The Strategos
Thanatos
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2002
- Messages
- 1,175
I thought it might be helpful for some people to have a list of books, articles, documentaries, and other media which are useful to NESers and NESing. Feel free to make suggestions for additions and I will edit them in.
Rules:
-Submissions to the list must be made in this thread
-I will add everything that is submitted but I reserve the right to add any negative or positive comments in addition to the title
-I realize that not everyone is university level here, so feel free to add helpful non-university level books
Disclaimer: I've compiled this list from recommendations and make no claim to have read all these books. If you think one of the books listed below are worthless, let me know and I will put a warning next to it.
Culture and Arts
Economy
General History
Geography
Military and War
Politics, Government, and Diplomacy
Religion, Spirituality, and Philosophy
-David Rumsey Map Collection: http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/RUMSEY~8~1. Collection of historical maps (as in antique maps not historical borders created on modern maps) viewable online.
-Cartoon History of the World by Gonick. "Fun reads" (dachs) and "very helpful in brewing up readable updates" (terrance) though "gets a lot of the details wrong" (dachs). As a personal preference, I (Strat) don't know if I would suggest modeling updates after the style, I prefer less snark and comedy in my updates, but again that is personal preference.
-The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. Argues that all important myths share a fundamental structure. Influenced George Lucas for those who care about those things.
-State of Exception by Giorgio Agamben. Political theory; if nothing else the chapter on auctoritas and potestas is worth a look.
-History of Religious Ideas 3 volumes by Mircea Eliade Covers from stone age to the Christian reformation. I will admit to having no first-hand knowledge of this book, but Mircea Eliade is the key figure in the study of religion, so really any of his books (and there are a lot, The Sacred and The Profane might be a good place to start) are generally considered solid reads. As a warning, he does tend to overgeneralize and is more interested in similarities than differences among religions.
-How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace by Kupchan. The book I am sure Iggy wishes all of his neighbors would read.
-Man, the State, and War by Kenneth Waltz. Attempts to create a theoretical framework to explain "why war" and "why peace."
- The Art of War in the Western World by Archer Jones. From the Greeks to the present, with a focus not so much on campaign details, but on the overarching strategy, logistics, and tactics.
-World History of Warfare by Archer, Ferris, Herwig, Travers: Covers many aspects of warfare with a timeline covering Ancient Egypt to the Vietnam war.
-After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars by Ikenberry. Strategic restraint, among NESers?
-A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World by Clark. It has a chapter called "The Sixteen-Page Economic History of the World," where else can you get an economic history of the world in sixteen pages! Also Masada thinks it is awful.
-Encyclopedia of Warfare by Gilbert. This was mentioned on a previous thread, I know nothing about it. I see in 2013 there is another Encyclopedia of Warfare by Showalter published, I also don't know if that is an update of this work or a completely separate work.
-The Machiavellians James Burnham. For all you Machiavellian wanna-bes.
-Harper Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 BC to the Present by Richard Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy
-On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peaceby Donald Kagan
-Anatomy of Revolution by Crane Brinton. A comparative study on English, American, French, and Russian revolution which are used to construct a framework that all revolutions are said to follow.
-Politics Among Nations by Hans Morgenthau. Origins of "realism" in international relations
-Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
-Africa: Biography of the Continent by Reader. General history of Africa from prehistory to present.
-A History of Cambodia by David Chandler
-The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia by James Scott.
-Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson
-Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice by Catherine Bell. For most of human history, one of the most foundational elements to human living were rituals. Ritual theory is the field of study of rituals and Catherine Bell is one of the foremost ritual theory experts. For a book written explicitly as an introduction to the field see Beginnings in Ritual Studies by Ronald Grimes.
-Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology by Max Weber. I put this one as society rather than economic because the key aspect to this book is his discourse on authority.
Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook edited by Patricia Buckley Ebrey is a sparse collection of primary sources from throughout Chinese history. Not specific to any time period and serves primarily as a window into a changing China. Useful if you can pick it up for a few bucks and have an interest in the material. [Luckymoose]
- Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature by Benjamin Foster. Your one-stop shop for all Akkadian primary source literature (over 1,000 pages covering hymns, magic, poetry, myths, etc.)
-Mahabharata . Sanskrit epic
-Vedas
-Dao De Jing (Or is it Tao Te Ching? I am not up on what the most recent accepted spelling is)
-Ancient Egyptian Literature Three Volumes by Miriam Lichtheim. Probably the most accessible anthology of Egyptian literature from its beginning to the Christina era.
-Tanakh Jewish Scriptures (Christian Old Testament). Recommend a Jewish translation (Artscroll, Jewish Publication Society). The Archeological Study Bible is okay, it has some helpful cultural/historical notes on how Tanakh fits into its Ancient Near Eastern background, though it is highly biased. NET Bible (which also has a full text online) is good for if you really care about translation issues, though it again is biased.
-Stories from Ancient Canaan Michael Coogan and Mark Smith. Ugaritic primary text, slightly more beginner friendly than the more comprehensive Ugaritic Narrative Poetryedited by Simon parker.
-The Amarna Letters by William Moran (though you should be able to get older translations online full text). Primary source ~1350BCE of diplomacy between Egypt and its various vassals.
- The Context of Scripture 3 volumes by William Hallo and K. Lawson Younger Jr. Anthology of Ancient Near Eastern Texts. Despite what the name might suggest, contains more than just religious Ancient Near Eastern primary texts.
-The Art of War by Sun Tzu. If you want pure military strategy, you are better off reading something else. Value is as a primary source.
-Epic of Gilgamesh Sumerian/Mesopotamian epic.
-Illiad/Odyssey by Homer. It used to be a man could not call himself educated unless he had read Homer.
Secondary
-Amarna diplomacy : the beginnings of international relations, edited by Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook
- The origins of war: from the Stone Age to Alexander the Great by Arther Ferrill. As the title suggests.
-Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 BC by Hamblin
-Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade. Technically looks at the entirety of the history of shamanism, but I put it in this category because unless you are playing some strange isolated tribal-state in a historical NES, you are more likely to be interested in the book for fresh starts.
-Warfare in the Ancient World by Brian Todd Carey, Joshua B. Allfree and John Cairns
-Classical texts: Let us be honest, there are a lot of classical texts; I am not going to bother listing every extant classical text. Loeb has many of them if you just want to browse. From now on I'll just link them when people mention them. List 1.
-Oedipus Rex by Sophocles; The Wasps by Aristophanes
-Ramayana: Sanskrit epic
-Bhagavad-Gita
-Analects by Confucius
-The Republic by Plato
-Confessions by Augustine. City of God, his anti-Pelagian writings, and On the Trinity are more significant for understanding later Christian developments, but Confessions is a more beginner friendly text, as well as important in its own right.
-The Histories by Herodotus. Considered the "Father" of history
-On Natural Faculties, Method of Medicine by Galen; Hippocratic Corpus by Hippocrates; Galen was the most famous Roman physician and influential through the Renaissance while Hippocrates is considered the "father of western medicine"
-Anabasis by Xenophon.
- Commentaries on the Gallic War by Caesar
-De Oratore; De re publica; De Divinatione; De Natura Deorum by Cicero
-Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle
-Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Collection of Ancient Texts edited by Luck. Collection of Magical texts from the eighth century BCE through the fourth century CE. An alternate anthology of magical texts is Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook by Daniel Ogden. Papyri Graecae Magicae are used by a lot of scholars, Betz has a translation.
-The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Sacred Texts edited by Marvin W. Meyer. Sourcebook for the so-called "mystery regions" that sprung up throughout the Greco-Roman world.
-Talmud Most important text for understanding Judaism next to Tanakh. The Penguin Classics abridged version should be fine for NESing purposes since unabridged it runs 22 volumes or more depending upon the version you get.
-Metamorphoses by Ovid. A collection of Greco-Roman myths usually revolving around the theme of "change."
Secondary
-Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age by Peter Green. General history of Alexander and his Hellenistic successors.
-Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568 by Guy Halsall. The foremost challenger to the common narrative that Rome fell because of barbarian migrations.
-Warfare And Society in the Barbarian West, 450-900 by Guy Halsall
-The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400-1000 by Chris Wickham. General history of Europe in the Not-so-Dark Ages.
-A History of Byzantine State and Society by Warren Treadgold. General history of Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, whatever you want to call it, from 285-1461 CE.
-Warfare in the Ancient World by Brian Todd Carey, Joshua B. Allfree and John Cairns
-Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide edited by Sarah Iles Johnston. Unfortunately it is using "Ancient World" in the Western academic sense referring to Ancient Near East and Greco-Roman world, so no discussion of India, China, etc. For Mediterranean religions, however, it is hard to beat.
-Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire by Peter Brown. Peter Brown is basically the father of the field of "Late Antiquity" In this book he says a lot of good and interesting things on the nature of authority, most specifically non-governmental authority.
-The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship by Paul Bradshaw. I included this one because it gives insight into how religious rituals change/evolve in its early years and Bradshaw is basically the giant of the field who revolutionized how people discuss early Christian rituals.
-Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire by Timothy Barnes. Might be a little more detailed for those unfamiliar with the time period, but an interesting look at the interplay between religious and political authority.
Rules:
-Submissions to the list must be made in this thread
-I will add everything that is submitted but I reserve the right to add any negative or positive comments in addition to the title
-I realize that not everyone is university level here, so feel free to add helpful non-university level books
Disclaimer: I've compiled this list from recommendations and make no claim to have read all these books. If you think one of the books listed below are worthless, let me know and I will put a warning next to it.
Culture and Arts
Economy
General History
Geography
Military and War
Politics, Government, and Diplomacy
Religion, Spirituality, and Philosophy
General
-Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson [pole475]. Not very good; overly narrow focus on institutions; it's case studies don't gel well with What Actually Happened;economics is also shaky as hell [Masada]-David Rumsey Map Collection: http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/RUMSEY~8~1. Collection of historical maps (as in antique maps not historical borders created on modern maps) viewable online.
-Cartoon History of the World by Gonick. "Fun reads" (dachs) and "very helpful in brewing up readable updates" (terrance) though "gets a lot of the details wrong" (dachs). As a personal preference, I (Strat) don't know if I would suggest modeling updates after the style, I prefer less snark and comedy in my updates, but again that is personal preference.
-The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. Argues that all important myths share a fundamental structure. Influenced George Lucas for those who care about those things.
-State of Exception by Giorgio Agamben. Political theory; if nothing else the chapter on auctoritas and potestas is worth a look.
-History of Religious Ideas 3 volumes by Mircea Eliade Covers from stone age to the Christian reformation. I will admit to having no first-hand knowledge of this book, but Mircea Eliade is the key figure in the study of religion, so really any of his books (and there are a lot, The Sacred and The Profane might be a good place to start) are generally considered solid reads. As a warning, he does tend to overgeneralize and is more interested in similarities than differences among religions.
-How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace by Kupchan. The book I am sure Iggy wishes all of his neighbors would read.
-Man, the State, and War by Kenneth Waltz. Attempts to create a theoretical framework to explain "why war" and "why peace."
- The Art of War in the Western World by Archer Jones. From the Greeks to the present, with a focus not so much on campaign details, but on the overarching strategy, logistics, and tactics.
-World History of Warfare by Archer, Ferris, Herwig, Travers: Covers many aspects of warfare with a timeline covering Ancient Egypt to the Vietnam war.
-After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars by Ikenberry. Strategic restraint, among NESers?
-A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World by Clark. It has a chapter called "The Sixteen-Page Economic History of the World," where else can you get an economic history of the world in sixteen pages! Also Masada thinks it is awful.
-Encyclopedia of Warfare by Gilbert. This was mentioned on a previous thread, I know nothing about it. I see in 2013 there is another Encyclopedia of Warfare by Showalter published, I also don't know if that is an update of this work or a completely separate work.
-The Machiavellians James Burnham. For all you Machiavellian wanna-bes.
-Harper Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 BC to the Present by Richard Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy
-On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peaceby Donald Kagan
-Anatomy of Revolution by Crane Brinton. A comparative study on English, American, French, and Russian revolution which are used to construct a framework that all revolutions are said to follow.
-Politics Among Nations by Hans Morgenthau. Origins of "realism" in international relations
-Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
-Africa: Biography of the Continent by Reader. General history of Africa from prehistory to present.
-A History of Cambodia by David Chandler
-The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia by James Scott.
-Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson
-Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice by Catherine Bell. For most of human history, one of the most foundational elements to human living were rituals. Ritual theory is the field of study of rituals and Catherine Bell is one of the foremost ritual theory experts. For a book written explicitly as an introduction to the field see Beginnings in Ritual Studies by Ronald Grimes.
-Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology by Max Weber. I put this one as society rather than economic because the key aspect to this book is his discourse on authority.
Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook edited by Patricia Buckley Ebrey is a sparse collection of primary sources from throughout Chinese history. Not specific to any time period and serves primarily as a window into a changing China. Useful if you can pick it up for a few bucks and have an interest in the material. [Luckymoose]
Prehistory-500BCE
Primary- Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature by Benjamin Foster. Your one-stop shop for all Akkadian primary source literature (over 1,000 pages covering hymns, magic, poetry, myths, etc.)
-Mahabharata . Sanskrit epic
-Vedas
-Dao De Jing (Or is it Tao Te Ching? I am not up on what the most recent accepted spelling is)
-Ancient Egyptian Literature Three Volumes by Miriam Lichtheim. Probably the most accessible anthology of Egyptian literature from its beginning to the Christina era.
-Tanakh Jewish Scriptures (Christian Old Testament). Recommend a Jewish translation (Artscroll, Jewish Publication Society). The Archeological Study Bible is okay, it has some helpful cultural/historical notes on how Tanakh fits into its Ancient Near Eastern background, though it is highly biased. NET Bible (which also has a full text online) is good for if you really care about translation issues, though it again is biased.
-Stories from Ancient Canaan Michael Coogan and Mark Smith. Ugaritic primary text, slightly more beginner friendly than the more comprehensive Ugaritic Narrative Poetryedited by Simon parker.
-The Amarna Letters by William Moran (though you should be able to get older translations online full text). Primary source ~1350BCE of diplomacy between Egypt and its various vassals.
- The Context of Scripture 3 volumes by William Hallo and K. Lawson Younger Jr. Anthology of Ancient Near Eastern Texts. Despite what the name might suggest, contains more than just religious Ancient Near Eastern primary texts.
-The Art of War by Sun Tzu. If you want pure military strategy, you are better off reading something else. Value is as a primary source.
-Epic of Gilgamesh Sumerian/Mesopotamian epic.
-Illiad/Odyssey by Homer. It used to be a man could not call himself educated unless he had read Homer.
Secondary
-Amarna diplomacy : the beginnings of international relations, edited by Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook
- The origins of war: from the Stone Age to Alexander the Great by Arther Ferrill. As the title suggests.
-Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 BC by Hamblin
-Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade. Technically looks at the entirety of the history of shamanism, but I put it in this category because unless you are playing some strange isolated tribal-state in a historical NES, you are more likely to be interested in the book for fresh starts.
-Warfare in the Ancient World by Brian Todd Carey, Joshua B. Allfree and John Cairns
500BCE-500CE
Primary-Classical texts: Let us be honest, there are a lot of classical texts; I am not going to bother listing every extant classical text. Loeb has many of them if you just want to browse. From now on I'll just link them when people mention them. List 1.
-Oedipus Rex by Sophocles; The Wasps by Aristophanes
-Ramayana: Sanskrit epic
-Bhagavad-Gita
-Analects by Confucius
-The Republic by Plato
-Confessions by Augustine. City of God, his anti-Pelagian writings, and On the Trinity are more significant for understanding later Christian developments, but Confessions is a more beginner friendly text, as well as important in its own right.
-The Histories by Herodotus. Considered the "Father" of history
-On Natural Faculties, Method of Medicine by Galen; Hippocratic Corpus by Hippocrates; Galen was the most famous Roman physician and influential through the Renaissance while Hippocrates is considered the "father of western medicine"
-Anabasis by Xenophon.
- Commentaries on the Gallic War by Caesar
-De Oratore; De re publica; De Divinatione; De Natura Deorum by Cicero
-Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle
-Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Collection of Ancient Texts edited by Luck. Collection of Magical texts from the eighth century BCE through the fourth century CE. An alternate anthology of magical texts is Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook by Daniel Ogden. Papyri Graecae Magicae are used by a lot of scholars, Betz has a translation.
-The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Sacred Texts edited by Marvin W. Meyer. Sourcebook for the so-called "mystery regions" that sprung up throughout the Greco-Roman world.
-Talmud Most important text for understanding Judaism next to Tanakh. The Penguin Classics abridged version should be fine for NESing purposes since unabridged it runs 22 volumes or more depending upon the version you get.
-Metamorphoses by Ovid. A collection of Greco-Roman myths usually revolving around the theme of "change."
Secondary
-Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age by Peter Green. General history of Alexander and his Hellenistic successors.
-Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568 by Guy Halsall. The foremost challenger to the common narrative that Rome fell because of barbarian migrations.
-Warfare And Society in the Barbarian West, 450-900 by Guy Halsall
-The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400-1000 by Chris Wickham. General history of Europe in the Not-so-Dark Ages.
-A History of Byzantine State and Society by Warren Treadgold. General history of Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, whatever you want to call it, from 285-1461 CE.
-Warfare in the Ancient World by Brian Todd Carey, Joshua B. Allfree and John Cairns
-Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide edited by Sarah Iles Johnston. Unfortunately it is using "Ancient World" in the Western academic sense referring to Ancient Near East and Greco-Roman world, so no discussion of India, China, etc. For Mediterranean religions, however, it is hard to beat.
-Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire by Peter Brown. Peter Brown is basically the father of the field of "Late Antiquity" In this book he says a lot of good and interesting things on the nature of authority, most specifically non-governmental authority.
-The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship by Paul Bradshaw. I included this one because it gives insight into how religious rituals change/evolve in its early years and Bradshaw is basically the giant of the field who revolutionized how people discuss early Christian rituals.
-Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire by Timothy Barnes. Might be a little more detailed for those unfamiliar with the time period, but an interesting look at the interplay between religious and political authority.
) by suggesting Paul Johnson for a complementary Western right-wing perspective. More so the Birth of the Modern World Society 1815-1830 than Modern Times: The World from the [Nineteen] Twenties to the Nineties, though both are a very fun read if you can stomach them. I feel that he can serve as a useful counterpoint to Hobsbawm and other leftists, especially inasmuch as he steadfastly refuses to glorify revolutionaries. His books tend to be very well-researched, detailed and colourful, though perhaps a little too much so, and occasionally very moralising; it's usually very clear where his biases are, but that, to me at least, makes him a hell of a lot more interesting than he would have been otherwise. And even if you disagree with him entirely, he still fields a great amount of interesting quotes. 1815-1830 in particular is a good general portrait of a time period.
