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!
Where can I find books about travelers or explorers throughout history?
I've read and enjoyed primary accounts, The Journals of Lewis and Clark, a little bit from Richard Burton, Marco Polo, John Mandeville (I realize the author probably didn't travel farther than his local library), and I plan on reading Ibn Battuta. I think I'm obsessed with this romantic idea of there being a time when anything beyond the horizon was completely unknown.
First hand stories or journals, even if wildly inaccurate, are fun, but I'm wondering if there are any books that cover this wandering nature of the human spirit throughout history in a overall or general sense, or maybe for a specific part of the world or particular era. Thanks!
Does anyone know some good books about the Great Fire of Rome (64 AD)?