Today:
Saturday Reading and Research will focus on exactly that: the history you have been reading this week and the research you've been working on. It's also the prime thread for requesting books on a particular subject. As with all our weekly features, this thread will be lightly moderated.
So, encountered a recent biography of Stalin that revealed all about his addiction to ragtime piano? Delved into a horrendous piece of presentist and sexist psycho-evolutionary mumbo-jumbo and want to tell us about how bad it was? Need help finding the right book to give the historian in your family? Then this is the thread for you!
To supplement my current study of the American Civil War, I was wondering if you guys had anything you considered 'required reading' on the generals. I'm particularly interested in Grant (military only, not his presidency), but I also want to find out some more about Lee, Longstreet, Jackson and Sherman.
Also, I was after something that gives a good narrative breakdown of the major Civil War battles - as the Civil War is such a hugely covered area of history, what would be the best stuff to read for this?
For Christmas, my aunt and uncle got me Instructions of American Servicemen in Britain, 1942 as a stocking-stuffer. It's a tiny little book, a reprint of a pamphlet that G.I.s stationed in Britain were given to teach them how to behave themselves. Its a great little book, and really quite funny at times. In order to avoid making "boners in their eyes," Americans talking to the locals are advised not to say "I look like a bum," because "for the British this means you look like your own backside." G.I.s are also advised not to call the (pre-decimalization) British currency "funny money," suggest that they're here to save the British the way they "came over and won the last one," or "play into Hitler's hands by mentioning war debts."
The best line in the whole booklet has got to be "The British don't know how to make a good cup of coffee. You don't know how to make a good cup of tea. It's an even swap."
I'm very interested in reading about mercenary groups, companies, and individuals during late antiquity and the middle ages. Does anyone have any book recommendations that give an overview of mercenaries as a whole during these time periods. If not, how about some books that focus on specific groups of mercenaries. Thanks!
I do have a few subjects I could use some book recommendations on, if anyone here would like to help! I posted a thread or two about such things before, but got only a few if any answers, so I guess I'll try again here. Does anyone have any books on:
Jugurtha
The Macedonian Wars
Pompey's campaigns in the East. I guess just a biography of Pompey would be great.
Sulla and Marius
The Gracchi brothers
The Samnite Wars
Rome's wars with the Etruscans
The Social War
And the Servile Wars.
I think that's everything I really want. xP
Thanks ahead of time!
Not a tried and true historian, but I have a lot of love for history, and would like some good starting points for my newest interests, if that's ok.
Currently, I'd like to start delving into the histories of Poland and Ireland.
Does anyone have any book recommendations for the kingdom of Zimbabwe?
I'm in the middle of David Halberstam's The Fifties. It's essentially a long series of biographies of (mostly) men. The Dulles Brothers, Dwight Eisenhower, Ray Kroc, the Holiday Inn founder, Margaret Sanger, and Adlai Stevenson are all presented as figures who both reflect and shape the 1950s.
I don't see Halberstam mentioned a lot, but I'm a huge fan of his writings. The Best and Brightest was his first book that I found, and since then I've read his short RFK book that focused on the 1968 campaign, and now The Fifties. Anybody have any strong thoughts one way or the other on Halberstam?