I've been getting into British "Imperial" history these past few weeks, and I can wholeheartedly recommend as a "trio" of starter books the following:

• Ashley Jackson's The British Empire, A Very Short Introduction
• John Darwin's Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain
• John Darwin's The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World System 1830-1970

I would actually recommend, if you're interested and can get ahold of all three, that you read those books in the order that they're listed, as Jackson's work serves as foundation for Unfinished Empire, which itself serves as foundation for The Empire Project. Darwin's works are rather comprehensive in their own right; Unfinished Empire running to 402 pages minus about 75+ pages worth of notes, and Empire Project clocking in at 655 pages plus 110 or so worth of sourcing. To put that in perspective, Jackson's short introduction (rightly so) is 131 pages, just a tad over what Darwin's works had in footnotes and citations alone.

I now feel ever so slightly more qualified to weigh in on British geopolitics and international relations in the 1800s, and with perfect timing; I've marked a question on perceptions of Tsarist Russia in that time period to comment on tomorrow. All three books give great insight into the historiography and "nature" of Britain's "Empire" (a term which Darwin finds rather reductionist and assumptive), and their sourcing is most comprehensive. I hope (fingers crossed) more questions come up in the next couple of weeks on British geopolitics or international relations, and even historiography on Empire.

On a side-note, it's hilarious when looking at my JSTOR history just how old some of the articles I've been reading and sourcing for responses are. My record is an article about "How Great Britain governs her Colonies", written in 1900 (most illuminating though), but the recent response I did on Austro-Hungarian-Russian relations included articles from 1919 and 1929; though both were also incredibly helpful in charting the decline of relations between the two powers in the late 19th century.

Recently finished The California Golden Seals: A Tale of White Skates, Red Ink, and One of the NHL’s Most Outlandish Teams by Steve Currier (2017). For those that don't know, the California Golden Seals (originally Oakland Seals) played in the NHL from 1967 to 1976, moved to Cleveland to become the Cleveland Barons from 1976 to 1978, and then merged with the Minnesota North Stars, the last major professional team in North America to outright disappear. They are most famous for using white skates for a time, the result of one of their owners, Charlie Finley (most known for owning baseball's Oakland Athletics). This made the team a laughingstock, and their poor record didn't help.

The book starts with a history of hockey in the Bay Area, going back to the 1920s. It also touches on the minor pro WHL Seals (who started in 1962), and their efforts to join the NHL. Subsequent chapters cover each season, starting with the off-season and business side of things, before going through highlights of the games and the aftermath. A concluding chapter looks at why the Seals still matter and what their legacy was.

Currier did a good job here of showing the dysfunction of the front-office. It's a convoluted mess, to say the least, but he manages to keep it all in order, and shows that the team was really doomed from the start with the ownership the way it was. Despite the publicity of Finely for his antics, the team was probably already dead by the time he bought it, though that certainly sped up the process. Currier does well getting into the specifics of things, and as someone who really appreciates the business side of hockey, I liked that he gave such coverage to this topic.

The coverage of the games themselves is also good. He doesn't just focus on a couple players, but gives everyone a fair amount of discussion, and doesn't just reel off dates and scores. I was surprised to see the Seals did surprisingly well against the Bruins, which was not something one would expect.

Currier's real strength here is that he was able to talk to a lot of key people: players, executives, fans, anyone really who interacted with the Seals (and Barons; I'm really glad he included the Barons in this). If anything it is my one critique of the book: he has extensive quotations, either via interviews or from contemporary press. While it's good to have the people themselves give their opinion, I think a little less dependency on their quotes and more summarizing would have been nice.

The book also contains a good statistical register: player stats, season records, coaching history, and miscellaneous records, from both the WHL and NHL teams. He also has citations, leading to contemporary news articles and other sources. It would have been nice to have more of those, if only to have more options for further research, but understandable in that this is not an academic work.

Currier notes that the Seals were effectively doomed from the start: the original ownership group did not have the means to run the team, and it went through something like 7 owners in 10 years, none of whom had the money to properly do things. And in 1972 a rival pro league, the WHA, started up, and with Finley (a notorious cheapskate) refusing to grant even small raises, 8 or 9 players (on a roster of 20 or so) left, this from a team that had finished the season strong and showed promise.

They never recovered, and it just snowballed from there. The move to Cleveland didn't help, as the arena was 26 miles (40km) from Cleveland, and literally in a farm field (you could see sheep from the doors), so no one was willing to travel that far to watch a bad team. Some good news though: in 1991 the NHL granted an expansion team to San Jose (outside of San Francisco), and in a convoluted processes sort of "demerged" the North Stars: the owners were the last group from Cleveland and had bought the North Stars, but wanted out now, so they were given the new team, the San Jose Sharks, and allowed to take some North Stars players. So while not technically the same team, the modern Sharks (who have been quite successful over the past three decades), can trace their heritage to the Oakland Seals.

Does anyone know of books that really go into the general life of people (noble or otherwise) in the Roman and/or Byzantine empire? Things that go beyond the grand conquests, schemes and battles and instead focus more on day to day life. (this can also include the way that institutions of the empire were built up and functioned)

Does anyone have recommendations for books or articles on the invention of the university as an institution and/or concept? Topics of interest could be medieval scholastic origins, European Enlightenment revisions, or non-European/non-Western universities. I'm particularly interested in how universities emerged and how people thought about their function or purpose in that development. Also interested in how the concept of the university morphed in the United States context. Texts on any one of these themes would be of interest. Thanks in advance.

I was wondering about Hoxha's Albania. I've heard a lot of the time period in which he was in power, Albania having thousands of bunkers. I'm having a tough time finding resources. Can anyone recommend a book about Hoxha or life in his Albania?

Inspired by a trip pre-pandemic I've developed an interest in all things Argentina.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a wealth of (English language) literature on Argentine history - or South America in general, for that matter.

I'm specifically interested in Peronism, the 1976 coup, and the National Reorganization Process that followed.

I'm keen to move beyond Wikipedia on these subjects, but am unsure of where to go.

Does anyone have any recommendations or a quick shove in the right direction?

So today I found out about the battle of Domažlice and it got me thinking about the use of music in warfare.

Can anyone recommend any good books on the subject? I'm specifically interested in books discussing military usage of warfare pre-1800, as I haven't been able to find any.

I've been reading The Abacus and the Sword by Peter Duus, which discusses the period in which Japan came to annex Korea.

I'm interested in reading about Korea under Japanese rule, both from the Japanese and Korean perspectives. Which books on this topic would you suggest?

I'm looking for books on two topics, both as general histories:

The Antilles Islands/Caribbean Sea between 1492-1800

The Late Medieval Duchy of Burgundy

For the Caribbean, I have looked around a bit and is the Cambridge "Concise History of the Caribbean" a good intro book to the area's history? Or are there better ones? On the other hand I have not found many books about Burgundy, so I guess that's what I am mostly looking for.