/hislit/

[Anonymous No.16183764]

Give me some good history books! Maybe some weird obscure ones!

[Anonymous No.16183852]

Weevils in the flour
Under the hook
Skilled Labourer (Hammond and Hammond)
Ordinary men

[Anonymous No.16184216]

>>16183852
I thank you !!

[Anonymous No.16184225]

>>16183764
Carlyle "French Revolution"

[Anonymous No.16184456]

>>16183764
Shattered Sword is actually the book that made me wanna read again

[Anonymous No.16184682]

>>16184225

>>16184456
Can you tell me a bit about why? If you want.

[Anonymous No.16184706]

>>16184682
I'd say it was the perfect middle ground between thorough in the research and entertaining to read.
It's been my gold standard for history books ever since

[Anonymous No.16184721]

[Anonymous No.16184792]

>>16183764
I'm almost done with pic related, it's a very good explanation of "the medieval mind" based on literature, art, and accounts of social customs.
It's an older book, so I don't know how well Huizinga's arguments have been borne up by more recent scholarship, but they seem very convincing to me. At the very least it's given me a new appreciation for medieval painting.

[Anonymous No.16184813]

>>16184792
Ah damn, every time I see medieval paintings I get rock hard. Ill check this one out.

[Anonymous No.16184896]

>>16183764
>The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth (I chose this one because of the pic you posted)
>Anabasis by Xenephon
>The Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun
>The History of the Prophets and Kings/Tarikh al-Tabari by al-Tabari (Forty Volumes)
>The History of England from the Accession of James the Second by Thomas Babington Macaulay (Five Volumes)
>Records of the Grand Historian
>Imperial China: 900–1800
>George Grotes Twelve Volume History on Greece
>History of Greek Culture by Jakob Bruckhardt

[Anonymous No.16185091]

>>16184896
Getting lots of good recommendations! Thanks for taking the pic into account!

[Anonymous No.16186523]

>>16184225
Would you recommend this for someone who has no prior understanding of the revolution? Is it a historically accurate book?

[Anonymous No.16186593]

>>16184721
Why Men Crack

[Anonymous No.16186624]

Soldier, Priest, and God -Naiden

It’s about Alexander the Great and his conquest from Greece to India, with emphasis on the religious aspect. The author makes the claim that when he integrated the local religions and deities and inserted himself into the religious hierarchy of the places he conquered he was successful (see Mesopotamia and Egypt ) while in places where he didn’t understand the local religions he floundered (Persia to some degree, definitely India). Lots of cool maps too if you like that kind of stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Priest-God-Alexander-Great/dp/0190875348

[Anonymous No.16186694]

>>16183764
Read Dumezil

[Anonymous No.16186768]

Anyone read this before? I like it so far.

[Anonymous No.16186777]

A History of God by Armstrong

[Anonymous No.16186983]

>>16184706

I thought it was too detailed for my taste.

[Anonymous No.16187284]

A world lit only by fire is one of the dumbest fucking history books I ever read. It's like reading if history was recorded only by shitposters

Entertaining but a horrible history book

[Anonymous No.16187286]

No mention of The Satyricon yet?

[Anonymous No.16188118]

The Great Cat Massacre, about strange humor during the French Revolution.
Also, not obscure but read Herodotus, Plutarch, and Livy if you haven't.

[Anonymous No.16188186]

>>16186768
No, but I love histories of commodities. Thank you anon. Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee has a series of small essays revisiting commodities trading in the country, including an interesting study on bookselling which implies they were more popular than previous studies suggest and questions methods of counting prints from earlier studies. Nice taster for the period.

[Anonymous No.16188265]

>>16186523
>Is it a historically accurate book?
No, but many people will not notice because it popularised a lot of rumours such as Foulon's "let them eat grass" or the tricoteuses knitting the names of the executed. It's an immersive history which is great fun to read, designed to be an epic like the Iliad etc., but if you want fewer rumours as fact you're better off getting a second book which deals solely with the facts. It's well worth a read though, because it is epic.

[Anonymous No.16188639]

Anything by Barbara Tuchman is good.

[Anonymous No.16189431]

>>16188186
I find it interesting that wherever coffee went it was viewed with immediate suspicion by those in power, any recs for other books on such histories of commodities? Also, glad to help anon.

[Anonymous No.16189513]

>>16189431
Sweetness and Power: The place of sugar in modern history by Mintz

[Anonymous No.16190195]

>>16183764
Feudal Society I & II by Bloch
Cathedral, Forge And Waterwheel by Gies
The Fall Of The Roman Empire by Heather
Cartoon History Of The Universe by Gonnick
Ecology Of Freedom by Bookchin
Last War Of The World Island by Dugin

[Anonymous No.16190207]

>>16183764
I honestly have a hard time believing dragons didn't exist

[Anonymous No.16190400]

>>16189431
One I can't recommend enough is Quinine by Rocco. It starts with Jesuits, corrupt papacies, moves on through Moliere mocking Talbor, into India, the Congo and basically everything ever touched by a mosquito or empire. The only thing it's missing is Trump recommending a derivative for covid-19, but it was published in 2003 so Rocco can't really be faulted for that.

[Anonymous No.16191839]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16192112]

just got The Making of Modern Japan, anyone here read it?

[Anonymous No.16192116]

A World Apart, about gulags was pretty good!

[Anonymous No.16192296]

The Black Jacobins for a history of the Haitian Revolution
Power in the Isthmus for a modern history of Central Latin America

[Anonymous No.16192306]

>>16183764

[Anonymous No.16192649]

Slightly miffed about Lamont's Indian Rope Trick because I didn't read the subtitle and I thought it would be a history of similar tricks and not the history since the hoax newspaper report. (I've read Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio if anyone is going to rec that)
Histories of magic tricks pls?

[Anonymous No.16193811]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16193879]

>>16183764
unironically this Victorian childrensbook about the middle ages called “The story of the middle ages” from 1906. It realy conveys the sense and essential qualities of the time in a way that even some academic books cant do, and it does it succinctly and effectively. in fact, it also goes over aspects of the german tribes that would go to form the medieval nations, something that is largely overlooked on the topic. and it also deserves kudos for explaining things like the role of the church and the nature of politics in a accurate but breif manner.

i highly recommend it as someones first primer into the time period. it’s excellent. and there is an excellent reading on librivox too.

[Anonymous No.16193888]

>>16193879
Interesting.. okay cool. Ill check it out.

[Anonymous No.16193932]

>>16193888
your welcome! it really was a joy to read. it is writen with those quaint victorianism, and has a sense of measured wonder about it thats hard to get in more recent books.

again, id recommend the librivox recording. the reader sounds like your mom reading you q bedtime story before you go to sleep. very comfy.

[Anonymous No.16193957]

>>16183764
Herodotus' The Histories

Manetho's Aegypticia
>tfw the king gets killed by the hippo

[Anonymous No.16193980]

>>16193932
Ill see where I can find the recording! Or perhaps ill purchase it. I like that comfy feel. Rock rock on anon! Most interesting recommendation yet I think.

[Anonymous No.16194026]

>>16193980
thanks! librivox is just a website with free audiobook recordings from books out of copyright. they also have an app too. both are easy and i like to browse audio recording on my pc or phone.

[Anonymous No.16194078]

>>16189431
I've been looking into buying Salt:A World History, but haven't read it yet.

[Anonymous No.16194521]

>>16188186
Have you read pic related?

[Anonymous No.16194557]

>>16183764
Meetings with remarkable manuscripts is a nice book that details multiple illuminated manuscripts.

[Anonymous No.16194599]

It's arguable if it's definitively history but Three Versions of Judas by Borges is a masterful encapsulation of the historian's thought process.

https://southerncrossreview.org/49/borges-judas-eng.htm

[Anonymous No.16195036]

>>16190207
I think people were finding dino fossils and understandably freaking out. maybe there were even survivor remnants waddling or flying around. would be cool. Poor cave dino getting harassed by some annoying apes.

[Anonymous No.16195344]

>>16194521
No but it looks cool. Does it have anything about Hawaii? I always thought it was funny the word for white people is basically the name of a sugar plantation there.

[Anonymous No.16196111]

almost finished Napoleon the great, it's kino

[Anonymous No.16196225]

>>16193879
i just started reading this and it is immensely enjoyable. any more like it?

[Anonymous No.16196345]

>>16186694
How do you even find Dumezil now? I just want comfy Indo-European reading

[Anonymous No.16196822]

>>16196225
The first three in my list here
>>16190195

[Anonymous No.16196835]

Shanghai homes. It's a micro history about a few houses in shanghai throughout the 20th century

[R. No.16196841]

Not the most obscure, but it's not well-known either. The Memoirs of Giocomo Casanova. A brilliant read detailing the manners of mid-18th century Europe first hand.

[R. No.16196865]

>>16196841
Correction: Giocomo should've been Giacomo.

[Anonymous No.16196911]

Any good histories of bread? Like many i've dived into sourdough recently, and would like to read more about the history of traditional bread making which has accompanied humans for millenia

even named my starter/leaven 'The Kingdom of God' after reading a bit of matthew

Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. (Matthew 13:33)

[Anonymous No.16196943]

The Artificial River
Salem Possessed

[Anonymous No.16196957]

>>16196911
If you're interested in the religion aspect then Jacob's Six Thousand Years of Bread is a classic. It's mostly western history but it deals with a lot more of the cultural aspects. It's an old book from about the forties, so you should be able to find it pretty cheap.
If you want more modern ones with glossy pictures and recipes, Dupaigne's History of Bread I've only flicked through but looks beautiful.

[Anonymous No.16197224]

>>16196911
based and breadpilled

[Anonymous No.16197823]

anyone have some good recommendations about the renaissance and italian city-states?

[Anonymous No.16198739]

bump

[Anonymous No.16198860]

>>16197823
Begin with Burckhardt.

[Anonymous No.16198871]

>>16183764
The Paranoid Style of American Politics
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
The Nazi Conscience

[Anonymous No.16198926]

>>16198860
thats a great rec. thank you.

[Anonymous No.16199001]

>>16196225
in terms of tone and general enjoyability? im>>16193879 btw. definitely recommend Japan:An attempt at interpretation by Lafcadio Hearn. he is from the same early 20th century time period and has a similarly enjoyable writing style that trys to get at the “essence” and quality of the subject.

However, Hern’s writing is for an older audience and is somewhat more advanced. however, this allows him to be more in depth about the topic. but it has the same essential serendipity and convivial tone as The Story of the middle ages.

it is probably the best sociological dissection of the japanese i have read. though it is of its time. i have yet to read something that so thoroughly portrays the Japanese as a culture.

[Anonymous No.16199114]

>>16197823
probalby >>16198860
but i also rwad a great series calles
d the stones of venice. it mostly deals woth archetecture as you would expect, bur it also has some great details about the social atmospher and almost ancient greece like civic pride and mindset of the peoples that mixed rather harmoniously with the newer christian structures and medieval feudal system. (sorry about the sword in the pic, was from a thread where we showed those off)

also>>16183764
why are /hislit/ threads so comfy and based? on topic actually interesting conversations about actual liturature? while also not being anal no-fun zones?

[Anonymous No.16199150]

>>16199114
>the stones of venice
thanks for this great rec

[Anonymous No.16199315]

>>16199114
>why are /hislit/ threads so comfy and based?
history threads always attracted readers who a) read and b) like learning shit. it's why the mods thought his should be created because they thought it would send his posters and better educated phil/rhetoric posters there. all it did was kill his threads here for a while and create a new containment board, because mods were relying on people who didn't read and didn't like what they read and who have no broader knowledge as their source for what his posters would like. his posters said a history board would be a pol clusterfuck, so most of them left because they couldn't post here or on pol2.0
if you go through the archives for his threads the old ones are even more based (no offense to anons itt)

[Anonymous No.16199683]

>>16199315
sounds plausible. i dont go on his much, not necessarily because its /pol/ but because its full of reddit tier factorino posters copy pastaing the last thing they heard on their favorite youtube channel ad nausam. its less the political bent of the board and more its quality of history. they could be pol posting 24/7, but if they at least had something interesting to say i wouldnt care (same with the opisite really).

my pet theory is the /hislit/ filters out the pseuds from both lit and his. /his/ just doesnt read primary sources (again refer back to yt copypasta opinions), but aee interested in a grounded topic. /lit/ at least pretends to read, but usually revolves into shit flinging about a small number of abstract things (idealism/materialism, religion, political forms, big name phil, and obscure phil, etc).

puting the two together gives people who are inclined to read (/lit/ itself is a insulator from a lot of the other board’s retardation because there is a sense you have to at least pretbed tou have read) and have a specific grounded topic to read about.

i ironically/lit/ is usually a better /his/ board than /his/.

[Anonymous No.16200835]

bump

[Anonymous No.16201367]

ok

[Anonymous No.16202036]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16202275]

>>16194026
Ended up hitting up this website, it really is a wonderful thing! And you were right, the audio for your recommendation is comfy as heck!

[Anonymous No.16202438]

I found reading 'Empire of the Summer Moon' and 'Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World' in close succession to be interesting. The parallels between Quanah Parker and Ghengis Khan as two leaders of barbarous horsemen who as children suffered severe loss of status when their fathers were killed, and whose rise to become leading warlords of their people was started with disputes over their wives were interesting; as was the obvious dissimilarities between the Commanches and Mongols.
Jack Weatherford is kind of a crank on the subject of the Mongols being essentially prototypes for our modern liberal world though, so if anyone has any better suggestions for that side I'd be happy to hear them.

[Anonymous No.16202607]

>>16186777
Based God digits

[Anonymous No.16202761]

>>16190195
>Cartoon History Of The Universe by Gonnick
Great teaching tool
>>16189431
>any recs for other books on such histories of commodities?
For labour power, Hammond & Hammond, plus Engels Condition. For the commodity in general the world systems theory guys are pretty useful.

[Anonymous No.16202766]

>>16189431
Braudel is chock full of shit like that, it's just disorganized sometimes

Cippola

Pirenne

[Anonymous No.16202796]

>>16183764
Hijacking this thread to ask what is the best history book about Alexander the Great?

[Anonymous No.16203002]

[Anonymous No.16203019]

>>16203002
Go away nazi troll.

[Anonymous No.16203071]

Got me into history.

[Anonymous No.16203453]

>>16202796
Start with Arrian. Some anon was doing a deep dive in Alexander recently so he might show up with more modern works

[Anonymous No.16203574]

>>16203071
lol pissing off my teacher with this book was priceless
>Miss, why was Napoleon afraid of cats?
>Miss, do pyramids really make razors sharper?
>Miss, do we know how many mummies are real and how many are just murdered Victorians done by amateurs for money?
Good times

[Anonymous No.16204221]

Nice thread is nice

[Anonymous No.16204788]

Making of Modern Japan by Marius Jansen

[Anonymous No.16205239]

>>16204788
Good book. Can anyone reccomend any books on Japanese art history

[Anonymous No.16205249]

>>16205239
I read one by Timon Screech arguing that all the floating world pictures were meant for masturbation and weren't some sterile art objects like most historians want to believe. Sex and The Floating World is the title if you're interested.

[Anonymous No.16205275]

>>16205249
Sounds interesting, thanks anon

[Anonymous No.16205340]

>>16202796
Peter Green's biography is supposed to be pretty good.

[Anonymous No.16206049]

>>16205340
Fleetwood Mac kind of sucks though

[Anonymous No.16206147]

>>16206049
Very funny.

[Anonymous No.16206447]

>>16206147
Lmao ;)

This does seem good though obviously.

[Anonymous No.16206793]

>>16183764
Boys in Zinc, Svetlana Alexievich

[Anonymous No.16208190]

Bump though judging by the catalog this will be dead by morning and posts about twitter will be most of the front page

[Anonymous No.16208252]

>>16203019
What?

[Anonymous No.16208358]

>>16208190
Such is the way of things, here on lit. I got some good recommendations anyway this time around.

[Anonymous No.16208396]

>>16183764
this is the most important novel of our time
https://seanald.ca/introduction-to-conspiracies/
https://seanald.ca/platos-allegory/
https://seanald.ca/alexander-the-wanderer/

[Anonymous No.16208412]

>>16208358
>>16208190
this board is dog shit, real conversation isn't encouraged. Any time i've seen it happen some faggot nigger comes along and posts some communist books and demands

[Anonymous No.16208503]

What's this like? I tried making a thread on it earlier.

[Anonymous No.16208777]

>>16192649
Ordered Steinmayer's Great Deception. If it's fun I'm going to get his Hiding the Elephant. I'll let you all know if it's prestigious or not in two weeks or however long it takes to arrive. Any other recs still welcome.

[Anonymous No.16208783]

>>16208777
Steinmeyer*

[Anonymous No.16208915]

Good general history of the absolute clusterfuck that is cold war era Africa?
I've heard of A Continent for the Taking

[Anonymous No.16208988]

ITT historians soapbox their own books shamelessly.

[Anonymous No.16209027]

>>16208915
Haven't read it but ANC: A View From Moscow was written by one of the Soviet pointmen who worked with the ANC and South African communists during the cold war. I'm sure it's unlikely to be unbiased due to that but it might be worth a look.

[Anonymous No.16209037]

>>16208988
You seem bitter.

[Anonymous No.16209068]

>>16209037
Hush anon, we could easily convince him one of us is Arrian or Burckhardt. I call dibs on being Petronius.

[Anonymous No.16209079]

>>16208988
You should definitely read The Satyricon. I think it's my best work.

[Anonymous No.16209118]

>>16208988
Have you even read the thread retard

[Anonymous No.16209155]

>>16186768
Tea was invented by Africa, not Chinese

[Anonymous No.16209181]

>>16209155
The book's about the rise of tea culture in China though. Do you have a book about tea in Africa?
Or does anyone have a book about Lloyd's of London when it was a coffeeshop? I'll be your bestest fren if you do.

[Anonymous No.16209243]

>>16209027
thanks mang

[Anonymous No.16209311]

>>16209243
Oh and if you want a mindtwister, Cold Case Hammarskjold is a movie about a conspiracy that could be made up by one guy as a fantasy, or could be a white South African and MI6/CIA plot to assassinate a UN secretary general.

[Anonymous No.16209384]

>>16208358
>>16208190
And that is a good thing. its called the diamond in the rough affect, if this thread was constantly number 1 it wouldnt be insulated from shit.

[Anonymous No.16209764]

>>16209118
You ever worked with other historians? You ever read how much not suited to long form books there are in OUP or Toutledge (it’s a typo but they’re yours so I’m sticking with it) catalogues?

You ever see the endless dissertation conversions that should have just been indexed for the next specialist that make no valuable claims in interpretation technique, content, methodology or theory? Note originality is not value.

Also that prick trying to sell his Satyricon I’ve got no idea how you got it through the advisors committee because it is more fictitious than Herotodus’ made up oral history sources. This is seriously the state of classical education today.

[Anonymous No.16210128]

[Anonymous No.16211876]

>>16209764
My Satyricon is a super serious work tyvm.

[Anonymous No.16212028]

>>16203019
based schizo

[Anonymous No.16212031]

>>16208988
Is that you Orlando?

[Anonymous No.16212046]

>>16208252
>>16212028
Durant supports a racialised white supremacist view of the world where Europeans need to retake their injured reality back through radical reconstitutive reaction of the culture.

He also force fucks his "sources" until they break like your hymen in preschool.

If we could bring people back from the dead, we could shoot him.

[Anonymous No.16212079]

>>16212046
Your arguments might be better supported by a book rather than talking like a tranny.

[Anonymous No.16212096]

>>16212079
Search the fucking /lit/ archive nonce.

[Anonymous No.16212110]

>>16212046
>>16212096
Good job shitting up the thread schizo.

[Anonymous No.16212139]

>>16183764
I read/listen to a ton of history so out of tons here are the ones that really stand out:

>A World Undone - best single volume history of WWI. Gives lots of context and a nice linear narrative. You can look at the Guns of August for the start of the War, Splintered Empires for the East, Ring of Steel for Germany and AH, or a Peace to End All Peace for diplomacy in the Middle East, but none puts it all together as well.

Christianity: The First 3,000 Years, a solid time covering the origins and development of the Church from its Greek and Jewish roots through today.

The Great Game - Russian and British espionage and exploration in Central Asia in the 19th century. Filled with cool stories and helps explain the lead up to WWI. True, insane stories of people going across Asia when it is unmarked.

[Anonymous No.16212146]

>>16212139
>The Great Game - Russian and British espionage and exploration in Central Asia in the 19th century.
Excellent. It's weird that period isn't mentioned more because it's were Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle and most of the typical well read kids books come from. In more recent times I've been shilling it because I want people to know This is why you never Afghanistan.

[Anonymous No.16212165]

>>16212139
>The Great Game

Great book. In steve coll's ghost wars there's a mention how Mohammad Najibullah spent the last weeks of his life translating it into pashto believing the book holds the answers to why Afghanistan is doomed to repeat its mistakes

[Anonymous No.16212224]

For those interested in WWII, this is a required tome.

[Anonymous No.16212239]

>>16212046
>Durant supports a racialised white supremacist view of the world where Europeans need to retake their injured reality back through radical reconstitutive reaction of the culture.

Sure, but is this view false? Is it unsupported that Europeans have created everything of value in history?

[Anonymous No.16212251]

Volume 3 when?

[Anonymous No.16212279]

>>16212251
When miura finishes berserk

[Anonymous No.16212310]

>>16212251

Is Kotkin actually good? I've got him on my list.

[Anonymous No.16212351]

>>16212310
Yes. Impeccable research

[Anonymous No.16212475]

>>16212239
>of value
By his own mouth condemned: eisegesis.

[Anonymous No.16212505]

What do anons recommend on Che Guevara and his period in general?

[Anonymous No.16212647]

>>16212475

Pseud waffling. There's no point in belaboring the subject, because value is OBJECTIVE.

[Anonymous No.16212745]

>>16192112
By Marius B. Jansen? Yes, I've read it.

[Anonymous No.16213553]

>>16212239
You know thats not true, Come on.

[Anonymous No.16214338]

Anyone have any recommendations on Cossacks, Lithuania (before Poland ruined everything) or Kiev Rus?

[Anonymous No.16214503]

>>16184456
I just watched a documentary about the Battle of Midway last night and it featured one of the authors of Shattered Sword. Haven't read it but it sounds interesting.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a history of the 30 Years' War?

[Anonymous No.16214517]

>>16183764
Surprised nobody has recommended this yet. I'm just a bit into it now and it's been very informative.

[Anonymous No.16214531]

>>16214503
Wedgewood often gets recommended on /his/, but it is an older book and there might be newer works with more modern historiography out there.

[Anonymous No.16214558]

>>16183764

Nations and Nationalism since 1780, by Eric Hobsbawm

[Anonymous No.16214658]

>>16214531
Thanks.

[Anonymous No.16214762]

>>16214503
Like the other anon said Wedgewood. I'd also recommend peter h. wilson's book but keep in mind wilson's book is incredibly detailed

[Anonymous No.16214920]

>>16212647
Keep it up. You’re money in the fucking bank. Tell me about your reading technique for archives given you suborn them to your universal object?

[Anonymous No.16215060]

anyone got digital the revolt of 1916 in russian central asia by edward dennis sokol?

[Anonymous No.16215204]

I was at my local gun shop today, and the owner told me that his father, who had passed a few months ago, was an avid reader and has thousands of history tomes, mostly WWI, WWII, etc. He invited me to come look at them some time.

I can only imagine what will be in there.

[Anonymous No.16215573]

>>16215204
Could be a jackpot. Could be your standard pop history section of a major chain store. Keep us posted.

[Anonymous No.16215604]

>>16215204
Mostly it’ll be readers digest grade militaria. If you’re lucky there’ll be rarer short run autobiography from tertiary theatres.

[Anonymous No.16215768]

>>16215204
Go see if there's early editions of Lawrence's Seven Pillars or Churchill's WWII series.

[Anonymous No.16215942]

>>16209181
>book about Lloyd's of London when it was a coffeeshop? I'll be your bestest fren if you do.
Depends how rich you are
>Very rich
Bryant Lillywhite
>Kinda rich
Aytoun Ellis, Markman Ellis
>poorfag
You might have to get something about the history of insurance or candle auctions

[Anonymous No.16216026]

>>16199683
spot on desu

[Anonymous No.16216095]

>>16214531
>>16214503
Wedgewood is good. Professional historians dislike it as a last gasp of mainstream great man theory and her need to make a moral judgement on each figure. Whether or not you like that sort of history it's a pretty good overview with some good socio-political history about before and after.

Also some idiots will say they wont read a book by a woman about war but frankly she did very well.

[Anonymous No.16216099]

>>16215573

Some of his books were already at the shop and there were some original German texts in there, and stuff like Speer's memoirs. I think it may be a goldmine. A literal lifetime of collecting historical works whenever he fancied them.

>>16215604
>Readers Digest grade

This is not the impression I got of the collection, as it were. Besides, depending on your definition of Readers Digest, I can handle that. I read Ambrose.

>>16215768

Will take a look.

Totally unrelated story, but this past Friday I picked up a copy of Len Deighton's WWII volume (what? I like his fiction!) at an antique store. Today, I saw the same damned book at Goodwill for $1.49. Funny how life arranges things in that order, isn't it?

[Anonymous No.16216993]

>>16208777
>>16208783
I'm a retard who can't spell. Title is Glorious Deception, not "Great"
Still /r/ing histories of magic

[Anonymous No.16217532]

>>16208190
Another one of those nights. Bumping

[Anonymous No.16218129]

>>16204788

Side note I'm choosing my PhD topic and I'm split between focusing on China or Japan. My wife is Taiwanese is it weird if I choose Japan?

[Anonymous No.16218134]

>>16218129
A lot of Taiwan might choose Japan if given an option

[Anonymous No.16218151]

>>16183764
Josephus' Jewish War was an emotional rollercoaster.

[Anonymous No.16218327]

>>16218134
They really hate China atm and have a hard on for Japan so I wouldn't be surprised. I'm probably leaning towards Japan.

[Anonymous No.16218486]

anybody read The Search for modern China?

[Anonymous No.16218871]

>>16218129
>>16218327
Why not all three? Japan, China and Formosa/Taiwan. There you go.

[Anonymous No.16218878]

>>16218129
>>16218327
What languages do you know? You could study the Japanese colonial regime on Taiwan, or some of its major thinkers. You could also study the Taiwanese experience of the 15 Years War - almost everyone talks about Korea and the mainland, but I've yet to hear much about Taiwan.

[Anonymous No.16218963]

>>16183764
Faces of Battle
Northern Armageddon

I am a sucker for works that focus on individual people in larger events

[Anonymous No.16219050]

>>16218878
I speak/read & write at an intermediate to advanced level in Japanese while my Mandarin & written Chinese is above a beginners but not as good as my Japanese. I guess with Chines my wife could help me catch up.

[Anonymous No.16219078]

>>16219050
Your wife can't do the work for you, dude. It sucks that you're about to start your dissertation, but you might want to devote half your day to reading in Japanese and Chinese and the other half to actual research. There's no substitute for knowing the language.
Also, if you know both, why not do both? Comparative/transnational work is in vogue right now. What themes would you want to research, and what time period would you want to specialize in?

[Anonymous No.16219097]

>>16212505
No recommendations?

[Anonymous No.16219370]

>>16219097
You can read his diaries

[Anonymous No.16219405]

>>16219370
Yes I'm going to read those, but I'm also looking for a scholarly work on the political climate of the time and his role in it.

[Anonymous No.16219418]

>>16219405
Which political climate? Foco madness in carribean islands? West African revolution? Dying alone in South America? Rich fuck imperialist lackies in seppostania? Soviet-Style society hysteria?

[Anonymous No.16219422]

>>16219418
I guess I'm looking for a work that explains his role in the grand scheme of things, so probably all of those.

[Anonymous No.16219441]

>>16219422
THERE IS NO GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS.

ffs.

Metanarratives are fundamentally whiggish shite. Look at the heaping up of contingencies and continuous referral back to the source material in Thompson or Hill, or when he's actually on a good day and doing history rather than Theology, Hobsbaum in Bandits!

There is no grand scheme of things for Che to be significant in. Only pathetic deaths in backwaters shitting yourself. If you have a horse in the game, the point is to make the bourgeoisie shit themselves as you chamber another round. To that end, Che was an adequate colonel who got lucky militarily, but his movement failed grossly and abjectly from a political standpoint because it was substitutionalist. He then attempted to repeat his luck in Africa and South America and failed.

[Anonymous No.16219451]

>>16219441
Anon you must understand I almost never read historical books, so all of that is new to me. This why I'm asking for books.

[Anonymous No.16219474]

>>16219451
Okay, so historians have some rules about history:

There is no big story, only many many little stories.
Humans like to invent big stories, so to prevent this we will read *SO VERY MANY* little stories that the informed and correct reading and comparison of little stories will mean we are more likely to lie less.
Also we should tell as small a story as possible.
Nothing means anything. (HISTORIANS HAD THIS WAY BEFORE POSTMODERNISTS, BECAUSE WE TOOK READING SERIOUSLY BEFORE YOUSE CUNCE INVENTED NEW CRITICISM EVEN).
Therefore when we tell a story, the only way our own bias should be included is by the choice of what kind of story to tell. But when we tell it, all the little stories (carefully read) out weigh anything we want to say.

We don't talk about "meanings" because to me Che is a nomenklatura substitutionalist turd who needed to be hanged by the Cuban working class for crimes against revolutionary communism. This upsets *a lot of people* who want Che to mean something different. So instead I talk about the gross incapacity of the cuban revolutionary movement, its absurd luck, its failure in West Africa, and Che's pathetic death attempting to be lucky a third time.

People have tried to make Che mean things, and we can talk about what people have tried to make Che mean, but Che means nothing. Nor does Stalin. Nor Hitler. Nor the Working Class in England, nor the English Working Class. But we can tell coherent stories about those things that are not refuted by trustworthy readings of primary archival sources.

See the picture above with the family waiting to stab the guy who reads wikipedia? The fellow academic who shared it with me said, "Second year students."

[Anonymous No.16219485]

I was just about to make a thread asking this but then I've seen this thread, hope someone can give me a response.

I'm really interested in the Roman period, all the way from the last kings to the fall of the Western Roman empire. I'd like to learn more about it since my knowledge on it is subpar. Should I read Cassius Dio's and Titus Livius's books or do you guys have any recommendations?

[Anonymous No.16219516]

>>16219474
I see. Thank you for the detailed explanation, since as I said I had never seriously engaged with history as a field. Considering your rules, I am looking for a book that explains these "stories" about Che, as well as the causes that made these stories happen and the effects that these stories brought upon. If there is such a work that does all this in a single work, I'd be very glad to read it. If not, I'd also appreciate if you could recommend a collection of books to this end.

[Anonymous No.16219536]

>>16219474
Why are you telling lies about history?

[Anonymous No.16219559]

>>16219474

Schizopost.

[Anonymous No.16219681]

>>16219516
I think that's just that anon's way of saying he doesn't have a book for you. I rec'd his diaries because he'll outline a lot of his influences (Jose Marti, RL Stevenson, what he thinks of different politicians/revolutionaries). If you want to go broader you can get books on Guatamala and Bolivian revolutions which will mention him (or books on any of the other events he mentions)
His writings are a really good start. You can pick up books for things he talks about in them if you want to go deeper into any aspect.
I can't remember the title but there is one something like Che and his Image which explains how his face became a meme. You'll also find a lot of stuff that discusses the context after him, like about Fidel, but if you want to understand how he got started, his diaries and other books are your best starting point.

[Anonymous No.16219694]

>>16219474
Remember to take your meds schizo-anon

>>16219516
Don't take that post too seriously, you should be able to tell that he is mentally ill by the way he types. There are many approaches to writing history (not the same as historiography). Some focus on the human aspect, usually with a focus on small intimate stories and how individuals react to and interpret events that happen around them. It could be a story about a single soldier and his experience in war through a diary or interviews, or a larger narrative based on collected letters or first hand accounts from many people involved and their families.

Moving a bit further out you have history that tries to detail an event or sequence of events from a more distant perspective, to explain cause and consequence, why events unfolded as they did, who the main actors were, what motivated them to make the decisions they did and so on. Histories of a specific war, the events leading up to hostilities, troop movements, decisive events etc. These often include first hand accounts and descriptions of individual experiences woven into the text, to give historical flavour, for example by referencing letters or statements made by commanders or individual soldiers, but the focus is on the grand scheme.

Then you have macro history which tries to weave many scattered developments and conflicts into a larger global narrative. Instead of dealing with the invasion of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 as separate incidents you can compare them to each other, see them in relation to foreign and internal policies which governed relations between the USSR and the US, and draw parallels to events in Latin America and elsewhere in the world. Grander perspectives tend to result in a loss of focus, and it encourages authors to draw wide ranging conclusions that might not necessarily be true.

As for you Che, I am not that well versed in Latin American history. I know Chomsky has written quite a bit about various conflicts in the region, so you might take a look at his bibliography and see if you spot something interesting. Biographies are usually a very nice way to ease yourself into a person or a time period, so that is what I would do. And then you can branch out into what you find interesting or want to learn more about, whether it is Fidel, relations with the USSR and USA, relations with other insurgencies in Latin America/Africa and so on.

[Anonymous No.16219695]

>>16219485
It's a really big subject, so anything in one volume is going to skim over a lot. Do you want lots of books or babby's first intro? If it's lots of books then you need Julius Caesar and Tertullian and Plutarch and Gibbon's Decline and Fall and plenty of others anons can pile on with. You could even extend it into the Holy Roman Empire which is basically German history, and probably long after what you're thinking of as "Roman".

[Anonymous No.16219706]

>>16219516
>>16219681
Remembered the title. Che's Afterlife.

[Anonymous No.16219793]

>>16219485
Do you want academic history or pop history? I will list a mix of both.

Anthony Everitt - pop history, a good introduction that is enjoyable and easy to read, I've read and enjoyed all his books on rome though they do have some pacing issues at times.
Richard Miles - pop history, carthage must be destroyed is good.
Christopher Mackay - military history.
Adrian Goldsworthy - semi-academic, generally considered to have written the best biographies on Caesar and Augustus, has a multitude of books on the late republic/early empire and all are worth reading.
Michael Parenti - alternate/revisionist take on caesar.
Caesar - propaganda-take on caesar by caesar himself, prepare to read a lot about corn and logistics.
Peter Heather - academic, for the barbarian invasions, collapse of the Western Empire and formation of the new european nations.
Adrienne Mayor - pop history, poison king is a good read.
Mary Beard - academic, SPQR is worth a read but is not entry-level, assumes you are already familiar with important events in roman history, has more of a social perspective.
Gibbon - 12 volumes of roman history, some would consider it outdated but in my opinion it is not really an issue, it is beautifully written, literary
Mommsen - another multi-volume work, often mentioned alongside gibbon as a very good take on roman history

Polybius
Livy
Suetonius
Sallust
Cassio Dio
I would receommend you not to start with these before you have a general impression of the time period they cover. At least you should be aware that their claims might not be trustworthy, as they all have varying degrees of ideological or political luggage included in their texts. For example, if caesar spends any amount of time describing an enemy in positive terms, then you can be sure that it is to make his subsequent victory more grand in the eyes of the reader.

[Anonymous No.16219922]

>>16219793
>Mary Beard - academic, SPQR is worth a read but is not entry-level

SPQR is unbearably revisionist.

[Anonymous No.16220068]

>>16219681
>>16219694
>>16219706
Thank you very much anons.

[Anonymous No.16220161]

>>16183764
Joan of Arc, her story by Regine Pernoud
Women in the days of the cathedrals, same author
Les rythmes au Moyen-Âge, Jean Claude Schmitt (extremely interesting, sadly not translated so i'm just adding it here in case you might be fluent in french)
On another subject, Peter Hopkin's the Great Game is a comfy read, almost novel like. "The Prize: the epic quest for oil money & power" by Daniel Yergin I remember liking a lot too; the Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark for WW1 and his book "Iron Kingdom" for a history of Prussia (bit dry that one); "The Mask of Command" by John Keegan, a history of military leadership through the study of four commanders (Alexander, the duke of Wellington, Ulysses S. Grant and Hitler)

[Anonymous No.16220475]

>>16219922
It is good to see things from differing perspectives, even if you happen to disagree/dislike a given work

[Anonymous No.16220715]

>>16219474
One of the worst posts in an otherwise great thread.

[Anonymous No.16221200]

>>16186777
>777
Blessed

[Anonymous No.16221577]

>>16215204
let us know if you find anything good my nigger