anyone recommend a good history of nineteenth century Central Asia? I know this is super open-ended, but any overview of that area, preferably focusing on its inhabitants rather than the Russians or the English, would be much appreciated. If there aren't any major overviews, then any travelogues or works that have to deal with the native perspective of the Crimean War would do as well. If it's any help, I just finished Hopkirk's Great Game book, which is a lovely overview of the conflict between Russia and England in Central Asia.
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Aug 14, 2015 21:11
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A Dapper Walrus posted:Can anyone recommend a good history of nineteenth century Central Asia? I know this is super open-ended, but any overview of that area, preferably focusing on its inhabitants rather than the Russians or the English, would be much appreciated. If there aren't any major overviews, then any travelogues or works that have to deal with the native perspective of the Crimean War would do as well. If it's any help, I just finished Hopkirk's Great Game book, which is a lovely overview of the conflict between Russia and England in Central Asia. Jeff Sahadeo's Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent 1865-1923 is a pretty good look at the interaction between Russian colonizers and the native Central Asians who got colonized. It's very much a study of one city rather than the whole region though, so it may not be what you're looking for.
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Aug 14, 2015 22:59
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Are there any good books about India from the 8th through 15th centuries? I was playing Crusader Kings II and realized that I have next to no historical context about that era. Oh, and something about the Byzantine Empire would be nice.
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Aug 17, 2015 03:40
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Does anyone have any good recommendations on books covering the history of the Spanish Empire in the Americas? From post-conquest to independence? Bonus points if they focus more on social history than military or economic.
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Aug 17, 2015 06:50
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Hadaka Apron posted:Are there any good books about India from the 8th through 15th centuries? I was playing Crusader Kings II and realized that I have next to no historical context about that era. Lost to the west is a good byzantine history book
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Aug 17, 2015 10:14
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AdjectiveNoun posted:Does anyone have any good recommendations on books covering the history of the Spanish Empire in the Americas? From post-conquest to independence? Bonus points if they focus more on social history than military or economic. You really can not have a socio-focused history of colonies without talking about the economic nature of them because that was the whole reason why they existed. Have you looked at Three Ancient Colonies yet?
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Aug 17, 2015 10:19
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Any good Soviet history books? I've been reading The World Was Going Our Way and enjoying it author biases aside, but I was looking for something more general than specifically KGB
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Aug 19, 2015 04:56
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Huh, I somehow missed this thread. Crossposting from the what you just finished thread, I've read a couple long history books over the last few weeks. The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System 1830-1970 by John Darwin The British Empire often features prominently in the history books I read, so I found what promised to be a good, thorough look at the empire from its apex through its decline. What I got was interesting. I'm an American and inevitably the vast majority of the history books I've read have been by American authors assuming an American audience or at least a reader familiar with the American perspective on history. The Empire Project is a work on British history by a British author for an audience already familiar with the major events and figures of the British Empire's history, so while the change of perspective was very interesting and I appreciated seeing a non-American historical view of the United States' intrusions into British history, I frequently found myself clearly missing a familiarity with certain events and figures the book assumes. Likewise, I'm not familiar with the historiography of British history and this is the first book I've ever read dedicated to the history of the British Empire, so I can't comment on the work's scholarly impact. Still, there was a lot of interesting stuff in here, particularly if you're more interested in the diplomatic and economic aspects of British imperial history than the social or military elements. The writing is relatively engaging for an academic history book, and while it clearly expects the reader to already be broadly familiar with the topic I found it nevertheless an interesting and highly educational read that dramatically expanded my knowledge of the British Empire's history and through it also the histories of many British colonies, notably Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada, which feature prominently in the book as one might expect. I already had a pretty good understanding of India's history so those sections were less novel. Silent Victory, by Clay Blair Jr. Recommended to me by the military history thread, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless you're really interested in the US submarine campaign against Japan during WW2. It's an extremely dense play by play account of the submarine campaign, naming seemingly every US submarine, submarine skipper, and mentioning every last patrol and reported kill during the entire Pacific war by US subs. Very detailed, very thorough, but a slog to chew through. Writing is very dry and the meat of it is just "This happened then this happened then this happened." The book also has Opinions about the conduct of the submarine war, and almost every chapter ends with a paragraph or two about what the author thinks should have been done. Exclusively focuses on the US side of the campaign, probably owing to a lack of good translated Japanese primary sources at the time, and in my opinion it provides a poor overall sense of the submarine campaign, instead offering an extremely in-depth review of US submarine operations in the Pacific. Still, I learned quite a lot. I had no idea that one of the major non-offensive jobs of US subs was "lifeguarding" air strikes throughout the Pacific - rescuing downed aviators in the water. I was also surprised to learn how few fatal friendly fire incidents there were involving US submarines throughout the Pacific war, considering the scope of the conflict, though it seems like just about every US sub got bombed by American airplanes a few times. My favorite incident from the book was the sinking of German submarine U-168 by Dutch submarine Swaardvisch, operating under American strategic command, in October 1944. In the end, a British-built submarine in the Dutch navy under American task force command sank a German submarine in Japanese waters and returned to an Australian base where the feat was celebrated with Canadian booze.        
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Aug 19, 2015 05:04
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Cythereal posted:The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System 1830-1970 by John Darwin How much space does Africa get? It sounds great as long as Egypt and Nyasaland don't disappear with an offended squeak under the weight of the Raj.
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Aug 19, 2015 23:17
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Trin Tragula posted:How much space does Africa get? It sounds great as long as Egypt and Nyasaland don't disappear with an offended squeak under the weight of the Raj. South Africa gets a lot of room, equal weight with Canada, India, and Australia/New Zealand. Nyasaland gets talked about as one of the major issues in the chapter on the decline of British influence and power in Africa towards the end, and Egypt gets talked about regularly throughout the book. Usual structure of the book is "During this particular time period (usually a span of 20-30 years), here's the main issues and how they affected the empire, Britain itself, Canada, Australia/New Zealand, South Africa, and India, and what the relationship between the various parts of the empire in response to those issues were." Egypt features a lot as an issue facing the empire but isn't really treated as one of the dominions which each get sections in almost every chapter.
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Aug 20, 2015 00:35
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TheFallenEvincar posted:Any good Soviet history books? I've been reading The World Was Going Our Way and enjoying it author biases aside, but I was looking for something more general than specifically KGB What kind of general are you looking for? Like a textbook, or something more specific than that? A history of the entire Soviet Union over its entire timespan is a pretty huge topic, but one of the best single-volume histories in my opinion is Ron Suny's The Soviet Experiment. It's pretty textbook-y though.
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Aug 20, 2015 18:59
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MeatwadIsGod posted:Nope, but I do have The Poison King about Mithridates of Pontus by the same author which is supposed to be very good (haven't read it yet). Just chiming in to say this book owns. I knew a little about Mithridates but if even half of his life story is true then he's easily one of the most fascinating people in the ancient world. Mayor did a great job of spelling out the scientific basis for all the poisons and antidotes in Mithridates' apothecary. I really want to read Greek Fire now.
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Aug 21, 2015 04:49
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I know this is a broad topic but can anyone recommend any books on the Vietnam War?
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Aug 23, 2015 19:35
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mariooncrack posted:I know this is a broad topic but can anyone recommend any books on the Vietnam War? We Were Soldiers Once... And Young would be my pick for a good introduction.
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Aug 23, 2015 20:06
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mariooncrack posted:I know this is a broad topic but can anyone recommend any books on the Vietnam War?
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Aug 23, 2015 20:26
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Karnow's Vietnam: A History was the standard one-volume work when I read it in the late 1980s; it may have been supplanted since then
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Aug 23, 2015 21:28
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"A Vietcong memoir" is the best book on the conflict o have read. It is the memoirs of the highest ranking defector. He came over with the boat people so he covers the entirety of the conflict both with the French and Americans.
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Aug 24, 2015 03:34
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mariooncrack posted:I know this is a broad topic but can anyone recommend any books on the Vietnam War? Kill Anything That Moves is supposed to be pretty good
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Aug 24, 2015 04:23
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mariooncrack posted:I know this is a broad topic but can anyone recommend any books on the Vietnam War? Fire on the Lake by Frances FitzGerald won a Pulitzer and is all about the American experience in Vietnam.
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Aug 24, 2015 04:26
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My book backlog looms large but I just finished An Edible History of Humanity (good, fun stuff by the way) so it's time to buy another. Two that caught my eye are Stone Age Economics and The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Has anyone read either? Are they readable to a non-anthropologist? Britain BC looks interesting too if anyone has an opinion on it.
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Aug 24, 2015 07:47
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Hadaka Apron posted:Oh, and something about the Byzantine Empire would be nice. Judith Herrin's Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire is a nice book, organized thematically around subjects like eunuchs or icons or women. Its a good compliment with either of the books i mentioned above. For primary sources, the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library has published Greek/English editions of some important Byzantine works, like Michael Attaleiates' History, which describes the years 1034 to 1079, or the works of Laonikos Chalkokondyles, who describes the last 150 years of the empire, including the fall of Constantinople, which he witnessed. Penguin has published translations of some works like the Alexiad, describing the reign of Alexius I (+- 1080 to 1120) and written by his daughter so you know its trustworthy, and Prokopius' Secret History, describing all kinds of shenanigans during the reign of Justinian (sixth century) which are great fun to read. Cant vouch for the quality of the translations though. Also, a general tip for people looking for books: a lot of universities place the lists of books read by people who've earned their PhD in recent years online. Just googling for 'history phd reading list' is enough to find them. 9-Volt Assault fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Aug 24, 2015 |
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Aug 24, 2015 13:36
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Just finished The Sleepwalkers: how Europe went to war in 1914 by John Clark. The Guns of August is usually regarded as one of the best books out there for understanding the scope and nature of WW1, but in my opinion The Sleepwalkers solidly displaces it and many of its now outdated conclusions. In short, this is the most thorough and definitive book on how and why WW1 happened currently published. The book stops with the beginning of the actual war, but instead follows the people, events, and geopolitical forces that created the war in the first place. Personally I found it a highly enlightening read, particularly the pivotal role Russia played in starting the war, a role I'd previously seen heavily downplayed in every history of the war's origins I'd read. The Sleepwalkers is perhaps somewhat narrow in scope, looking only at the events directly leading into the war rather than the much longer geopolitical evolution that created the circumstances thereof, but if you want to understand why the First World War happened this book would be at the top of my list to read.
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Aug 24, 2015 16:51
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mariooncrack posted:I know this is a broad topic but can anyone recommend any books on the Vietnam War? I really liked Once a Warrior King, Matterhorn is also fantastic.
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Aug 24, 2015 20:46
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Cythereal posted:Just finished The Sleepwalkers: how Europe went to war in 1914 by John Clark. This is a good post and The Sleepwalkers is a great book but it was written by Christopher Clark not John Clark.
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Aug 25, 2015 16:29
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Pinball posted:Fire on the Lake by Frances FitzGerald won a Pulitzer and is all about the American experience in Vietnam. Fire is an excellent Vietnam book - the other one I'd really recommend is War comes To Long An. It was written in the 1970s by embedded researchers and is a super fascinating political history of the Long An province of South Vietnam from the 50s through the 70s, as a study for how the war began and developed throughout the country. It's not so much a "history" of the war in the same way that Fire is, and it's not directly about the American experience, but it's an amazing contemporary account of how and why the war began and why the North and the Viet Cong would end up winning, and the analysis still rings very true.
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Aug 26, 2015 06:04
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mariooncrack posted:I know this is a broad topic but can anyone recommend any books on the Vietnam War?
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Aug 27, 2015 01:01
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A ton of books on World War I came out in 2013 and 2014 in light of the centenary. R.J.W. Evans put together a pretty comprehensive critical review of the batch here which should help you sift through the options.
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Aug 31, 2015 18:15
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Just finished another history book. To Rule The Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World, by Arthur Herman. It's a history of the British Royal Navy with an emphasis on the geopolitical impact of the navy's history and its interactions with the rise, preeminence, and eventual decline of the British Empire. Recommended by this thread earlier and well worth the read if you're interested in the subject. The history of the Royal Navy impinges on a lot of historical periods and events and this book does take time to at least briefly consider most of the non-British events and perspectives involved, though the only extensive review of non-British perspectives come with Napoleon and 20th century Germany. I found the book accessible and enjoyable to read, if perhaps a touch hagiographical for my taste - the book does not like to linger on the Royal Navy's defeats and miscalculations except as part of a slide into bitter melancholy about history once the book hits World War Two and beyond. Still, it's a good overview of a broad subject from its beginnings to ending with the Falklands conflict, and I found it very readable and accessible. Recommended.
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Sep 3, 2015 19:52
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I'm sure this has been asked many times, but could someone recommend me some books about the history of the Israel / Palestine conflicts?
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Sep 6, 2015 16:10
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