Historical Book Recomendation Thread

[Zkribbler]

A Leap in the Dark....about the founding of the U.S.

 

[Agent327]

A bit more information would be nice.

 

[Agent327]

What were those Dutch doing on Manhattan?

THUNDERSTICKS: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America
David J. Silverman

The surprising villains in Silverman’s study are the Dutch of New Amsterdam, who introduced firearms on a large scale to North America by selling them to the Iroquois of today’s New York State in exchange for beaver pelts. By doing so, they kicked off a North American arms race that rages to this day.

Using their newfound military advantage, the Iroquois conducted slaving raids as far west as the Mississippi River. (...)

Yet Silverman, a professor of history at George Washington University, also notes that the tribes frequently held the upper hand over the colonists. For example, by 1776, the Comanches possessed so many firearms that they were trading some of them to the European settlers of Taos, N.M.

As the “gun frontier,” as Silverman calls it, moved westward across America, it destroyed entire populations, partly through slaving and violence, but also through the European diseases that ravaged Indian populations, especially as native peoples sought protection by building fortifications and other concentrated encampments. In just 45 years, he notes, the Indian population of the Southeast declined by two-thirds; the collapse in southern New England was even more catastrophic. This was key to their ultimate defeat: They lost not on the battlefield but demographically, swamped by Europeans.

And Rome?

PAX ROMANA: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World
Adrian Goldsworthy

Yes, he says, they could be savage. But, he adds, so could everyone else. The difference was that the Romans, after the savagery was over, successfully absorbed populations. Roman reprisals against rebellions were fierce, but such revolts were few. And Roman officials could be surprisingly soft by our standards. For example, when Pompey the Great cleared the Mediterranean of piracy, he was remarkably generous, settling many of the brigands and their families “on better land so that they should not need to resort to raiding in the future.”

Two lessons for today stand out in the book: First, it is hard to make and keep a peace. Second, the greatest threat to the Pax Romana came not from foreigners but from the internal power struggles of the Romans themselves. “Are we Rome?” Cullen Murphy asked in a book of that title several years ago. The answer here seems to be: No, we are not as good at running an empire.

By the way, Pompey was obviously not being 'soft': he was being practical. As befits a general who must also keep in mind to settle his own veterans after their time of service.

From here (which has some additional short surveys not quoted): http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/b...1111&nl=bookreview&nlid=61820453&ref=headline

 

[Traitorfish]

Thundersticks sounds like it would be up my street, although "slaving raids" is really not an appropriate way to describe the Mourning Wars. (Silverman, I imagine, knows this very well, but the reviewer seems a little hazier.)

 

[PhroX]

Does anyone have suggestions for good books on the Mughal Empire? I'd prefer more of an "overview" type of book, as they fall into the (rather large) category of "historical stuff I know very little about", but if there are any particularly good more detailed works, I'd still be interested.

 

[Masada]

Anyone have a recommendation for a good general work on US chattel slavery?

 

[Esperr]

I am currently reading Plato's Republic.

And this book is not very good at all, Socrates(plato) is an idiot, and his ramblings sound like the ones you have in your own head while laying in bed at night. The way he says something and the other guy just goes "You got me, I was wrong" never happens IRL.

Would still recommend it though.

 

[Traitorfish]

The way he says something and the other guy just goes "You got me, I was wrong" never happens IRL.

I always figured they were just trying to shut him up.

Didn't work, but can't blame them for trying.

 

[JohannaK]

Thank you TF, I finally made sense of this book, thanks to you.

 

[Esperr]

I always figured they were just trying to shut him up.

Didn't work, but can't blame them for trying.

my god....revelation...

 

[Mouthwash]

 

[Agent327]

I wonder what book that is from...

 

[JohannaK]

It is from a webcomic

 

[Agent327]

So, not a historical book then.

 

[Esperr]

Let's talk Alan Greenspan:

THE MAN WHO KNEW
The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan
By Sebastian Mallaby

Im assuming this was written before the crash? He is definitely less vilified in finance then he in 2008-2009, but still considered a "what not to do".

 

[Agent327]

Ah, I forgot to include a link to the NYT Review of Books. No, it's quite recent. I don't know how Greenspan is 'vilified in finance'. During the recession (not 'crash', that was in 1929) he preferred to have the Federal Reserve do nothing. So, the exact opposite of what he argued before should be done during a recession.

 

[Esperr]

Ah, I forgot to include a link to the NYT Review of Books. No, it's quite recent. I don't know how Greenspan is 'vilified in finance'. During the recession (not 'crash', that was in 1929) he preferred to have the Federal Reserve do nothing. So, the exact opposite of what he argued before should be done during a recession.

He was for a long time, now I think people just don't care. He did a lot of things that he was condemned for in retrospect, keeping rates low, lowering the overnight rate further to try and alleviate defaults. The list goes on, but he had such a huge period of time where he was "successful" that he was considered untouchable during the Bush era.When I was in school he was a God of money, now guys who have graduated more recently say they talk pretty negatively about him in curriculum if at all. And most people aren't that big on the semantics of using the term crash for 2008, the stock market crash precipitating the exposure is what caused the recession, but the actual moment would be more of a crash, seeing as how thats what happened. Im from the U.S BTW, dont know if that makes a difference.

edit: For ref, in 1987 the DOW fell 28 percent, in 2008, it fell 21 percent over the span of a week in the U.S. But by then there were already trading curbs in place, it would have fallen much further if not. These were put in place shortly after the 1987 crash.

 

[Agent327]

Yes well, I didn't see unemployment rates of 25-30 % during that 'crash'. But I'm sure that's because semantics.

Meanwhile I had been considering whether the next book reviews would be worthwhile, but given the amount of humbug posted on recent EU/Mulsim 'refugees' threads I fear some people would do well to get acquainted with some actual history.

GENGHIS KHAN AND THE QUEST FOR GOD
How the World’s Greatest Conqueror Gave Us Religious Freedom
By Jack Weatherford

Weatherford is an anthropologist, by the way. His central point in this book on Ghenghis' policy of religious tolerance is the following:

The United States Constitution’s First Amendment is, at its root, an originally Mongol notion.

Many might think this eccentric in the extreme, until we learn that a runaway 18th-century best seller in the American colonies was in fact a history of “Genghizcan the Great,” by a Frenchman, Pétis de la Croix, and that it was a book devoured by both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Moreover, the quoted rubric of the Mongol and United States laws is uncannily similar: Among other passages, Mongol law forbids anyone to “disturb or molest any person on account of religion,” and Jefferson, after reading its strictures, went on to suggest in his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, a precursor of the First Amendment, that “no man shall . . . suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief.”

The link between Genghis and Jefferson may seem tenuous to the point of absurdity; but Weatherford argues his case very well — and in doing so offers further amplification of the notion that so many of the West’s claimed achievements in fact have their true origins in the East, and that countries like Mongolia, far from being, as those hapless British diplomats once believed, at the utter ends of the earth, are very much more central than most of us nowadays like to imagine. In a sense we are all Mongols; we are all one.

From here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/b...nl=bookreview&nlid=61820453&ref=headline&_r=2

And then there is

THE VANQUISHED
Why the First World War Failed to End
By Robert Gerwarth

Primarily a new look at the 1920s:

Increasingly the distinction so painfully established in the 18th and 19th centuries between combatants and noncombatants was breaking down. War was becoming total, seen as an existential struggle of one people or civilization against another. Attacks on civilians became acceptable.

In Russia, Lenin urged his Bolsheviks to hang rich peasants as an example to others. To force the villages to give up their food, his government bombed them and used poison gas. German paramilitaries — the Freikorps — rampaged through the Baltic States under the pretext of fighting Bolshevism. The Freikorps were motivated by a passionate German nationalism as well as the excitement of conflict. They found enemies everywhere and killed and raped with abandon. “We chased the Latvians like rabbits over the fields,” a volunteer proudly recalled. “We slaughtered whoever fell into our hands.”

Things which sound eerily familiar to us, having been around during (again) the Balkan wars, and of course, the mess that erupted in Iraq/Syria. But this was almost 100 years ago.

More here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/b...nl=bookreview&nlid=61820453&ref=headline&_r=1

 

[Esperr]

Yes well, I didn't see unemployment rates of 25-30 % during that 'crash'. But I'm sure that's because semantics.

The methods used to calculate unemployment have changed quite dramatically since the great crash/depression/meltdown/ bad Monday/recession. We now exclude way more people, as well as the fact that most unemployment data was gathered from industrial sectors that suffered the brunt and averaged out across the U.S population, creating wildly inflated numbers, not to mention public works being underemployed prior to 1948 and the exclusion of housewives. Was it not bad? No. But is it some super nova that eclipses the 2008 crash(sorry) crisis/recession/ global market meltdown so badly that they cannot be compared? Also no. But sure, you can argue over semantics like crash and recession all day.

 

[Agent327]

If you don't understand the difference between the Depression and a recession, then yes. And I'm sure those not counted as unemployed during the 1930s would find much comfort in your words...