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Alhazred posted:Is In the Shadow of the Sword good? I'm almost halfway through the book and I'm enjoying it alot. Tom Holland's assertion in the first chapter, based on his research, is that the stories about the origin of Islam, written down by islamic scholars 200 years after his life are unreliable. And so, he uses the records of the Persian and Byzantine empires as a way to create an image of what the world was like during that period. So far I've read about the failures and successes of Persian kings, Zoroastrianism, the Jews and Christianity's rise from minor cult to dominant religion of the most powerful empire of the time. I'm not sure what awaits in the latter half of the book, but so far only a small part has actually been about the origin of Islam, however I'm not dissapointed because it's well written and so far everything has been fascinating for me. I'd highly recommend it if what I wrote above sounds interesting to you, but keep in mind that it might be less about Islam than you'd like.
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May 26, 2013 22:20
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adebisi lives posted:Can anyone recommend a good book about the Mongols? I looked around on amazon and wasn't overly impressed with what I found. Sorry if I missed out on anything posted earlier in the thread I missed. I found Jack Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World to be quite excellent. It tells the story of how Genghis Khan went from being a starving nobody to one of the most powerful men in history. The book also details alot about Mongol history, customs and culture. I highly recommmend it.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:47
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EoinCannon posted:Does anyone have any recommendations for general overviews that aren't too academic of I recently read and enjoyed Crimea by Orlando Figes, so I'd recommend that on the subject of the Crimean War.
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Apr 5, 2022 02:10
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GoingPostal posted:I'm watching AMC's The Terror right now, and I've seen a few YouTube videos on the subject, but can anyone recommend any books? I've got Michael Palin's book on the Erebus right now from the library, any more recommendations? Audiobooks, as always, are a plus. Anthony Brandt - The Man Who Ate His Boots I read this book recently and really enjoyed it. Goes into the history of the search for the Northwest Passage and all the exploratory expeditions, not just John Franklin's. Highly recommended.
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Jul 23, 2022 15:55
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firstyear posted:Also, can anyone recommend a good history of prohibition in the US? I recently read and liked Daniel Okrent's Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. Pretty comprehensive look at the time period.
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Nov 12, 2022 13:17
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feldhase posted:Does anyone have a recommendation for a book on the Hellenistic Period and/or the Successor States? Ghost on the Throne by James Romm is about the direct aftermath of Alexander's death and his generals trying and not trying to keep things together. I'm also currently reading Philip Matyszak's Greece against Rome, which has more of a focus on the decline of the Successor States and their conflicts with Rome, but there's plenty of inter-Successor wars and intrigue in there to be interesting.
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Mar 6, 2023 22:31
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Gripweed posted:What's the best single volume history of the Napoleonic wars? I recently read The Napoleonic Wars by Alexander Mikaberidze and found it to be pretty enjoyable. It mostly focuses on the grander geopolitical picture rather than the nitty gritty details of every battle, but I found that preferable since it's easy to get lost in those.
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Apr 28, 2023 18:27
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My favorite revelation about the Crimean War is that it featured the famous charge of the Light Brigade. At the time, and still today, perceived as an example of a military blundering and pointless loss of life. While it was the result of military miscommunication and infighting, it was in actuality a costly, but very successful charge against a numerically superior force and did exactly what cavalry was supposed to do on the battlefield (e.g. drive enemy cavalry from the field). It just didn't lead to a battlefield victory or major shift in the strategic situation and was therefore perceived by the public to be a defeat and military blunder. This lead to it being mythologized as such and is still cited today as an example of a "doomed charge". Personally, just found it revealing about how we teach and learn from history and how sometimes facts don't really matter and it's more about how certain events are perceived and mythologized.
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Feb 18, 2024 01:15
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