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Chamberk posted:I'm currently reading (and loving) Rick Perlstein's Nixonland. Are there any other books like this in terms of historical detail and analysis of an entire culture? I thought The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff was a good little companion, though it doesn't encompass a whole culture. Its focus is almost exclusively on southern race politics.
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Mar 27, 2012 04:07
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I'm about to suggest a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. Contemporary fiction can be pretty be pretty useful. Fiction - The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton): Upper class society life in the 1880s. - Bernice Bobs Her Hair. Short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Available for free. - The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) Non-Fiction - Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. Daniel Okrent's book that was turned into a good PBS 3-part series last year. The book goes into a bit more detail on the morality crusades that led up to it. - Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (Rick Perlstein). The McGovern Presidential campaign was probably the thing that fascinated me the most. - The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff). - The Nearest Far Away Place: Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, and the Southern California Experience (Timothy White). Yeah, it's a Beach Boys book, but has a ton of youth pop culture stuff mixed in from the 1940s-1960s.
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Jul 6, 2012 20:47
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Namirsolo posted:I just realized that my knowledge of British history is pretty terrible. Can anyone recommend some good books about it? I'm interested in the monarchy and peerage and especially Henry VIII. To Rule the Waves (Arthur Herman) is a pretty good summary of the Royal Navy's history. Lots of stuff on Francis Drake. King Edward VIII: A Life (Philip Zeigler). Considering the subject, it's pretty balanced.
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Jul 16, 2012 03:30
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Ulio posted:Any good books about the Age of Discovery? I wouldn't mind different perspectives(natives/explorers). Would also like the expedition part to be included and not only the discovery. One about Cortes and Mexico would be specially great but all others are welcome too. Charles C. Mann wrote both 1492 and 1493, the former about pre-Colombian cultures and the latter about how quickly things changed. The latter has a lot on the silver trade and the beginnings of the slave trade. A pair of books on British attempts to find the Northwest Passage, from the 1500s-1800s: Arctic Labyrinth: The Quest for the Northwest Passage (Glyn Williams) The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage (Anthony Brandt) The two complement each other well, covering the same ground but with different perspectives and different degrees of detail. Williams's focuses most on the early stuff. Both have incredible stuff on the lost Franklin expedition, which is 1800s, but ... yikes. I just finished Toby Lester's The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name. It does not get into cultures Europeans found, as it's mainly about how the maps changed. That sounds vague and it is. It's not really focused, but there are some interesting stories, particularly about Columbus.
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Aug 7, 2012 07:04
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Burning Rain posted:Is there any good overview of rural history of the world? I've looked on wiki, but it's mostly stuff like "Peasantry in Northern England, 1452-1599". I'm mostly interested in social history - the lives in rural communities throughout the world in different times - but agricultural overview would be good, too. I've never cracked any of them open, but the Foxfire series is about customs in rural Appalachia.
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Mar 11, 2013 00:32
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Comrade Cheggorsky posted:I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask but are any of the books by Robert Fisk any good? I'm doubtful there is really anything non-explicitly academic that treats the south as a single entity. It had its similarities in Reconstruction, Klan activity (1870s and 1910s-20s) and an insane amount of lynchings, but outside of that and farming, each one had its individual quirks. I can suggest a few on individual politicians: the Caro series on Lyndon Johnson would give good insight into Texas during the era. Anything on Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Huey Long, Boss Crump or Eugene Talmadge would do the same for their individual states. The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff cover desegregation from a media view from the end of the 1940s-mid '60s and is almost exclusively southern.
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Dec 1, 2014 04:53
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Damo posted:Any recommendations about good books about explorers/early cartographers? I'm not necessarily married to any single topic at the moment but I'd like to read stuff about arctic/antarctic exploring, classic age of discovery explorations and science sea voyage stuff, and maybe some american frontier stuff (maybe Lewis and Clarke? I dunno). Lucania posted:I really like Anthony Brandt's The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage - the first part deals with various expeditions focused on the Northwest Passage while the second part mostly deals with the lost Franklin expedition and the expeditions taken to find out what happened to it. Since people were sailing all around to find signs of Franklin and his men, the Arctic got further mapped out as a result. Similarly, there's Glyn Williams' Arctic Labyrinth. The two cover much of the same ground, but the author approaches are different enough that each feels fresh. This was decent: The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name by Toby Lester. Peter Stark's Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival has some of the American frontier stuff covered. Astor thought he could make loads of money off the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest, but he needed a base and fast to get the jump on the Brits. So went an expedition by sea and another overland. As is a theme here, this did not go well. Not Franklin Expedition level of bad, but not well.
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Jan 19, 2015 07:58
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Captain_Person posted:I've recently been getting into history again for the first time since high school, and I'm keen for any suggestions. I'm mainly interested in the history of civilisations from any era, although the biggest gaps in my knowledge are anywhere outside of Europe. Charles C. Mann's 1491.
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Oct 2, 2015 03:09
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Speaking of, anything interesting about polio in the 1930s-50s? I do a lot of newspaper research in that era and March of Dimes stuff is huge.
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Oct 20, 2015 04:36
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If you don't mind a female perspective, Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth. She served as a nurse during WWI. Of course, there is also Robert Graves' Good-bye to All That.
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Nov 2, 2015 04:01
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In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex (Nathaniel Philbrick). The film based on the book is in theatres now, though I haven't seen it yet. Philbrick assembles accounts and stories for an overall story of what went on to inspire Moby Dick. Overall short book, but lots of information about whaling and customs. Arctic Labyrinth: The Quest for the Northwest Passage (Glyn Williams) and The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage (Anthony Brandt). These two cover virtually the same territory, but with different styles. Williams' goes back a bit further than Brandt's and I liked his just a bit more, but they're both good. The Royal Navy tries to save time and expenses and there's gotta be a way to cut through northern Canada, right? Both heavily feature the Lost Franklin Expedition. Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival (Peter Stark). Mostly involves the land expedition, but has bonus naval coverage as the Brits and Americans try to stake out claims in the Pacific northwest.
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Jan 5, 2016 04:02
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EoinCannon posted:Almost finished Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny by Mike Dash Satan's Circus was pretty good. Its background politics are the years of decline in Tammany Hall.
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May 17, 2016 03:47
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Brodeurs Nanny posted:What's a good read on US history post-WW2 through the 70's? Emphasis on the 60's/JFK if possible and obviously free of US bias. Rick Perlstein's Nixonland is great. I haven't read his Before the Storm, but found The Invisible Bridge to be lacking. The Ronald Reagan parts are good, but he clearly hates Jimmy Carter and fails to round his character out at all. Also, it's not nearly the cultural history that Nixonland was. I also recommend The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. It's not a comprehensive history of the Civil Rights era, but a handful of major events and the hows and whys of things that were reported. It also deals with press failings and how the south ended up completely different than what happened in Watts just a few years later. Once you get a good grip on the Civil Rights era, I really liked There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights by Jason Sokol. It's not a beginner's book and assumes you know a lot about southern geography, but it's one of the few books I've seen tackle the other side. Plus, it really deals with the fallout in the years after.
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May 26, 2016 03:56
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I can only suggest more books on bits and pieces. The Race Beat (Gene Roberts/Hank Klibanoff) covers the 1950s-early 1960s south through reporters' eyes. It doesn't capture everything, but it's good insight into perspectives. It stays almost exclusively in the south except for a brief chapter on the differences in covering the Watts riots. Rick Perlstein's Nixonland gets some of the later years and some of the northern issues, but of course, it's much more widely political. For something very focused and contemporary, the archives of Southern School News (1954-65). Does include some non-traditional yet backwards states such as Delaware. Though it's education-based, you get glimpses of the wider picture. Arguably more than anything, schools drove Civil Rights as school integration terrified southern whites. To the point many were actually willing to pay for something close to separate but equal to prevent it from happening. A companion of sorts is There Goes My Everything (Jason Sokol) for the southern white perspective of Civil Rights changes. Not a beginner's book, though, as you have to be pretty well versed in individuals and geography. I'd also encourage finding black newspapers of the era (Atlanta Daily World, Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, etc.). It was the Courier that came up with the Double V campaign during World War II, one of the launching points of the Civil Rights movement.
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Feb 7, 2017 03:56
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Minenfeld! posted:A quick question for the thread: are each of Perlstein's books considered stand-alone? Do I have to read the Goldwater book if I want to read Nixonland, for instance? Still haven't read the Goldwater one. Nixonland is much stronger than Invisible Bridge, though. Perlstein hates Jimmy Carter with a passion and doesn't delve at all into the phenomenon of Carter's rise.
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Mar 13, 2017 02:29
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I'm not getting any answers in the military history thread, but are there any works out there that cover the American expeditions in Siberia during World War I? My grandfather's brother served there and the cold apparently stuck with him for the rest of his life.
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May 3, 2017 04:11
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Boomer The Cannon posted:Any recommendations on Edward VIII, or the Abdication Crisis? Philip Zeigler's King Edward VIII. By far the best book I've come across on Edward VIII. It doesn't entirely flesh out the family, but Zeigler is more evenhanded than anyone else in handling of Edward's magnetism against his propensity to be a shallow rear end. Rupert Godfrey's Letters from a Prince is interesting on the young Edward, drawing from letters he and Freda Dudley Ward wrote to one another. Edward's own "autobiography," A King's Story is severely lacking in details from the excerpts I've read. It was published in installments in several newspapers. All the histories I've skimmed of Wallis Simpson are garbage.
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Feb 6, 2018 03:06
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Quite far from Polynesia, but there are two on the search for the Northwest Passage that I love: Arctic Labyrinth: The Quest for the Northwest Passage (Glyn Williams) The Man Who Ate His Boots (Anthony Brandt) Both focus on British efforts. Williams' is a bit more extensive in what all is covered - Frobisher, Hudson, Ross, Franklin, etc. Brandt's has more focus on Franklin. From what I remember Thor Heyerdahl's book about his Kon-Tiki voyage works as an appreciation of Polynesian techniques. Granted, I think I read Kon-Tiki in junior high. If anyone has any further historical navigation suggestions, I too, am interested.
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Mar 14, 2018 01:49
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Caro the Goon could be the subject of a really fascinating book. Honesty surprised no ones hooked him up with a publisher and a ghost writer. Caro wrote this for the New Yorker about research. As someone who loves digging into documents and is powered by the thought of uncovering something little known and realizing its place, this is beautiful. I'd totally read a book about his research technique and securing interviews.
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Feb 20, 2019 04:45
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