Been reviewing my research paper on Belgian-Congolese relations. Got a few professors doing the same, hopefully it'll get published!

On the topic of Stalin, I've been reading his biography by Radzinsky. I originally picked it up because it got pretty good reviews.

I think it's interesting that he uses archived sources but it is a little bit annoying that he constantly breaks away into personal narratives, though they provide a sense of personal experience. Of course, his stories are not verifiable.

Some of the criticism I've read is that Radzinsky delves in folk history. I was wondering if someone could explain it further and possibly give some feedback on their experience with a good Stalin biography or the one by Radzinsky.

One thing in particular that I found interesting was on the death of his second wife. Radzinsky suggest that he might have killed or had her killed despite it being ruled a suicide. The gun was found in the opposing hand of where it should have been if she shot herself.

Another interesting thing was that Radzinsky suggests Stalin might have been an agent of the Czarist government, or a double agent working for the Bolsheviks while being undercover.

These are what I learned from reading and am wondering if this holds up in mainstream Stalin biographies.

I'm reading James Holland's The Battle of Britain currently, and am about halfway through it. It's well written for a popular history and is fairly engaging. However, I'm halfway through and Dunkirk has only now been evacuated. His thesis is that the attrition of aerial warfare between the RAF and Luftwaffe started in earnest during the Battle of France. He does make a good case that both sides suffered losses there that could not readily be replaced, but he spends nearly half of his book on the Battle of Britain talking about the Battle of France. It wouldn't be a problem if he focused on the aerial campaigns, but he goes on at length about the ground fighting. Simply put, that's not why I bought your book, James.

Still, I am looking forward to the next 300 pages where the Battle of Britain is the focus (though there is an entire chapter about U-boat warfare later on, and no, it isn't focused on how the campaign was shaped by aircraft).

I swear the last time this came up someone had pointed out that the acropolis was built on a hill giving its height a boost. And for the life of me I cannot find a journal article about the claim to back up this memory. So this is what I am researching today.

Edit: Found it in Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens by Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube. Tonina is carved into the hillside, page 177. Whoever is working there now may have remeasured the site and found that it was 75m high from bottom of the hill to top of the structure. Whoopty doo. You could measure the height from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the pyramid at Tepotztlan and claim it is the world's tallest pyramid.

I already made a post about this but it didn't get many responses. Does anyone have good suggestions for books or articles on slave resistance, particularly the Stono Rebellion?

I'm doing my bit pulling sources about Ottoman palestine with regards to international actions and their effects on the relations between various religious and ethnic groups in the region in the late 19th cent. It's interesting

The Second World War in the Air by Merfyn Bourne is an amazing book. It covers all things to do with aerial fighting, logistics, development, use and such throughout the First World War, interwar years, but its main focus is on the Second World War. it also discusses the moral and military stand point of the bombing of Dresden and bombing campaigns as a whole. It's a fantastic book, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in aircraft, early 20th century warfare, etc.