10/10 history book thread
>>7710791
Zinn is a joke when you consider higher level conspiracy theories
>>7710798
Can you elaborate please?
Polybius, Plutarch and Livy
>>7710899
Can't, they might go after me.
Follow the yellow brick road.
>>7710791
That book will knock you on your ass
Here's some decent suggestions:
Yurop Edition:
>Fowler, William M. - Empires at War
The Seven Years' War, and the French and Indian War
>Gilbert, Stuart - The Great War
World War I
>le Goff, Jacques - Medieval Civilization
>Kamen, Henry - The Spanish Inquisition
(unexpected)
>Milford, Nancy - The Sun King
King Louis XIV of France
>MacMillan, Margaret - Paris 1919
>Shrer, William L. - The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler
(My special gift to /pol/)
>Wedgewood, C.V. - The Thirty Years War
Antiquity Edition:
>Layard, A.H. - Nineveh and Babylon
>Livy - The War with Hannibal
(Barca, not Lecter)
>Seutonius - The Twelve Caesars
Julius to Domitian
Merry Old England Edition:
>Asher, Michael - The Regiment
(A pop-history but in-depth and fun look at the Special Air Service)
>Chadwick, Hora - The Celts
>Hole, Christina - Witchcraft in Britain
(A bit editorialized, but a fun read)
>James, Lawrence - The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
>Macaulay, Thomas Babington - The History of England from the Accession of James I
>of Monmouth, Geoffrey - The History of the Kings of England
>Neale, J.E. - Elizabeth I
>Wilson, A.N. - The Victorians
'Murica Edition (with bonus bombastic titles):
>Herring, George C. - From Colony to Superpower
U.S. Foreign Relations
>Howe, Daniel Walker - What Hath God Wrought
US from 1815 to 1848
>Kennedy, David M. - Freedom from Fear
Great Depression + WWII
>McCullough, David - Truman
(A boring title for a kickass biography of a based president)
>McPherson - Battle Cry of Freedom
American Civil War
>Middlekauf, Robert - The Glorious Cause
American Revolution
>Patterson, James T. - Grand Expectations
End of WWII through Vietnam War
>Patterson, James T. - Restless Giant
Watergate through Bush v. Gore
Wood, Gordon S. - Empire of Liberty
The end of the French and Indian War through to the end of the War of 1812
(Most of these are available in a beautifully bound hardcover set from Oxford University Press)
Boring-ass Canadian History Edition:
>Blackburn, George G. - The Guns of Victory
Canadians in World War II
>McKillop, A.B. - Pierre Berton
As for Howard Zinn, to those unfamiliar, he does a good job of introducing young people to historiography and helping them question what they're told, but he also pushes a very obvious narrative cleverly disguised as objective fact, and some of the stuff printed in A People's History of the United States either misrepresents history or is (rarely) just flat out wrong. It's a great read for your junior AP history class, or to get somebody interested in history, but don't cite it in any essays kids, and don't take Zinn's word as gospel. Unlike most other modern academic historians, he approaches history from a point of view of ideological bias rather than an earnest search for truth. Most of his book is fact, but it's not what he prints on the page, but rather what he leaves out, that you should be concerned with.
>>7711030
Thank you
>>7711030
Wow, why do you suggest so many outdated source texts? Did you even read any of the books you listed?
This. A masterpiece.
>>7711083
>Did you even read any of the books you listed?
Yes. Of course.
>Wow, why do you suggest so many outdated source texts?
Prose quality mostly (I'm not a historian, just an interested reader), alongside historical accuracy and/or historiographic significance.
Babington's history is important and significant enough to the British Empire's view of itself that it would be a crime not to include it. Layard was a fantastic archaeologist and a good hand at history and his book left enough of an impact for me to include it. Monmouth's Kings is just a damn cool read. Seutonius and Livy I included for obvious reasons.
All other authors are either living or have died within the last 50 or so years.
Bonus:
>David G. Chandler - The Campaigns of Napoleon
>>7710519
What do you like about this book?
>>7710519
i was eyeing this at the thrift store a couple days ago. if it's still there i'll pick it up.
"A world Lit only by Fire" is fun.
"Lawrence in Arabia" is fucking great and also very well researched.
McPherson - Battle Cry of Freedom
Very, very, very, very good.
Lee was a shit general, and after you read this book you'll be able to rub it in the faces of autistic southerners and cuckolded yanks.
Any recommendations for a general book on the Renaissance in Italy?
>>7710519
1584, a Year of No Significance
How Did The Red Sun Rise: The Cause And Effect Of the Yan'an Rectification Movement
"The World Turned Upside Down" by Christopher Hill about the English Revolution. It makes you realize just how many different ways English history could have branched off. The England we know today as a nation of small shopkeepers was in no way inevitable.
>Wow, why do you suggest so many outdated source texts?
Look at this guy. Nothing is outdated when it comes to history. Views change dramatically and often, so only thing that's written in stone are primary sources. For popular knowledge you're just as good with centuries old book, as you are with one released a weak ago.
The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization is perfect example of this. It takes modern liberal view of dark ages again on the head and shows them as dark again.
>>7710798
>higher level conspiracy theories
think those are called politics anon
King Leopold's Ghost
about Belgian colonies in Africa
Robert Oppenheimer: A life inside the center
a very detailed, enticingly written biography of Oppenheimer that doubles as a history of the quantum revolution, and as a history of the atomic bomb
>>7711900
King Leopold's ghost was great.
This one is good:
>>7711821
>Nothing is outdated when it comes to history.
blankface.jpg
>>7711030
>le Goff, Jacques - Medieval Civilization
Why is this recommended over Bishop's work of the same content?
King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hoschild
Anything by Giles Milton, can recommend:
Nathaniel's Nutmeg
Big Chief Elizabeth
White Gold
By Bill Bryson:
A Short History of Nearly Everything
At Home
Instead of reading shitty historians I just read memoirs whenever I can. Closest you'll get to what actually happened and definitely not sensationalized.
I recommend The Diary of a Napoleonic Soldier and David Kenyan Webster's book about being in Easy Company of the 506. That's for starters, and I think they're great. Especially Webster. His stuff is where Ambrose stole/got the bulk of BoB.
Just finished The Black Jacobins, the Marxist apologetics were ridiculous but as far as a cynical history of revolutionary war it was great.
>>7711030
>Macaulay
Disgustedchurchill.jpeg
Best history book for ancient Greece and the best poetry book.
>>7712915
Read Arthur Conan Doyle's version, it drips with outrage.
>>7712920
>not kagan
>>7712927
Not him, but I never read Kagan.
Which book of his can you recommend?
>>7712927
His book the Peloponnesian War is great but for the whole history of Greece Bury is better.
This is a ridiculous thread; it is completely contingent on what period you're interested in. It's like when people say, 'recommend a TV show'. At least give a loose preference.
>>7713057
Did you forget to take your Ritalin, friend?
>>7713057
>recommend a history TV show
Leon Trotsky - A History of The Russian Revolution
>>7713057
Quiet, you
anyone with me?
Decline of the West
>>7712794
Because I've never read Morris Bishop. Maybe I'll pick up a copy of The MIddle Ages sometime, though the period doesn't interest me all that much.
>>7710791
Cherry picking: the book
>>7712775
>wordsworth history books
Glory and the Dream is a pretty great history of America from 1932-1972.
Does social and political history and blends them well. Long though.
Ghost Wars is a great read. It's a history of the US involvement in Afghanistan in before 2001.
Endgame is probably the best, least biased history of the Iraq War. Most are shit.
Too Big to Fail was a good history of the 2008 financial meltdown. Fun to read too.
Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton is also good.
A World Undone is my top reccomendation. Best WWI history I've seen. Lot's of background on the history of each state and does culture as well.
Meredith's The Fate of Africa is a good one volume history of post colonial Africa but is kind of a mile wide and an inch deep.
Evan's Third Reich trilogy is great and btfos The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich but is dry.
>>7710519
nah
>>7714233
What strengths does Evans have over Shirer? Shirer dramatized things too often right?
>>7712920
Bury's Greece is outdated, sorry friend. It's too bad, because the prose is excellent.
>>7711900
Second.
It's eerie how a Western nation can take over part of Africa, kill over 10 million people (half of the population) looking for rubber and ivory, and nobody seems to remember that it ever happened.
>>7714274
People remember, people just remember Rwanda more.
Debt: the First 5000 Years by David Graeber will make you realize everything you have been taught about money is wrong.
Also, I've heard that "Adam Smith in Beijing" is good, but I haven't picked it up yet. Anyone else read it?
>>7714233
Seconding Evan’s Trilogy, he mixes humanity and statistics so eloquently.
>>7714280
The worst part is that the same thing is basically still going on today. The Congo has been cannibalized since the mid-1990s, though this time for its mineral wealth, and it is just not in the public consciousness.
>ctrl-f kagan
>2 results
sometimes, /lit/ comes through
>>7714282
>will make you realize everything you have been taught about money is wrong
>>7714302
>Kagan is stupid
You really aren't making a good case for your high school tier book on how "everything I've been taught about money is wrong"
>>7714253
Yeah. He also let's a lot of personal invective creep in.
Evan's does way more in explaining how Nazism effected the arts, the academy, and day to day life. He paints a much more nuanced picture and excerpts from dairies round this out.
He's also just more accurate on arrest stats, financial ledgers, ect. He spends 1500 pages or so on 1924-1939 so you get far more info on pre-war Germany.
>>7712775
What did you think of Braudel's account of capitalism? Especially compared to the general Weberian idea and to Marx.
I found the thesis of it existing in certain sectors of the economy, and then invading others, really compelling. But I could never figure out to what extent Braudel was a hardcore materialist. There are a few little telling moments when he equates "civilisation" with "tradition," and sort of makes them an impediment to technological/material change but one which will always EVENTUALLY erode. I really wish he'd say more. But that's Braudel for you. Frustrating French fuck.
>>7714313
u stupid anon, u stupd
>>7714332
Hee haw, classical narrative is more important than a global perspective
>>7714286
Oh Mumbutu was doing it all through independence. The 1990s was all all the surrounding nations and tribal factions scavenging on DRC's corpse.
Dancing in the Shadow of the Monster is on that period. Own it but haven't read it yet.
>>7714290
Well, Graeber is right though.
Money, in the form of coins, begins to appear in the wake of armies. Armies steal items they find valuable, items that play a unique role in social functions (for instance a marauding Babylonian army would steal bronze alter pieces from Jewish temples) and turn them into coins that could be exchanged quickly for goods and services within a wide geographic area. There is also the fact that demanding taxes from a conquered population is a quick and effective way of interpolating them into the economy and bureaucracy of the conquering power. It has been used up to modern times, for instance in King Leopold's Congo.
On the other hand, in traditional societies, money does not grow out of the limitations of bartering (as we are usually taught). Instead, goods and services are exchanged between people in order to build social bonds.
It really turns our understanding of money on its head.
>>7714360
>Money, in the form of coins, begins to appear in the wake of armies.
>>7714337
I'll check out "Dancing . . ." Thank you for the suggestion.
>>7714360
>Instead, goods and services are exchanged between people in order to build social bonds.
yeah, it's called free trade u communist piece of shit, try reading fukuyamas first book, he goes into how the groups that traded freely and efficiently prospered while wacko groups who shut themselves off from their neighbors ended up backwards and shitty
i think graeber is a bogus dude and i wouldn't be surprised to see his shit get exposed as he is another suspect "rockstar sociologist" guy that built his career on field research that no one can verify
>>7714297
Lawrence James' Rise and Fall is probably a little bit more general than what you're looking for, but it's a good place to start on the subject.
Try Nurad Chauduri's Clive of India and The Continent of Circe (Circe is more sociological than historical, but is still good). He's quite clearly heavily biased, but he's a decent writer and just what you're looking for. Disclaimer: I haven't read Clive of India, but it's been highly recommended to me by an old history prof.
You should check out Alfred Draper's The Amritsar Massacre as well.
There's a couple of books by Eric Stokes that might interest you too: The English Utilitarians and India; as well as The Peasant Armed: The Indian Revolt of 1857. Both are quite dry, but I think you'll like them.
>>7714398
How are you enjoying retirement, Dr. Paul?
>>7711250
Really great. I appreciate it getting away from the "IT WAS ALL GERMANY'S FAULT! GERMANS ARE BRUTISH BARBARIANS" shit that's been en vogue since the '60s while not making Germany and Austria blameless and also shining light on the true enemy of mankind.
Serbs.
>>7714529
I can't Thank You enough,anon.
Maybe this will help me reconcile my past as an Indian who has suffered alienation and an acute identity crisis all his life because of the partition of '47. It's almost existentially important for me to find my bearings with History. I'm starting with J.A Hobson as of now. Will go one step at a time to find out the root of Imperialism/Colonialism.
>>7714620
>Since the '60s
Since 1914, Friendo
>>7714628
don't forget to read Kipling
>>7711250
Does it talk about the Bagdadbahn?
Great general history of Rwanda and its badass president who overcame seemingly impossible challenges before, during, and after genocide. the place should be a flaming wreck but its pretty great right now thanks to him.
