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Chamberk posted:I'm reading The Looming Tower right now, which is a history of Al-Qaeda. It does have a narrow focus, but it brings in a lot of the unrest in the Middle East and what led to the more radical groups coming to the fore. There's also some stuff about the US CIA/FBI agents trying to track Bin Ladin down, but most of the book gives a pretty decent picture of the Middle East from the 60s on. I've read quite a few books that are basically "Afghanistan, post-December 1979", and it's still probably the best all-around book I've read on the topic. Incredibly readable yet detailed. (For instance, I find Imperial Hubris incredibly astute, but a slog of a read.) If you (or anyone else, like ThePutty) are interested to continue reading, there's also Ghost Wars, which is from a completely-CIA perspective and a little drier; The Bin Ladens, by the same author, Steve Coll, which is far more readable and quite interesting. Taliban by Ahmed Rashid is great for obviously learning about these guys. Descent into Chaos, also by Rashid, is an entirely depressing book about everything that's gone wrong in Pakistan and Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion. Most people probably know about most of these who are interested in the topic, but I still like to recommend them to whomever.
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Nov 17, 2012 02:03
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I've been going by whatever this guy suggests when picking up new Presidential bios: http://bestpresidentialbios.com/ - it's great getting the view of one single person who's (almost) literally read all the biographies, rather than sifting through multiple reviewers who probably have no where near the depth but like this or that particular book. He gets his hands on two or three to seven or more biographies, reads them cover to cover, then writes his synopsis of them. For instance, for George Washington, he's read the more obscure but still constantly quoted Flexner four volumn biography, and has read Ron Chernow's. Another reason why I like his site that worked for me personally: like me, he read McCullough's Adams biography first and enjoyed it, but was felt needing more and that the journey was over a bit too quick. He next read Page Smith's two volume set, and highly enjoyed it and picks it as his top John Adams biography, even though it was written in the 60s. So I picked up the Page Smith box set when I saw it at the used book store. (My boxed set is the same one this blogger shows and whoever bound those books in the 60s should be shot.)
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Jan 20, 2016 20:05
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Kuiperdolin posted:Yeah it's actually that review that put tje thing on my radar. But I wasn't really convinced. I read through the book at a crazy fast pace. You can tell the author enjoys the material, and it's filled with all sorts of cultural or social stuff you tend not to find in other histories, or at least the histories I tend to read. The writing's great, and most of it seems to ring true. In the same vein, I also enjoy Page Smith's huge multi volume history of America because both books spend a great deal of time dealing with people, rather than a few individuals or the same old rehash of events, and deals with what the people ate, read, how they danced, why, customs, names of towns and their meanings, thought patterns, naming conventions, etc., I found it all pretty fascinating.
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Nov 2, 2016 03:22
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