Good Afternoon,

I am looking for a good book about the amalgamation of East and West Germany after the Fall of the Berlin wall, or a monograph about the German Neo-Nazi movement. Would anyone know if there are any recent books that I can read?

Thank you for your time.

As today is the 78th anniversary of the Battle of Midway, I want to recommend a book that isn't particularly well known... or very available, at that.

Screened Her Going Down by Norman Shaw is a self-published book from 1984, and it's the life story of the USS Hammann, the OTHER ship the US Navy lost at Midway. She was sunk while alongside the crippled USS Yorktown, and preceded the carrier to the ocean floor... "screening her on the way down."

It's a fascinating read, not leastwise because it's not about Midway or the Battle of the Coral Sea, but the rest of her life from building in 1938 onwards. It gives you a sense of what a ship feels like to her crew... home, except it moves around a lot in a storm, and might occasionally be shot at or bombed.

Another, better known, self-published book is The Last Flight of Ensign C. Markland Kelly, Junior, USNR, Battle of Midway, June 4, 1942 by Bowen Weisheit. Ensign Kelly was a F4F pilot on the USS Hornet and was one of the victims of the "Flight To Nowhere".

Kelly's father basically asked a friend to find out exactly what occurred to his son, and over the span of about 80 pages, we get a plausible narrative that also exposes the whitewashing of the Hornet's After-Action Report. It's an important book for those interested in Midway, though be aware there are flaws in it... not the least of which was the author's reluctance to move off a set point when it was proven to be incorrect.

Both books are available pre-owned in the usual places, but they may cost a pretty penny nowadays.

I very much enjoyed Matthew Restall's When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History. It's an interesting deconstruction of the textual tradition that underlies how much we actually know about the famous encounter beween Montezuma and Cortés, and the Spanish conquest of Mexico more generally.

At the moment, I'm reading The History of the Franks by St. Gregory of Tours, a Gallo-Roman bishop and chronicler who was trying to tell the story of the Gaul of his period as he understood it. Much of it, I'll be honest, is tedious, as it involves a lot descriptions of different Franks and Goths plotting against each other in different ways, but it is interesting in the respect that it shows the preoccupations of at least one well-placed church official of this period. Gregory sees what he perceives as the impacts of non-Catholic faiths everywhere, and for him the saints in heaven were a very real presence influencing affairs on earth.

For anyone interested in understanding the functioning of the Nazi regime, one in which the dictator was lazy but somehow imbibed with the “Will” of the people, see “Working Toward the Fuhrer” by Ian Kershaw. I think it is a very important work that helps people understand the function of a dictator who isn’t “strong” in the typical sense but guides the machinery of the state through vague proclamations.

Recommendations: Does anyone know if the different editions of Moderne Deutsche Sozialgeschichte have major differences in content? I can find the 1966 and 1973 edition, but apparently there was a 1981 (I think?) edition as well. The 1973 edition is more expensive than the 1966 edition and as far as I can tell all the libraries I have access to only has the 1973. So, if there are no substantial differences and if I wanted to get a personal copy, I would get the 66. If there are substantial differences, I would be interested in getting the latest.

Reading: I'm slowly rereading Wehler's The German Empire and just got through with his introduction. I find the style so odd. The obvious oddity is that he is writing in a strongly social scientific style, so rather than just theses, his work is presenting hypotheses that might be confirmed or refuted. But I find his discussion about how those hypotheses are to be argued for a bit strange.

I cannot decide if he is saying that the data underdetermines the hypothesis, but he presenting the hypothesis 'pointedly' (which I take to mean both clearly and forcefully) despite that, in the hopes that it will stimulate future research and discussion OR if he means that the hypothesis is nicely supported by the current data, but it's unclear if the hypothesis will be supported by future data and so he's extending the hypothesis since it proved useful in the past, with the hopes of eventual confirmation or disconfirmation.

I am leaning towards the former, since he seems to see the eventual fate of a hypothesis as confirmation, falsification, or being used to stimulate further productive discussion.

But feel pretty conflicted. If the evidence does not unambiguously support one hypothesis, then I would think it would be better to explain the competing hypotheses and what factors draw different theorists to different ones. But I do respect openly stating that you will be engaging in a pointed manner and I do agree that not writing pointedly can result in a reduction of discussion. I suppose I feel there's a conflict between intellectual humility and the need to generate controversy to keep the discipline advancing.

Wondering if any one else has opinions on argumentative style in history.

So I am rather fond of the times atlas of world history. The maps really make it alive for me. However, it takes them 8 pages from the origen of man to 10,000 bc. I'd like to know more about these times, such as the exodus from africa, genetic differences, the settling of australia, the Pacific islands, america, farming, languages, wars of these times. When were certain weapons introduced, or other equipment. How did the chinese develop differently from europeans and americans?

Would you guys know of any books to recommend? Obviously a sort of atlas would be awesome, but I am interested in any book that is aimed at laymen, with plenty illustrations etcetera.

I'm about to crack into The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America by Eric Cervini

Just an amateur but hopefully someday I can get to the point of answering LGBTQ Questions.

Hi, I am looking for book recommendations on the violence and oppression of native communities in Canadian history.

Reading Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael Oren. I was personally wondering if he left any omissions or if there are blatant twists of the truth in the book, seeing as the author is literally a Knesset member and a former Israeli ambassador. For the first half of the book, I really enjoyed the political history surrounding the lead-up to the war, but the war aspect itself is kind of tiring, as I'm not totally familiar with Middle Eastern geography. Edit: though there are some maps provided thankfully.

I'm finding myself surprised at why I even picked the book. Usually I like well-researched, "and then this happened"-kind of war books, like for WW2, but I am just totally indifferent to this one. Am I supposed to memorize every troop movement? Every casualty? I think I'm just one of those children who like lots of pictures to show what's going on to be honest, and this is nearly devoid of it. Introspection over, hope you enjoyed ;)

I'm open to suggestions of books for topics like the Spanish colonial system in Mexico, soldiers' points of view in the US Revolutionary and Civil War, of both sides (be it a journal or just an overview), or others I have yet to remember ;).

What is a good overall book on the first Gulf War? I was old enough at the time to know what was going on but I’d like a good overview. The only thing I’ve read on the topic is Baghdad Express by Joel Turnipseed.

Hello, I'm looking for a good overview work on the British colonial empire which isn't too pop-historical! Anyone got any suggestions?

I would like to find a book on the 30-year war an its aftermath

I am taking a course on archaic greece and have to write an essay on the typical structure and the institutions of archaic poleis. Seeing as this is an extra course and I study something completely different to history I don't really have a feeling for where to look, what sources to trust etc. Can anyone point me into a direction ? Much appreciated !

What are some books on military tactics, technology, formations or overall strategy that made battles succesfull through either cunning or planning?

I just read a trilogy of novels on Scipio Africanus and Hannibal and i'm just amazed on the things that they came up with to get the upper hand, but I'm not looking for novels right now.

I'm thinking about a book doing breakdowns of sieges, skirmishes or battles... Even better if it has maps and diagrams!

I'm interested in basically any period or location up until early musket warfare, but the earliest the better. Preferably both Europe or the Middle east. I don't really care about naval warfare at the moment.

After reading about some of the ways that the KKK basically took over the South and got Him Crow laws instituted in the postbellum years, I'm really interested to learn more about that. In my sheltered white life, the history I learned basically went from the Civil War to crooked politicians to the Mexican War and WWI. They completely ignored and/or whitewashed all the stuff that happened from the 1850s to the 1880s or so.