Hi guys!

Apologies if this isn't the right place to post this. If so, mods - please delete!

I'm a circus performer who went to grad school, and I'm in the final stages of publishing a book about the history of juggling. "Juggling - From Antiquity to the Middle Ages: the forgotten history of throwing and catching".

I'm hoping to have some non-circus history (and social anthro) people take a look at it and give me their honest feedback.

It's about 130 pages long - an entertaining read without sacrificing academic scrutiny.

If any of you might be interested and taking a look at an advance copy, please drop me a line! I'm curious to hear thoughts from folks with different academic backgrounds, so if you could include a line or two about yourself, that would be a huge plus.

Thanks a million! Thom

It's not easy to review a book that covers areas that you're unfamiliar with, but I'm about to give it a go.

David Nicolle's Medieval Warfare Source Book is a two volume work that, surprise, surprise, is focused on medieval warfare. Unlike most works on the subject, though, Western Europe isn't the main focus. Instead, Nicolle examines Eurasia, North Africa, India and South East Asia as a whole. This is both an excellent way to approach the subject and, as I'll discuss later, a major weakness of the books.

First, though, the good. The Medieval Warfare Source Book (MWSB) explores the recruitment, organisation, strategy, tactics, equipment, fortifications, siege techniques, field fortifications and naval warfare for distinct areas and time periods (for instance, Western Europe, 400-650 AD) and Nicolle does a very impressive job of summarising the information into the short space he has available, while also keeping it useful. Where there are variations or influences, Nicolle notes these and points out why they developed or where they came from, and the books are littered throughout with images of artwork, photographs of places or artifacts and line drawings by the author to provide extra information and to aid visualisation.

In addition to these main sections of the book, Nicolle has placed a "Miscellanea" section at the back, after the bibliography, that contains information on wages, logistics, intelligence gathering, training, the regional and global arms trade, weapon manufacture, etc. I suspect that these were all placed here because Nicolle either couldn't find enough information on these subjects - or enough variation - to justify including them in the main chapters, or else he simply had to economise in order to keep the books to a reasonable length. Whatever the reason, some of the subjects do suffer a little here. For example, in the section on logistics, a table with the load limits for pack animals, carts and wagons, mention of the various ways food and fodder were obtained and maybe Engel's famous formula for logistical range would have been really valuable. Similar things can be said for wages, intelligence, etc, but ultimately they don't detract from the usefulness of the books too much.

The need to summarise the available information is also something of a downside to the books. There's simply too much information out there and there isn't enough room to write about it in detail or to draw sufficient maps, diagrams and floor plans for it all. The end result is that the books will produce a very broad but shallow understanding of the subject. This is inevitable, and I recommend anyone interested in a particular area to look for a dedicated book on it.

All of my criticisms so far have been nitpicks and flaws inherent in the genre rather than real weaknesses or draw backs to the book. The next, however, is a much more considerable issue. Namely, that less than 40 pages in the second volume is specifically on Asia, India and South East Asia, and this is where my ignorance kicks in. I'm almost entirely unfamiliar with the European scholarship on warfare in those regions as it existed at the time, so I don't know whether or not there just wasn't enough of it around for Nicolle to expand much further than he did. Additionally, Nicolle does discuss Chinese influence on Islamic and Mongol areas, and Indian influences on nearby Islamic regions, so he might be relying on the reader picking up on these mentions in order to save space and avoid repetition.

However, it all just feels wrong. To discuss a thousand years of military history such a vast geographic area in less than 40 pages, when similarly sized areas got almost two hundred pages, doesn't sound right to me. I feel like there should have been a third volume focused on this part of the world, but maybe that's just the ignorance talking.

This issue aside, though, and all the others inherent in textbooks, David Nicolle's Medieval Warfare Source Book is an incredible piece of scholarship and we'll worth a read. For those new to the subject, it offers a broad and mostly neutral overview that will help you avoid too great a bias to one particular area. For those who study medieval history, but not warfare, it's also a great companion to help you understand medieval warfare while still being short enough that it doesn't steal too much bookshelf space and, for those of us who are interested in medieval warfare but have been focused on very narrow aspects of the subject, it's both a good reminder of the often global nature of warfare and a good starting point for compiling a broader reading list.

So recently I've devoured the Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England/Elizabethan England/The Reformation all by Ian Mortimer. They have a lot of references and really seem exhaustive, but I figured I'd ask you guys if you've read them and have an opinion?

I'm re-asking a question that I recently posted on r/suggestmeabook, since this seems like a more appropriate forum.

I'd appreciate recommendations for nonfiction books about the Mongol empire(s). My mother has read The Silk Road twice through and wants to learn more about Mongol history and culture and their effects on European and Asian cultures.

Thanks much.

Edit: the only viable recommendation so far is Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Any opinions on this book regarding lay person readability and "accuracy"?

Hello, I’m looking for two recommendations: 1 I read Chernow’s biographies of Washington and Hamilton recently, and Thomas Jefferson winds up looking like a total douche. Is there a good, fair biography of Jefferson that can give me insight into his worldview and actions but also grapples honestly with his support of slavery, relationship (term used loosely for lack of a better option) with Sally Hemings, blindness about the French Revolution, etc? 2. What’s generally considered the gold-standard Theodore Roosevelt biography? I’d like to read full narrative of his life instead of a smaller case study of a particular period.

I'm looking for books about U.S sponsored coups in Africa and Latin America.

I'm by no means an expert, but I've studied genocide in general and the Holocaust in particular for a while now. I was wondering if anyone had book recommendations into genocide studies, especially ones about specific genocides that aren't the Holocaust. If y'all have any that straddle the line between scholarly and 'pop history' (not sure that's the right term exactly, but I hope y'all catch my meaning), all the better. I mostly read on the toilet and before bed, so something that I can easily pick up and put down is preferred.

Things I've already read/ own (some of them from the Holocaust course I took in college, and this is by no means all of them):

1. Hitler's Willing Executioners (Daniel Goldhagen)

2. Ordinary Men (Christopher Browning)

3. Night (Elie Wiesel, read it many times)

4. The Banality of Evil: Eichmann in Jerusalem (Hannah Arendt)

5. Denying the Holocaust (Deborah Lipstadt)

6. Abandonment of the Jews (David Wyman)

7. Conscience and Courage (Eva Fogelman)

Any recommendations at all would be greatly appreciated!

Anyone know of a good, recent, English language overview on the Bourbon Restoration? Mostly I'm looking for a good place to find a lot of secondary texts on the period

Looking for some introductory sources on systems of government in Pre-Colonial Africa. I'm interested in comparing pre-colonial and post-colonial governments on the continent. Thank you!

Can anyone recommend a book on Adelaide of Italy/Adelaide of Burgundy. Even a book on Otto the Great would be great.