Does anyone have a recommendation for an overview of the economy in pre - unification Italy? Everything I can find is post - unification and I need to cover about 1550 through 1850.

Mentioned it before, but I finally have the chance to dive into Kelton's Epidemics and Enslavement: Biological Catastrophe in the Native Southeast, 1492-175, and I'm really enjoying the book. Kelton argues that increased warfare following the decline of Mississippian chiefdoms created contested buffer zones between settlements, and effectively blocked the spread of Old World epidemic diseases during the early protohistoric. By the late 1600s the trade in Indian slaves and deerskins overcame these buffer zones, united the greater southeast with the Carolinas, and forced refugee populations into crowded settlements where the virus could spread among susceptible hosts. This combination of factors created the first true catastrophic smallpox epidemic in the South from 1696-1700.

Also, has anyone read, or heard anything about, Beck's Chiefdoms, Collapse, and Coalescence in the American South? The book was recommended to me, and I wanted to see if anyone had anything positive or negative to say about the book before I spend more money I don't have on pretty, pretty books.

I was hoping to give a friend a good book on Alexander Hamilton, specifically in regards to the creation of the national bank. Wasn't a fan of Chernow's biography, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Came across the IG report on the Dachau Massacre this week. Had read numerous accounts of the incident that occurred following the camp’s liberation in books like The Rock of Anzio and Dachau: The Hour of the Avenger: An Eyewitness Account. For those not familiar with this incident, on April 29, 1945 elements of both the 45th Infantry Division and the 42nd Infantry Division liberated Dachau concentration camp where nothing short of chaos ensued. Under orders, Felix Sparks of the 45th arrived at the camp and proceeded to enter the compound from the back. As they moved into the camp, it became apparent after sometime that elements of the 42nd Division had arrived through the front gate of the camp. Conflict erupted between Sparks of the 45th and BJ Linden of the 42nd over who had control of the camp. The dispute over who controlled the camp came to a boiling point when a barrage of machine gun fire erupted from an area were S.S. prisoners were being held, causing Sparks to dash towards the enclosure. When he entered the area he found many German guards shot dead and physically kicked the young GI from his machine gun. Other incidents occurred as well which resulted in the death of many Nazi guards that day.

As a result of the events that transpired, General Sparks was relieved of his duty and sent to meet with General Patton. Luckily for the men of the 45th, their division had been transferred from the Third to the Seventh Army under Patton around the time of the Dachau Incident (Patton had once called the 45th the best, if not one of the best, infantry divisions). 45th Division chief of staff Kenneth William recalled that, “General Patton, who had taken over the army area, kind of said to hell with it (the IG investigation). And supposedly when Sparks went to meet with Patton the report ended up in the garbage can.

This IG report was important as it essentially cracked the case on the events that occurred that day. For many years it was believed that the only copy of the report was either lost or destroyed. However, while at the National Archives one day in 1991, a military historian discovered the lost copy of the report that had sat unknowingly in the National Archives for nearly fifty years. So sensitive was the document that the Colonel who found the report recognized that people still alive were named as murders, and that the document could potentially lead to many respected men being discredited. Interesting enough, the report suggests that three men of the 45th be court martialed for the murder of camp personnel that day and numerous others be charged with lesser crimes. I found this report fascinating as when it was found it caused both a lot of controversy among the soldiers involved and also contributed to men like Felix Sparks having their names cleared of any accusations of being a “war criminal”. The discovery of the report reminded me that you never no what is out there in the archives until you venture out and dig. In general, the story of the IG report in one in its own and I find it fascinating how it significantly altered the narrative of events that occurred that day.

I have been reading Ray Monk's Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Centre. I have been struck that it is a long, detailed biography of Oppenheimer with lots of footnotes but he seems to have relied exclusively on published or secondary sources. (He made what appears to be one trip to the Library of Congress to look at the Oppenheimer correspondence they have there, but this is a relatively minor collection.) It is also the first Oppenheimer biography I have read where the author did not interview anybody who knew him for the project, perhaps because we have now hit the stage that they have passed away (though he says he has been working on this book for a decade). Anyway it is an odd book. It has essentially nothing new to offer about Oppenheimer except for some more details on his pre-war science in the 1930s (which is mildly interesting from a history of physics perspective but does not shed a whole lot of light on him as a person), and it has a nice introduction about the various generations of Jewish immigrants who came to New York. I am not disliking it but I find very little to recommend it above many of the other, more meticulously researched biographies of Oppenheimer. He leans so much on them anyway that he gives them acronyms in the footnotes (e.g. B&S is Bird and Sherwin's American Prometheus, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006), the way most historians do for archival sources.

Archive.org continues to be the light of my life, my better half, my sun and stars, and my sweet babboo. Among other things I've found and drowned myself in the collected works of Robespierre, Histoire parlementaire de la Révolution française volume 1 to god knows, Histoire du Tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris avec le Journal de ses actes in 6 volumes, Recueil des Actes du Comité de salut public, avec la correspondance officielle des représentants en mission, et le registre Conseil exécutif provisoire I'm seeing 26 volumes of that one.

And that's not even scratching the surface. I will never leave my computer again.