I've been writing a lot lately, trying to wrap up a chapter on the British baking industry in the late nineteenth century. Results have been mixed, but I have managed to cite The Epic of Gilgamesh and to use the words "bunghole" and "butt."

I just completed my Senior Seminar paper-25 pages on women's Civil War fashion. It was my first major research paper and I really enjoyed it, plus I'm pretty proud of the final product. It opened up my eyes a lot about historical writing. The research itself was fun and super-interesting! I accessed four years worth of editions of Godey's Lady's Book and spent weeks poring over them. Loved the recipe sections especially, kind of wish I could write another paper just on that. Also, Civil War etiquette fascinates me as well. All the rules and unspoken restrictions seem silly but they were in place to be as self-effacing as possible. Dat learning.

I finally started reading McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom a few weeks back, and I'm loving it so far.

I'm curious what books are recommended that I should read afterwards. I know a lot of people recommend reading Foote's series, but I'm looking for books other than his (I plan to read it, I just want recommendations other than those books).

Now that it's officially summer, I can read about space stuff without feeling like I'm neglecting coursework in other periods (shakes fist at Hippocrates). I've been reading around my topic in other fields, and the two books I'm working on now are not strictly history, at least methodologically speaking, but they address historical subject matter.

I'm almost finished with Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo by Nicohlas de Monchaux. It is one of the strangest books I have ever read. de Monchaux is a designer and theorist, not a historian, yet there is a fairly compact and approachable history of the American space program built in. He covers the sort of canonical topics- ICBMs, the history of computing, JFK- but in really unusual ways. It begins with a little discussion of Dior and 'the new look'- building a case for the centrality of the undergarment industry- and the culture that supports it- to his argument. Among the strange interludes are the chapter on JFK, which attempts a kind of dicey argument about Kennedy's physical condition and the nature of his efforts to control his own image and the image of his presidency. It doesn't really work, because it relies a bit too much on assumptions. There's this amazing section on Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline that goes on at length about Kline's research in psychopharmacology and builds up a background for thinking about 'cyborgs' and cybernetic ideas in connection with space suits. I'm not sure it actually pays off, maybe that bomb will drop in the last two chapters, but it is a fascinating aside nevertheless. As the narrative wanders around, bouncing off a number of different stories about the Cold War, it is still held together by de Monchaux's real goal, which is essentially and industrial (design) history of International Latex Corporation (parent of Playtex), who built the Apollo suit. And while it is an interesting story, especially his descriptions of the handcraft involved, it is almost lost among the tangents- which in and of themselves are often valuable bits of analysis.

My favorite things are the little notes about artworks especially Towards a Definitive Statement of the Coming Trends in Men's Wear and Accessories (a) Together Let Us Explore the Stars (1962) by Richard Hamilton and Trust Zone (1969) by Robert Rauschenberg (part of the Stoned Moon series.)

The only serious problem I have with this is the treatment of gender. It started out so promising, with an interesting juxtaposition of the culture of women's fashion and spacesuits that would only ever be worn by men. However, there is a section about women who almost became astronauts, where de Monchaux forgoes analysis for righteous indignation. He actually adopts an angry defensive tone, getting mad on behalf of women, as it were, instead of doing any real work- a missed opportunity. He plays the urine collection devices that were part of the suit for a joke about penis size that made me cringe. It's almost like he was too awkward to do anything with that anecdote, and went full-on 12 year old instead. Blegh.

I have found a corrective, though, in Dario Llinares' The Astronaut: Cultural Mythology and Idealised Masculinity. I haven't really sunk into this yet, but Llinares provides an explicit account of his methodology up front- how refreshing! Llinares is a film studies scholar, and he gives a history of American astronauts that is focused through Foucault and Barthes, and does a much-needed analysis of the construction of masculinity as reflected through the myth of the astronaut. He also wrote an fantastic article about the film Apollo 13 called Idealized Heroes of 'retrotopia': history, identity and the postmodern in Apollo 13. You can find that in David Bell and Martin Parker's edited volume Space Travel & Culture: From Apollo to Space Tourism

I finished a moderately sized (4500-5000 word) research paper earlier this week that I was super stressed about and got a 95 for my trouble :D The saddest part was having to delete over half of what I'd written, but such is the case of editing things. The good news is that I now know more about the animals of the Roman world than I'd ever thought that I didn't know (Did you know that vipers give live birth, and that it was recorded by Pliny?), so if any questions come up on it, I'm on the case! :D

I just feel super good about it - my professor's kept my nose to the grindstone with it all semester, so being finished with it is the best feeling ever. Anyone have any questions about the relationship between Jupiter and the various animals he turned into to further his sexual exploits? Feel free to ask away :P

I've been searching through the America's Historical Newspapers archive to pull out all of the ads for women's shoes from 1775-1783. It's all been entered into one giant spreadsheet now, but I couldn't see straight for a day. Found some very interesting references to materials being used for ladies shoes that I wouldn't have guessed (Textiles in America has been at hand), as well as evidence of inflation (price set going from 6 shillings to 6 pounds between 1777 and 1779), and could even track the British troops by the number and type of ads found in port cities. Best find was a long article by a collection of cordwainers and tanners that breaks down why the cost of everything has risen so much, thus giving me an itemized cost list of what it took to make a pair of shoes!

Hi all, I have a fairly specific source request that I'm hoping to get some help with. This is my first time posting in this sub, so I feel somewhat sheepish asking (bwahaha, I'm so hilarious... .... ...I'm sorry.)

I'm interested in learning about the history of sheep farming and shepherding. I'm particularly interested in shepherding on the Eurasian Steppe, though I realize that this is a huge geographic area.

The types of questions I hope to learn the answers to include Who owned the sheep? Were shepherds usually wage-earners or family members? What was their social status? Did they shepherd year-round or only seasonally? What did they typically do for the rest of the year? In other words, who were they and what were their lives like?

Im doing a research project on Ancient Mediterranean fortifications and their evolution over time and reasons for it. Be it new engineering techniques, new materials, military concerns etc etc.

Having access to jstor i was wondering if anyone could recommend any books / journals on the subject? The bigger pool of information the better.

After reading through Farwell's The Great War In Africa 1914-1918 I've narrowed my reading focus to Hoyt's Guerrilla: Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck and Germany's East African Empire. A great yarn and available in full in PDF form on the internet:

http://zimmerer.typepad.com/Documents/Guerrilla%20Von%20Lettow%20New.pdf

Does anybody have suggestions for books about the Mongols, Turks, or other nomadic peoples?

Its been a while since I finished this, but I finally have a chance to post. As I'm living in Georgia (country, not the state) I figured I'd read up on a bit of their history while here. So I bought two books, one I've finished, the other not quite yet.

The one I've finished is The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea by Steve LeVine (Random House, 2007). It details the Caspian Oil Fields, from the first developments there to extract oil and gas in sizeable amounts to the modern day, with a heavy focus on the (mostly) American energy executives and middlemen. As it effectively concludes in the mid-2000's, it does partially break the 20 year rule, but that is not the main focus here.

LeVine is no historian, a journalist to be precise, and the book is definitely not written by a historian. It is a very quick read, very simple to understand and follow, and at times almost feels like a novel. The way LeVine focuses on the main characters involved in the region gives away that it is written by a journalist, though that is not to detract from the work itself.

He starts from the late 19th century when oil first became a commodity worth finding, and shows how the Caspian became one of the focal points for the world's energy companies. Through extensive interviews with most of the western executives still alive (obviously representatives from the current regimes in the area would not be so willing to interview how they got to be where they are, nor release documents) he shows the intricate negotiations required that led to countries like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan becoming major countries in the oil and gas industry.

It was a quick read, and I would argue that the only issues I had was its lack, understandably, of any real details on behalf of those states in the Caspian (how much have they benefited, and where, etc), and that it could have gone on for another 100 pages or so without dragging on. It felt at times, especially in regards to the Soviet-era, that he was light on details. This may have been an effect of being a journalist and not willing/able to dig through various archives to gain the details, but it would have been nice to have more through information about that. It also at times was a little to character-driven, to the point where it felt like he was focusing on certain people at the expense of writing the history, but again I will consider that the price of having a journalist write the book.

All told, a fairly good work on a region that while important to the West is vastly underwritten about.

I am mostly interested in colonial USA History from 1600-1700. I am looking for any good public domain audio books people might know of. I listen to Conceived in Liberty but would love another audiobook.

I'm looking for a book about Operation Barbarossa, more focused on the social and cultural history of the period rather than the ins and outs of the military campaign.