This week I've been listening to Our Crime Was Being Jewish by Anthony A Pitch. It is 13 plus hours on Audible (I had a very long car trip over the holidays) already in the 3 hours that I have listened I've learned mini detail most of them small and personal but things that I have never heard all my years studying the Holocaust. Well they appropriately fall in line with what one would expect it still makes for a fascinating listen or read. It is made up entirely of accounts recorded by survivors both of the Holocaust and those who assisted survivors. Voice actors are used in the audible butt each peace is capped at the end with what archive it is from and the specific archive number for the interview.

Still working through Eltis' The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. It's still dense, but I'm nearly done now. After that it's probably Frederickson's Racism: A Short History but I might pay the quite high ebook price for a copy of Jordan's White Over Black and start with that instead. Both are getting read either way. Hope to be back on consistently doing a chapter a day in the coming month.

Are there any good books out there about the history of bomb disposal?

My friend and I are organizing a PnP game based on Mesoamerica. I have the New Fire book, but we don't really care for the combat mechanics or some of the word construction. So we're making our own reskinned Pathfinder version. Yesterday I dove into Ross Hassig's book Aztec Warfare to compile a list of arms and armor our characters will be using. Then we have to assign damage rates, cost, effective range (if a projectile), defense bonus, etc. It's been fun so far. I've really enjoyed providing the archaeological/historical information while my friend has been using the info and incorporating it into the Pathfinder structure for our game. I don't know when we'll be playing, but it's a nice little side project for now.

What I really wanted to share was the names of the arms and armor used by the Aztec and discussed by Hassig. Most, if not all, of these arms were used by Mesoamerican peoples at some point in time. Even the Teuchitlan culture that I study are depicted with clubs, maces, and shields or the finger loops from atlatls, obsidian points, and stone club/mace heads have been recovered from graves. The only armor not discussed by Hassig, and not seen elsewhere in Mesoamerica, are these barrel-shapes on figures from Nayarit. We think they might be some sort of wicker armor, but without find finding a fantastically preserved grave we may never know for sure.

http://content.ngv.vic.gov.au/col-images/api/EPUB001645/1280

https://the-maac.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_17681.jpg

http://www.sandramcleanarts.com/uploads/4/3/9/9/43996893/8557498_orig.jpg

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Bow- tlahuitolli

War arrows - yaomitl

Fire arrows - tlemitl

Quiver - micomitl

Blowgun - tlacalhuazcuahuitl

Spear-thrower - atlatl

Fire hardened dart - tlacochtli or tlatzontectli

Barbed dart - tlatzontectli

Three-pronged dart - minacachalli

Thrusting spear - tepoztopilli

Maguey fiber slings - tematlatl

Ax - tlateconi

Club - quahuitl

Two-bladed club - huitzauhqui

"Morningstar" - macuahuitzoctli

Ball club - cuauhololli

Sword - macuahuitl

Long knife - tecpatl

Knife - itztli

Hide Shield - yaochimalli

Leather Shield - ehuachimalli

Woven Cane Shield - otlachimalli

Wood Shield - cuauhchimalli

Quilted cotton armor - ichcauhuipilli

War suit - tlahuiztli

Feather tunic - ehuatl

Armband - matemecatl

Greave - cotzehuatl

Wristlet - matzopetztli

Helmet – (still researching name)

Breechcloth - maxtlatl

Sandals - cactli

Then we have some made up names and weapons. Besides the different swords, the other weapons were described by Hassig, but no Nahuatl name was given. So I made one.

Poisoned arrow - tencualac mitl

Obsidian point dart - itzmitl

Fishbone point dart - michomimitl

Copper point dart - tepuzmitl

Flint - chert point dart - tecpamitl

Edged club with spike - itzquahuitl

Short sword - tepiton macuahuitl

Longsword - ueiac macuahuitl

Greatsword - uitlatztic macuahuitl

Copper Shield - tepuqetzalchimalli

Roll-up Shield - tlamaolololli chimalli

Finally finished one of my projects for the year, getting abstracts to the letters of George Sterling and Clark Ashton Smith up on my website. While my primary interest is Smith, Sterling is an interesting character in his own right, with his connections to Ambrose Bierce, Jack London, H. L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, etc. One of my favorite little "episodes" had Sterling write:

Had a hard fight with a big octopus two days ago. The row terminated by my presenting him, alive, to the Pacific Grove "museum!"

• George Sterling to Clark Ashton Smith, 1 Feb 1913, SotU 80

To which the editors added the footnote:

An inaccurate account of this incident appeared in the San Francisco Examiner (6 February 1913): 4. GS hooked the octopus while fishing, clubbed it with an oar to subdue it, and took it home, where he kept it in a bathtub in his back yard.

I am looking for books or papers on intelligence and espionage around 1700 (in a broader sense everything about "information gathering"). I am interested in Europe, but other corners of the globe are fine too, if you can use them for comparison. The same goes for other time periods.

I've gotten completely sucked into the Amelia Peabody mysteries lately. Since so many actual Egyptologists and Egyptological debates turn up, is there a particularly good book on this period of Egyptian archeology for those who want to tease out the fact from fiction?

I'm looking for books on the French experience in Indochina, not just 1945-54 but also before then.

If anyone has an recommendations, I'd be very grateful. Thanks!