Hello everyone, I recently finished "The Cold War: A New History", by John Lewis Gaddis. I found it in the recommended books section of this subreddit, where it is described as an excellent introductory book for new readers. I am not an historian, but i must admit I was disappointed by it. After a few searches online, I found the review of this book authored by Tony Judt for the The New York Review of Books, which surprisingly noted many of the problems that characterize this book (available here). In this post I will argue why I believe it should not be recommended.

Gaddis is undeniably partial. As Judt says, Gaddis presents "a decidedly partial viewpoint. Gaddis is an unapologetic triumphalist. America won the cold war because Americans deserved to win it." Soviet support for authoritarian regimes is justly criticized, but as Judt notes, the same doesn't happen for American-supported dictatorships. While a few are mentioned, many (Judt cites the lack of "an index entry for Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Panama, Grenada, or El Salvador, not to speak of Mozambique, the Congo, or Indonesia." The same goes for Iran's 1953 CIA-supported coup.) are simply omitted. For those he mentions, the United States of America did it, Gaddis claims, because they were justified. Another interesting note has to be made about his love for political figures such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Gaddis, about Thatcher, has to say that her electoral win "was a blow to Marxism, for if capitalism really did exploit 'the masses, 'why did so many among them cheer the ‘iron lady’ ?" I must admit I found this embarassing. Judt expresses extremely well the reason of my reaction: "This is history-writing at one notch above the level of the tabloid editorial. And wrong, too. Under Margaret Thatcher the British Conservative Party’s share of the vote went down at every election she contested after 1979. The reason Thatcher won anyway was because Labour’s vote fell even further. The 'masses' didn’t switch to Thatcher; they just stopped voting." Ronald Reagan is described (and i must admit i laughed a bit when i read this) as "one of its [the US’s] sharpest strategists ever". Gaddis argues that the motives behind Mehmet Ali Agca's attempted assassination of Wojtyła are clear, it has been established that behind him was, ultimately, the Soviet KGB. This, to my knowledge, is false. The motives have not yet been established. There are many theories, one of which involves the KGB, but many others do not. Those other theories, Gaddis doesn't even cite. These are just a few problems, but Tony Judt, much more informed than me, cites many others.

Thus, in my opinion, this book should not be in the recommended section. I believe there is a phrase in Judt's review that concisely describes this book. "John Lewis Gaddis has written a history of America’s cold war: as seen from America, as experienced in America, and told in a way most agreeable to many American readers." I propose to remove this book from the recommended books section, on the grounds that it is partial, and, in some cases, simply inaccurate. I am not an historian, so I would like to know your opinion about my proposal and, in general, about this book. I recently talked about this with /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov, who noted that another possibility was to modify its description to underline this book's US-centric focus. Whatever the case, I believe that the omissions present in the book damage its main thesis, making this (personally) a book I would not recommend. What do you think?

Thank you for your attention!

Can someone recommend me some books on agricultural history? Like when certain plants or veggies got adopted in certain regions and what caused that or how farming methods changed over time, or how potatoes and corn conquered the world, that sort of thing? Or how plowing and planting technology changed and what not. There's no history of agriculture subheading on the booklist.

Good morning! I'm just curious what you think of what I think is a terrific article from OSU's Origins: http://origins.osu.edu/article/beware-greeks-bearing-gifts-how-neo-nazis-and-ancient-greeks-met-charlottesville.

I'm thinking of posing a question about how Alexander "cultivated a version of Greek culture" and what that meant to/for Africans and Asians he ran in to, but I'm going to be a good community member to see if it's been answered first.

Hey, any book about history of science/technology you read recently? Anything you would recommend? I'm very interested in those! Another question: anyone read "A Mind at Play", the biography of Claude Shannon? Any thoughts on it? And any recommendation for a biography of Von Neumann? Thanks!

I'm reading the famous Team of Rivals; The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It's well-regarded, but personally I'm finding it heavy going, I'm afraid.

It starts (after a brief introduction of the start of the Republican convention of 1860), it gives histories of each of the major Republican rivals. One problem for me is that I find myself not caring much about them, and disliking Salmon P. Chase and Cameron.

Another problem for me is that I have some familiarity with the Civil War because of McPherson's The Battle Cry of Freedom. After Lincoln comes to the Presidency, there are sections where, of necessity, she has to narrate events that I already know about, so it's somewhat boring there. She does aim more towards people and their interactions, and preparations and behind the scenes stuff, but for example, I skipped a fair amount of the coverage of the Peninsular Campaign (not helped because, with more quotations of what McClellan wrote and said, I am loathing him more). Mind you, this is unavoidable. She should not and cannot assume that the reader knows details about the Civil War, especially when she brings in details that are not emphasized or mentioned in other works. Nevertheless, some of it is like a song sampling bits of over-familiar other songs.

Edit: I've finished the book. The "some familiarity" factor diminished a lot for me -- maybe the Peninsular Campaign was just the biggest lump.

Spoiler alert! After Chase and Blair resigned, the cabinet quieted down and functioned better together, which doesn't make for drama or really that much to write about. The book seemed to turn into bits from newspapers, seemingly either laudatory or uninformed gossip (with no indication in some cases about whether they reflected common belief), and the diary-like/gossip pages of interactions.

It was worth reading, and I might read it again, but it wasn't as good as I was expecting.

Hello, Im looking for any recommnedations on a lite source of Korean history, an overview of it, if you will, something I can engage with in 1-hour chunks or something like that, an example would be a podcast like of (History of Rome/Revolutions), or a Youtube history channel like Kings and Generals, or an encyclopedia-like book that would be easy to find online and makes an easy to diggest overview of Korean history and/or culture, something like what an author like Lopez Austin, Salmeron and Taibo II would do with Mexico.

Bear in mind that Im looking at works that focuses on Korean ancient history (so anything from the end of the Neohlithic to the 1st Sino-Japanese War) and NOT those focused on the Korean War and the South/North split of the country, as there are plenty of sources for that.

Thank you in advance to anyone for their recommendations.

Does anyone know of any good histories of the internet? Or anything related to the digital revolution from the 1950s to the present?

Hello historians, I'm curious about Indonesia's history, specifically the period from Independence (Sukarno) to the coup d'etat by Suharto.

My parents grew up seeing the 1965 Mass Killings of Indonesia and I personally saw fragments of the 1998 Riots in Jakarta as well, so I am a bit interested in what actually happened but also aware that I am very disconnected from the past (I am a third culture kid). I have recently watched the documentary called The Act of Killing (or Penjagal in Indonesian), which was about one of the killers attempting to recreate the murders on camera; I found it somewhat glamorizing the murderers and not the victims and those whose voices have been oppressed by the Suharto government (and that, I assume, could be a giant historiographical discussion by itself when most people, even some Indonesians today, don't remember that period well). So I am very interested in a more balanced look into the (early) modern history of Indonesia to connect better with my somewhat estranged family.

The only books I am aware of on this period are Benedict Anderson's 1965 Preliminary Report (his memoir talked about how he was an eyewitness to the events there) and The Killing by Geoffrey Robinson. There isn't much on Indonesian history from a cursory Google search and I don't want to be the guy whose knowledge of the country he has a passport of comes from Wikipedia entirely.

I appreciate everyone's help and enjoy reading the threads and book lists on the subreddit. It is always exciting to scour the bibliographies of each posts for more books to read.

P.S. Tony Judt's Postwar is fantastic. Thank you for putting it in the booklist, but I will always remember him as the NYRB writer who really likes trains. His grasp on social history just reminds me of Hobsbawm's Ages of series, which I'm currently perusing.