Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[Kozmos]

Read Reamde. Am now slowly moving to Dune, Tao Te Ching and 48 Laws of Power. (which is just a guide for being an advanced douchebag but is littered with interesting historical anecdotes and parables)

 

[Dachs]

The great detail sometimes slows the book down but does lead me to give the author the benefit of the doubt when he makes points that I was unfamiliar with. For example he says that had it not been for the invasion James would likely have succeeded in establishing an absolutist regime a la Louis XIV. He also gives a credible explanation for why Louis invaded Germany in 1688 leaving William free to launch his cross channel invasion.

The likelihood of an eventual Jacobite absolutism is unclear, but the notion that it was imminent kind of strikes me as unlikely. In concrete terms, James managed to do very little during his reign, which was marked by almost constant unrest and conspiracies among the parliamentary classes. It was a very long way between where James was in 1688 and some sort of Louisine absolutism. And where Louis co-opted most of the institutions in France that could theoretically have proven obstacles to him, creating an "absolutism" that in the last few decades has been argued to have been largely based on consensus, James simply tried to bull his way through and fight England's versions of those institutions, with predictable results. Meh.

As for Louis' Rhenish campaign, the explanation for that is relatively simple. Although the crisis that actually started the war itself was Willem's attack on England, the crisis that had been brewing for the past several months was over the archbishopric of Köln, and rival Bourbon-backed and Habsburg-backed candidates for the see. In addition, Louis did not see Willem as his primary threat: Leopold I was, by virtue of the rapid Habsburg advances in Hungary and the strengthening Imperial forces on the Rhine released by the victories in the east. Louis' thought was that he could take advantage of Willem's absence from the Netherlands to score a quick victory on the Rhine and intimidate the Imperial states into backing away from the Habsburg camp. The Allied armies in Flanders would supposedly be immobilized by Willem's absence. Louis further calculated that the Dutch would not seize control of England as quickly as they did, leaving ample time for French forces to reposition and counter their moves. As it happened, of course, Louis' intimidation attempt fell flat in an orgy of bloodlust and destruction that horrified Europe into taking sides against him, the Allied armies in Flanders managed well enough with Willem gone, and James' government collapsed like the proverbial house of cards.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I'm re-reading 1984 as leisure; Diet for a Hot Planet is my 'serious' read. I think I'm going to have to find something upbeat to read afterwards..

 

[1889]

Summer vacation! Now I can get some serious reading done. Racing through Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley. It spans most of the 16th century and the battles between Christians and Ottomans for control of the Mediterranean, from the Battle of Rhodes, to the depredations of the Barbary Corsairs and Christian pirates, then the siege of Malta and the Battle of Lepanto. It’s very good but I am especially enjoying it because it fills such an important gap in my knowledge. I've read lots of European history trying to understand the period by studying the wars and relations between European states, this book is giving me a whole new perspective.

 

[Antilogic]

Summer vacation! Now I can get some serious reading done. Racing through Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley. It spans most of the 16th century and the battles between Christians and Ottomans for control of the Mediterranean, from the Battle of Rhodes, to the depredations of the Barbary Corsairs and Christian pirates, then the siege of Malta and the Battle of Lepanto. It’s very good but I am especially enjoying it because it fills such an important gap in my knowledge. I've read lots of European history trying to understand the period by studying the wars and relations between European states, this book is giving me a whole new perspective.

I read that two years ago and remember the battle depictions being a real page turner too.

 

[Phrossack]

Summer vacation! Now I can get some serious reading done. Racing through Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley. It spans most of the 16th century and the battles between Christians and Ottomans for control of the Mediterranean, from the Battle of Rhodes, to the depredations of the Barbary Corsairs and Christian pirates, then the siege of Malta and the Battle of Lepanto. It’s very good but I am especially enjoying it because it fills such an important gap in my knowledge. I've read lots of European history trying to understand the period by studying the wars and relations between European states, this book is giving me a whole new perspective.

Well, now I know what to read! I've wanted to read about that topic.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011 by Daniel Branch. I had no idea Chinese involvement in Africa went back that far.

On a related note, I'm taking suggestions for a good 20th-21st century history of China.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I just finished The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. I've been following his work since 2007, so finally reading The Book that introduced me to him was...old hat, really. The first time I encountered him was in '07, at a university lecture in which he covered everything in the book. What is remarkable about this is that it predicts the housing collapse. For those who've not heard of him, the book is about peak oil, and how it will destroy global civilization and send us all back to the 19th century. After establishing the problem, he explains why he doesn't think any alternatives are workable; the best bet is nuclear, but we depend on cheap oil to produce the reactor parts, so that might not work out. Wind and solar are dismissed first for matters of expense, scale, and efficiency, but ultimately doomed because they depend on the petroleum machine for their manufacture like everything else. Natural gas is jim-dandy, but also a finite resource. He sees the complete collapse of some cities (Las Vegas), a drastic downsizing in many more (New York), and a revival of small towns and local agriculture, powered by water and animals, linked by waterways and railways (if we electrify the grid and use nuclear power), and dominated by lots of work. He's written a novel set in this imagined future, called "The World Made by Hand". He never mentions water scarcity, which to me is a problem of nuclear reactors...by my understanding they require a lot of the stuff to cool down the rods, so as water gets scarcer that will be problematic. But perhaps salt water can be used for cooling rods?

I'm also reading Susan Strasser's Never Done, a history of housework, which in large part gives a history of how the world made by hand became one depending on systems run on cheap oil.

 

[1889]

Sounds pretty depressing Smellincoffee, I'm reading something with a happy ending. Its The Thirty Years War by Geoffrey Parker. Its very old (first printed in '84) but I suspect it still holds up pretty well. I like it although I've also had to reread sections of other text books to keep up. But lets face it, all those wars of religion and the HRE for that matter are a bit of a messy subject.

 

[Dachs]

The Thirty Years' War didn't have a particularly happy ending.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, it ended, which is probably the best that could be hoped for in the circumstances.

 

[1889]

Sounds pretty depressing Smellincoffee, I'm reading something with a happy ending. Its The Thirty Years War by Geoffrey Parker...

Scratch that, I'm lost, the words are marching around like ants on the page and I keep mixing up Frederick and Ferdinand.

On to Why is English Like That? by Norbert Schmitt. It aims to give historical explanations for unusual or non-standard bits of English grammar. Sounds pretty cool but I'll probably just skim to kill time until I can get to the library next week.

 

[Antilogic]

Don't have much time to post now (so I'll post some more thoughts later), but I just finished Michael Howard's The Franco-Prussian War and switched over to reading The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election by W. J. Rorabaugh.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011 by Daniel Branch. I had no idea Chinese involvement in Africa went back that far.

On a related note, I'm taking suggestions for a good 20th-21st century history of China.

If you're curious about the history of Kenya that led to independence in 1963, check out Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

There's a copy at my campus. I'll give it a look. Does it have some background on colonial Kenya?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

There's a copy at my campus. I'll give it a look. Does it have some background on colonial Kenya?

I believe so. But the meat and potatoes of the book begins (IIRC) in the late 1940s.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Sounds good then.

 

[Ajidica]

Might have to check it out.

Anyhow, currently rereading Norwich's Byzantium: The Decline and Fall before either Frederick Pohl's Gateway or rereading The Return of the King. I need a break before I re-attempt to finish my books on the Crusades and War of the Roses.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

If you're curious about the history of Kenya that led to independence in 1963, check out Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire.

Been reading this recently. Very interesting so far, but I'm rather concerned at the relative lack of attention given to other African ethnic groups such as the Luo and the Kalenjin. Even the South Asian immigrants get more attention.

 

[Traitorfish]

Current dry reading is Arguments Within English Marxism by Perry Anderson, which despite sounding like some godawful SWP pamphlet, is a series of (sympathetic yet critical) essays on the work and thought of the historian E.P.Thompson. Bit dry, at times, but interesting none the less, and probably worth the £1.50 or whatever it was I paid for it. Reminding me that I'll really need to go back and re-read The Making of the English Working Class at some point, because there's all sorts of stuff in there that I didn't get the first time round.

Current casual reading is Virgin Film: Martial Arts by P.T.J.Rance An overview of various key martial arts films, with what you'd expect in the way of plot summaries, production info, etc., while at the same attempting to outline the broader stylistic and thematic developments in the genre. Interesting enough for a genre-geek.