The Library

I grabbed four East Asian books off my shelf to help Strategos bump the thread. I know, we're lazy butts for not filling this out more.

The Man Awakened from Dreams: One Man's Life in a North China Village 1857-1942 by Henrietta Harrison. The biography of one Liu Dapeng, a completely unimportant person on the large scale, but an interesting study into the life of a man who spent his entire youth preparing for the examinations of Qing China, failed, and then he spent the rest of his life under a system where his education was worthless. Heartbreaking, but informative to what happened to people like him under successive governments, including Japanese occupation, and his views on all of it. If you're a student striving for greatness, prepare to be saddened by his life.

Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World by Mark C. Elliot is just a great book on Qianlong, probably the best biography there is actually. The book is short, but thorough and engaging. It covers his personal life as well as the well-known history of this emperor and the Qing throughout, and immediately before and after his reign years.

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.

Japan: A Modern History by James L. McClain is my favorite survey of Japanese history from Ieyasu forward. It focuses more on the economy and society, from my memory of it, than it does the political side, which may or may not be to your liking. Book is cheap used and very well-narrated.
 
I just finished Iain McLean's Rational Choice and British Politics. In addition to interesting insights on some pivotal moments in British political history from Peel to Blair, it seems like it may be useful for trying to figure out this "representative democracy" thing some people are into and the clever hacks (from voting reform to William Riker's heresthetic) that skilled politicians have used to bend it to their needs. So, handy for modern NESes.
 
Some Air Force Magazine articles I found to be of interest, mostly from July, 2013. I'll link to more as I go through other issues.

The Long Arm of the US Strategic Bombing Survey - An overview of the USSBS' operations in the aftermath of WWII and its conclusions; of interest to industrial aerial operations, particularly strategic bombing.

Near Failure at Nagasaki - How the second atomic bombing almost went very poorly; vaguely useful for understanding some aspects of early nuclear deployment.

Fighting for Access - An overview of A2/AD challenges in play today, and possible USAF strategies in countering them; useful for an understanding of modern air defense challenges.

Rethinking Air Dominance - The general importance of air superiority/dominance and ways of maintaining it a modern environment; complimentary to above.

Ascendant Eagle - Overview of the history of the F-15; useful for understanding the difficulties in actual aircraft development, testing, procurement, and deployment, and correspondingly those of any other weapons system, as well as how platform capabilities can lead one astray (as with the F-4).

Firsts in Flight - A general overview of manned flight before the Wright brothers.

The Halt on the Elbe - Why Eisenhower did not advance on Berlin in WWII; of use to alternate histories and general historical understanding of the period.
 
The following are three online journalism and information analysis sites I find more than occasionally informative.

They don't really fit into the existing pattern but I include them because NESers should be aware that they exist and check them out occasionally. So yeah- coloring would not be appropriate really.


Propublica
http://www.propublica.org/investigations/

Self described: "ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.”"



Foreign Policy
foreignpolicy.com
(owned by Washington Post)

Self-described: "Foreign Policy is the leading international source for global news, providing an evolving network of world-leading insights and analysis coupled with rapidly expanding original reporting."


Stratfor
stratfor.com

self-described: "Stratfor is a geopolitical intelligence firm that provides strategic analysis and forecasting to individuals and organizations around the world. By placing global events in a geopolitical framework, we help customers anticipate opportunities and better understand international developments."

Note that much of Stratfor's content is pay-to-view, but they have some free stuff thats definitely worth reading.
 
people read stratfail hahahaha.
 
From E=mc² to the atomic bomb - A short article on Einstein's equation and atomic weapon development; the main take away is that relativity and mass-to-energy equivalency are not necessary to develop, design, or deploy nuclear weapons, so even if that bit of physics were to lag behind (say in an alternate timeline), this would do little to nothing to prevent the development of nukes provided direct-use nuclear research proceeded apace.

Air Force Magazine: Seeing a Super-Bomb - An abbreviated version of the Frisch-Peierls Memorandum from 1940, demonstrating that radiation and fallout are obvious outcomes of a nuclear weapon even in theory, well before any practical measures are undertaken to construct a device, and would be in any conceivable situation where nuclear theory was sufficiently advanced to predict said device.
 
Air Force Magazine: Roosevelt Builds the Arsenal - FDR and the US military-industrial complex in the leadup to WWII. Useful for history/alt-history.

Grim Economic Realities: Why Japan Really Lost The War - Military/economic overview of US and Japanese dispositions in WWII, with some additional data on the Axis and Allies. Useful for history/alt-history.

Germany First: The Basic Concept of Allied Strategy in World War II: The 90-Division Gamble - Chapter 15 of the book (the others can be accessed by changing 15 in the URL to 01, 02, etc.) details the intentional limiting of US military forces at 90 divisions. Useful for history/alt-history.
 
:bump:

Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

Pretty self-explanatory what it's about.
 
I've got a feeling you really like journalism.
 
doesn't everyone?
 
pole475 said:
Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
Not very good.
 
For 1830-present, especially pertinent Africa, I'd recommend Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves who Ruled It by James Ciment. It's an in-depth history of Liberia from its initial settlement to Samuel Doe's coup in 1980, and doubles as a case study of this one nation in particular, and why it's what it is today.
 
carmen510 said:
What are the particular shortcomings of the book, aside from the overly narrow focus on institutions?
That's the big problem. Another is that it's case studies don't gel well with What Actually Happened. The economics is also shaky as hell.
 
Let's talk about The Future because NES tends to have really terrible future settings and could do with some inspiration and pointers in that regard! I recommend perusing some of the following, which due to the speculative nature of The Future are often RPGs, and almost all of which are far-future space-opera pew-pew lasers and nanomachines, son! stuff:

Eclipse Phase - The core rulebook is available under Resources. It borrows a lot from Richard K. Morgan's sci-fi, but is a fairly nicely put together resource.

Transhuman Space - You'll have to look around for it, it's a bit outdated and sort of laughable in some areas, but again, it's decently well put together.

High Frontier - An interesting mechanically-driven boardgame about the colonization of the Solar System, High Frontier nonetheless gives it a pseudo-realistic look while still being transparently a game.

Orion's Arm Sprawling, sort of open-development, poorly organized, and often featuring terrible graphics, Orion's Arm nonetheless has some neat ideas here and there.

Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 - Michio Kaku's latest book, it sometimes goes off the rails occasionally when he veers away from technology, but on technology it's fairly grounded if often vague.

Atomic Rockets - There is no better resource for future space technology, although it's all mostly focused on business-end stuff.
 
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