Historical Book Recomendation Thread

[Gen.Mannerheim]

I was unaware industry abandoned mass production or the assembly line.

Since you obviously don't understand the comparison...

The comparison is over the technology that is in the car and the automotive design philosophies, not the means of production. That comparison would be on the medium in which historians produce work, and last I checked historians still write books and articles.

In other words, its a debate over what should be in a car, not how its made.

 

[Agent327]

Mentioning Henry Ford is not a comparison. It is a bad analogy though.

 

[Traitorfish]

Perhaps the analogy is less important that the point that is being made.

 

[Flying Pig]

I was unaware industry abandoned mass production or the assembly line.

And I wasn't aware that history-writing had abandoned the study of primary sources and the attempt to find the overarching causes of historical phenomena. Anyway...

I recently polished off (over the course of a long train journey) Maya Jasonoff's Liberty's Exiles, about the Loyalist populations who left America following the Revolutionary Wars. An extremely interesting book about something I knew very little about, and extremely well-written. The major 'learning points' from a general historical view were just how similar 'loyalists' and 'patriots' usually were, simply how many 'loyalists' there were in America, and how unlike people in Britain the American loyalists had become in their culture and beliefs. She is quite adamant that the 'War of Independence' can much more accurately be called a 'civil war'. She also makes a lot of the 'spirit of 1783' - the ideological sense that a good, free society could and must exist within the British Empire, mixed with a much greater imperial willingness to use force and command to keep itself together. She points out that both the 'spirit of 1776' and the 'spirit of 1783' had good claims to be the foundation of 'empires of liberty'.

Another interesting titbit is the existence of several 'Indian' chiefs with impeccably Scottish names - Alexander McGillivray of the Creeks and Joseph Brant of the Mohawks to name two. They were of mixed parentage and usually had two names - Brant was known as 'Thayendanegea' among his own people - and it's very interesting to see them jump between playing two characters, at one point acting the white colonial gentleman, then going to London and making a splash by acting every inch the 'savage' that people over there expected.

I'm sure much of this is familiar to those more interested in American history, but to an outsider it was eye-opening and very interesting.

 

[Traitorfish]

Brant is probably the most interesting character in the whole revolutionary period, for sure.

 

[Agent327]

Perhaps the analogy is less important that the point that is being made.

Well, if you want to make a point, starting off with an inept analogy isn't a good way

And I wasn't aware that history-writing had abandoned the study of primary sources and the attempt to find the overarching causes of historical phenomena.

Really? Because textbook writers usually don't use primary sources.

 

[Clubber Lang]

Just watched the 'Empire Of The Seas' mini-series doc', give the book a flip next:




Series:
(Put's you in a mood to load up a new game with Victoria).

 

[Arakhor]

Ahh, YouTube, where old documentaries go to die.

 

[Ajidica]

Oh Dan Snow, why you so bad.
Michael Wood knew how to do a documentary. Probably the only good documentary on "King Arthur" I've ever seen.

 

[Agent327]

A documentary on a fictional character, that's certainly something of note in a historical book recommendation thread.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Ahh, YouTube, where old documentaries go to die.

No no no, YouTube isn't where they go to die...

... its more of a swamp. Sure you can view into some cool oldies like Victory at Sea or endangered beasts like those late 90's/early 00's History Channel docs. But if you dig deep enough into the muck, you'll run into truly terrifying monsters. Monsters like "The Lost Tribes of Israel have been living in Harlem This Whole Time!!!" or 9-11 conspiracy theories, or any of the work of Simcha Jacobovici.

 

[Arakhor]

It's YouTube. Certain posters like providing links to conspiracy theories on this very form, along with the racist ones, the <choose your scientific consensus> denial videos and the outright wacky ones ("Were the Pyramids Space Age car parks???!!!")

 

[dutchfire]

Looking for some recommendations for a couple of long train rides in the near future. Something on an under-emphasized period in European history would be nice. I liked reading Halsall. Maybe something on Scandinavian/Baltic history? That's something I know little about.

 

[Flying Pig]

I bought Tim Blanning's The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815 looking for a similar thing - not Scandinavian or Baltic, but a bit of a gap in my knowledge of European history. I haven't read it yet, but it's very well reviewed.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

For Swedish history, the best place to start would be the works by Michael Roberts. His works start in the late 60's but are sprinkled through the decades until the 90's

A) Roberts more or less invented Early Modern Swedish/Scandinavian studies in the modern Anglophone academia. Quite literally everyone still dips from his well even today so reading his work is a good way to stay in the loop.
&
B) As Flying Pig alluded too, he's not the only one who seems to have a gap in that part of the world because its is a criminally under-researched field. Its gotten a little better but nobody has come close to dethroning Roberts yet.

Two of his works in particular I would recommend would be:
The Swedish Imperial Experience, 1560-1718
From Oxenstierna to Charles XII. Four Studies. (His last major work)


Robert Frost's The Northern Wars. War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe 1558–1721 is an excellent volume on the military craziness of the period. The last chapter even has a discussion on the "Military Revolution" and his thoughts on what constitutes a military revolution (if there is one) as well as the idea that a country can have one and it not actually benefit the state in question *cough* Denmark *cough*.

 

[dutchfire]

Thanks, I will see what the library can do for me.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

I just finished Blitzed; Drugs in Nazi Germany and found it to be seminal.



https://www.amazon.com/Blitzed-Drug...sr=8-2&keywords=blitzed+drugs+in+nazi+germany

 

[Mouthwash]

Anyone have something to recommend on early medieval England? Or pre-Great Heathen Army England?

 

[Flying Pig]

Britain after Rome: the Fall and Rise by Robin Fleming is recent, well-researched and a good read.

 

[Mouthwash]

Thanks, I will look.