Historical Book Recomendation Thread

[Traitorfish]

Can somebody recommend a good history of sixteenth-century Europe?

Here's why I need it and therefore what specifically I need. I'm reading, side by side, two histories of Tudor England (Guy and Elton). Naturally, they have to make frequent references to what is occurring on the continent, as they convey Hen or Liz's calculations regarding particular alliances, military ventures, etc. But in Guy and Elton, these matters come in piecemeal (naturally). But as a result, I get a really sketchy sense of the other monarchs' situation and motivations.

So what I'd need is something that identified the major "players": Empire, Spain, France, papacy, Dutch. (And even minor players when needed), and then, through a certain stretch of time kind of treated the internal developments and international ambitions of each one of those, viewed in its own right. I don't need it to be au courant with social history, etc. It can be old-school political, economic, (religious, in this case, of course) history. Just so I get some starting continuous narrative for each of these other players.

Does a thing like that exist?

Christendom Destroyed by Mark Greengrass covers most of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century (1517-1648 per the cover), but apart from that it sounds very similar to what you want.

The Verge by Patrick Wyman similarly doesn't cover the full century and has one foot in another century (1490-1530) but goes into a lot of detail about the sorts of changes and forces at play in Europe that would shape the rest of the sixteenth century.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Christendom Destroyed by Mark Greengrass covers most of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century (1517-1648 per the cover), but apart from that it sounds very similar to what you want.

The Verge by Patrick Wyman similarly doesn't cover the full century and has one foot in another century (1490-1530) but goes into a lot of detail about the sorts of changes and forces at play in Europe that would shape the rest of the sixteenth century.

And thank you.

Volume 1 focuses more on trade and society, with Volume 2 focusing more on politics, but both are absolutely outstanding in terms of the scope, details, and context.

I've picked it up. (The Verge is on order, TF). It's glorious. Even before "trade and society," volume one has 150 pages on physical geography! 150 pages! I have no idea whether the narrative will be what I need, once I get to it. So I'll get back to you in a month or two. But this is going to be fun in its own right.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

What good books would you recommend on Ancient Mesopotamian history?

 

[Birdjaguar]

What good books would you recommend on Ancient Mesopotamian history?

Ancient Mesopotamian history begins with Sumer ~3200 BCE and probably ends as the Romans pick up the remnants of of Alexander's empire maybe around 50 BCE? That is 3000+ years of history. Which part(s) of those 3000 years are you interested in?

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Ancient Mesopotamian history begins with Sumer ~3200 BCE and probably ends as the Romans pick up the remnants of of Alexander's empire maybe around 50 BCE? That is 3000+ years of history. Which part(s) of those 3000 years are you interested in?

Well, any part, but the history of Sumer if I I have to pick one

 

[Birdjaguar]

Well, any part, but the history of Sumer if I I have to pick one

This is not a new book but it might give you a substantial base to understand the Sumerians. It is a pdf you can read for free.

https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/sumerians.pdf

This book is more recent, 2021, but looks like more of an overview.

The Sumerians

The Sumerians are widely believed to have created the world’s earliest civilization on the fertile floodplains of southern Iraq from about 3500 to 2000 BCE. They have been credited with the invention of nothing less than cities, writing, and the wheel, and therefore hold an ancient mirror to our...

press.uchicago.edu

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I'm looking for a good in-depth book on the French Revolution

 

[Valka D'Ur]

As some of the OT-folks know if they're following my posts there, I'm working on several stories now. One of them involves the Glencoe Massacre of February 13, 1692.

Can anyone recommend some good reference books for this? Preferably with an adequate number of maps? I need to know the background of this event - what caused it, why it mattered, what the consequences were for both the victims (those who survived) and the perpetrators, and so on.

I've read some basic information on Wikipedia, but of course that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. There are books on Amazon and eBay, but I don't have enough familiarity with this historical time and setting to know which books are reliable and which aren't. I'm looking for factual information, not historical fiction (I'll be writing the historical fiction within a story that's a crossover between the Merlin TV series and the Highlander TV series. I know the TV shows played fast and loose with historical accuracy, but that doesn't mean I have to.

Any recommendations or suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Glencoe Massacre of February 13, 1692

The wiki link has a slew of sources and references (online and off) at the bottom.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Thanks. Some are unavailable, others prohibitively expensive. There is one book I found on both Amazon and eBay that come with high ratings and good reviews, and it was used for this article. That one may do, along with an article. I'm venturing into unknown territory here, since I've never studied this period of history.

It was somewhat bemusing to look this up on eBay, since most of the offerings were for post cards.

 

[Gori the Grey]

To my eyes, the Paul Hopkins book looks best. $40 on Kindle, if you have kindle. Can your local library order books through an interlibrary loan program? For Stuart history generally (background to your background), I'd go with Barry Coward.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Neither Kindle nor the public library are viable options, and honestly, for $40 I'd want a book that I can physically hold and turn the pages myself. What I'm after are one or two books with reliable information, as I've read that some authors have tweaked a few things, depending on where their preferred interpretation lies. I've been browsing eBay and a couple of other second-hand book sites.

Honestly, what are some people thinking? There is no way in hell that a trade paperback that's not particularly thick, located in Pennsylvania, costs $150 USD to send to Alberta, Canada. The base price of it is comparable to the others of the same title that are sold by other people, most of whom are also in the U.S. Their shipping charges are in the neighborhood of $8-10 USD.

Looks like someone's trying to make the rent in one transaction. That shipping fee is over $200 in Canadian dollars.

I'll have a look for the author you mentioned. Thank you.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Without wanting to seem as though I am justifying the price of a particular book, you're looking into a pretty specialized topic, and prices for specialized history books (or lit, for me, often) can be high. I have my limits as well, though.

You should read Sir Walter Scott's novels, by the way. Waverly, for instance. Regarding Glencoe, he seems only to have written a poem. But if I remember correctly Waverly is set in roughly the same time period. There's the same Jacobite interest, in any case. He really brings clan life alive. And you should know what another historical novelist treating the same period and culture has already done. Waverly can't cost you more than $20, I wouldn't think.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I pretty well have to stick to a budget, not just because the essentials are going up. It's the issue of customs and import fees. Canada doesn't have a lot of leeway for this, and I need to keep orders low enough to not get noticed and dinged for it. Most of the time they've ignored my book orders, but there have been a couple of times when it happened. I can't really afford that, so I'm trying to keep this under $20.

Hmm... I found some interesting stuff on Project Gutenberg...

 

[Plotinus]

I have to say that Scott hasn’t aged well. To be fair, I have only read Ivanhoe. But it was a dreary slog from start to finish, even if you overlook the startlingly overt antisemitism.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Try Waverly, if you're willing to give him another chance.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I have to say that Scott hasn’t aged well. To be fair, I have only read Ivanhoe. But it was a dreary slog from start to finish, even if you overlook the startlingly overt antisemitism.

My Grade 5 English teacher read us Ivanhoe. Many years later I tried to read it for myself, and gave up about a page and a half in.

I've already slogged my way through a book this year (Antony & Cleopatra). My next casual reading that's a physical book is a re-read of Heretics of Dune, so there's no need to worry about real history for that, just Frank Herbert's continuity.

There's a poem about Glencoe on Project Gutenberg. There's some historical context given for it, so that's interesting.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I have read Waverly. It holds the chief distinction of being one of only three books (the other two being Agatha Christie's Sleeping Murder and a Gothic novel titled Windsor Hall or something by someone or the other) that I couldn't finish due to sheer boredom. In Waverly's case I managed to slog all the way to the last one or two chapters, I couldn't motivate myself to complete them because the story was pretty much settled by then.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Oh, he's a wordy fellow, Scott.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I checked my local library's catalogue for information regarding the Glencoe Massacre.

Zip. NOTHING. Not as a title, keyword, or subject. Most of what I got back from my search was a bunch of historical novels (none of which were the one that I know was written about this event (Lady of the Glen by Jennifer Roberson) and a listing of Outlander DVDs. Outlander is 50 years too late for my purposes, and I'm not touching Culloden in my story. It was already addressed in Highlander and I'm trying to stay away from specific places and events that were presented on that show.

So... eBay.