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sbaldrick posted:No, it's so bad it caused me to create a new personal idea of pre-colonial nostalgia. Which is basically the idea that pre colonial societies weren't brutal Empires or states in their own right. gently caress, really? It's in my unread pile.
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Jan 14, 2020 02:14
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Can anyone recommend a history of the Spanish empire? I'm specially interested in the Pacific Ocean - the Philippines, Manila galleons, trade with Asians and so on. Also, I read Mann's 1491 and loved it and want to know more about pre-Columbian America. Good regional overviews are particularly welcome.
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Jan 15, 2020 20:56
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Global Disorder posted:Can anyone recommend a history of the Spanish empire? I'm specially interested in the Pacific Ocean - the Philippines, Manila galleons, trade with Asians and so on. If you haven't read it yet Mann's follow up to 1491, 1493, is about how contact with the Americas changed global trade patterns and although it isn't specifically about the Spanish it does have sections on their Asian trade that you would be interested in.
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Jan 16, 2020 01:59
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Global Disorder posted:Can anyone recommend a history of the Spanish empire? I'm specially interested in the Pacific Ocean - the Philippines, Manila galleons, trade with Asians and so on. I haven't been able to find a book that focuses so solely on pre-Columbian America as Mann's does, but I have encountered a few good reads that have included as much pre-Columbian history as possible as part of their overview. I really enjoyed This Land is Their Land by David Silverman, which is a thorough history of the Wampanoag tribe up to the present day. Also you can get a mix of indigenous history and Spanish Empire with Kim MacQuarrie's Last Days of the Incas. Also, seconding 1493 by Mann.
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Jan 16, 2020 15:41
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Hallucinogenic Toreador posted:If you haven't read it yet Mann's follow up to 1491, 1493, is about how contact with the Americas changed global trade patterns and although it isn't specifically about the Spanish it does have sections on their Asian trade that you would be interested in. IBroughttheFunk posted:I haven't been able to find a book that focuses so solely on pre-Columbian America as Mann's does, but I have encountered a few good reads that have included as much pre-Columbian history as possible as part of their overview. I really enjoyed This Land is Their Land by David Silverman, which is a thorough history of the Wampanoag tribe up to the present day. Also you can get a mix of indigenous history and Spanish Empire with Kim MacQuarrie's Last Days of the Incas. Thanks for the suggestions, good goons! Will check them out ASAP.
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Jan 16, 2020 22:30
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Honestly, just use the bibliography of 1491 to get new books to read. Everything he lists there is much better than his book. And, though dated now, I'd just read "The Columbian Exchange" rather than 1493. I've read both of Mann's books but they're not great if you're already familiar with the topics.
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Jan 17, 2020 01:03
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Began listening to This Kind of War about the Korean War and it is fascinating. I didn’t have a clear picture of the early stages and the author makes it clear about why the North was able to make such progress and the initial American defense was poor. The reports of South Korean troops having no anti-tank weapons whatsoever against T34s and trying to stop them with crowbars and grenades were terrible, just zero other options.
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Jan 19, 2020 01:58
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Began listening to This Kind of War about the Korean War and it is fascinating. I didn’t have a clear picture of the early stages and the author makes it clear about why the North was able to make such progress and the initial American defense was poor. I read that a while back and quite enjoyed it. But I would have liked to learn how intelligence on the North Koreans failed so disastrously that the US had no idea a tank army was coming.
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Jan 19, 2020 02:47
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:I read that a while back and quite enjoyed it. But I would have liked to learn how intelligence on the North Koreans failed so disastrously that the US had no idea a tank army was coming. They discounted the possibility entirely, because Korea "isnt tank country", iirc
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Jan 21, 2020 02:12
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Any good books on the history of the Caucasus pre-Russian conquest?
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Jan 21, 2020 17:44
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OctaMurk posted:They discounted the possibility entirely, because Korea "isnt tank country", iirc That was probably peak "why do we need a conventional military we have all these nukes" too.
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Jan 21, 2020 18:20
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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OctaMurk posted:They discounted the possibility entirely, because Korea "isnt tank country", iirc “The Ardennes isn’t tank country” -the French, 1939.
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Jan 23, 2020 16:09
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I am currently going through The Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camille Townsend and I'm enjoying it a lot. It's drawing from all the newer research on the field as well as translated primary sources, and it's written well enough that somebody who knows absolutely nothing about the subject (me) can enjoy it.
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Jan 23, 2020 16:36
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This is probably too out there, but are there any texts out there dealing with the peculiarities of diet, customs, linguistics, and so on specific to navies during the age of sail besides the Royal Navy? This is something that has been fairly meticulously documented in English for the Royal Navy, perhaps thanks to the popularity of the Aubrey and Maturin novels (which created a whole cottage industry of exegeses for them), but my familiarity with similar material for e.g. the Dutch, French, Spanish, or even American navies is entirely based on the Royal Navy's perceptions of and commentary upon them.
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Jan 24, 2020 05:44
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You can definitely get a reply in the A/T military history thread, but it might include "which languages do you read?"Arbite posted:Is there a good biography that focuses on Chiang Kai-Shek's time in Taiwan? All the ones I've looked at treat those 25 years as barely worth an epilogue. The last third of Jay Taylor's The Generalissimo, about 200pp, is about his time in Taiwan.
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Jan 25, 2020 15:29
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Anybody have any good recommendations on Vietnam after the Second Indochina War?
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Jan 26, 2020 20:26
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PittTheElder posted:Anybody have any good recommendations on Vietnam after the Second Indochina War? Red Brotherhood at War by Grant Evans and Kelvin Rowley is a pretty cool book about Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and the Vietnam/Cambodia and Vietnam/China conflicts.
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Jan 27, 2020 00:28
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Extremely wide net: any history audiobooks you've particularly enjoyed? I have a couple Audible credits kicking around to use and no real idea what to spend them on. I'm open to anything, preferably something pre-modern and not American (unless it's pre-Columbian). The longer the better, some unabridged 50 hour thing would be ideal.
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Jan 27, 2020 04:06
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Grand Fromage posted:Extremely wide net: any history audiobooks you've particularly enjoyed? I have a couple Audible credits kicking around to use and no real idea what to spend them on. I'm open to anything, preferably something pre-modern and not American (unless it's pre-Columbian). The longer the better, some unabridged 50 hour thing would be ideal. This is really a great book https://www.audible.com/pd/A-Splend...c3_lProduct_1_1 Kaiser Schnitzel posted:
This is a very amusing and detailed book that might not be what you’re looking for, but I really enjoyed it, and should revisit it: https://www.audible.com/pd/English-...h_c3_lProduct_1 He wrote a really excellent history of medicine “the greatest benefit to Mankind” which is sadly not on audible.
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Jan 27, 2020 04:34
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Grand Fromage posted:Extremely wide net: any history audiobooks you've particularly enjoyed? I have a couple Audible credits kicking around to use and no real idea what to spend them on. I'm open to anything, preferably something pre-modern and not American (unless it's pre-Columbian). The longer the better, some unabridged 50 hour thing would be ideal. This is probably less helpful than it could be, because I have no idea how it is as an audiobook (it was good as a book book), and it's not premodern, but Christopher Clark's "Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947" is a history, largely a social and political history of Prussia that's pretty good.
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Jan 27, 2020 04:55
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Grand Fromage posted:Extremely wide net: any history audiobooks you've particularly enjoyed? I have a couple Audible credits kicking around to use and no real idea what to spend them on. I'm open to anything, preferably something pre-modern and not American (unless it's pre-Columbian). The longer the better, some unabridged 50 hour thing would be ideal. I learned a lot from Postwar by Tony Judt, about Europe after WWII. Recently finished On Desperate Ground: The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War's Greatest Battle by Hampton Sides. I didn’t know much about the Korean War before. Downloaded The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age by Leo Damrosch, that won lots of awards. Haven’t listened yet but amazon says: quote:In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk’s Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as “the Club.”
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Jan 28, 2020 15:17
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Hyrax Attack! posted:I learned a lot from Postwar by Tony Judt, about Europe after WWII. If you're interested, the LRB reviewed the Damrosch book recently: https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n19/thomas-keymer/at-least-that-was-the-idea
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Jan 28, 2020 15:47
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Just finished Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland. He goes though key events in the development of Christianity and Christendom and argues that the ideas that developed from said events led to Christian values becoming so ubiquitous to Western thought that we don't even consider them Christian anymore (IE when atheists condemn Christian institutions, they still do so from a framework of Christian morals).
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Jan 28, 2020 16:57
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I'll be visiting Palestine in a few months and am looking for a few books to provide context to the history and conflict there. A friend recommended "One Palestine, Complete" - is it any good? Are there other books that would be better reads? I'm not opposed to relatively thick histories as long as they're worth reading.
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Jan 29, 2020 00:05
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What are some good books on the political, diplomatic, and military history of interwar Poland?
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Jan 29, 2020 01:06
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Epicurius posted:This is probably less helpful than it could be, because I have no idea how it is as an audiobook (it was good as a book book), and it's not premodern, but Christopher Clark's "Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947" is a history, largely a social and political history of Prussia that's pretty good. How much would it teach me about the other German states?
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Jan 29, 2020 02:40
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FPyat posted:How much would it teach me about the other German states? It will teach you when Prussia conquered them. There's actually quite a bit about Prussia's place in the Empire and relations with other states etc, but it definitely is a history of Prussia, not of pre-Germany Germany generally. It's very good though.
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Jan 29, 2020 03:08
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PittTheElder posted:Anybody have any good recommendations on Vietnam after the Second Indochina War?
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Jan 29, 2020 08:00
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:It will teach you when Prussia conquered them. I can second that it's an excellent book. The political history of Prussia is also a pretty solid lens to look at the modern german state through. It's become my go-to suggestion when someone asks for a single volume general history of Germany. If you've got a major love of all things Bavarian it's not going to give you as much detail about what they're doing in the 18th century, but for a good entry point into the broad sweep of German history from before the reformation through the 20th century it really can't be beat.
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Jan 30, 2020 00:27
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The_Other posted:Just finished Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland. He goes though key events in the development of Christianity and Christendom and argues that the ideas that developed from said events led to Christian values becoming so ubiquitous to Western thought that we don't even consider them Christian anymore (IE when atheists condemn Christian institutions, they still do so from a framework of Christian morals). Would you recommend it? I’ve greatly enjoyed Tom Holland’s other history works that I’ve read, and I love religious history, but I was a little leery about how the two would mix
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Jan 31, 2020 17:30
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Chuck Buried Treasure posted:Would you recommend it? I’ve greatly enjoyed Tom Holland’s other history works that I’ve read, and I love religious history, but I was a little leery about how the two would mix I would recommend it. This is the first book by Holland that I've read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Like I said it is more about the development of Christian philosophy than a straight history of Christianity. Holland focuses on various points of Christian/European history to show how they influenced ideas that we might not think of as Christian (the abolition movement, the concept of human rights, the division of the religious and the secular, etc)
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Feb 1, 2020 01:30
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Holland has done some excellent work as a pop historian with ancient history with Rubicon and Persian Fire but his book on the rise of Islam was not at all well received by academics in the field so I’m a bit wary of how he’s addressed the rise and spread of Christianity.
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Feb 1, 2020 17:19
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Grand Fromage posted:Also tbh King Leopold's Ghost is one of the most depressing history books I can think of and it's normal to be bummed out after reading that. The Congo Free State is top level Yeah, I've considered it for BotM .ore than once when I was feeling perverse but never picked it for that reason.
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Feb 1, 2020 17:29
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Holland's books are pop-history but they are fun to read. As others have mentioned, the book on the rise of Islam was not well-received by scholars. The Christianity book seems to be published in two different versions depending on the market.
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Feb 1, 2020 18:31
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Only difference between the versions is the sub-title though isn't it? The American version has a title which puts a lot more stress on the book being a history of Christianity while other versions have titles that don't seem to declare that fact as much.
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Feb 2, 2020 01:06
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My adviser once described titles as "what the publisher inflicts on your manuscript in the hopes that it gets on the shelves of Borders."
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Feb 2, 2020 01:21
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Has anyone else read Bad Medicine by David Wootton? Hopefully someone more informed about the history of medicine than I am? I like the concept but he has such an axe to grind that I'm not sure if what I'm getting is more of a recitation or a polemic. Otherwise, I was thinking of switching over to Every Man Will Do His Duty about the Royal Navy by Dean King so warn me off if that one sucks.
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Feb 2, 2020 05:40
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Minenfeld! posted:Holland's books are pop-history but they are fun to read. As others have mentioned, the book on the rise of Islam was not well-received by scholars. The Christianity book seems to be published in two different versions depending on the market. Sad to hear that about the Islam book. It's one of my next books in queue to read. I already read Rubicon, Dynasty and just finished a two weeks Persian Fire. Like to thank whoever has recommended Absolute Monarchs at some point in this thread. 1/4 through and I'm enjoying it so far.
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Feb 2, 2020 05:44
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StrixNebulosa posted:Okay, weird request but I need something uplifting as I trudge through King Leopold's Ghost: are there any uplifting nonfiction books? I understand human history is a long train of people screwing each other over but surely there must be something cool to read about besides the space race. This is an important idea. Here are some of my recommendations: - Butter: A Rich History by Elaine Khosrova. This is the history of butter. - Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West. We saved the American bison. - The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America: Hey look, national parks! - Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America: Hey look, CCC! - Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World. Basically, a history of artificial dye. - The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, The Horse That Inspired a Nation: The horse that inspired a nation  - Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age: Interesting if you are into 'puter stuff.
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Feb 2, 2020 06:02
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I read Rubicon a couple of years ago and it was mediocre. It felt flimsy despite the epicness of the history, it lacked the vocabulary to make the history more compelling and engaging. But people may have a different experience if they are unaware of the historical significance and the people involved and the general history. For it me, as someone who was keenly aware of all of that, it felt like a stale rehash, a waste of time. And turned me off to the author in general.
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Feb 2, 2020 06:03
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