Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[Antilogic]

Until you tell us what you are doing, I'm assuming some Dan Brown Shi'ite is going down.

(I'm still reading the same three I posted earlier in the thread. Up to Teddy Roosevelt's marriage and the start of the Buchanan presidency.)

 

[sophie]

Until you tell us what you are doing, I'm assuming some Dan Brown Shi'ite is going down.

(I'm still reading the same three I posted earlier in the thread. Up to Teddy Roosevelt's marriage and the start of the Buchanan presidency.)

Well, the intention is to write a history article on The Gregorian Mission, looking particularly at its continental context. Knowing my work habits, I don't know how likely it is, but it's certainly my intention to write it.

 

[Luckymoose]

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. Started it this evening and am about a fifth of the way through it. So far I am very pleased with it.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I just started Bitterly Divided: the South's Inner Civil War, which -- as a lifetime anti-confederate southerner -- I've REALLY been looking forward to.

 

[GamezRule]

I've got a big stack of books on race in American politics to pull information from.

 

[Borachio]

The First World War Hew Strachan

 

[Antilogic]

Good choice!

 

[Dachs]

Is that the short one or the first part of his trilogy?

I'm actually reading Nick Lloyd's Loos 1915, an in-depth account of that engagement. Amusingly, one of the cover teases is Strachan saying "Should finally consign Alan Clark's farrago, The Donkeys, to the waste paper basket". Seems to be, so far, a more positive upwards revision and analysis of British generalship and army performance in that engagement, lots of agreement with Edmonds' official history.

 

[Ajidica]

Still working through Christopher Tyerman's God's War. Is the author any good or should I cut my losses and start reading Snow Crash and Mona Lisa Overdrive?

 

[Borachio]

Is that the short one or the first part of his trilogy?

.

The short one.

To be honest I'm not generally a big fan of the typical historian's writing style. Some are frankly appalling and unreadable. A very few, like Tuchman, are wonderful. (Of whose work I've only read the C14th one, anyway.)

Strachan seems to fall somewhere in the middle. But he is interesting enough and I am learning something. If, by the time I've finished this one (assuming I do), he succeeds in getting me to read his other stuff I'll consider him really worthwhile.

Trouble is, there's just so much history out there - it would be impossible to get a grasp on it all. And I have some other interests that demand most of my attention.

 

[sophie]

edit: that wasn't at all relevant.

 

[Borachio]

Ah yes I realize Tuchman isn't current. I was talking about her writing skill, apart from the content. Which in my opinion is very good indeed.

 

[Masada]

Tuchman is a fantastic writer.

Reading:

Carthage Must be Destroyed - R. Miles
Rome's Goth Wars - M. Kulikowski
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution - R. Middlekauff
Selected Short Stories - W. S. Maugham
Islamising Indonesia - Y. Machmudi (PHD)

Also, a huge number of papers on Indonesia because reasons. Also, also in about ten days the remainder of the Indonesian Modern Library arrives.

 

[Antilogic]

Finished The Impending Crisis by Potter, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in the lead-up to the Civil War. As I mentioned before, it excels on the internal workings of the presidential administrations and how each subsequent administration responded to the major events of the time (the Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska situation, Dred Scott, John Brown, etc.). The presidential and mid-term campaigns are also well-covered, especially the fall of the Whigs, the Democrats faltering, the sudden rise of both the Know-Nothings and Republicans, and the sudden decline of the former. It doesn't focus on "the life of an average guy" at the time, only on national politics. But given that was what I was looking for, I'm quite happy it didn't.

Given the election is only weeks away, I decided add one more book on presidential politics to my current three reading list: Truman's Triumph: The 1948 Election and the Making of Postwar America by Andrew Busch. Obviously, if focuses on the Truman-Dewey-Wallace-Thurmond election. It's a short volume (218 pages), so I'm hoping it doesn't shortchange any of the candidates.



EDIT: I agree with Borachio that Tuchman had a very engaging style, even if the material is out of date.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Just finished Power and Plenty, and I thought it was a decent enough read. A lot of the history parts I felt like were just review for me (I was really hoping for a more in depth look at the Indian Ocean trade, and although he covers new ground for me in SE Asia and the Spice Islands, the rest of it was didn't go beyond what I already knew), and a lot of the economic stuff got thick to the point in which is just flew over my head. But it was interesting nonetheless and I did learn some things, mainly the extent of trade at the turn of the last millennium, as well as the globalization and de-globalizating during the 19th century and following WWI that I was not aware of.

Now then, I need a new book, and I have no idea what to get. Considering the big emphasis I'm constantly hearing about with WWI, I might want to pick up a book about that, just so I can get a more in depth understanding of the conflict.

According to this thread, Hew Strachan seems to be the place to turn for diving in, right? Or are there better books? And which one of his books (it seems like people here are implying there are more than one) would be the best for someone with only basic knowledge of WWI?

 

[Dachs]

He has a general book about the whole war, fairly short, quite good, but you probably won't learn much in there that you couldn't learn elsewhere reasonably well. (Take that with a grain of salt, by the way. I'm awful at recommending non-scholarly history books for casuals. That's probably an underestimate.) He's in the middle of writing a trilogy of massive books on the whole war. Book I was finished several years ago, and covers:

-the circumstances surrounding the outbreak of war going as far back in some form as the late 1880s, but with special emphasis on 1908-1914 and on the July Crisis
-the opinion of European citizenry about the act of going to war
-all fighting in 1914
-all fighting in Africa and the effects of fighting on the colonies
-all fighting in East Asia and the Pacific, the Japanese-US-Australian-UK quadrilateral, and the cruiser of Spee's squadron
-Germany's efforts at global war throughout the conflict
-the war in the North Sea to December 1915
-the process and methods of financing the war and of mobilizing industry to support it
-and "the mood of 1914" - the opinions of the European populace during the initial months of fighting

Books II and III are being delayed, unfortunately, due to his Oxford schedule.

 

[warpus]

I just finished reading Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

and it was awesome

one of the best space operas I have ever read.. if not the best

 

[Cutlass]

Haven't started yet, but just picked up "Redchirts" by John Scalzi. Which according to the cover may be an amusing parody of Star Trek.

 

[Joecoolyo]

He has a general book about the whole war, fairly short, quite good, but you probably won't learn much in there that you couldn't learn elsewhere reasonably well. (Take that with a grain of salt, by the way. I'm awful at recommending non-scholarly history books for casuals. That's probably an underestimate.) He's in the middle of writing a trilogy of massive books on the whole war. Book I was finished several years ago, and covers:

-the circumstances surrounding the outbreak of war going as far back in some form as the late 1880s, but with special emphasis on 1908-1914 and on the July Crisis
-the opinion of European citizenry about the act of going to war
-all fighting in 1914
-all fighting in Africa and the effects of fighting on the colonies
-all fighting in East Asia and the Pacific, the Japanese-US-Australian-UK quadrilateral, and the cruiser of Spee's squadron
-Germany's efforts at global war throughout the conflict
-the war in the North Sea to December 1915
-the process and methods of financing the war and of mobilizing industry to support it
-and "the mood of 1914" - the opinions of the European populace during the initial months of fighting

Books II and III are being delayed, unfortunately, due to his Oxford schedule.

Blech, of course, the library here only has his Volume 1 book electronically, and not a physical copy; although they do have several different copies of his short book. Unless there are any other WWI books you can recommend, I guess I'm stuck with the short version for now (which shouldn't be too bad, I'm not too well versed in the conflict so I'll probably learn something from it).

EDIT: Goes to show how crappy the online catalog is here, they did have a physical copy of his massive Volume 1 book, but I still opted for the shorter one since the size (you were right in calling it massive), well, it was a tad intimidating. I might read it after I finish his short one if I'm genuinely interested further in the subject, or if there isn't enough good stuff in the shorter one.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Finished The Origins on Inequality, which should wrap up my 18th century philosophy for a little while. Moving back to history now, and forward in time, I now endeavor to finish Robert Middlekauf's massive tome The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789.