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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Good question. There’s a brand new book out called A New Word Begins: The History of the French Revolution by Jeremy Popkin. I think it’s the new definitive non academic account of the Revolution. Reading this now and it's quite good. Previously, I did greatly enjoy Schama's work because a) guy can write and b) he really gives a good "on the ground" flavor in his description of things, a feel for what life and society were like that most historians fail to provide or provide badly. But you have to go into it aware that Schama thought the Revolution was a mistake, a bad thing, that violence is never allowed as a means of effecting change... he's a pretty strong apologist for the nobility as well. It's a good book, possibly the best-written in English about the topic, but it really shouldn't be the only book one reads about it. A New World Begins is well-written, but not nearly as artful as Citizens, but if you're only going to read one book on the topic, choose that over Citizens. If you're open to more than one, read A New World Begins first for a solid grounding, then Citizens for a great read that comes at the topic from very specific ideological direction.
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May 30, 2020 18:25
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I really like A New World Begins because while it doesn’t shy away from the excesses of the Terror and the atrocities in the Vendee it’s also very clear about the positives that occurred during the Revolution and the ideological underpinnings of the good motivations behind many of the actions of those in charge. It’s not dismissed as some cascading decent into an orgy of violence like Citizens does. Agreed, I was quite jolted at how early Citizens cut off, it felt arbitrary. I don't think there's one good volume that covers Revolutionary France AND The Empire even though it's all really one epoch that can be discussed under one cover. I've got The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History in the Up Next pile but I'm still looking for something that covers The Empire well not just from a military perspective, but from a societal and organizational aspect as well, in a holistic fashion. Open to any recommendations anyone might have.
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Jun 1, 2020 04:44
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Dapper_Swindler posted:Say nothing is sorta unbiased where it paints everyone as kinda horrible and how Gerry Addams is kinda of a hosed up Machiavellian monster who probably did the right thing and the remaining old guard on either side are broken shells of men and women who did terrible poo poo and have trouble justifying their actions because Good friday accords ended the fighting. This was my take on Say Nothing as well; it didn't have a particular bias beyond a general sense of "what a loving waste", which some might see as inherently anti-IRA but...
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Dec 20, 2020 21:03
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Boatswain posted:Looks dope, thanks! Just wanna double-down on this recco; Embers of War was a fantastic, illuminating read.
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Jan 30, 2022 20:08
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Minenfeld! posted:I read Tournament of Shadows by Meyer and Brysac over a decade ago. It seems like it's at least in part based on Hokirk's The Great Game though. I read the Hokirk book and it did a well-enough job of covering The Great Game in particular.
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Mar 19, 2022 18:55
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sleep with the vicious posted:Fair enough, and I didn't mean to come across like I was attacking you, more that I just wish Dikotters approach was different because it is really disappointing to me that there aren't more in depth books on such an important period of history. I did not get this vibe from Dikotter's books, just to present a countering opinion. They read as pretty straight-forward descriptions of "things that actually happened" with good sourcing on that and "here's what the people involved actually said/did", also sourced well. I really did not detect a baseline "communism is evil, let's work backwards from that into how I'll present these historical records" attitude in any of the three books. I would appreciate, if you wanted to spend the time, you pointing out any evidence of this in the books. I really want that not to come across as a call-out, because it is not, I am open to re-examining my recollection of the books but they're all huge so any specific examples would be welcome. Or if there's a summary article or something out there that covers this that you agree with, I'd take the link.
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Oct 13, 2022 21:59
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Minenfeld! posted:History is in interpretation not a list of "things that actually happened." Sigh; fine: he scrupulously defines incidents as happening to the best of the historical record's ability to describe them. I do not have any evidence of him deliberately leaving facts out or misconstruing them. He goes to great lengths to define and explain his sources and their limitations as he perceives them throughout the books.
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Oct 13, 2022 22:31
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Richard J Evans and his book The Pursuit of Power is basically a more detailed and academically updated version of Eric Hobsbawm’s books on the 19th century. I couldn’t recommend it enough. The Pursuit of Power was fantastic and I say that as a big Hobsbawm fan. I dare say the actual writing in Pursuit is better.
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Oct 20, 2022 05:19
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Fate Accomplice posted:Finished Wedgwood’s Thirty Years War and it’s one of the best history books I’ve ever read. I’m about 40% through it and downright angry that I haven’t read it before. It’s very good.
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Mar 20, 2023 20:01
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Ithle01 posted:Citizens is not fun, but it is informative and has an attention to detail. The author definitely does not favor the revolutionaries though and goes out his way to talk about the mistreatment of Marie Antoinette and tries to cast her in a positive light- which is like, no gently caress her. It is a good analysis of French society at the time of the Revolution. A New World Begins has a larger scope, going beyond 1792 and even mentioning Napoleon, and also looks at the French colonies and how the Revolution affected them - specifically Haiti. It's not as good as Citizens, but it's easier to read I found and it covers more ground, but it does so too quickly. Overall, I think Citizens is the better book, but as noted it is definitely not 'fun'. Agreed on both, big fan of them, but I think it bears specific noting that Schama can _write_ very, very well. Citizens is a humongous book about mostly grim events and it’s politics are dodgy to me but I enjoyed the shirt out of reading it because dude is a hell of a non-fiction stylist. A New World Begins is super-rad because of its heavy focus on the impact of Napoleonic events on Not Europe and it’s very well-written but not quite to Schama’s level.
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Jul 2, 2023 00:42
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Ithle01 posted:drat, looking forward to this, have it on preorder now. Same, and, wonderfully, even though it lists as a pre-order it showed up as available to read immediately? Not gonna question it.
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Sep 5, 2023 16:04
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Kinda connected, it has also been interesting to read about the early WWII US-UK relationship when FDR was all in but how upper levels of the US military establishment had fears of being manipulated into preserving the British colonial empire with thoughts about Germany secondary. Which in hindsight seems absurd but good to learn why they might think that. They were correct about the urge, but wrong about the country (looking at you, Frenchies). DeGaulle basically bullied us into Vietnam single-handedly against the instincts of a lot of the JCS and Ike and Kennedy themselves.
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Oct 19, 2023 19:55
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Tosk posted:Has anyone read Weavers, Scribes and Kings by Amanda Podany? It's been very readable but informative, definitely the best book covering ancient Mesopotamia that I've ever read. She also appears to be an academic historian so certainly the research feels sound. The book receives my solid recommendation if nothing else. I’m about 40% through and it’s really great on the “deepest possible dive into individual lives in snapshots” thing but feel it suffers, for obvious reasons, at the larger arc of the history involved. Wouldn’t recommend it to someone who knows nothing at all about ancient Mesopotamian general history but if you’re decently grounded in that already it’s a pretty stellar read.
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Feb 18, 2024 06:12
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GoingPostal posted:I went through the audio book of Toll's trilogy (Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942, Hornfischer and Toll’s books are all very good. Damned shame Hornfischer died so young.
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Apr 2, 2024 19:36
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vyelkin posted:one of the most insidious experiences you can have as a historian is to be blandly enjoying a piece of historical media and then they start talking about something you know very well and they're just getting everything wrong and it dawns on you that probably they were also wrong about all the stuff you aren't an expert on. This is something referred to in movies as “the plumber problem”. any specialist, when seeing their field depicted in pop culture like a movie or a podcast, will generally lose their poo poo at how wrong said depiction usually is.
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May 5, 2024 20:50
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