Which book are you reading now? Volume X

[Godwynn]

Originally Posted by Cutlass

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

That is an amazing book, and is highly recommended to everyone on CFCOT!

[Japanrocks12]

Originally Posted by Dachs

Sharon L. Jansen - The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe

Because, you know, I has to research everything.

Did you read the John Knox work from which this one derives its title?

[Kozmos]

Assassins Apprentice by Robine Hobbe (I belive)
Some minor Zen texts

[Dachs]

Originally Posted by Japanrocks12

Did you read the John Knox work from which this one derives its title?

Yes, I thought it was a masterpiece of unintentional comedy

[Japanrocks12]

Originally Posted by Dachs

Yes, I thought it was a masterpiece of unintentional comedy

Yeah at first glance it seems that way for me as well. Maybe my library has a copy.

[Dachs]

"To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to His revealed will and approved ordinance, and finally it is the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice."

[Smellincoffee]

Just finished an intense novel about the Russian Revolution and Stalinist-era politics called The Revolutionist, by Robert Littell. Quite impressive. I also finished The Outline of History's first volume and am now starting The History of Japan by Kenneth Latourette and Paths of Disharmony by Dayton Ward.

[Azale]

Originally Posted by Smellincoffee

The History of Japan by Kenneth Latourette

Why Latourette? Isn't he a little dated?

[Luckymoose]

Originally Posted by Azale

Why Latourette? Isn't he a little dated?

Jansen is pretty good.

[Smellincoffee]

Originally Posted by Azale

Why Latourette? Isn't he a little dated?

First edition 1918, and this edition is 1947. I'm reading this book because my library had it. The local town library is a little thin in Asian history. I've got more modern books of my own, but I wanted to read another author.

Jansen is pretty good.

Thanks; I'll keep my eyes open for him.

[innonimatu]

Wickham's "The inheritance of Rome". Nice little book, I had no idea that northern Gaul seemed to have been the core of the richest polity resulting from the breakup of the western Roman Empire. It makes the rise of the carolingian empire easier to understand.

But I still don't like his tentative explanations for the collapse of the eastern empire under the arab onslaught.

[Dachs]

Yeah, Wickham's mostly useful for archaeology, not power politics or military stuff. He does make useful points about the craptastic state of seventh-century Arabian historiography, though

[Whiskey_Lord]

Literature and Science in the Nineteenth Century: an Anthology - ed. Laura Otis.

[aelf]

Central Problems in Social Theory by Anthony Giddens.

[Cashie]

Arthur Conan Doyle - The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes)
Alan Moore's Complete WildC.A.T.s
Neil Gaiman - The Sandman: A Game of You
China Miéville - The Scar (well, it's sitting around at least)

[cardgame]

Michael Chrichton - Next

[Arriaga II]

Just read Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. It tells the story of Midway from the Japanese perspective, but more importantly it ends some of the faulty historical interpretations that have come from 1950s Japanese sources on the battle. The problem is that one historian (Fuchida), who pretty much every American historian used in the past, was not entirely truthful with his narrative of the battle.

Japanese historians had corrected his faulty history by the 1980s, but there conclusions had not yet made it into the American histories on the battle.

[Dachs]

Yesterday evening I got in a new book from the local library consortium:

Robert Foley - German Strategy and the Path to Attrition: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870-1916

Because I don't have enough Ermattungstrategie or abstruse military-historical arguments in my life

[Martacus]

I just finished The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas last Friday, translated by Richard Pevear. Not bad, though I wonder how the cardinal went from being a sympathetic, if devious character, to the sort of cartoonish, moustache-twirling villain of popular imagination, least in regards to his role as a character in the book. Porthos is the one always twirling his moustache, after all.

[Glassfan]

Originally Posted by Dachs

Yesterday evening I got in a new book from the local library consortium:

Robert Foley - German Strategy and the Path to Attrition: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870-1916

That looks interesting. Presumably it's more than just Verdun?

Just finished Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-45, by Max Hastings. This is a companion piece to Retribution. "The Strategic Bombing campaign... casts a moral shadow over Allied victory which has never been lifted."