Are you talking about From Alexander to Actium? Because if so I highly recommend it.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
It is one of the books for my class about Alexander the Great and His Successors this semester. God is it monstrously huge.
Monstrously huge and monstrously awesome. I bought it on my own initiative some time ago and was rapidly impressed with the fact that I could actually, you know, get some coverage of the Seleukid Empire, which never gets jack in most other books I've read on the classical period.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
I am unable to find a vaguely decent looking book on the Sassanids. Do know of any worthwhile tomes?
Nope. I've been trying on and off to find a good book on them for quite awhile. I gave up two weeks ago and ordered a book on Prussia and Treadgold's Byzantine history, but still want to find a good work on Sasan.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
It seems kismet is dealing me cards again; our first reading assignment for the Peter Green book is today. 
flyingchicken
Deity
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Naw, Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age (sorry, I always mix that up) is a different book. It's small (just over 150 pages of narrative); just finished it, was unsure if it was any good (fact-wise, that is--the narrative and the interpretations were cool, although the former's vocabulary was a bit too anti-banausic for my taste), but since you highly recommend his other book I guess it's alright.
Huayna Capac357
Deity
I bought 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, and it's fascinating, very, very well-written, and packed with information. It's one of the best books I've read in a long time! I was so interested I finished in less than 24 hours. 
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I always recommend 1491 whenever anyone brings up Guns, Germs, and Steel. Diamond's book really sucks compared to Mann's.
flyingchicken
Deity
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Don't they deal with different topics and are thus incomparable (and if you isolate the part where they intersect, that would be unbalanced)?
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
The way I remember it (it has been 3 years since I read the books, and I read them back to back so there are a few parts that I'm not completely sure came from which book), the parts where they intersect cover most of Diamond's work and a modest portion of Mann's. The basic premise of Guns, Germs, and Steel is covered in 1491 just as well and more eloquently. Mann focuses more narrowly on the Americas so Diamond has more examples from other regions, but these added examples don't really add a whole lot. He just goes on to try to prove the same thing over and over again in different regions. It seemed kind of like Diamond assumed his readers would just pick a chapter to read instead of the whole book so he started his argument over again for each region instead of building on what he had already said. There are some pages in different chapters that are virtually identical except for region and era specific examples. The two books are the same length, but Diamond could have easily condensed his work down to 1/3 by just repeating himself less. Mann covered pretty much everything Diamond did, but did so more succinctly and without the patronizing tone. He then went on to include a lot of more interesting info, and to draw lessons we can learn from humanity's past successes and failures to help us in the future instead of just coming up with excuses for why certain people are better off than others.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
I'm reading Ludo Martens' Another View of Stalin bit by little bit, and it is a truely intriguing work of scholarship. Everyone should read it.
Huayna Capac357
Deity
GGS and Collapse are still good, though.
EDIT from 2012: The above criticisms are valid ones.
Huayna Capac357
Deity
I like it 
He uses different examples to show his thesis. It's far more than the cut and paste job you make it out to be...
EDIT from 2012: It kind of is a cut and paste job he makes it out to be
He uses different examples to show his thesis. It's far more than the cut and paste job you make it out to be...
EDIT from 2012: It kind of is a cut and paste job he makes it out to be
Stolen Rutters
Deity
Alright, you guys sold me. I bought 1491. The first 15 pages are fun so far. I'll let you know if I like it when I'm done.
edit - To contribute to the thread, I'll add Rubicon, The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland was a pretty fun read, and was actually one of the first books I read on that time period a few years back.
Julian Delphiki
Anton's key
I'm reading Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by Tom Holland.. libraries available me have really pathetic selection of literature about Persia. Any good recommendations?
