I will be sharing a different chapter from the Florentine Codex each day on Tumblr (and Instagram - same name) starting with Book 1 - The Gods. I've never actually sat down and read the whole thing, only parts. So why not read it and share it with people who may be interested? It's going to take a couple of years, but hey, it'll be fun.

Request: Recommendation on a book introducing "early Chinese history." (Dad, personal communication, 2016) (need to make sure to cite my sources on AH)

My dad has expressed interest in the topic lately, but didn't really give me anything to go on except the quoted above. Based on his tastes, I think he'd appreciate something that focuses on the building of the first Chinese states. I've been searching for about a week now, but I think my own lack of knowledge on the subject is holding me back.

Thanks in advance!

Finished a few books recently, just haven't been able to write out a review of them:

• The Third Reich in Power by Richard J. Evans (2005). The second of Evans' definitive Third Reich trilogy, and the first one I read (I have The Third Reich at War, still need to get The Coming of the Third Reich), it lives up to the hype. It chronicles the 1933-39 period not chronologically, but by themes (so culture, religion, sports, leisure, etc), which is an interesting approach, but appropriate for the topic. He also goes into the minute detail of some aspects of life in the Third Reich, sparing nothing in his pursuit to be thorough. The only thing I can really say negatively is he notes that at the 1936 Olympics there were no Jews on the German team; while that may have been true for the Summer Games in Berlin, the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen saw a single German Jew: Rudi Ball of the ice hockey team, who was one of the best German hockey players. However such a minor detail does not detract from the overall benefit reading this book provides.

• Familiar Strangers: The Georgian Diaspora and the Evolution of Soviet Empire by Erik R. Scott (2016). Scott examines one of the leading minority ethnic groups in the Soviet Union, the Georgians, and how they interacted with the USSR as a whole, and contributed to the overall idea of a Soviet culture. Divided into chapters that both roughly correspond to era and a theme, he shows how the early Bolsheviks included some prominent Georgians (Stalin the obvious name here), how Georgian cuisine spread across the entire USSR, the impact of Georgian film, music, and dance, and the heavy involvement of Georgians in the economy. In doing so Scott brings up the idea that the Georgians were "familiar strangers" to the rest of the USSR, in that they were a distinct ethnic group and kept their own traditions, but were able to mingle with the others and blend in when necessary. A very interesting look at the history of the Georgians in the USSR, and how they made such a massive impact for such a small number of people.

• A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 by Andrew Roberts (2005). In my defence, I bought this on a deep discount (I think I paid $5) years ago before I knew anything about Roberts or his views. Much as I suspect he hoped, I was interested in the title, which draws parallels to Churchill's four-volume series. I haven't finished the book yet, in fact have only started, but from what I've seen so far it promises to be an interesting time. Just within the first 50 or so pages I've found him arguing that the Aboriginals of Australia were not treated poorly (after all, 1900 Australia was rough for everyone; the British were justified in the Second Boer War, which was not about imperialism at all but merely defending the rights of British settlers against the brutish Boers; the wonders of capitalism and how the English-speaking peoples (a phrase he is quite fond of using) refined it to become the best people in the world; the American war against the Philippines was justified, and it was not colonialism, in fact the Filipinos benefited from not having independence; several outright factual errors (claiming Colin Powell was born in Jamaica, when in reality his parents were, he was born in New York; and that Canada did not try to limit Chinese immigration prior to 1900, despite the Chinese Immigration Act being passed in 1885, which set out the infamous head tax), and constant fawning over everything the English-speaking peoples did. And I have not even gotten to anything that really happened yet (at about 1910), so I can't wait to see how he treats things like the World Wars, and so on.

I picked up a local history book at the library a while back and am finally getting around to it: Once A Coal Miner: The Story of Colorado's Northern Coal Field by Phyllis Smith. She has the kind of journalistic style that you expect in this sort of thing, and it is very much just a recital of collected facts interspersed with the bouts of breathless enthusiasm that stand in for analysis. But it has been filling in gaps from histories that focus on the southern coal fields, and local trivia is still fun. Speaking of, how should one go about celebrating the 150th year of a coal fire? We apparently have four years left to plan.

A footnote in the dead men's letters I'm reading sent me on a tangent that involved tracking down quotes from three volumes of letters. Really just retracing the steps of others than anything original, but pleased that I can lay hand on all of that.

The few days I've been researching trade route information related to the pre-christian baltic region.

Now that I'm done with exams I've finally got some time to do the reading I want to do on my own time! I've started in on some of the works of Warren Treadgold, currently going through Byzantium and its army. Kind of amused by the number of fights he picks with other academics in his opening chapter.