Over the past year I've been reading a lot of "pop" biographies of famous Americans: Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, H.W. Brands' Reagan: A Life, David McCullough's Truman and John Adams, Douglas Brinkley's Cronkite, and, at the moment, Jon Meacham's biography of George H.W. Bush, Destiny and Power. Reading these books over a fairly limited period of time has shown me how amazingly formulaic they are. I've come to view them as a kind of modern-day Horatio Alger novel, where the protagonist faces some initial set-backs or struggles or endures a rough childhood, but is then able to reach astounding success through his ingenuity, pluck and determination. Meacham's biography of G.H.W. Bush succeeds in tempering some of this, but the narrative arc is overall the same.

These types of books are, I think, what the majority of the general public reads about American history, and it worries me--not only about how average Americans are being presented their own country's history, but also how these historians fail to fully critically analyze their subjects (Brands, a professional historian, is by far the worst at this; Meacham, a journalist, is the best of the bunch).

I don't really have an overall point to this post, just a reflection on a general trend I've noticed with these pop biographies. But it does make me question whether the general American public is willing to read more critical biographies of leading American figures, or if they simply read these books as a kind of feel-good piece of historical Americana.

gog.com had a sale on my favourite classics - Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Zeus + Poseidon, Anachronox and Arcanum.

Who knew repeatedly tearing down and building ye old timey ancient Greek city can be so addictive?

I go into more details about this in the Theory Thursday thread but I'm looking for cases where democratic (or simply republican--just not monarchies) politics in rural areas was mostly local and based around different families. That is, the little political cleavages in the village, town, or district (whether you were friends with Smiths or the Joneses) mattered more for local politics than the political cleavages of nation (whether you were liberal or conservative, religious or secular, etc). Has anyone seen other cases of that/have other examples I can read about? I'm particularly interested in how this local system of politics becomes a national system of politics. I imagine this must have happened in a few places--post-colonial America, post-independence Southern Italy, post-independence India, among others--but I don't know what sources to look to in these places.

Anyone else want their very own Oak Island sword? Only 75 euro

Well, it may be outside my flair but it's inside my degree. Over the last few days I've been having a ball reading Kim Barker's The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan. - whose movie adaptation trailer coincidentally went viral yesterday on /r/movies. While I've got no idea what the film will be like, I'd heartily recommend the book as a more light-hearted take on the conflict. It's no academic work, obviously, but it's a healthy mix of readable, insightful and amusing.

Otherwise, I've been made a mod! I had no idea the Cabal had such good dental.

Advertising /r/JewishHistory, my aim is to get over 100 subscribers!

Also, has anyone read America Walks into a Bar? What do you think of it? I bought it as a gift for a friend but now I'm having second thoughts.

I'm really enjoying letting myself back on reddit after an extremely work-heavy semester! I missed y'all a lot these past few months. :( I mean, my work was really exciting too - to the point that I really can't wait to polish it up and maybe even put it on my academia.edu (!) - but I'm really excited to like, have a life outside of school again.

Then again I am spending my winter break working on an application to a paleography workshop, so. Uh. "Outside" may be a relative term.

On Monday I was in Jairampur, Arunachal Pradesh. Being a fan of cemeteries (yup) and Chinese history, I was excited to have a chance to visit "the Chinese cemetery" as people around here call it. It's actually a more general WWII cemetery, though the Guomindang emblem is the only one you'll see. Actually there's probably more in the as-yet-unfinished museum, but being as-yet-unfinished I wasn't able to convince the gate keeper (who had already arrived on a rickety bicycle to unlock the cemetery gate when he heard there was actually a visitor) to let me in, and the warning of snakes was enough to keep me from clambering over the hedges to press my face against the windows.

The only thing is, a big part of the visit was a colossal disappointment. In total there were exactly one headstones in the whole place. The graves were brick and mortar with poured concrete tops, which anyone who's paid attention at a cemetery will know do not hold up well to the years.

Worse still, the cemetery had actually been forgotten entirely until 1997. Worse still, the government of Arunachal isn't really doing much to preserve what's left, because according to a law passed in 1990, the Arunachal Pradesh Monuments and Architecture Preservation Act, states that a historic site needs to be a century old in order to get attention. And you thought our 20 year rule here was tough!

This is the largest WWII cemetery in the Northeast. Actually most of those buried there are not likely victims of gunfire so much as overwork in the construction of Stillwell Road, off which the cemetery can me found. Arunachal is jungle, and jungle grows fast, so it wouldn't have taken long for the cemetery to become overgrown after it's initial construction, and of course no one but the locals stuck around long once the war was over.

Anyway, as I said, there is only a single gravestone to be seen, that of Xiào Zhúqīng (萧竹青). He was the major in command of the Guomindang Corps of Engineers. He was from Wēi (威) County, Qījí (七级) village in Héběi. I had to do a little digging, even to find his actual name, because on the stone it's actually broken off. The only thing left from the bottom of the stone is his surname.

It's kinda frustrating. You have this great bit of history and it's been entirely neglected. Even at the time that it was done there really wasn't much ability to properly mark graves; The muti-national work force was dying every day in the jungle under terrible conditions. Now at least there's some effort being made, but of course Jairampur is far from a peaceful resort town. The Assam Rifles are here in large numbers (and they all know my name by now given how many hours I spent in checkpoints just to get into the area), and people really don't have the money or time to spend on renovating a cemetery that was barely there to begin with.

Ah well. At least it's no longer buried in vines. That's something I suppose.

I've since left Jairampur, which is too bad. It's a great little town but it's a bit bothersome to have the Assam Rifles following your around. And oh boy checkpoints to make the IDF proud.

I just graduated with a Master's in American History. It took me seven years, much research, and a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears. I'm feeling pretty accomplished right now!

My work on my dissertation continues! After some setbacks last week, I think I managed to recover my momentum more or less this week:

https://gunlord500.wordpress.com/2015/12/18/gunlords-dissertation-saga-episode-4-carrying-on/

I also posted a bunch of pictures I've taken of the area around the Library of Congress :D

I really tried to think of a question to work this article into, but the only one that made any sense was, "Did you read that Roads & Kingdoms piece on tracking down the Superman of Havana?"

Because, man, that's a story from Cuban history that needs to be known. Seems like it might be of special interest to /u/vertexoflife , and mmmaybe /u/NotLouisMalle and /u/zeroable.

Article verges on the NSFW, depending on how carefully W is about text.

Great story.

Can someone suggest a good book for an overview of the Jewish American experience?

I've recently picked back up with The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-42. FDR is a difficult subject because there is too much there to cover in one book so I think this bite-sized approach is nice. Hamilton seems a little taken with his subject, but half-way through it is a good book.

Hey,

Any food historians know of some good books on the cuisine of medieval Britain? Particularly on works like the forme of curry? Thanks.

Hi guys, I'm thinking of watching a documentary series on WWII* called "The World at War". Have any of you guys seen it, and if so, how did you like it? Did you find it to be historically accurate, or was there anything in it that you found questionable?

I'm in Paris for a week or so. My first time here. Gave a talk on Thursday for a workshop organized out of the Sorbonne, now I am just enjoying being away from work for a few days. The city is about as charming as one might realistically imagine, and I think tourism is a bit down on account of the recent terrorist attacks, so it is not too crowded either. The euro is a bit down, too, so it feels actually not too expensive (compared to my baseline, which is NYC, so take that for what it is worth). I'm mostly enjoying just walking around, but the monuments and museums are nice, too.

Are there any good books about the Eastern front from the russian soldiers perspective? German ones are easy to find but no Russian ones