Historical Book Recomendation Thread

[Louis XXIV]

Kagan wrote a four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War that's still reasonably authoritative and very readable. He also condensed it into a single volume, which is still very good.

Yeah, I think I read the single volume edition. I just got it randomly in a public library (we're talking ten years ago), so I wasn't sure how significant the book was. I'm glad others can speak about the author.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

You mean this? Should I also read a book on the Achaemenids or does the biography cover the important parts?

This is the best work of history I've ever come across. My previous attempts were stunningly misguided.

Yep, that's the one! Glad you're liking it!

I would also recommend the Landmark Thucydides and the Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika, part of a series of heavily annotated English translations of classical histories. They're also excellent; the first covers the war up to 411, and the second covers the remainder of the war and then provides a political-military history of Greece in general up to about 359.

I second the recommendation of the Landmark series of books (although I haven't looked at the Arrian one yet, but I'll happily give it the benefit of the doubt). Truly excellent, especially since a lot of these ancient texts reference places that either don't exist anymore or are otherwise very obscure, and since history was written, well...differently back then, there's a lot of unexplained allusion to historical characters and events which it's assumed the readers already knows about. Plus it's got big pages and big pictures and big maps.

 

[Heart Break Kid]

If I had to read one book on Churchill what would it be? Kinda interested to know on what his policies and thoughts are. I've read here and there about some of his...uh..not nice things, so my curiosity is certainly sparked.

 

[Hygro]

long shot but if anyone knows a good biography of JP Morgan and/or books about late 19th century banking practices and money policy that would be really cool.

 

[Cutlass]

The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow's "The House of Morgan" is both an engaging history of the Morgan banks and a brilliant account of the growth of global finance from Victorian times through the late 1980's. It's every bit as enjoyable as Chernow's "The Warburgs," but provides a better analysis than the Warburg book of key business and political developments of the 20th century.
No one should be intimidated by this book's length or the complexity of its subject. Its pages are rich with lively portraits of the sometimes quirky men who ran the Morgan banks, the high and mighty of the world with whom they did business, and the world's many critics of such concentrated economic might. Pierpont and Jack Morgan and their successors at the top get the most detailed treatment, but figures as diverse as Brandeis, Mussolini, Lindbergh (the son-in-law of a top Morgan partner), Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt and Margaret Thatcher all play a part in the story, not to mention interesting but lesser-known figures like Ferdinand Pecora, Judge Harold Medina and central bankers from Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan.
As a backdrop to the Morgan saga, this book includes accounts of the main events of 20th-century financial history, such as the Panic of 1907, the creation of the Federal Reserve system, the Crash of 1929 and the depression and bank failures that followed it, the New Dealers' attack on banks led by Pecora that resulted in the Glass-Steagall Act and the separation of commercial banking from investment banking, and the rise of hostile takeovers, Eurodollars, petrodollars, Latin American lending, junk bonds and the securitization of debt, all refreshingly written for laymen rather than experts.
"The House of Morgan" has perhaps two overriding themes.

 

[Hygro]

Ooh that sounds promising. Have you read it?

 

[Cutlass]

I haven't, no. I have somewhat mixed opinions about the books by that author I have read. On the one hand, as a biographer he seems to do really good research. On the other hand, as a writer, he tosses in little bits of trivial speculative questions that really, to me, interrupt the story more than they peak interest in the questions he's asking. I got to the end of both, the Washington and Hamilton biographies, thinking 'these were good, but why did he throw those bits in, it would have been better without them?'

 

[Quackers]

What do people think of Niall Ferguson's ascent of money?
I just found it again. I barely remember what happened in the book.

Top, top, top author though.

 

[Cutlass]

I think that author is very roundly disliked by serious history and economics people.

 

[Mouthwash]

Listen to Cutlass.

 

[Quackers]

I think that author is very roundly disliked by serious history and economics people.

Listen to Cutlass.

I know just trolling but you got here first.
I would like to see an actual refutation of his books though.

 

[Mouthwash]

I know just trolling but you got here first.
I would like to see an actual refutation of his books though.

Why is it worth the time? Nobody goes out of their way to refute Glenn Beck.

 

[Antilogic]

What do people think of Niall Ferguson's ascent of money?
I just found it again. I barely remember what happened in the book.

Top, top, top author though.

I read it awhile back (as well as some criticism of it online). I particularly remember some shaky-sounding claims he made on the Inca and gold at the beginning of the book.

 

[Quackers]

Why is it worth the time? Nobody goes out of their way to refute Glenn Beck.

Glenn Beck and Ferguson aren't even remotely close.

The latter had quite a distinguished academic career up until he became a media celebrity. Than, as I understand it, his academic output stalled a bit and he has relied on underlings to do the heavy lifting for him.
I'm surprised you fell for world histories' blanket dislike of the man. I thought you were more independently minded. You should know, whenever a group of people congregate like this and all agree unanimously, the person/idea they're dogpiling isn't rational. It's groupthink and emotional.

I think the real reason the WH forum doesn't like him, is his revison on the British Empire. His praise of the anglosphere. Our historians on WH are a very leftist bunch, so anybody who challenges their idealogy offends them, Park, TF, Cheezy and Masada, the first three are radical communists. I'm not too sure about the last one (liberal democrat i suspect). They all heard about Ferguson's new take on the BE and it offended their lefty sensibilities. So they hate him.

Glenn Beck OTOH is a nobody. Drug addict, than he got lucky on a few radio stations and than Fox hired him. Even after a few years they had to put him down because he was getting too crazy.

 

[Mouthwash]

I'm surprised you fell for world histories' blanket dislike of the man. I thought you were more independently minded. You should know, whenever a group of people congregate like this and all agree unanimously, the person/idea they're dogpiling isn't rational. It's groupthink and emotional.

Owen hates him, too, and from what I've read about his concept of "killer apps" he really isn't that far above Glenn Beck.

 

[Quackers]

Well "killer apps" was a phrase used for the mass audience on a British television channel in a documentary. It was designed, albiet poorly, to attract the plebs into learning about history.

If that's the case against him, it is incredibly weak.

 

[History_Buff]

The case against him is that he isn't much of a historian, his view of economics is grossly incorrect, and that he likes to say really stupid things, like that Keynes couldn't think rationally about the future because he was gay.

 

[Tahuti]

The case against him is that he isn't much of a historian, his view of economics is grossly incorrect, and that he likes to say really stupid things, like that Keynes couldn't think rationally about the future because he was gay.

Basically, a British version of Aleksander Dugin.

 

[Mouthwash]

He's British. Or does he live in the States?

 

[Traitorfish]

He's British, but he'd much prefer to be English. "Ferguson" he could live down, that merely indicates ancestry, but I don't think he'll ever forgive his parents for "Niall".