The History Book Thread! looks like I need to set up space for a Nazi shelf

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The History Book Thread! looks like I need to set up space for a Nazi shelf

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dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

MeatwadIsGod posted:

Is there a history of the WPA that's considered definitive or especially good?

A friend says

quote:

The is no single definitive history yet, but there are some good ones: Nick Taylor's recent "American Made", Roger Biles's "A New Deal For The American People", Jerre Mangione's "The Dream And The Deal" (focusing on the federal writers project).

# ¿ Jan 18, 2015 20:09

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 22:31

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Some of the more footnotey books I've loved over the last few years:

Kevin McAleer, Dueling: The Cult of Honor in Fin-de-Siecle Germany

quote:

Amidst a spate of recent work drawing attention to the societal significance of dueling in Germany and in Europe in general, Kevin McAleer's Dueling is probably the most ambitious in its claims. The book contends that the sort of dueling in which aristocrats still regularly engaged in Wilhelmine Germany (after it had largely died out elsewhere in Europe) was particularly deadly. It was often fought with pistols at close range, with death as its aim. The author argues that the lethal nature of German dueling must be viewed more broadly as characteristic of German society, that it must be seen as final proof of Germany's peculiar nature, and that it must be directly connected to the violent nature of National Socialist society some decades later.

Joel F Harrington, The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent 16th Century

quote:

As Joel Harrington notes in the preface to this intriguing portrait of Frantz Schmidt, executioner in Nuremberg from 1578 to 1618, the story it tells is first that of a man, and second that of the world in which he lived and worked. Both the man and his world evolved in interesting ways during this period, and it is this evolution that frames Harrington�s lively and very readable book.

Shunned as members of a dishonorable caste but enjoying a relatively high economic status, early modern executioners were in the unusual position of living as privileged outcasts. Schmidt�s lifetime coincided with the high point of the instrumentalization of public executions as dramas of contrition and redemption and as demonstrations of government power. This �golden age of the executioner� (26) provided ample opportunity for Schmidt to ply his trade and to leave a colorful record of its grisly details. Harrington organizes Schmidt�s personal story around the stages of his professional career, beginning with his early life as an apprentice to his father and concluding with his late-life struggle to realize his lifelong dream of redeeming the family name and providing himself and his progeny with honorable status as professional healers.

Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Voyaging

quote:

Browne suggests that natural selection could only have been dreamt up by someone in steeped in the individualist, competitive, expansionist, self-help ethos of Victorian industrialism, capitalism and imperialism. This sounds more plausible than the suggestion that it could only have been discovered by someone whose last name contained the letters A and W, but really has no more support than the latter. Certainly Browne hasn't a well-supported general theory of the preconditions of scientific discovery to back up statements like this. --- But these lapses are mercifully few, and she respects (implicitly, though not by name) the old logical-empiricist distinction between the ``context of discovery'' and the ``context of justification''; those who want to see natural selection written off as mere ideology will have to look elsewhere.

This is probably the definitive Darwin biography. Baring some new trove of information about his life (unlikely to say the least), it won't be improved upon for factual scope or accuracy. It can't be compressed without losing valuable material and perspectives. It's even quite well-written (the fact that Darwin himself wrote well helps). If the second volume remains at the same high standard as the first, they should together drive all the other Darwin books to extinction, and sate almost everyone's curiosity about the man.

Noel Perrin, Dr Bowdler's Legacy: A History of Expurgated Books in England and America

quote:

This history of expurgation of English and American literature from 1724 until the 1960's focuses on the influence of changing taste upon literature, especially the changing standards of what constitutes decency. Discussed are (1) expurgations of literary works in the 18th century and the causes of bowdlerism; (2) Dr. Bowdler, his sister (the true author of bowdlerism), and other family members involved in literary expurgation; (3) the many expurgations of Shakespeare; (4) two bowdlerizations of the Bible and several "purified" and abridged versions; (5) James Plumptre's futile efforts to market his expurgations of famous plays; (6) bowdlerizations in American dictionaries and literature; (7) the expurgation of prose and poetry in the Victorian age; and (8) the end of bowdlerism by 1920.

--also incredibly well written.

Mark Thompson, The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-18

quote:

In sum, both historians and general audiences with interest in the First World War will benefit from Thompson's study as a contribution toward a more comprehensive, diverse picture of the war than the one to which most western readers are accustomed. The only issue for historians of the war specifically is the fact that Thompson, as he himself admits in his acknowledgements, did not set out to undertake a scholarly study based on archival research, but rather a "narrative history" drawn from secondary sources and well-known published contemporary works (p. 440).

Mark Bostridge, Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend

quote:

From Lytton Strachey�s vigorous deconstruction in Eminent Victorians (1918) to 1980s cartoons of Margaret Thatcher as the �Lady with the Blowlamp", Florence Nightingale has served generations of historians, critics and commentators as a synecdoche for our difficult relationship with the Victorian age. As Mark Bostridge notes in the final chapter of his masterly new biography, one of the deepest ironies of Nightingale's life is the way in which the uncritical veneration she enjoyed (or suffered) towards the end of her life�expressed in a landslide of material culture, from prints, statuettes and "Nightingale cradles� to music- hall songs and the imposing statue erected in London in 1914-15�proved central in creating the apolitical, religiose "straw woman" so easily torn apart by Strachey and his successors.

Bostridge made his reputation with a series of literary biographies in the tradition of Peter Ackroyd and A N Wilson, and in Florence Nightingale he once again bridges popular and academic genres, offering a rigorous and highly readable study of Nightingale and her milieu. His stated aim is to �overturn many of our misconceptions about one of the greatest figures of the Victorian Age [sic]�, and in this sense his status as an independent scholar is a great advantage, enabling him to draw on the most inspiring recent work in the history of medicine�especially that of Michael Worboys�without allowing it to dominate his narrative.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2015 14:13

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Grand Fromage posted:

I'm going to crosspost from the general thread: I'm looking for history books about Japan, but not all the samurai/WW2/anime books that are coming up in my searching. I want something about the post-war transformation, from the 50s through the 70s/80s. I've found a couple for the immediate post-war occupation era but I am interested in something about the changes during the boom times and I am not finding much.

I was surprised to see that there really isn't much. The only thing I could see at the library which may be what you're getting at is Japan's Postwar History by Gary Allinson

http://utpjournalsreview.com/index.php/CJOH/article/download/9035/7912 posted:

Chapter One, entitled "Antecedents, 1932-1945," assesses the impact of government policies on social, political, and economic conditions before and during the Pacific War. Allinson states that the history of postwar Japan actually begins in 1932. It was around that time that a policy of increased government spending was adopted which "provoked broad social changes and structured developments in the industrial economy until the 1970s" (p. 6).

Chapter Two, entitled "Revival, 1945-1955," describes conditions inunediately after Japan's surrender: photographs depicting the devastation and the scarcity of material resources effectively reveal the inunensity of the task of rebuilding Japan. It is clear that Allinson does not belong to the camp of writers who hold a more positive interpretation of the Occupation's initial reforms, which were ostensibly geared to promoting Japanese demilitarization and democratization. He emphasizes the punitive nature of the Occupation's initial policies and observes how the emphasis on "reform, revenge, and reparations" impeded economic recovery by prohibiting the rebuilding ofheavy industry and access to international markets (p. 76).

Chapter Three, entitled "Growth, 1955-1974," explains the various historical, contemporary, international, and domestic factors that accounted for Japan's rapid economic rise during the period. For example, the behaviour and motivations of the Japanese people were an important precondition. Memories ofpoverty in the recent past and the absence of a generous system of public welfare resulted in a strong propensity to save. As expanding fIrms relied mostly on bank loans, it was the accumulated wealth ofsmall savers which largely fmanced economic development.

Chapter Four, entitled "Affluence, 1974-1989," outlines the social changes, political problems and economic adjustments that followed Japan's emergence as a major trading power. The oil crisis of the 1970s, the so-called Nixon shocks or monetary difficulties, and the rising protectionist mood in other countries made it clear that Japan had to make some major adjustments in its economy. Its response was to take advantage of trade surpluses and its stronger currency by vigorously expanding its foreign investments.

Chapter Five, entitled "Uncertainty, 1989-1995," explains the factors behind the bursting of the so-called Japanese "bubble" economy of the late .1980s. Allinson provides a good account of the uncertainties of the 1990s and indicates that instability and insecurity, which have long been characteristic of Japan's past, probably will be part of its future. Course instructors can simply

# ¿ Apr 27, 2015 17:23

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Vegetable posted:

What's a good book that traces the history of modern American liberalism?

I believe the classic study is The Liberal Tradition in America by Louis Hartz, which was first published in the mid 50s and continually in print since then. I also read The Democrats: From Jefferson to Clinton by Robert Rutland and enjoyed that as well.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2015 16:30

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

BeigeJacket posted:

Any particular stand-out title I should be looking at for a one volume biography of Teddy Roosevelt?

I would go with TR: The Last Romantic by HW Brands. However, you might want to read this blog post by a psycho who read 14 biographies of Roosevelt in 18 weeks and wrote a para about each.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2015 16:42

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Pinball posted:

Does anyone have a good for an overview of Prussian culture and history? I read about the Junker system and the university dueling clubs and found it very interesting.

Not so much about Prussian culture in general, but an excellent book about dueling culture in Prussia and how it differed from other dueling cultures is Kevin McAleer's Dueling: The Cult of Honor in Fin-de-Siecle Germany, entertaining not just because of the inherent fascination of its topic but also because of the dry mockery the author sprinkles on the topic, the kind you normally don't get in an academic text.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2015 23:25

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Crazyweasel posted:

Shattered Swords was brought up a few times, and by the descriptions i cant tell if it is too academic or not. What do you guys/gals think? If it may be too much, any suggestions?

Shattered Swords is a book milhist folks recommend often because a) it is incredibly detailed with a lack a factual errors, and b) is tightly focused on one battle, going into great detail into everything related to that battle. This is the kind of thing that normally only appeals to a certain kind of milhist nerd, which I am not. That said, I read it fairly quickly and enjoyed it immensely. I don't know if I'd recommend it to a casual reader with no preexisting interest in the topic, even though it worked for me.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2015 04:10

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Red Suit posted:

I also posted this request in the SAL book recommendation thread, but what should I read if I want the history of Christianity up to around the late middle ages?

I've not read Diarmaid MacCulloch's well-regarded Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, but his book about the reformation was great and this one probably is too.

dokmo fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Jul 20, 2016

# ¿ Jul 19, 2016 04:14

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

vyelkin posted:

Found out my local secondhand bookstore has a bunch of Robert K. Massie books, what's the general opinion about him around here?

I've enjoyed his books. I believe he has a good reputation for pop history.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2016 03:44

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Majorian posted:

Does anybody know of a really good in-depth book on the last phase of the Hundred Years War, by chance?

Depending on what you mean by last phase, may I recommend one of Jonathan Sumption's HYW books? He is up to volume four out of a planned five. These books are kind of epic.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2016 21:45

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

lifts cats over head posted:

On a similar topic I'd be real interested in a book about the East India Trading Company if anybody has a good recommendation.

John Keay's book is pretty comprehensive. I think it's called The Honourable Company or something like that.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 07:03

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

navyjack posted:

Figure this might be a good place to ask. I'm looking for a book that describes travel in the 1700's. Getting from Manchester to Berlin sort of thing. It could be memoir, history book, accurate historical novel, whatever describes the challenges people had traveling long distances. Land travel and sea/riverine travel are equally interesting to me, as are different parts of the world and different social classes.

Thanks in advance for any help!

There are quite a few of these as that was a golden age for travel writing, although most of these focus not on the mode of travel but on the sights and people the author saw. The good thing is that they're all public domain Here's a few:

Smollett's Travels Through France and Italy

Johnson's A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

Boswell's An Account of Corsica

# ¿ Jul 3, 2017 13:59

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

thehoodie posted:

Hi thread, what's a good book on the history of North Korea? Most I can find are books from defectors on their experience, which is not really what I'm looking for.

Lankov's The Real North Korea. I know it's not what you're looking for but Dermick's book on defectors is a measured and detailed contribution and is good for painting a picture on daily life there. Avoid the book by the guy who worked for George Bush, can't remember his name.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2017 20:44

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

giogadi posted:

I'm interested in learning more about Chinese history in the past century or so. This is probably pretty vague but it's because I know so little! Thoroughness is less important than readability for me right now; even better if the scope is narrow enough to be thorough and readable. Thanks in advance!

I loved China: A History by John Keay, which covers a huge amount of ground not too deeply, but was very smart and readable.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2017 16:35

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

I would like any recommendations about 19th century Japanese history, the events leading to and following the Meiji restoration.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 20:55

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

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

# ¿ Nov 9, 2018 17:00

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

A Dapper Walrus posted:

Any good histories on the Dreyfus affair?

Ruth Harris"s book is good.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2019 02:23

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

SlightlyMad posted:

What I am curious about is to hear the other side of why his findings would not be right. Is there more than cultural inertia and chauvinism to back and fuel his critics? If the author is not a historian, it does not automatically lead to his research being less worthy of note, in my opinion. But I am no academic.

I have not read the book, but as far as I know it is considered to be the rankest psuedohistory. In any case, here is a linguist debunking some of the linguistic evidence Menzies presents:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000409.html

quote:

The first linguistic point raised in the book (p. 104) concerns an inscription found in the Cape Verde islands off the West coast of Africa, which Menzies attributes to Zheng He. Unable to identify the writing system, he wonders whether it is an Indian writing system and faxes a query to the Bank of India, which informs him that it is Malayalam. Unfamiliar with Malayalam, he asks where it was spoken and whether it was in use in the 15th century. According to Menzies, the Bank of India responded as follows:

quote:
Yes, it had been in common use since the ninth century. It has largely ceased to be spoken today, though it is still used in a few outlying coastal districts on the Malabar coast.

In fact, Malayalam is spoken by over 35 million people. It doesn't seem likely that the Bank of India was unaware of the principal language of Kerala State, one of the national languages specified in Schedule Eight of the Constitution of India. Maybe they were pulling Menzies' leg, or maybe he just can't get his facts straight. Whatever the problem may have been, this exemplifies his peculiar approach to research and the failure of his publisher to perform the most elementary fact checking. It's not like this is obscure information known only to specialists, available only at secret annual cabals. If you want basic information about a language, such as where it is spoken and by how many people, all you have to do is check the Ethnologue. If you don't know to do that, a Google search for "Malayalam language" produces 185,000 hits. For those without internet access, Malayalam will be found in any encyclopaedia.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2019 15:37

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Vivian Darkbloom posted:

What can I read about the period of Company rule in India, including the 1857 rebellion and aftermath?

The Honourable Company by John Keay

# ¿ Aug 1, 2019 14:36

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Cyrano4747 posted:

Currently reading this book:

It’s really loving good. Great look at the Sepoy Mutiny using the repatriation of a skull found in an English pub as the hook. It does a really great job of showing how the mutiny fit into an early anti-Colonial worry about cultural damage and replacement.

Highly recommend.

I read this on your recommendation and also really enjoyed it.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2019 17:47

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

ladd posted:

I really enjoyed playing red dead redemption 2, and with the recent news of a Chud being killed by a Pinkerton, could any one recommend any books that covers the Pinkerton Detective Agency?

O'Hara, Inventing The Pinkertons. If you're looking for echoes of current events in the Pinkertons' past, you'll find plenty.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2020 15:41

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Drone posted:

Any fairly comprehensive but also approachable Chinese history? I don't really want to dive deeply into a specific event or period, just looking for something a bit more general and, well, centuries-spanning.

John Keay's book would satisfy your requirements.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2020 16:19

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

I really enjoyed The White War by Mark Thompson, about Luigi Cadorna's disastrous handling of Italy's campaign against the Hapsburg Empire.

Tuchman's book is very well written, but scholarship has movies significantly in the decades since she wrote it. I still think it's worth reading, but a more recently version of that type of book is Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers.

Also John Rohl wrote a multi volume biography of Wilhelm II, I think volume 2 covers the prewar period and beyond. I got a lot out of his interpretation.

dokmo fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Apr 27, 2021

# ¿ Apr 27, 2021 14:07

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Pb and Jellyfish posted:

Anyone know of a good history of Muay Thai? I've been training for a few years now, and I really feel like I should know more about its history than just what is on wikipedia. Doesn't have to be a whole book if there is a good chapter or section in a broader work.

I don't have an answer, but you may have luck posting the question in the combat sports thread

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3386280

# ¿ Oct 11, 2021 19:30

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

I really liked John Keay's history, which gave equal attention to each period of china's history from antiquity on, rather than focusing on more recent stuff.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2021 13:59

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

FPyat posted:

I'm looking for books that heavily cover geopolitics and diplomacy.

Charles Esdaile's Napoleon's Wars is not about the wars themselves, but the geopolitical maneuvering that went on during the war.

Also seconding Sleepwalkers.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 03:58

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Biffmotron posted:

I haven’t read it yet myself, but Dean’s Mapping the Great Game has soldi reviews, with a particular focus on Anglo-Indian cartographer-spies along the Himalayan frontier.

Chairman Capone posted:

Dane Kennedy's The Last Blank Spaces is a good book on British efforts to map the interiors of Africa and Australia in the 19th century

Thanks for these recs, I bought both of them.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2022 12:15

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Just finished The White War by Mark Thompson, about the 432 Battles of the Isonzo. I know it's cliche to refer to the futility and waste of life during the 1st world war, but it's difficult to think of anything more futile and wasteful than Cadorna's strategy and tactics on the Italian-Austrian front. This is a book I've read before, but Russia's performance in the war over the last couple of months put my in the mood to read about the mother of all ill-conceived and -executed invasions.

# ¿ May 3, 2022 01:25

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

BioTech posted:

Can someone recommend me a book about the crusades?
Preferably something comprehensive, looking at all of them in reasonable depth.
I guess similar to A World Undone for WW1 or Carthage Must Be Destroyed regarding Carthage/the Punic Wars

I believe Steven Runciman's three volume History of the Crusades will give you most of what you're looking for. What's missing from that (and most western histories about the crusades) is most of the Islamic perspective.

# ¿ May 11, 2022 15:05

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Hyrax Attack! posted:

Kinda related to that in the true crime book Mississippi Mud a judge & his wife were murdered and in the background they explain how the judge had done extensive research for a degree on the South Vietnamese legal system and the author noted this was going on late in the war and was an odd topic to pick as it would soon cease to exist and the research would have little applicable value, but him sticking with it was important to understanding his character.

This is a wonderful detail.

# ¿ May 18, 2022 15:40

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

bowser posted:

Looking for good books about the history of Motown.

You'd think they'd be a ton of books on this topic, but the only one I've read is Nelson George's Where Did Our Love Go. It's old, but solid.

E: Wikipedia points to I Hear A Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B by Andrew Flory, which is a newer and more academically oriented book

dokmo fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Aug 16, 2022

# ¿ Aug 16, 2022 22:51

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

vyelkin posted:

Willard Sunderland's The Baron's Cloak which is a biography of Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, the crazy guy who's famous for trying to revive the Mongol Empire during the Russian Civil War. Sunderland explores Ungern-Sternberg's life but also uses him and his travels and activities as a way to explore the Russian Empire and the broader world of empires and imperial noble politics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It's incredibly well done and manages to be an interesting biography and an academic exploration of empire at the same time, without ever claiming that Ungern-Sternberg was a great man who changed the world.

Hey, thanks for this, it was a really good read.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2022 05:55

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Been a long time since I read it, but iirc Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki was about him sailing from Peru across the Pacific in a primitive boat in order to prove his theory that white people (maybe they were gods?) were the first settlers of Polynesia, by sailing from South America. The man had some weird pseudohistorical ideas.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2022 04:05

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Heyerdahl got a lot of positive press for his adventures. He was seen as a romantic adventurer, the psuedo scientific purpose of his expeditions were underplayed or unreported.

quote:

Heyerdahl believed that the original inhabitants of Easter Island (and the rest of Polynesia) were the "Tiki people", a race of "white bearded men" who supposedly originally sailed from Peru. He described these "Tiki people" as being a sun-worshipping fair-skinned people with blue eyes, fair or red hair, tall statures, and beards. He further said that these people were originally from the Middle East, and had crossed the Atlantic earlier to found the great Mesoamerican civilizations.

Heyerdahl's hypothesis was part of early Eurocentric hyperdiffusionism and the westerner disbelief that (non-white) "stone-age" peoples with "no math" could colonize islands separated by vast distances of ocean water, even against prevailing winds and currents. He rejected the highly skilled voyaging and navigating traditions of the Austronesian peoples and instead argued that Polynesia was settled from boats following the wind and currents for navigation from South America. As such, the Kon-Tiki was deliberately a primitive raft and unsteerable, in contrast to the sophisticated outrigger canoes and catamarans of the Austronesian people.

He later went on to sail to Easter Island on another simple raft, wrote several books about it, including Easter Island: The Mystery Solved, where he invented some more history nearly out of sheer cloth.

quote:

Based on native testimony and archaeological research, he claimed the island was originally colonised by Hanau eepe ("Long Ears"), from South America, and that Polynesian Hanau momoko ("Short Ears") arrived only in the mid-16th century; they may have come independently or perhaps were imported as workers.

Then he sailed (twice!) across the Atlantic in another raft, to prove something or another I can't remember but I'll bet was very dumb. He wrote a book about this, Ra, and there was a movie.

Then he built another raft, Tigris,

quote:

which was intended to demonstrate that trade and migration could have linked Mesopotamia with the Indus Valley civilization in what is now Pakistan and western India. Tigris was built in Al Qurnah Iraq and sailed with its international crew through the Persian Gulf to Pakistan and made its way into the Red Sea.

He wrote a book about this (failed) expedition.

All of these books were bestsellers. There was very little pushback in the mainstream press. I think there was quite a bit of criticism in the academic press, but it never seemed to have filtered out to the public.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2022 12:46

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

Chinathread might be a good place to ask. There are a bunch of posters familiar with all parts of Asia there.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3912640

# ¿ Jan 3, 2023 14:19

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

PittTheElder posted:

Just placed my pre-order for Kaldellis' The New Roman Empire, very excited for the arrival of October now.

This appears to be already available on Canadian amazon, I know what I'll be reading for the next few weeks.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2023 19:51

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 22:31

dokmo: Aug 27, 2006; man

I just finished the first volume of Jonathan Sumption's hundred years war books. And man if you want to get a feeling for how expensive war is, this is the book for you, as pretty much 50% of the book is some king or another begging for money from anyone who would lend it to them to pay for the war. Also get a good sense of how much more efficient modern governments are at extracting taxes from people in comparison to their medieval counterparts.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2023 13:40

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The History Book Thread! looks like I need to set up space for a Nazi shelf

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