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Dapper_Swindler posted:read nixonland first. it explains a ton how nixon took a ton from Reagan and the southern strategy and stuff. And read Before the Storm first. It talks about Goldwater and the birth of the conservative movement.
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Sep 7, 2018 13:40
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Just a recommendation, but I'm reading Douglas Smith's "Forgotten People", about the Russian nobility after the Revolution. Spoiler...it doesn't go well for most of them.
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Nov 19, 2018 00:51
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A human heart posted:Good. I dont know. Politics aside, it's kind of draining to read. It's story after story of people being dispossessed and murdered or fleeing without anything, never knowing if they'll see their home again.
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Nov 19, 2018 02:00
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Michael Hiltzik's "The New Deal" is good, and so are, for more critical views, IRA Katznelson's "Fear Itself", which is a look at the compromises the New Deal made with segregationalist Southern Democrats, and Amity Schaes, "The Forgotten Man", which is a more critical, conservative look at it.
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Nov 20, 2018 23:18
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Is there anything else Figes did other than the fake Amazon reviews? Is there criticism of his scholarship, rather than general ethics?
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Dec 3, 2018 03:02
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Neurosis posted:More importantly on the pro-revolutionary tally, Louis XVI was a straight man who wouldn't bang his hot wife because of some penis condition that could've been easily fixed by a procedure like circumcision he was too scared to have done. Extremely hosed up to have such a guy as a leader. He had two sons and two daughters, so there was at least some of that happening.
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Dec 4, 2018 12:41
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Ron Jeremy posted:. I got curious to the scene in hypernormalization where the banks exercise political power over NYC by refusing to renew bonds. But it’s an Adam Curtis movie. I’m looking for something a little more sober and less agitprop-y. This isnt so much a look at the whole question of austerity, but if you're interested in the fiscal crisis in New York City with the banks refusing to renew bonds and such, there's Kim Phillips-Fein's "Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics".
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Dec 7, 2018 21:06
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Boomer The Cannon posted:Any recommendations pertaining to the occupation of France during WW2? I've got a kind of unconventional suggestion, which is David King's "Death in the City of Light", which is about the hunt for a serial killer in Paris during the occupation. It largely focuses on the murders and the investigation, but along with that comes complications of the occupation...the military authorities and the Gestapo and their relationship with the Paris police, the relationship between occupied France and Vichy France, questions about collaboration and resistance, the Holocaust, and all sorts of other issues. Spoilers for those interested in some of the irony inherent in the situation. A lot of the people that the killer, Marcel Petoit, murdered were Jews and resistance members....he ran a fake escape route, where he said he had ways to get people out of the country for a fee. He'd actually take their money and kill them. So you had the police and Gestapo hunting down somebody who was murdering Jews and members of the French resistance, while at the same time, the police and Gestapo were hunting Jews and members of the French resistance in order to murder them.
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Dec 14, 2018 04:49
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Count Roland posted:C'mon, which quote, for us ignoramuses? Probably from his Connecticut Yankee... quote:There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves. Twain has his numbers wrong on deaths from the reign of terror, and the time period, but that's the quote. That being said, I don't know of many works about the French Revolution that don't look at the condition of France before the revolution.
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Dec 15, 2018 20:41
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Squalid posted:This thread makes me sad because looking at the title it it seemed like the most appropriate place for me to talk about what I've been reading lately like Imagined Communities, Seeing Like a State, and The Siege of Mecca. So it's unfortunate the thread is really bad and there's no discussion beyond lazy trolling and unrequited requests for recommended reading. Admittedly I only clicked the thread so I could ask for some suggestions myself but it hardly seems worthwhile now. Imagined Communities was a great book, so please talk about it.
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Jan 3, 2019 03:37
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Try Robert Gerwaith's, "The Vanquished".
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Feb 13, 2019 17:30
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Don't get Hey Guns started on Wedgewood. But, seriously, definitely ask them about it.
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Feb 16, 2019 16:01
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What's your take on Berhard of Saxe-Weimar? He lost really badly at Noerdlingen, but his command of the French troops and the Heilbronn League seems to have been remarkably successful, as well as a lot of his earlier stuff with the Dutch. Generally, who do you think was the best of the Protestant commanders?
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Feb 17, 2019 03:38
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Neurosis posted:Hah. Wedgwood speaks of John George of Saxony similarly; apparently drinking heavily was lauded among Germans at the time? Pretty much everyone in the 17th century drank heroic amounts of booze.
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Feb 17, 2019 04:10
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HEY GUNS posted:from the outbreak of the war in bohemia until 1625 (in the part of the conflict saxony was fighting in) or 29 (other places) the 30yw went very well for the Imperialists. gustavus adolphus was occupying a citystate in the far north of germany but with no allies except Denmark, which Wallenstein and Tilly destroyed in 29, he could be contained. You could probably make the argument that the Edict of Restitution was technically correct, because the Peace of Augsberg did specifically protect church lands from secularization, and that was being ignored in the Lutheran states, so the edict just enforced the treaty. But it was pretty drat impolitic, given that the Lutheran states were the ones who were specifically financially benefiting from it, and there wasn't much that annoyed the Lutheran princes more.
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Feb 20, 2019 04:24
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HEY GUNS posted:wallenstein was like "don't do it" and then he was like "i told you so" Tilly: "Albrecht, you can't keep throwing the Emperor's mistakes in his face like that! He's going to get upset!" Wallenstein: "Oh, lighten up! What's the Emperor going to do? Find me guilty of treason in a secret trial and then get some Irish mercenaries to murder me?" Tilly: "Don't be silly." <turns to the camera and winks> <Opening credits roll for 'That's our Emperor!'> (Don't mind me. I'm just picturing a sitcom about Fedinand II's court)
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Feb 20, 2019 21:47
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"It's Always Sunny in Vienna".
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Feb 21, 2019 05:39
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It's not at all what you want, but I recommend it anyway, because I think it's just a good book, and that's "Iron Kingdom - the Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600 - 1947" by Christopher Clark.
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May 4, 2019 18:49
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Silver2195 posted:Catherine the Great made some attempts to implement (her understanding of) Enlightenment ideas. It didn't go over very well with the nobles and she gave up, IIRC. Though I believe the "democratic" element of Catherine's attempted "reforms" was pretty limited even by the standards of the time anyway. She didn't give up. She died. And then her son, Paul I, made some reforms. He banned corporal punishment of non-serfs, introduced some laws protecting serfs, and made it easier for peasants to buy land. As a reaction against the French revolution, though, he also increased censorship and became more autocratic. Then, after he was assassinated by some nobles, his son Alexander I took the throne. Alexander I started out governing with liberal ideas. He granted Russian Poland a constitution that was one of the more liberal ones in Europe, granting universal suffrage in Sejm elections to everyone 21 and older, let the Sejm impeach government ministers, and giving them the right to vote on most things. After a planned coup, though, and an assassination attempt, he decided, "Yep, the hell with liberalism. It just leads to revolution", and cracked down.
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May 26, 2019 03:34
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Ras Het posted:I'm not sure if connecting democratic ideals in modern day states to stuff that happened during the European Enlightenment is particularly helpful I don't know if it is or not, although I think there probably is some connection. I just disagree with the "Russia was immune to the Enlightenment" argument.
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May 26, 2019 21:29
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Hamelekim posted:This is probably a really difficult ask. But I am looking for books on the history of socialist economics in the Christian church. With right wing Christians almost all capitalist due to brainwashing it's difficult to find any discussion about the other side, which does exist, but is definitely a minority at this point. I've read articles from and about the left economics perspective in Christianity, but can't find any books on the subject. If you don't mind an insider view, there's "The Catholic Worker Movement: Intellectual and Spiritual Origins", by Mark and Louise Zwick, which looks at the founding of the Catholic Worker movement. I've heard that's pretty good. For a more radical view, Gustavio Guitierrez (One of the founders of Liberation Theology) and Cardinal Muller wrote "On the Side of the Poor: The Theology of Liberation", which is a look at that movement. There's also Paul Ham's "New Jerusalem" and Anthony Arthur's "The Tailor-King - the rise and fall of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster", both about the Anabaptists of Munster. I've also heard Spencer Klaw's "Without Sin", about the Oneida Community, is supposed to be pretty good.
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Jul 29, 2019 02:44
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MeatwadIsGod posted:Can anyone recommend a good history of the Spanish Inquisition? Probably the current definitive book on the Spanish Inquisition is Henry Kamen's "The Spanish Inquisition:A Historical Revision". Kamen is a pretty serious historian, and his book is sort of the modern standard book on the topic.
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Dec 29, 2019 07:55
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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. 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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Remember too that a lot of WPA slave narratives were collected by white interviewers, so some of the interviewees might have been reluctant to criticize white slaveholders to other white people, for fear of causing offense or trouble. Also, on top of that, slavery was abolished in 1865, and these interviews were conducted in 1936-38. That's 70 years, which means that most of the people being interviewed were children when they were set free. Their experience in slavery and their understanding of it would have been different than that of people who were slaves as adults. And, of course, it had been over 70 years since emancipation, which sets up its own problems when it comes to things like memory and retellings. It's possible that their stories would have been different if they had been told in 1866 than in 1936. That doesn't mean they aren't valuable resources, but that, like with all sources, they're not perfectly objective.
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Mar 19, 2020 19:44
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PawParole posted:Anyone have any books on Somalia? Do you want a history of the place, or recent history and modern/post civil war Somalia?
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Apr 16, 2020 17:36
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PawParole posted:anything that isn’t nonsense by I.M Lewis. I mean, I've heard good things about him generally, but I don't know the specifics or what you don't like about him? Mary Harper, a journalist with the BBC wrote a kind of interesting look at al-Shabaab called "Everything you Have Told me is True".
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Apr 16, 2020 17:57
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The Glumslinger posted:So, any suggestions on the French Revolution? Asking for a friend Simon Schama's "Citizens".
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May 29, 2020 07:18
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Look Sir Droids posted:Any good books on the Tulsa massacre? Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 by Scott Ellsworth
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Jun 2, 2020 17:23
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Falukorv posted:Any recommendations for Pre-Soviet Russian history? Simon Sebag Montefiore's "The Romanovs 1613-1918" is primarily about the dynasty, but I found it a fun read.
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Jun 4, 2020 16:19
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Are there recommendations for a history of modern Israel? So, this question is always a can of worms, because everybody's got an opinion on Israel, but you might want to try Martin Gilbert's "Israel: A History"
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Jun 12, 2020 18:30
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MathMathCalculation posted:On a related note, what can be recommended about Native American history BEFORE the Europeans came over? Or at least up until 1800 or so? This isn't really what you want, but I'm going to recommend it anyway, because it's a good book and you should read it. Pekka Hamalainen's "The Comanche Empire" looks at the Comanche and their rise and fall from like the 1750s to the 1870s, focusing on how they built up an empire made up of a vast trading network, as well as a network of allies, tributaries, and subjugated tribes, and used that to militartily and economically dominate the Plains and fight and win a bunch of wars against Mexico and the US, until their empire was finally destroyed by the US army.
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Jun 18, 2020 21:19
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Digital Jedi posted:What are the recommendations for books on the Iraq War? The second one? Try Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas Ricks. He wrote the book in 2006, so obviously it ends there, but it's still a good look at the problems in planning and then, after the conquest, in occupation and administration.
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Jun 19, 2020 06:05
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Cyrano4747 posted:Anyone have any suggestions on books about the intellectual history of desire for community / constructing communities / yearning for a community, etc? Basically those geimenschaft/gesellschaft warm fuzzies that get people to join clubs etc. It's from 2000, but Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community" might be what you're looking for. There's also the '90s "Protecting Soldiers and Mothers" by Theda Skocpol.
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Aug 5, 2020 19:21
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EoinCannon posted:Some hindu nationalist started ranting crazy poo poo on twitter a while back iirc It wasn't really ranting. They basically just said that even though people can think what they want, it's weird that people think of him as a hero when he killed about 11% of the world's population.
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Aug 31, 2020 12:00
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Silver2195 posted:Sources for the 11% figure? I see it tossed around occasionally, but never with a real citation. That was the tweet's claim, but Frank McLynn, in Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy, puts the total number of deaths from his wars at 37.5 million, about 30 million in China, and other people have made estimates up to 40 million or more (a lot of it depends on how many people you think lived in medieval Iran, and how reliable you think Persian casualty estimates are. McLynn downplays them). Estimates of world population from around 1200 range from 360-400 million. So, taking McLynn's numbers, which are again, conservative, that has him killing between 9.3-10.4% of the population of the world. If you go with the more accepted 40 million estimate, it's 10-11%
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Aug 31, 2020 14:50
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Ras Het posted:Fwiw McLynn is a popular biographer and not an expert on the specific issue. I've only read his book on Richard Burton and thought it was inane psychoanalytic garbage I'm pretty sure the 40 million estimate is pretty common, though. Almost everyone agrees on 30 million in China. The question is how many people died in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
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Aug 31, 2020 15:14
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Minenfeld! posted:Russia post-Crimean war and up to and through the First World War. There was a book on the Russian wartime economy I wanted to pick up but I've since forgotten the author and title. Nicholas and Alexandria is the fairly famous biography of Nicholas II and the Empire under him. It's an older book, but it's still pretty interesting.
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Jan 4, 2021 05:10
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Solaris 2.0 posted:Is Ian Toll's Pacific War Trilogy pretty well respected? The first one, Conquering Tide looks like it has good reviews, but I am a bit more interested in the war from the Japanese perspective so I hope it covers that end as well. This might not be directly related to what you're looking for, but Eri Hotta's 1941: Countdown to Infamy is a look at the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor, so if you're interested in the extremely dysfunctional 1941 Japanese government, where almost everybody thought that picking a fight with the US was a bad idea, but was too afraid to say so, its a good read.
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Jan 5, 2021 16:51
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crazyvanman posted:Is it really bad? It won't stop me reading it if it is, but I do recall people saying it's something of a character assassination? It's hard to character assassinate Mao, because he was a horrible human being and a bad leader, but it's a really negative look at him.
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Jan 14, 2021 18:00
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bowser posted:On the topic of Commies One good book about the Aral Sea in particular is "Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia's Aral Sea Basin", which is a look at how both the Tsarist and Communist government put their faith in things like large scale irrigation projects as a way to legitimize colonialism in Central Asia through this idea that they were "developing" and "civilizing" the region.
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Jan 20, 2021 23:58
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I'm looking for a book on Soviet environmental policy. Specifically I'd like to learn about the Aral Sea. What went wrong and how it impacted people and nature.