I'm currently reading Peter Purton's The Medieval Military Engineer and it's really quite good. It's a really interesting exploration of a not very widely covered subject. Also, despite its name, the book covers a lot of civil engineering as well, since for the most part it seems like the same people did both - at least for the first half of the Middle Ages, I haven't gotten to the Later Middle Ages yet but I expect specialisation to be a little more common there.

In some places Purton is working with really sparse information and has to speculate a little bit, but thankfully he's very cautious in his guesswork and stays well within the realm of 'plausible but not definite'.

It's overall very readable and a really interesting glimpse at an important but often neglected profession.

Anyone have any recommendations for a good intro-level survey history of the Wars of the Roses?

So I just finished "The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence" by Martin Meredith, and have to say, I was absolutely blown away! Not sure who put it on the AskHistorians booklist (/u/khosikulu? /u/profrhodes? /u/commustar claims he didn't but you edited that page a lot!) but in any case, it was well deserving of being on there. It is a well written and engaging book, and more than anything, what impressed me was how skillfully Meredith was able to make this story of an entire continent over half a century feel both so varied yet cohesive. Balancing a mix of thematic, temporal, and geographic focuses, the book just flows really well, which as I was listening to it as an Audiobook, matters more than it even would in print. Can't recommend it highly enough now, and strongly suggest anyone looking for a engaging history read give it a go!

Any recommendations for the history of Christmas and related topics?

If you could only recommend me five books regarding US History, which would you choose?

Any suggestions of an overview of the Ottoman Empire?

I have been really enjoying Richard Huscroft's Ruling England. I have been on a bit of a binge reading up on medieval Britian which all started with David Crouch's textbook. Huscroft goes into the nitty-gritty on the royal household and its many functions. There was even a part of the book that discussed the debate around feudalism which has cleared some things up for me. I have yet to finish the book as I am going through it thematically but I feel like this will be a book I will refer back to get my medieval history fix

Any recommendations for an historical atlas?

Does anyone have any good recommendations for books on Yugoslavia under Tito? I'm writing an article on the period and could use some books, journal articles, or even primary sources if they have a version in English or Russian.

Anyone know any good histories of the internet, or histories of the digital revolution from the 1950s to today? Preferably something not too technical.

Oh man, I've got a slew of thoughts on my recent reading:

• I'm currently reading Shaun Walker's The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past. Walker is a journalist for The Guardian and his main focus is obviously on current affairs, but I've been very impressed with his discussion of how Putin and his cronies exploit the historical memory of the Russian past in an attempt to "make Russia great again." He spends a lot of time, for instance, talking about how Putin propagates the idea that during WWII the Soviets united despite their national differences to defeat the Nazi threat, all the while ignoring how the Soviet government purged many of its best military figures and deported thousands upon thousands of minorities.

• I've also been reading a lot of fiction books. I don't know if others are similar, but fiction actually gives me more inspiration and sparks more ideas for my research than history books do. I finished John le Carre's first two novels recently. George Smiley is such a fantastic character, but the thing that I've been most impressed with is le Carre's ability to evoke the moral ambiguity of the Cold War, and how both the Soviets and the West justified immoral actions and dehumanizing thoughts in pursuit of an ephemeral greater good. Another fiction book I recently read was W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz. The book is about a lot of things but mainly historical memory, WWII, and the Holocaust. One line in particular stood out to me, and sparked an idea for a new research topic. At one point the main character, an Oxford-educated professor of architecture states that "It is often our mightiest projects that most obviously betray the degree of our insecurity." I've used that line as a jumping off point for a potential journal article. My dissertation is on US counter-terrorism strategy in the 1980s, and I've learned that one aspect of that strategy was the fortification of US embassies. Rather than being open and welcoming to the public, these buildings became something more akin to military bases. My initial hypothesis is that the fortification of US embassies damaged relations with host countries because it closed American diplomatic personnel off from the local population. This idea is still in its very early stages, but it seems promising.

• After I finish my book on Putin's Russia, I've got to make a tough choice on what to read next. The first option is a book called After the Map: Cartography, Navigation, and the Transformation of Territory in the 20th Century by William Rankin. I know nothing about cartography, but I am interested in the historicity of territory as a political concept. As Rankin argues, for most of the 20th century map-makers viewed territory as a static phenomenon. It could be clearly marked by drawing border lines on a map. As globalization ramped up in the late 20th-century, though, ideas of territory became more fluid and new forms of map making were needed--hence, the rise of GPS. Rankin argues that GPS is the map-makers' response to today's extra-territorial world.

• My other option is Michael Burlingame's behemoth, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. At 2000 pages long, I'm expecting the most comprehensive account of one person's life that I've ever read. I can only imagine being 200 pages in and the author going into the most minute details of Lincoln's life: "On this day at 7:31 a.m. baby Lincoln began to teeth."

If any one has read either of these two books, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I've of course been reading mostly for my coursework, but much of it is quite interesting, and of course history related. This past week I've been reading "Buried by the Times" on the reporting of the Holocaust in the New York Times.

I’m sure many of you have read Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes. Absolutely wonderful book, a pretty broad history perfect for a history novice like myself. It focuses on a wide range of topics through the eyes of their fascinating researchers, including exploration of the New World and Mungo Park’s fantastical and disastrous journeys to Africa, botany, ballooning, astronomy, chemistry, etc etc. It’s not just a history of science, though, it also involves the soaring romantic aspirations of the era (17th - 18th centuries) through poetry and letters. It’s sort of like a series of biographical snapshots, all intermingled vaguely chronologically. Really worth the time.

I’ve been going over Asher Okarby’s relatively recent book, ‘Beyond the Arab Cold War’ about the North Yemen Civil War in the 1960s.

I’m looking to expand my reading in this area - any recommendations for readable material on the North Yemen Civil War or Arab Cold War generally?

I'm looking for a book about the historical development of Abrahamic religions. I'm curious how Israel went from worshipping El, to Yahweh, how Yahweh himself changed, and how Judaism changed up until the time of Jesus. Anything past that is a bonus, but definitely El -> Jesus. Anyone know anything?

I'm desperately looking for a book that achieves these things:

• explains how and why exactly Greek philosophy developed in Greece
• How the Greek economy, political and social ideas helped it emerge
• a possible comparison with other cultures as s vehicle for explanation

Alternatively:

• a precise analysis for how Greek thought is influencing the modern world