I just completed an oral history on people who relocated away from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The project was my senior thesis for my College. I interviewed seven people who are now living in Houston. My main questions were about the characteristics of their transition, their relationship with Houston, and their relationship with New Orleans.

And recently I've been reading King of the World by David Remnick. A book about Muhammad Ali, but Remnick also profiles several other champions--Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston, and a couple other challengers. Not a straight history, but an incredibly well-written book.

Not sure if I did this right, but will answer any questions about my thesis, or oral history in general.

Im working on my end of year project and the final project of my undergrad. This is my first time working with a large number of source materials. One I am looking at in particular is the Bureau of Military History. Its all going to plan so far I just can't figure out how to site it MLA style. For anyone who wants to help the url is http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS1716pt2.pdf

I just wrote a nine page research paper that focused on the Carter administration's failure to prevent the Iran Hostage Crisis for my History of Foreign Relations class. One of the books I read was David Farber's Taken Hostage which I really enjoyed. I really gained a lot of new insight into the Iranian Revolution and the problems that President Carter faced during his presidency.

It's also the prime thread for requesting books on a particular subject.

So does anyone know good books about German tank development shortly after WW2? There is a lot of literature about German WW2 tanks (feels like there are hundreds of panzer tracts by Jentz & Doyle). But what about the development following the war? Tanks like the Leopard 1 didn't appear out of nowhere, so the German tank industry must have survived the war and the shitty years afterwards somehow (and actually stayed in Germany, not like all the other experts who were shipped to the US/Russia). I only know of one tank project that developed a tank for India after the war in the 50s. Did the German tank industry actually base their Leopard 1 development on their WW2 experience or did they base it mostly on US tank knowledge (the German army started with US tanks at first)? Or neither, considering the paradigm change regarding armor/firepower?

If I recall correctly there also was some nasty politics (bribes) involved regarding German rearmament.

I feel like a book on that topic should be interesting.

I've been reading into the youth hardcore scene on the Eastern Coast of the United States in the early and mid 1980s for my history final. It's really interesting, and there's a ton to read about. I wanted to narrow it down to race relations so I could write about the Bad Brains, but it is looking like I might not be able to do that. My professor told me I might want to focus on something a bit more tangible with regards to the topic.

Any input is appreciated and I'm more than willing to start a conversation!

I found an old copy of The Ancient Near East, Volume II: A New Anthology of Texts and Pictures, edited by James B. Pritchard.

Since I'm not attending university, this is the first time I've had any quantity of primary texts available to read in print, and it's awesome, however dated.

BUT, I'm having a hell of a time linking the texts in the book to their broader philological contexts, or finding anything about them at all other than what's on the page. That's because this book is apparently an abridgment for a general audience of a larger anthology, which would contain bibliographical information, cataloging references, all that juicy stuff. It only documents its texts by referring to where they can be found in the larger book, like "ANET3, 541-552". Kind of annoying.

Because the concept ideology is quite complicated I decided to check out its history, to hopefully get a better understanding of it.

The term was coined by French Enlightenment thinker Destutt de Tracy, who meant to use it as a synonym for 'the science of ideas'. But his supposed Ideology as a science was invested with Enlightenment thought, and for this mocked and ridiculed by Napoleon, who didn't see these ideals as compatible with his political ambitions. This gave birth to the pejorative use of the concept of ideology, to refer to someones, or a groups whole of ideas in a negative way.

From here i am at the point where i really could use some good sources, because how did it get from here to Marx?

Marx uses ideology in a pejorative sense as well in The German Ideology But he also gives it a second interpretation, to make it refer to the whole superstructure in place that was constituted by the those who control the means of production to legitimize the existing class divisions.

How did Marx came to this new use of the concept of ideology? Were there important authors in between who wrote concerning ideology? And if anybody has some good sources on this in general it would be a great help, thanks in advance!