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Chamberk
Jan 11, 2004

when there is nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire
TuppingLiberty, for the 60s/70s "Nixonland" (which has been mentioned several times in this thread, for good reason) has a good look at a lot of the protest movements and the government's response to them.

I just finished Dogs of God by James Reston, a book about Ferdinand and Isabella and how they oversaw the Inquisition, Columbus's voyage, and the defeat of the Moors of Granada. I really enjoyed it, not only because it was a pretty easy read and had a lot of interesting personal details about the famous historical figures. I found the time period fascinating - the apocalyptic mindset and the clash of religions especially - and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for stuff from the same time period. I do plan on checking out his other books about the Crusades and Galileo, but anything interesting and readable about the 1400-1600 era of Europe would be great.

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military cervix
Dec 24, 2006

Hey guys

geegee posted:

Do you mean the most recent which reduced the former Yugoslavia to its component parts?

Oh, bit of a language barrier there for me I guess. Yes, I do.

barkingclam
Jun 20, 2007

Red87 posted:

I'm looking for some Roman history type books. I really enjoy the legion/war type books the most. Anyone have some recommendations? I prefer kindle/ebook versions since work travel keeps me from carrying a lot of books with me and I finish them too fast usually that I run out of material on trips.

Xenophon's Anabasis (available on the Kindle as The Persian Expedition) is a fun, first-hand account of a mercenary Greek army stuck in Persia. If you want something Roman, Caesar's two books, ]The Conquest of Gaul and The Civil War are good reads, too.

Tupping Liberty
Mar 17, 2008

Never cross an introvert.

Chamberk posted:

TuppingLiberty, for the 60s/70s "Nixonland" (which has been mentioned several times in this thread, for good reason) has a good look at a lot of the protest movements and the government's response to them.


Thanks, someone recommended that one before but I forgot to add it to my list for some reason!

Nckdictator
Sep 8, 2006
Just..someone

Tupping Liberty posted:

So I've got a great list going for my 11th grade modern US history class. I am really strong at the moment in the Gilded Age and the 20s-40s.

Looking for more recommendations (again, for myself, not necessarily for my students); primary docs awesome; contemporary literature great as well; for the following areas:

1. Western expansion after the Civil War; end of the frontier; Indian wars, Populism, etc.
2. The '50s - back from the War, baby boom, consumerism
3. The '60s, '70s - especially protest movements and the Vietnam War
4. The '80s-2000s - this gets hard for me to teach as I lived it; but stuff about the role of computers in our lives, or the role of the internet; or stuff about movements in popular culture in the last 30 years or looking at singular decades; globalization and modern politics

Thanks in advance!

Nerdpony, I've been reading History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History. Pretty interesting, it seems like the kind of research I would have liked to do had I not gone into k-12 ed. After I started reading it, someone posted this interesting blog post on Facebook, http://postmasculine.com/america , which links in rather well, I think. I'm trying to work up some sort of lesson around the question "How do we think other countries define "American"?"

A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan by Michael Kazin is a pretty good biogrophy of one the fore-most politcians of that era.

http://www.amazon.com/Godly-Hero-William-Jennings-Bryan/dp/0385720564/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344818662&sr=8-1&keywords=a+godly+hero

While it obviously focuses on Bryan it does describe and explain in great detail the political enviroment of the time period. To quote Thomas Frank in "What's the Matter With Kansas?": "Bryan was an evangelical and a leftist---an almost unimaginable combination today."

Nckdictator fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Aug 13, 2012

Spills the Moon
Aug 20, 2008
Alright, here comes a long list of requests.

I'm looking to learn more about the general history of the world. I've been indecisive lately over which country or continents I'd like to learn about, but I've decided that since I'd rather learn about whole regions in general first, and then decide which countries I'd like to learn about in more detail later.

This includes:

European history

Middle Eastern history

Southeast Asian history

South American history

African history

So basically everything.

Any recommendations of any sort would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I'd like to know more about Modern Japanese and Chinese history and anything that goes into specifics of any of the eras/dynasties of ancient Japan, China, or Korea. (East Asia is really the only part of the world I know lots about.)

Umm, for recommendations, I just finished Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader and The World of the Shining Prince and I thought they were pretty good. They're about North Korea and Heian era culture respectively.

dokmo
Aug 27, 2006

:stat:man

Spills the Moon posted:

European history

Europe: A History by Norman Davies


Spills the Moon posted:

South American history

As far as I know there is no one standard text here, but there are a few candidates. I would suggest the Penguin book as the best combination of coverage and price.

The Penguin History of Latin America by Edwin Williamson
A History of Latin America by Benjamin Keen
A Concise Interpretive History of Latin America by E Bradford Burns
A History of Latin America: Empires and Sequels 1450-1930 by Peter Bakewell


Not really my thing, but there is a good discussion of introductory African history texts here

9-Volt Assault
Jan 27, 2007

Beter twee tetten in de hand dan tien op de vlucht.

Spills the Moon posted:

European history
Tony Judt - Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945


quote:

Middle Eastern history
Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes

Thesaurus
Oct 3, 2004


Spills the Moon posted:

African history

Check out The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence for a great overview of the continent that starts right when nations first start breaking away from colonial rule. Well written and impressive.

I second Judt's Postwar for a history of modern Europe.

geegee
Aug 6, 2005

The Erland posted:

Oh, bit of a language barrier there for me I guess. Yes, I do.

The standard, even definitive, starting point (in English) is probably "Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation" by Laura Silber & Allan Little. It is contemporaneous with and describes how the breakup takes place. I have seen it criticized for being anti-Serb but the facts are what they are - see what you think.

Second, "The Fall of Yugoslavia" by Misha Glenny. Again contemporaneous with the events and has been described as more balanced that Silber's book but criticized for blaming all parties even pro-Serb. You just have to see for yourself.

These two works are for the most part limited to the immediate events leading up to and immediately following the start of hostilities and neither could be described as polemical. There is a whole library of general Balkan history ranging from the Ottomans through to the present. However, these two answer your specific request.

Qwo
Sep 27, 2011
Are there any good books on New Zealand/Maori history, or the history of other Pacific cultures? I'll take anything, as broad or specific as you like, doesn't matter!

DemonDarkhorse
Nov 5, 2011

It's probably not tobacco. You just need to start wiping front-to-back from now on.

Spills the Moon posted:

Alright, here comes a long list of requests.

I'm looking to learn more about the general history of the world. I've been indecisive lately over which country or continents I'd like to learn about, but I've decided that since I'd rather learn about whole regions in general first, and then decide which countries I'd like to learn about in more detail later.


quote:

Middle Eastern history

http://middleeast.about.com/od/middleeast101/tp/me070905a.htm
Seems to have some good stuff. I recognize almost all the titles.

quote:

African history

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hothschild, about Belgium's King Leopold and the carving up of Africa in the 1800s by Europe.

Shake Hands with the Devil by Romeo Dallaire, who was the UN's force commander in Rwanda in 1993. Don't know how depressed you want to be since it deals with the genocide.

quote:

Also, I'd like to know more about Modern Japanese and Chinese history and anything that goes into specifics of any of the eras/dynasties of ancient Japan, China, or Korea. (East Asia is really the only part of the world I know lots about.)

Not super modern, but I've read the majority (it's incredibly dry) of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert Bix, about the lead up to WWII. Covers a lot of the cultural aspects of Japan in the early 20th century.

There's also On China by Henry Kissinger.

I got nothin' on your other requests.

Part of the joys of working in a bookstore: I get to recommend books I haven't read to people I don't know.

clean ayers act
Aug 13, 2007

How do I shot puck!?
Anyone have some suggestions for books on the Mexican revolution?

Carly Gay Dead Son
Aug 27, 2007

Bonus.
Yo, could anyone recommend some books on pre-colonial Native American society?

dokmo
Aug 27, 2006

:stat:man
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus

Dr. Gene Dango MD
May 20, 2010

Fuck them other cats I'm running with my own wolfpack

Keep fronting like youse a thug and get ya dome pushed back
This is a request for the thread, can you tell me if anyone has ever been in one of these threads looking for steampunk history?

LionYeti
Oct 12, 2008


theres no such thing as steampunk history. If you're looking for steampunk books in my opinion they start and end with China Mieville's Bas Lag books starting with Perdido St Station

Dr. Gene Dango MD
May 20, 2010

Fuck them other cats I'm running with my own wolfpack

Keep fronting like youse a thug and get ya dome pushed back

blakout posted:

theres no such thing as steampunk history. If you're looking for steampunk books in my opinion they start and end with China Mieville's Bas Lag books starting with Perdido St Station

I know, I was asking if anyone thought there was. Bad joke.

It's really tangentially related and I know this is not a history book IN ANY WAY but I've been reading the Foundation by Isaac Asimov. It's set during the decline of a galactic empire fashioned after Rome. I'm halfway through Foundation and Empire and I'm really liking it.

Dr. Gene Dango MD fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Aug 18, 2012

sbaldrick
Jul 19, 2006
Driven by Hate
I'm just finishing up Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom which is about the taiping rebellion. While it's really more a light generally study on the subject, it is rather interesting. Especially in the fact he tries to cover great power politics at the same time about their interventions in the war.

McCloud24
May 23, 2008

You call yourself a knight; what is that?
I randomly stumbled across Georges Duby's William Marshal: Flower of Chivalry while browsing the annual book sale at my local library. At 182 pages and not a single footnote it's definitely light reading, especially if you, like me, are currently in graduate school studying medieval history. That said, it's damned entertaining, and a really good micro/cultural history of feudalism and chivalry.

Hocus Pocus
Sep 7, 2011

I read Empire by Niall Ferguson a little while ago, and its planted the dangerous idea that I may just be interested in reading about history.

I'm really curious about the period between the two world wars, but more globally than the United States. Any recommendations?

Edit:
And anything good on British Hong Kong?

Hocus Pocus fucked around with this message at 11:01 on Aug 21, 2012

Mr Crucial
Oct 28, 2005
What's new pussycat?

Hocus Pocus posted:

I'm really curious about the period between the two world wars, but more globally than the United States. Any recommendations?

Paris 1919 by Margaret Macmillan (there seems to be various versions floating around, mine is co-authored by a Richard Holbrooke).

It's about the Versailles peace conference and how it carved up the map of the world, leading not only to WW2 but also deeper and longer lasting troubles like Yugoslavia and Palestine.

Ferrosol
Nov 8, 2010

Notorious J.A.M

just finished reading Eichmann In Jerusalem which was an absolutely amazing look at one of the key figures in the Holocaust who was put on trial and arrested by the Israeli government in 1961. Eichmann comes across as a man who was neither amoral super genius or stereotypical kicks puppies and burns orphanages nazi monster but who was instead just a normal sane individual doing a job that resulted in nothing but horror and mass murder on a massive scale.


Anyway while I am still interested in the topic can anyone recommend a good book that goes into detail on how the bureaucratic side of the holocaust was organised?

dokmo
Aug 27, 2006

:stat:man

Ferrosol posted:

just finished reading Eichmann In Jerusalem which was an absolutely amazing look at one of the key figures in the Holocaust who was put on trial and arrested by the Israeli government in 1961. Eichmann comes across as a man who was neither amoral super genius or stereotypical kicks puppies and burns orphanages nazi monster but who was instead just a normal sane individual doing a job that resulted in nothing but horror and mass murder on a massive scale.


Anyway while I am still interested in the topic can anyone recommend a good book that goes into detail on how the bureaucratic side of the holocaust was organised?

Hitler's Bureaucrats: The Nazi Security Police and the Banality of Evil by Yaacov Lozowick is a explicit expansion on Arendt's "banality" thesis. You may have to look hard to find a reasonably priced copy, but I believe it's pretty much exactly what you're looking for.

Only semi related is Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb, written pretty much as a real life spy story. I couldn't put it down.

Hole Wolf
Apr 28, 2011

Can anyone recommend a good basic history of India or the Ottoman Empire?

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Hocus Pocus posted:

Edit:
And anything good on British Hong Kong?

I'm still hoping someone has an idea here too. Searching for Hong Kong books is just a wave of finance poo poo.

Abyss
Oct 29, 2011
Searched this thread and couldn't find anything similar to a request. I was wondering if anyone knew of books which covered how modern media could have shaped the perception of historical events. Such as media coverage of the Civil War or presidential debates. I guess this could be considered alternate history, but I'm not looking for fiction as much as an analysis.

barkingclam
Jun 20, 2007

Abyss posted:

Searched this thread and couldn't find anything similar to a request. I was wondering if anyone knew of books which covered how modern media could have shaped the perception of historical events. Such as media coverage of the Civil War or presidential debates. I guess this could be considered alternate history, but I'm not looking for fiction as much as an analysis.

Not sure if this is quite what you're looking for, but there's The Image by Daniel J. Boorstin. It's about how the media constructs things so they can report on them: press conferences, presidential debates, etc.

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

Hocus Pocus posted:

I read Empire by Niall Ferguson a little while ago, and its planted the dangerous idea that I may just be interested in reading about history.

I'm really curious about the period between the two world wars, but more globally than the United States. Any recommendations?

Edit:
And anything good on British Hong Kong?

Weimer Germany: Promise and Tragedy by Eric D. Weitz is great if you want to know more about Germany between the wars. It covers cultural matters as well as political ones. So you learn about Bauhaus and Expressionism as well as Freikorps and Spartacists.

Velvet Underarm
Dec 17, 2006

Chamberk posted:

TuppingLiberty, for the 60s/70s "Nixonland" (which has been mentioned several times in this thread, for good reason) has a good look at a lot of the protest movements and the government's response to them.

I just finished Dogs of God by James Reston, a book about Ferdinand and Isabella and how they oversaw the Inquisition, Columbus's voyage, and the defeat of the Moors of Granada. I really enjoyed it, not only because it was a pretty easy read and had a lot of interesting personal details about the famous historical figures. I found the time period fascinating - the apocalyptic mindset and the clash of religions especially - and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for stuff from the same time period. I do plan on checking out his other books about the Crusades and Galileo, but anything interesting and readable about the 1400-1600 era of Europe would be great.

Well I don't know if the Spanish Conquest of Mexico interests you but here is a good one. It is written by one of the Spanish soldiers under Hernan Cortes. It is really informative such as how the natives lived at the time and the methods on which Cortes took over New Spain (Mexico). Pretty objective writing for the time. Especially since he was a Spanish soldier. You would be surprised to the methods in which Hernan Cortes colonized the country.

Examples: Infighting in the Spaniards, politics, war, sacrifices etc

Velvet Underarm fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Sep 25, 2012

smr
Dec 18, 2002

Rad Dog Turbo posted:

Can anyone recommend a good basic history of India or the Ottoman Empire?

For the Ottoman Empire, I found Osman's Dream to be the most up-to-date and readable one-volume history of that epic empire.

For India, John Keay's India: A History to be about the _only_ one-volume, English language history worth a drat. Much of India's pre-Islamic history is also pre-literate, which makes it a bit of a pain to suss out, but Keay gives it a damned good try.

I also just started his new history of China, based solely on how well put-together I thought the India book was.

dokmo
Aug 27, 2006

:stat:man
I spent the summer reading a bunch of histories. Usually I post them in the What Did You Just Finish thread, but I thought it may be interesting to group my posts together and put them here.

Defeat of the Spanish Armada by Garrett Mattingly.


After a short scene setter, Mattingly spends the next 300 pages describing the two years leading up to and immediately following the Armada's defeat in 1588 by England's navy. He focuses mostly on the ten or so main figures involved from all sides, which gives the book a narrative coherence that isn't always present in military histories. The author gives equal time to the Spanish, English, and French players, and notably gives a sympathetic portrayal of their motives (although it seems to me like the Dutch are underrepresented in his narrative). Definitely a good book and extremely well written.


The Queen's Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Elizabeth I by John Cooper.


A kind-of biography of Elizabeth's principle secretary, who is maybe more well known today for his pre-modern spy network. Cooper is a real historian, and as such isn't really interested in biography for biography's sake. He uses Walsingham's life as a framework to discuss the primary issues affecting the Elizabethan state: the split from Roman Catholicism, the threat of a coup d'etat represented by Mary Queen of Scots, the direct threat posed to England by the mighty Spanish empire (culminating in the battle with the Armada), the disaster of their Irish colonial ambitions. A pretty good survey of the era.

The Elizabethans by AN Wilson.


This is truly an old fashioned history: the author defines the entire era by the lives of England's most eminent people. I understand the appeal of great man histories, but you can tell the author is a professional writer (as opposed to professional historian) by the weight he places on the authors: Sidney's Arcadia is mentioned or quoted on 13 different pages, and no chapter is without a Shakespeare quote. You won't find the lives of ordinary people discussed in this type of book, which kind of lessens its usefulness as a book long description of a country over a 60 year period, at least for me.

Although not the subject, the sun that these first three books orbit is the person of Queen Elizabeth. I have to mention this because it drove me a little crazy: All of these authors describe her with something approaching awe. They talk about her mercurial personality, her cunning, her intelligence, her thrift, all as positive traits for a ruler. But I can't help but interpret these same traits in a more negative light.

For example, everyone comments on Elizabeth's indecisiveness, her knack for leaving her true feelings unknown, her unwillingness to make hard decisions, (eg to allow the court to go through with Mary's execution following her trial, to allow Drake to pre-emptively strike the Armada while still in harbour), and all interpret this tendency in a positive light, as a kind of Machiavellian ploy to keep her cards hidden.

But I see it completely differently: have you ever heard of another great leader who was praised for being indecisive? Isn't the usual description of great leaders that they are decisive, that when under extreme pressure they seize the opportunity to mold events to their will? I get the feeling that if the Armada's invasion had succeeded, that these same traits would not be praised.

The Hundred Years War, Vol. 1: Trial by Battle by Jonathan Sumption.


Covers the origins and first decade of the war, up to the siege of Calais. I don't really know a lot about this era, just what everybody knows: Crécy, the Avignon popes, John de Montfort and Charles de Blois. But the main theme that emerges is money: the King of England is virtually bankrupted before the first invasion takes place and is reduced to forcing loans from his own subjects and even hocking his loving crown, and the French king isn't in much better shape either. At the same time, horrible wastes of money as these kings, despite having a bank account showing zero dollars, despite having left their troops unpaid and defenses in disrepair, despite risking (and in some cases, causing) revolt by their own people protesting the onerous taxes, still find it necessary to stage tournaments and extravagant balls.

The kings also give out extravagant gifts to their loyal friends (parcels of land, rights to collect duties, that kind of thing) but they don't do it systematically, just on a whim. To me that is another thing that stuck out from the era: the absolute arbitrariness of monarchical rule. This guy who had his lands taken away by enemy occupation is compensated by the king, but this other guy gets nothing. It's all by the king's grace, so he doesn't have to justify his decisions. It is such a weird system, I'm never not surprised it lasted in some form or another for such a long time.

The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation by Ian Mortimer.


The story itself is pretty good, Edward was a fascinating dude and there's plenty of chivalry, wars, plagues, and intrigue that happened during his reign, but what stands out for me is Mortimer's writing, which is at the same time breathless with excitement yet careful of not stepping outside of what the historical evidence shows. I'm not a guy who really reads or likes a lot of biographies, but this one was pretty good.

The Reformation: A History Diarmaid MacCulloch.


Covers the three hundred years of (mostly) European history where the Latin church fractured under the strain of its own theological faults and fissures. I was raised a catholic, which of course means I know almost nothing about the church and its history. I can see why they don't stress that history: it's not inherently exciting, except for the parts that are morally dubious. But the author's writing is great, and made the abstract theological issues come to life for me: now I know what a Protestant is and why they are Protestants. One of the backdrops to this story that I never really knew was the millennial fever that consumed Europe between 1500-1600: since people assumed they were living in the last days, this gave theological issues much more urgency, and really amped up the differences between people on what seem to me to be incredibly minor theological points (one result is the re-admittance of Jews into England, since the Protestants there believed in the prophesy that the second coming was preceded by the conversion of the Jews—this makes Pat Robertson slightly more intelligible to me). The differences between Rome and the Protestants came down to the question of ultimate authority: church or bible. But the manifestations of this difference were strange, particularly to a modern areligious reader:

quote:

Few people in modern Europe now understand how urgent these arguments were in the sixteenth century. That urgency gave rise to what has been called 'theological road rage,' and we have viewed many of the dire consequences. Europeans were prepared to burn and torture each other because they disagreed on whether, or how, bread and wine were transformed into God, or about the sense in which Jesus Christ could be both divine and human. We have no right to adopt an attitude of intellectual or emotional superiority, especially in the light of the atrocities that twentieth-century Europe produced because of its faith in newer, secular ideologies. Anxiety and a sense of imperfection seem to be basic components of being human, for those of no religion as well as the religious. Some continue to call the answer to these miseries by the name of God.

God's War: A New History of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman


Something like a thousand pages covering the 500 years when some Europeans felt the need to go and fight heretics, not just in the Levant, but also Spain, the Balkans, Poland, Scandinavia, and wherever these heathens threatened the Latin church by their very existence. The author stresses that these Catholics were probably driven mostly by sincere religious piety (not just avarice and the desire for excitement), contradicting some historians who claim that crusades were driven by laterborn sons in search of land and treasure and bloodthirst.

What a difference the author's writing style makes. The canvas of both this book and the previous one about the Reformation span centuries and continents and generations of people, but if you had to choose one whose subject alone was more likely to produce the more exciting narrative, you'd have to go with the book about the crusades, right? Knights, pilgrimages, sieges, huge battles, what could be better? Unfortunately, the author just cannot commit to a good narrative style: he insists on shooting himself in the foot by giving a summary of the upcoming action before going into the description, thereby robbing it of any suspense as to the outcome. I have no idea why he does this, but it drove me insane.

Contrast that to The Reformation, a book about potentially boring poo poo that was made into a great read through the author's use of dry humor and irony and commitment to a clear narrative, even though the story itself is not based on people but ideas. This was 800 pages of people discussing antinomianism and transubstantiation and it just flew by.

Sir Francis Drake by John Sugden.


I actually started this a while ago, but put it down when I realized that Drake's puritanism and hatred of catholicism would be a central motivating factor in his adventures—so I read MacCulloch's The Reformation in the meantime, to get a feel for the religious controversies and atmosphere of the day. Drake emerges from this book as a intensely pious adventurer with a love of plunder. I'm not sure any one person could have a more diverse set of mixed motives. I knew something about Drake's voyages before reading this book, but come away even more impressed by his courage, his eye for fortunate circumstances, and his unbelievable luck. Books like this make me want to read more biographies, but then I realize that few people have ever had a life 1/10th as interesting as Drake.


Don't let the ruffle collar fool you, this man was a badass.

The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom by Jonathan Phillips.


I was unsatisfied with the account of the crusades in Tyerman's God's War so I picked up some other books about individual crusades that hopefully are more committed to a pleasing narrative style. This book emphasizes the broad aims of the 2nd crusade, which not only featured a (failed) mission to Jerusalem, but a (mildly-successful) effort to get rid of the Wendish heathens in northern Europe and a (successful) mission in the Iberian peninsula. These people were fueled by the memory of the first crusade, whose success depended ultimately on the unprepared and deeply divided Muslim forces in the middle east. The Muslims were not caught napping and squabbling this time (and never would be again) and the western European crusaders (known universally as Franks) would find every successive crusade more difficult and less productive. At the time of the 2nd crusade, however, it wasn't really understood how tough it was going to be, and the ultimate failure of the enterprise was a deep shock to the self image of Christendom. It wouldn't be the last time.

Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade by James Reston.


In 1099, the First Crusade climaxed in the Siege of Jerusalem: after five weeks, the city fell to the crusaders, who proceeded to slaughter the Jewish and Muslim defenders, all of them. Less than 100 years later, the Christians living in Jerusalem were themselves besieged by Saladin's Muslim army—this time the city fell in two weeks. Nobody lost their life.

I know it's a fool's game to judge the actions of the past who were operating under completely different standards, but it's hard not to see Saladin's generosity here (and even more later in the crusade, particularly after the battle of Hattin) in contrast to the conduct of the Christian crusaders, who, having been given carte blanche by the pope, were able to massacre infidels without incurring god's wrath.


Pros
  • Crackling narrative
  • 50/50 emphasis between Christian and Muslim perspectives
  • plenty of Koran quotes within the narrative, didactic but useful for an outsider to this culture to gain insight into motives
  • very good characterizations of the protagonists, particularly Saladin, who emerges as a fascinating figure
  • good maps

Cons
  • No footnotes
  • not a confidence-inducing bibliography
  • winking fratboy-esque allusions to Richard's murky homosexuality were loving annoying. We get it. He's gay or something. Big deal.

The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia by Peter Hopkirk


Describing the 100 years of British/Russian political and military maneuvering in central asia. This is a great story of mountain explorers of incredible courage and politicians of unbelievable imperialistic hubris--there are tons of great characters who appear here (like Francis Younghusband). I first read this the a long time ago, and the story holds up, especially now that you can read it with a tab open to google maps, which really helps.

SgtSanity
Apr 25, 2005
Excuse me

Ferrosol posted:

Anyway while I am still interested in the topic can anyone recommend a good book that goes into detail on how the bureaucratic side of the holocaust was organised?

Not quite what you were asking for, but The Nuremberg Interviews by Leon Goldensohn is a bunch of transcribed interviews with the war criminals there that get across the banality with which they viewed their tasks.

Finisher1
Feb 21, 2008

Does anyone know any good books about the Bronze Age? I'm not looking for anything terribly specific, just a general overview.

patb01
Jul 4, 2008
Does anyone have some good recommendations for biographies of Phillip of Macedon?

Jive One
Sep 11, 2001

Finisher1 posted:

Does anyone know any good books about the Bronze Age? I'm not looking for anything terribly specific, just a general overview.

I'd try the first volume of William Durant's Story of Civilization, titled Our Oriental Heritage. Great overview of near-east bronze age civilizations as well as brief historical surveys of India, China and Japan.

Raskolnikov2089
Nov 3, 2006

Schizzy to the matic

Jive One posted:

I'd try the first volume of William Durant's Story of Civilization, titled Our Oriental Heritage. Great overview of near-east bronze age civilizations as well as brief historical surveys of India, China and Japan.

Another Durant fan!

I haven't read "Our Oriental Heritage" yet, but Will Durant is awesomely readable, funny and insightful and always give a good overview. It's too bad he only devoted one volume to such a huge subject (the orient).

Tupping Liberty
Mar 17, 2008

Never cross an introvert.

Jive One posted:

I'd try the first volume of William Durant's Story of Civilization, titled Our Oriental Heritage. Great overview of near-east bronze age civilizations as well as brief historical surveys of India, China and Japan.

wow, thanks! New reading goal...

Zhaan
Aug 7, 2012

Always like this.
I just finished A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski:



It starts in 1492 with what's known of Native cultures at the time and goes all the way to the 1990s. The main theme is exploring queer - homosexual, bisexual, trans* - narratives and people who have been buried in most traditional history books and takes several notes (and quotes) from Zinn's A People's History of the United States, but it also frankly discusses how race and class have intersected with the rise of the gay rights movement and how all of the rights movements have intertwined with one another. It also serves as a history of how America has tried to regulate all forms of sexual activity, successfully and otherwise.

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Hefty Leftist
Jun 26, 2011

"You know how vodka or whiskey are distilled multiple times to taste good? It's the same with shit. After being digested for the third time shit starts to taste reeeeeeaaaally yummy."


Is there any good books on modern Arab history in the Middle East? Things like the Arab Revolt, Israel and Palestine, the rise of dictatorships and everything in between and outside of that.

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