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Just finished Crucible of War, that was great. I'm reading through a few books right now, I have the habit of juggling stuff. How Rome Fell, The Fatal Shore, The Devil's Gentleman... I was just wondering to myself if anyone had any good books on Popes? Perhaps one going through them one by one or a particularly interesting book about one or two of them? I was just reading How Rome Fell as it went through the various late era Emperors and I thought to myself, "I wonder if there's an interesting book along these lines that is a Papal history of sorts."
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# ¿ Oct 18, 2013 01:46 |
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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 12:35 |
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Anyone know any good books about the Diadochi and that whole post-Alexander situation?
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# ¿ Nov 11, 2013 06:35 |
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Deception posted:
Any recommendations for good histories of the French Revolution? I read Citizens by Simon Schama a while back and enjoyed it well enough despite his obvious biases (I think that's sort of unavoidable when writing on something like this though). Punkin Spunkin fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Jan 18, 2014 |
# ¿ Jan 18, 2014 04:16 |
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radlum posted:Any recommendations about the last years of the Roman Empire or the early Middle Ages? I love the chaos and the way the empire finally fell with no bang.
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# ¿ Feb 1, 2014 03:05 |
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Any good books on the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and maybe the rise of fascism in Europe in general? I'm more interested in German history, German perspective, and politics rather than yet another random book about the world war. Like, more of a heavy focus on the pre-war events. I'm reading Iron Kingdom, that history of Prussia, and it's pretty great. Will be moving on to his book on WWI, Sleepwalkers.
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# ¿ Apr 11, 2014 20:56 |
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I was definitely satisfied with Christopher Clark's books on Prussia and WW1, any recommendations for Tsarist/pre-Soviet Russian history?
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# ¿ Apr 30, 2014 06:08 |
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The Last Days of the Incas was recommended earlier and I'm really enjoying that despite some repetitiveness in spots. Any other recommendations for good books touching on the Spanish and/or Portuguese in the New World?
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# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 00:26 |
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Any good South American histories? It just feels like my knowledge is super fuzzy post-Conquistador stage. Spanish American wars of independence, 20th century dictators, whatever, don't know where to start.
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# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 06:22 |
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Any good books on the Russo-Japanese War? I feel like that's an era of history I'd like to know more about, having over the years gained a deeper appreciation and interest in similarly sometimes lesser discussed conflicts like the Crimean and Franco-Prussian. I'd also like to read more on the Korean War perhaps. I've always had an outside grasp of the whole thing, more like how the Korean War fit into the Cold War and how it affected X or Y, not the actual details of the conflict and maybe stuff about the clash between Truman and MacArthur. Having recently read Philip Roth's novel Indignation, set during the Korean War, and having read the awesome novel The Orphan Master's Son, I have been starting to think more on the Korean War and how little I know about the actual events of it (vague things about the Chinese and those POWs who ended up staying with the North Koreans/Chinese). Punkin Spunkin fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Sep 24, 2014 |
# ¿ Sep 24, 2014 07:00 |
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vegaji posted:I'm finally into the end of WWI in Kotkin's first (of three) volume biography of Stalin. This thing is absolutely amazing and I'd recommend it to all, if you don't mind reading a biography that will end up being as long as all the Game of Thrones books. Kotkin goes way behind just Stalin and does an amazing job at building mini-biographies of other key figures in order to contrast Stalin's character, decisions, and makeup with his contemporaries, such as Trotsky, Stolypin, Kerensky, etc. I'm not even halfway through 1/3 of the entire biography, but I can already tell that it is going to be the standard bearer for Stalin biographies for...maybe ever. It kind of bothers me how many repeated pages there are, like I'm on The Passage of Power right now and I'm just skipping page after page. I guess it makes sense to help give people reminders but it's not even the fine lil (brief summary, see volume x) things, just flat out copied and pasted pages. I guess the review is helpful for some people, though I can't imagine people just reading standalone volumes in the series, for me the whole fun is going through the whole arc. Even with repeated sections and reminders I don't think you can, say, fully appreciate reading Master of the Senate if you never bothered reading The Path to Power and Means of Ascent, etc. I feel like he repeated himself a lot in Master of the Senate that wasn't even repetition of stuff in previous volumes, at one point it was like "I get it, you've expressed this point about Johnson's personality/legislative strategies at least ten times in this book already". Reading Master of the Senate and Caro briefly touching on Mexican American civil rights movements made me realize I really don't know squat in detail about any rights movements other than the main African American narrative. Any good recommendations on histories regarding Mexican American/other racial minorities/gay/women/ rights movements? Punkin Spunkin fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Jan 8, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 7, 2015 23:59 |
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KomradeX posted:You get this same feeling from reading Rick Perlstein's trilogy on American Conservatism after getting through Before The Storm his book about Barry Goldwater I got about 100 pages into Nixonland before I had to take a break because of how depressing and aggravating it was reading the exact same racist criticism that were deployed against the Civil Rights Movement being reused on everything after the Ferguson protests. Death in the Congo is on my list, and maybe I need to read Before the Storm (since it seems at least you actually managed to finish that one)...I did like Perlstein's writing a lot, and I do want to revisit Nixonland. Right now I'm just slowly meandering through Stephen Kotkin's first Stalin volume and the first volume of Peter Ackroyd's History of England thing. I'm not sure how this first volume of Stalin shapes up, but I'm starting to think it might be better to leave it aside until there are many more volumes out, I would have been kind of annoyed if I'd started Robert Caro's LBJ series at a point where there were only 1-2 volumes of many planned books out since I like reading that sort of thing as a continuous narrative right after each other. Even then I was kind of bummed out I caught up to The Years of Lyndon Johnson anyway, but Caro does so much "ON THE LAST EPISODE OF LBJ" repeating in each volume (to the point that it's annoying when you're reading them one after another) that I guess it won't matter (plus there's only one volume left). Punkin Spunkin fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Apr 1, 2015 |
# ¿ Apr 1, 2015 06:54 |
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reading DKG's life of Salmon Chase making a nigga tear up quote:If his sister hoped that a warm family life would replace his ambition with love, her hopes were brutally crushed by the fates that brought him to love and lose three young wives.
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# ¿ Apr 14, 2015 04:39 |
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Hot Dog Day #82 posted:I am going to quote you but this is a question for everyone! Has anyone hear read Robert Grave's Count Belisarius ? Graves is one of my favorite authors and Belisarius is one of my favorite historical figures, so I imagine that book must be in my wheelhouse. Lots of moving and badass moments and some pretty amusing Persian-Byzantine war stuff. quote:Belisarius, who had succeeded in getting together an army of 25,000 men (of whom, however, he could not count on more than 3,000 to show hardihood, either in attack or defence) soon heard that a well-trained army of 40,000 men under the command of the Persian generalissimo Firouz was marching against him. Then came a Persian messenger with an arrogant message for Belisarius: 'Firouz of the Golden Fillet spends tomorrow night in the City of Daras. Let a bath be prepared for him.' After exhausting all I could find of Robert Graves (I mean I couldn't find The Golden Fleece or King Jesus, I wonder if they're any good...) I exhausted Mary Renault (whom I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't gotten into her ancient history/mythology stuff, her Alexander series is extremely excellent and it's the best fictional depiction of the Diadochi stuff) and now I have nothing, noooooothing. Punkin Spunkin fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Apr 19, 2015 |
# ¿ Apr 19, 2015 23:41 |
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I like how in most of the Lincoln/political histories of the Civil War era fiction and nonfiction (particularly in Team of Rivals), Salmon P. Chase is basically depicted as a super vain, douchey, often clueless egotistical prick. I mean, awesome abolitionism and super tragic love life aside, he comes off as such a touchy and superior dude. I mean I was often astonished by how TERRIBLE the dude seems at politics, especially in his silly Republican primary process.
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# ¿ May 11, 2015 01:20 |
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Tupping Liberty posted:I have recently become really interested in Japanese-American Internment in WWII. I have "Infamy" "Looking Like the Enemy" and "Farewell to Manzanar" on my to-read list, but does anyone have other recommendations? I'd be interested in a good nonfiction historical account of the internment myself as well, though I'm still looking for some more nice sizable French Revolutionary histories ala Simon Schama's Citizens. I might just reread Citizens since I read it what feels like a billion years ago and remember enjoying it as a kid, but the more I hear people refer to it now it's with talk of how politically biased it is, so maybe it'll have lost its charm for me.
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# ¿ May 13, 2015 06:54 |
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Ah, I'll just dive back into it then. I do remember loving the ride and his writing... No e-books though?! drat, I'm gonna have to find my original mustyass gigantic hardcover of it, hopefully not reclaimed by a revolutionary committee of spiders in my closet somewhere.
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# ¿ May 13, 2015 18:40 |
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As someone for whom Chinese history is an enormous blindspot, where do I start with all that Three Kingdoms stuff? Should I just read Romance of the Three Kingdoms? I've heard you need to have an existing knowledge of Chinese history to get into that and that it's more of a legendary mythos anyway. I really want to get into more pre-1700s Chinese and Japanese history but it's hard to figure how/where to start and a lot of it seems frustratingly mythological.
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# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 22:43 |
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That makes me wonder if there were any good books that cover the Etruscans and Roman Kingdom/pre-republic stuff, I assume a lack of good historical sources/accounts other than mythology prevents this
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# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 17:55 |
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Ah, thanks for mentioning that, I think I might give that a read simply because I have a distant fond memory of having read a particularly large and excellent book on South Africa and Rhodesia, but I don't think it was that one so this might rekindle it for me. I wonder if that's the book...nah.... I wonder if the Soviet-Afghan situation is covered in any form as thoroughly as say, the Vietnam War? Maybe not because of Russian sources?
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# ¿ Aug 11, 2015 20:15 |
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Any good Soviet history books? I've been reading The World Was Going Our Way and enjoying it author biases aside, but I was looking for something more general than specifically KGB
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# ¿ Aug 19, 2015 04:56 |
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mariooncrack posted:I know this is a broad topic but can anyone recommend any books on the Vietnam War?
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# ¿ Aug 27, 2015 01:01 |
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Dead Goon posted:I'm sure this has been asked many times, but could someone recommend me some books about the history of the Israel / Palestine conflicts? I'd like that as well, it just seems difficult to find any that don't come with a heavy dose of some sort of bias.
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# ¿ Sep 6, 2015 16:13 |
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A human heart posted:Hmm, maybe history can't simply be reduced to objective facts?
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# ¿ Sep 8, 2015 01:12 |
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Ultimates2 posted:Anyway, anyone know of any good books on the Wars of the Diadochi? quote:Yeah, this was a pretty nice read, just finished it since I'd been looking for books on the Diadochi (gonna read Dividing the Spoils next). I was a little disappointed at how short and quick it seemed though, it feels like the book just sort of cut off and ended when things were starting to get really juicy. Antigonus and Demetrius were a really amusing father-son team. Also, this is historical fiction, but I really should mention Mary Renault's stuff. Her Alexander trilogy is masterfully written (like all of her historical fiction) and the final book Funeral Games is a really great fictionalization of the Diadochi stuff. Anyway I'm still reading Tony Judt's big post-war Europe book. It's pretty great.
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# ¿ Nov 14, 2015 07:53 |
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Since people were recommending a glenny book on Yugoslavia earlier, is this any good? http://www.amazon.com/The-Balkans-Nationalism-Powers-1804-1999/dp/0140233776
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# ¿ Apr 15, 2016 23:23 |
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Man that reminds me how horrifying I found the denazification chapters of Postwar by Tony Judt (Great read by the way, I recommend it), cuz yeah, that narrative was pushed into all generations afterwards everywhere but then you're faced with the reality of how shallow and weak denazification really was that nobody taught you in school and you're like jesus. so many high society/professionals who were collaborators or straight up card carrying enthusiastic nazis got to stay and guide the postwar futures of their countries. I guess nazi doctors are better than a scarcity of doctors though? but then you get to the eastern bloc and Greece it's even worse cuz they're unswervingly brutal and use denazification trials to just get whatever motherfuckers executed that they don't happen to like, former nazi or not.
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# ¿ Apr 25, 2016 07:39 |
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Are there any fairminded biographies/histories of Huey P Long that don't immediately get into tut tutting All the King's Men type bullshit? Love to read more about the man
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# ¿ Jun 29, 2017 19:30 |
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recommendations for a biography of Huey P. Newton?
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# ¿ Dec 14, 2018 05:25 |
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I'd like more French Revolution histories that recognize the truth of the famous Mark Twain quote
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# ¿ Dec 15, 2018 20:16 |
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Im really engrossed with Chris Harman's The Lost Revolution and would love to read other sorta-national histories of 20th century non-russian leftist movements along the same lines Like, for example, an analysis of the successes and mistakes of Italian leftism.
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# ¿ Apr 29, 2020 00:54 |
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I learned what showers are from The Sims
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# ¿ May 20, 2020 21:17 |
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Reading The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge based on the thread's recommendation and while it's fairly interesting it still feels pretty biased in favor of the Franks just based on how he frames certain things and poses some of his arguments. Too bad, but still probably better than most histories on the subject I'd find I guess.
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# ¿ Aug 7, 2021 16:39 |
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Yeah I remember reading that a while back and enjoying its perspective. This "authoritative history" has still been fairly entertaining I guess.
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# ¿ Aug 7, 2021 22:40 |
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Any good Mongol histories? I'd like a firmer grasp over Mongol history that isn't just involving say, Genghis or Kublai
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# ¿ Aug 14, 2021 22:10 |
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Any good histories on all or any of the caliphates? Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid? I really just want more histories of the Arab and Muslim worlds that aren't like, oriented around the Crusades.
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# ¿ May 18, 2022 22:57 |
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enjoying David Stahel's writing on the Eastern Front of WW2 so far, particularly Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East and Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy. he does a good job pointing out how much of the written histories seem to just be uncritically based on Nazi sources and memoirs, perpetuating the idea that Soviet victory was more a matter of Hitler's interference/the weather/anything other than determined Soviet resistance. He does a good job pushing the argument that Barbarossa was a doomed and foolish operation in light of Germany's economic/manpower limitations, especially by the summer of 1941. quote:Histories lauding the victorious progress of the Wehrmacht in the first two years of the conflict form a characteristic representation of the war. With unprecedented victories and comparatively bloodless battles, the temptation to over-estimate German strength has always been great. In the case of Barbarossa this tendency has been further aided by the poor standing of the Red Army following Stalin's purges26 and its chaotic reorganisation following its disastrous performance in the war against Finland (1939–40). This dipshit Stolfi's a professor emeritus at a naval postgraduate school in Monterey, of course.
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# ¿ Aug 6, 2022 07:24 |
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I lost interest in military history at a certain age, kinda looking down on it, but mostly having overconsumed so much of it as a kid...still got into stuff if it were something I knew less on, like the diadochi or crimean war or something, but I definitely lost complete interest in anything WW2 or American Civil War related. Lately though I've been reading the gently caress out of David Stahel. Major recommend. Such an intelligent historian and historiographer, who focuses heavily on countering so many of the cultural perceptions and repeated fallacies in existing histories of WW2 (particularly the extreme fetishization of Nazi military might that takes place among American scholars and pervades the U.S. military, one of the people he's constantly countering as part of the legion of slobbering-over-Nazis professors was a "WHAT IF THE NAZIS WON IN THE EAST HUH HUH THAT'D BE COOL!! YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT NAZI TANKS BRO" type who taught at the US Naval Postgraduate School lol). His book on Barbarossa was actually a revision of his doctoral dissertation at Berlin's Humboldt University, the main thesis being that Barbarossa itself was insane and doomed from its start (as early as summer 1941). Can definitely recommend all of his stuff, so far i've read Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East Kiev 1941. Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East Operation Typhoon. Hitler's March on Moscow The Battle for Moscow Retreat from Moscow
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# ¿ Aug 28, 2022 02:02 |
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Devlan Mud posted:So I’ve read Black Elk Speaks, Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee, Son of the Morning Star, and 1491, and I’m really wanting more Native American historical perspectives of the Indian wars and in general, so looking for recommendations in that vein. The Last Days of the Incas by Kim MacQuarrie Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne
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# ¿ Sep 22, 2022 05:08 |
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any good histories of Neo-Nazism, strictly the directly connected to Nazi Germany kind? As in like, the WW2 era Nazi officials and officers who escaped or just smuggled out others, served as scientists and mercenaries for the most brutal Cold War Western/Western-backed governments, founded Neo-Nazi parties, maybe got caught. It feels like a lot of them just got hired by the Allies or allowed to just churn out memoirs and Wehrmacht propaganda like I only just learned about this complete "Hitler is Vishnu" psychopath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savitri_Devi and this one whose sister got executed by the Nazis!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_von_Thadden or this rear end in a top hat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel or just like, Klaus Barbie getting hired by the West Germans and Counterintelligence Corps, or Skorzeny supposedly advising Peron and (maybe) working for the Mossad. just so many horrifying stories and histories of how feeble "Denazification" was that don't really get told, not surprisingly though. I guess it'd also be a history of postwar West German culture and politics. I do already have Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Need to keep reading that, but I was thinking something more focused. Punkin Spunkin fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Sep 22, 2022 |
# ¿ Sep 22, 2022 06:34 |
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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 12:35 |
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Thanks for the recs. Grabbing the ones I can. The Myth of the Eastern Front will be a nice read particularly as I'm still getting through some more David Stahel.Shimrra Jamaane posted:Well do you want actual historical accounts of the fundamentally flawed and disingenuous process of Denazification, the proliferation of Neo-Nazis in both government and society in general, the downplaying of Nazi atrocities for propaganda and ideological purposes, and the tacit encouragement for a groundswell of Nazi revanchism or are you interested in stuff not solely focused on East Germany as well?
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# ¿ Sep 22, 2022 18:30 |