What do my fellow mil-historians think about the popular Osprey series?

I'm not all too familiar with them, having read very few. My work with naval vessels in the world wars inevitably lead me to a suggestion of or nod to Osprey books on warships. They certainly look interesting and seem to offer some fascinating niche topics, which is pretty cool. The page lengths sort of put me off though, seems to suggest lighter reading (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

The other day I was reading an article about polydactyly among the Classic period Maya in Belize. It was a pretty neat article. The possible reason why polydactyly arose was due to two families carrying this recessive trait and having a child. This individual that was examined is apparently the first skeletal remains in Mesoamerica which have an extra digit. This extra digit, even if it was a bump like the person had, may have linked the individual to the supernatural world. There are several depictions of polydactyly at Palenque which seem to suggest an association with the supernatural. The concept fits in with the ideology of others having physical deformities (i.e. dwarves, hunchbacks) also being linked to the supernatural world. I've uploaded the article to Dropbox if anyone cares to read it.

This week, I finished my half of the manuscript for a book on civil wars. I signed the contract back in 2006, so this is a real milestone for me. Our (respectable in my discipline) publisher did a good job of finally lighting a fire under my co-author and I, giving us firm deadlines that meant writing (as opposed to further research -- which almost every war could have used) got done. I look forward to publishing papers on the data.

For pleasure, I've been reading A Mad Catastrophe by Geoffrey Wawro. I really don't know enough about the first year of Austria-Hungary's World War I to judge it, but it's an interesting enough read. I know one of the history profs I work with assigns it as a required text in his Great War class. Any opinions on it from this crowd?

I'm getting into chronology because of a website I'm building. Picked up a book called the chronicle of world history. They have a biblical timeline of creation and the first part is compared to the timeline of how we know the world evolved. Besides the timescale the order of events in the bible is uncannily accurate.

The other piece of interesting info is from the new testament which describes the liniage of Christ. It turns out that mapped on a timeline, their Adam and Eve were at around 4004bc.

I really enjoyed The War That Ended Peace. Very easy to read and provides insight into the leaders of Europe's Great Powers leading up to the war. Straying off that book I find Margaret to be a great history writer and her other books are easily worth the read.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-War-That-Ended-Peace/dp/0670064041

I am mostly studying for my Antebellum and Early National US period tests

I want to add another one, Imperial China I'm only two hours in but it seems like an awesome book. I do have to credit /u/lukeweiss for the suggestion. I am not familiar with F.K. Motes personally so I can not vouch for his accuracy but lukeweiss seems to have a great understanding of the subject and a good attitude towards Motes.

http://www.amazon.ca/Imperial-China-900-1800-F-Mote/dp/0674012127

Does anyone know of any good labor histories concerning Navajo uranium miners on the Colorado Plateau?

I'm just starting to learn roman history and am reading Gibson's rise and fall of the empire and Livy's work (the Loeb Classical Library compilation) on the 2nd punic war is coming on Monday.