Thursday Reading and Recommendations is intended as bookish free-for-all, for the discussion and recommendation of all books historical, or tangentially so. Suggested topics include, but are by no means limited to:
Regular participants in the Thursday threads should just keep doing what they've been doing; newcomers should take notice that this thread is meant for open discussion of history and books, not just anything you like -- we'll have a thread on Friday for that, as usual.
This week I finished reading the just released A History of Ancient Persia: The Achaemenid Empire by Maria Brosius, and I highly recommend it. Like Brosius' other works, the book is meticulous and detailed but still very readable. She does a great job of balancing Greek sources with art and archaeological evidence and texts from the Achaemenid empire (the Persepolis archives, MuraĊĦu archive, Elephantine papyri, monumental/royal inscriptions, etc.).
Hello,
I'd like to learn more on Imperial Japanese warships and their development - Battleships and Battlecruisers in particular. What would be some good books on this subject?
Thanks.
Someone happened to point out THE NEW-YORK DIRECTORY, Containing, A Valuable and well Calculated ALMANACK;---- Tables of the different COINS, suitable for any State, and digested in order, as to render an Exchange between any of the United States and easy and on with other contents for the rest of the page. 1786.
It's photographs of the pages. Looks like the last page was cut out.
Including "The names of all the Citizens, their occupations and places of abode". Metaphorically, phone directories a century before the phone, so to speak. I wonder whether there was a directory for London, say. (The Directory didn't arrive in Paris until November 1795. Sorry, a little joke there.) I hadn't thought that there was such a thing.
The tables were Table of Dollars, &c. Rows are integer dollars, and four columns across, including all the states. The cells are the value in l-d-s for the currency of the states in the column header, to make up the value of the dollar value for the row. For example, the left column is headed "New-York and N. Carolina", row 1 is for 1 dollar, the value is pounds 0 8 0. So those two states had the lowest-value currency. The rightmost column is "S. Carolina, and Georgia.": its cell is pounds 0 4 8, so it looks like almost twice as valuable. There's then a table of English and French Crowns as they pass in teh states of New-York and North-Carolina.
The next page has a table of 14 different currencies (Double Johannes, Single ditto, ... Two pistole, ... Chequin, Moidore) with values in weight (dwt. gr.), New-York Currency, Sterling Mon. of G. Brita. And tables specifically for half-johannes and guineas.
I had known that foreign money had circulated freely, and different states had different currencies, but not thought about how they knew relative values. Looks like they could figure out a lot, though with tedious calculations with fractions.
The directory had lines like "Bredhurst Samuel, physician and apothecary, 64, Queen-street".
There are tables of members of the state legislature, and of the government of the United States (Articles of Confederation). The rules for the Bank of New-York are listed, like hours, and how to discount bills. And their rates for gold -- if I'm reading the column right, dollars are reckoned there as dollars and 96ths.
Members of organizations, like the Society for promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and protecting such of them as have been, or may be liberated (the Hon. John Jay, president, Samuel Franklin, vice president). And the professors at Columbia University: Rev. Dr. Kunze taught the Oriental language.
And many more miscellaneous items (know your epact!).
Really interesting.