I’m not particular, if it’s an interesting read I’d check any of the above.
So some Military History:
I am finishing the second of these three; more focused reading here, these are first stage research for the second Vietnam title I am beginning to craft after A Hot Dry Season (the Operation Attleboro title) gets past playtesting and into pre-pub. I highly recommend the first two, the third is for real MilOps nuts.
I’m also just reading this for fun but stalled out; I’ll get back to it.
This is a good, solid starting point, IMO.
For the last year or so I’ve been thinking about reading a history of the civil war. I’ll keep an eye out for this one.
Along with Albion’s Seed, American Slavery, American Freedom was pretty central to my understanding of colonial US history. Just realized I still have it on my bookshelf. How’d you like it on the re-read?
I would really recommend the Scots-Irish section of Albion’s Seed to anyone interested in the historical roots of contemporary US partisanship. Short version is that whole clans of Scots-Irish dissidents were pushed off their land and immigrated to the colonies, where they formed insular frontier communities highly skeptical of outside religious and political influences.
I’ve taught Albion’s Seed for many years, as it was one of the required books for one of our required second semester first year courses. I agree the book does a nice job of offering a fairly compelling explanation of some important aspects of American society. I met Fischer once, when we had a conference around the 400th anniversary of the “discovery” by the French of Lake Champlain. Seemed like a nice guy, even if all of his books are humongous :).
Morgan’s book holds up very well, probably a bit better than Jordan’s work, if only because it’s a tad more conventional and less a product of the times (though Jordan’s book is IMO still very relevant too). I actually got a lot more out of it now than I did back in school, for sure.
As a gentle prod to this thread, discussion of history and its interpretations can certainly become heated and veer to the political, and that is fine, but any in-depth debate or discussion of current political debates and partisan feeling/interpretations of today’s world I’d much rather see in P&R. Hasn’t happened yet, best to say before it does.
I’ll give it a look, thanks!
I started reading Crazy Horse and Custer but I don’t have much patience for non-fiction so I haven’t gotten further than the beginning of the civil war part yet. Most of it might seem like common knowledge to Americans but I find the description of the (d)evolution of the midwestern landscape and ecosystems based on the boom of agriculture as well as the structure or lack thereof of Native American society to be some of the most interesting parts yet.
They don’t count as books but I’ve listened to the Manson episodes of You Must Remember This based on QT3 recommendation in the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood thread and thought they were quite informative.
Otherwise I have read some B. Cornwell Saxon Stories books that although fictional are quite true to history as far as I understand (however hard it can be for that time period).
Just like long games I have trouble finishing books but they can be hard to put down if you hit the right one.
While a bit niche, I recently enjoyed reading “A Voyage for Madmen” about the original Golden Globe around the world race. Even if you don’t have an interest in sailing it is a fascinating story.
Edit: now with link
I am very interested in sailing, adding that to the list thanks -
I enjoyed this one a while back, it’s currently .99 on Kindle. Lord uses an interesting format, one chapter for each year from 1900 to 1914, the start of WWI. Covers things from the Boxer rebellion to the San Franciso earthquake to the Wright brothers.
This one was good, too.
I read that, it was really excellent.
Great title.
The Smithsonian blog has some ideas:
Should also mention that I read this Thurgood Marshall biography earlier this year as part of the Reading Challenge:
Easier said than done, unless you limit “history” to “military history focused on minutia that no one but grogs cares about.” But I do sympathize with the general goal of not turning this into another P&R outpost.
That’s really the intent of that. Not to quash debate. Which l highly encourage.
I don’t think there a lot of danger of impassioned argument breaking out in a thread like this. Unless of course someone besmirches the honor of Doris Kearns Goodwin. Then it’s knives out.
Oh and if any of you haven’t yet read The Bully Pulpit go do so.
Heh. Hang around academic historians (or any other academics) for long enough, and you will find out that any subject can be turned into a burn-it-all-down ideological death struggle.
I read both Battle Cry of Freedom and Foote’s three-volume Civil War recently, and for myself, I liked the latter better. The former is much easier reading and paints a broader picture beyond military- and military-adjacent matters, but Foote is a better war history.
Always entertaining, this series drags a bit past the middle, as the medieval Europeans become more esoteric and self-referential. For whatever reason the similar Islamic Philosophy series is more engaging - perhaps just the unfamiliarity of it.
Makes the case, and to my mind a convincing case - at least as long as the events recounted here are accurate - that Tsar Alexander (Of Blessed Memory) faked his own death and ran away to become a Starets - a wandering, balding old man monk.
Almost fun in the smallness of their concerns, almost Babylonian in their literal recording of history, evocative of the mentality of a particular people in a particular time.
Books on the history of Chinese dynasties are surprisingly thin on the ground compared to contemporary political events in Europe even today. This one does a decent job at explaining the sociopolitical, demographic, and economic things going on. There still isn’t a “transcendent” work of Chinese history yet in English it seems.