Historical Book Recomendation Thread

[ParkCungHee]

I know it's a long shot, but can anyone recommend anything on the British Army as an institution during the cold war?

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Hey PCH, I haven't yet read David French's Army, Empire, and Cold War: The British Army and Military Policy, 1945-1971 but it may be worth a trip to the library. Also, a list of British Army Cold War books that you might want to browse to see if anything interests you. From what I understand, there's still a lot classified after the 1950s. Apparently, the BAOR used to incinerate their old war plans whenever they revised them, which surely is enough to make any researcher groan. British Army in the Cold War summary: too many commitments, too few resources. I'd be interested to hear about anything that you find that you'd recommend, also.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Hey PCH, I haven't yet read David French's Army, Empire, and Cold War: The British Army and Military Policy, 1945-1971 but it may be worth a trip to the library.

Oooh, that looks exactly what I needed. David French's other book seems relevant too. Thank you very much.

Apparently, the BAOR used to incinerate their old war plans whenever they revised them, which surely is enough to make any researcher groan. British Army in the Cold War summary: too many commitments, too few resources. I'd be interested to hear about anything that you find that you'd recommend, also.

Well, war plans don't interest me too much. I'm more interested in social composition of the army, policies of training and recruitment, what sort of combat they were preparing for, etc.

I want it as a supplement to reading I've been doing on The Troubles, every history I read treats the British Army as this unchanging monolithic block that just gets shoved into the mess in 1969, when obviously the British Army was as vibrant an institution as any and needs to be treated in the context of everything else that was going on.

I'll be sure to let you know what I find.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Any recommendations for 20th-21st century Congo?

 

[Antilogic]

Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost covers the Belgian colonization period of the late 19th into the early 20th century, but not much past that point. It's a really good book on the scramble for Africa but might be a bit before your intended time period.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Already read that, great book. One of the things that kicked off my recent world history reading project.

 

[TheLastOne36]

While we are talking about Congo, anything on the pre-19th century Kingdom of Kongo?

The kingdom's origins and interactions with the Portuguese would sound like a great read.

 

[Linkman226]

Does anyone know any good books on the history of South Asia, especially prior to the advent of European colonization?

 

[History_Buff]

Also in the colonial theme, are there any good accounts of the settlement of the Americas by the colonial powers?

 

[Cutlass]

Also in the colonial theme, are there any good accounts of the settlement of the Americas by the colonial powers?

"Wilderness at Dawn" by Ted Morgan was pretty good. Doesn't say much about the Spanish areas, though. "1491" and "1493" by Charles Mann has more to say.

 

[Ajidica]

Any recommendations for 20th-21st century Congo?

Not any specific books, but The Global Cold War by Odd Arne Westad talks about the international involvement in the First Congo War (where Katanga seceded). Also, The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith has some good chapters on Katanga's secession, Mobutu, and the Great Lakes War.

 

[Flying Pig]

I know it's a long shot, but can anyone recommend anything on the British Army as an institution during the cold war?

Jeremy Paxman's book Who Runs Britain?, published in 1990, has an excellent chapter called 'Stand Uneasy' which deals with the Army's position in society and the working of its upper echelons at the very end of this period. I also have a book called The Utility of Force, by Gen. Sir Rupert Smith, which deals at length and very intelligently with military doctrine during the Cold War: its author served as a rather good junior and field officer in the Parachute Regiment from the mid Sixties, although his first major command was 1 Div in the Gulf War. I might also suggest biographies of some of the most prominent officers of that period: Nigel Bagnall and Frank Kitson are probably our greatest military minds of the Cold War, and both had a lasting effect on the Army's way of thinking. Finally, of course, it is probably worth bearing in mind that between 1969 and 1997 the Army's preoccupation was with Northern Ireland: I don't actually know any good books on that conflict from a high-level historical perspective (as distinct from the book-selling but often meaningless oral histories), but Ireland certainly shaped the Army as much as anything else. It's worth remembering that there were few experienced soldiers in any conflict before the Gulf War who hadn't served in Ireland at its peak.

 

[History_Buff]

"Wilderness at Dawn" by Ted Morgan was pretty good. Doesn't say much about the Spanish areas, though. "1491" and "1493" by Charles Mann has more to say.

I'm about halfway through 1491 right now, I have a feeling I'll want to know more about the minutae of how Europeans established settlement though. I imagine the easiest thing to find will be a history of the United States prior to independence.

 

[Traitorfish]

Also in the colonial theme, are there any good accounts of the settlement of the Americas by the colonial powers?

Two of the standard undergrad texts for ~1500~1800 are Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 by James Elliot and The Atlantic World by Thomas Benjamin. Trick is, the former is mostly limited to a comparative study of the Spanish and British America, as the name implies, while the latter spends a fair bit of time in the Old World (on early African colonisation and on the effects of colonisation on Europe), so I don't know if either are quite what you're looking for.

 

[History_Buff]

The former sounds excellent really; not quite what I had in mind, but I like the sound of it. Latter sounds good as well. Much appreciated.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I'm about halfway through On History by Eric Hobsbawm. I've always been upset that my undergrad history education was so..abysmal in the area of methodology. We were all taught to write a paper in the Rankean style (I had never heard of von Ranke until several years after I graduated, when Dachs mentioned him in passing, it caught my eye, and I bothered to look it up), and never really discussed historiography or different schools of historical analysis. I had a vague notion that such things existed, but not because of my history program, but because of art history, of all things.

Hobsbawm's book is fantastic. It's a collection of speeches, papers, and articles he wrote over the years addressing different concerns historians have/should have, and the nature of our discipline. He's level-headed and honest, even about the shortcomings and problems of his own school. But he also pulls no punches in saying that something is a severe problem. It's a great book that both writers of history as well as fans should read and take to heart.

 

[Antilogic]

Two of the standard undergrad texts for ~1500~1800 are Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 by James Elliot and The Atlantic World by Thomas Benjamin. Trick is, the former is mostly limited to a comparative study of the Spanish and British America, as the name implies, while the latter spends a fair bit of time in the Old World (on early African colonisation and on the effects of colonisation on Europe), so I don't know if either are quite what you're looking for.

The former sounds excellent really; not quite what I had in mind, but I like the sound of it. Latter sounds good as well. Much appreciated.

On a semi-related note: if you are interested in the American de-population but not of the natives, then I would suggest Liberty's Exiles, by Maya Jasanoff. I read this and reviewed it over in OT awhile ago. It focuses on the British loyalists after the American Revolution, the lives they lost in the former colonies, and their scattering to the far corners of the British Empire, from Canada to the Caribbean to India, the governors and generals as well as the common people.

I'm about halfway through On History by Eric Hobsbawm. I've always been upset that my undergrad history education was so..abysmal in the area of methodology. We were all taught to write a paper in the Rankean style (I had never heard of von Ranke until several years after I graduated, when Dachs mentioned him in passing, it caught my eye, and I bothered to look it up), and never really discussed historiography or different schools of historical analysis. I had a vague notion that such things existed, but not because of my history program, but because of art history, of all things.

Hobsbawm's book is fantastic. It's a collection of speeches, papers, and articles he wrote over the years addressing different concerns historians have/should have, and the nature of our discipline. He's level-headed and honest, even about the shortcomings and problems of his own school. But he also pulls no punches in saying that something is a severe problem. It's a great book that both writers of history as well as fans should read and take to heart.

I'm enjoying his four-part series (currently in Volume III)--I'll have to check this out.

 

[History_Buff]

On a semi-related note: if you are interested in the American de-population but not of the natives, then I would suggest Liberty's Exiles, by Maya Jasanoff. I read this and reviewed it over in OT awhile ago. It focuses on the British loyalists after the American Revolution, the lives they lost in the former colonies, and their scattering to the far corners of the British Empire, from Canada to the Caribbean to India, the governors and generals as well as the common people.

Very cool. I've been meaning to actually get to know some Canadian history, which would make something like that almost mandatory.

 

[Glassfan]

Very cool. I've been meaning to actually get to know some Canadian history, which would make something like that almost mandatory.

Recommend The Illustrated History of Canada (ed. Craig Brown, 2002); about 600 fairly objective pages on the Great White North. I picked it up cheap on Amazon a couple of years ago and found it an enjoyable read.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I too have read Carthage Must Be Destroyed and thoroughly enjoyed it.

One thing that I realized whilst reading that book was how terribly Greco-Roman biased we are. The entire Mediterranean was teeming with culture, trade and civilization. It was a very very different story to the simple 'barbarian' label given to any non Greco-Roman.

As such, now I find myself terribly interested in learning more about different cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. Particularly in Iberia, Gallia, Northern Italy, Sardinia (which Miles shortly alluded to having a thriving civilization pre-Pheonician/Romans), and possibly extending to the Black Sea, preferably before Roman subjugation of those areas. I also have a particular interest in the history of Phoenician, Greek and later Roman settlements and colonies in the area and how they interacted and traded with the natives.

Miles' book while focusing largely on the Pheonicians, served as a good introduction to this maybe niche topic, but I'm left wanting more. Does anyone know anything else written on the subject?