Finished The Bukharan Crisis: A Connected History of 18th Century Central Asia by Scott Levi.

Despite its title, it's not so much a recounting of history as the questioning and rebuttal of traditional views that consider Central Asia as decaying in the pre-modern era. The author approaches it using evidence from the states surrounding Central Asia: India, Persia, the Qing empire, the Russians and the steppe nomads.

I really enjoyed it and, in particular, found the extensive, careful discussion challenging the romanticized view of the Silk Road highly illuminating. Published in 2020, the book's nearly as current as you can get.

I've kind of fallen down a rabbit hole after reading Peter Wilson's The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History, fixating on 17-18th century Europe. From the HRE I've been expanding out a bit further, trying to read Guy Rowlands' work on the finances of Louis XIV, which is really interesting but more of a slog since I'm no economist or speaker of French, so keeping track of the contrôleur général, the contrôleurs généraux, the directeurs généraux, the contrôle général etc. etc. is tough (I copied those straight from Rowlands' book so I've no idea what any of those mean precisely, nor if any of them are the same thing changed slightly to indicate plurality, tense, etc!) I read Nicholas Henshall's The Myth of Absolutism, which helped humanise and contextualise my understanding of 17-18th century government a good amount, and helped ratchet up my confusion a good amount more...

From this skimming of the ocean of possible literature I've realised I have absolutely no idea how it is that, in specific, western/northern/central European government/society actually worked in a concrete "day-to-day" sense, and especially so in a sense relative to the other governments/societies operating in the same sphere. So Great Britain, France, Spain, the Empire, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Prussia I guess.

Like, I read Wilson's work and a whole host of complex details gives life to how the Empire actually worked. So I initially thought the fairly parochial focus of a lot of the imperial structure, a focus on localised law and custom, the idea of "German freedoms" was specific to the HRE. But then I read Henshall and Rowlands, and France sounds much the same! Lots of local courts, specific local laws grounded in history and custom, same as with tax arrangements. And now I've no idea how the two places related!

I also have no idea at all how the economies worked, or how military arrangements and logistics actually worked. Louis XIV seems to be putting 400k+ soldiers into several theatres multiple times over 1690-1713 or so, matching the combined number of troops put out by the Empire, the Dutch, the British, the Austrians, and a few other places besides. But whenever Wilson zooms in on the military operations of Imperial princes, even the major electors like the Wittelsbachs, putting together 10k+ troops sounds like a ridiculously exorbitant nightmare. Supplying armies seems to become a nightmare if they're not directly near a river, billeting troops was apparently a nightmare to arrange (even on "home soil" so to speak), pay was constantly in arrears, and on and on.

So to sum up that rambling mess: I'm desperate for anything anyone can recommend that deals with any subset of the countries mentioned above for any period within the 17-18th centuries in a way that gets into distinguishing their cultures, judicial practice, military arrangement, financial system etc. etc. And does by way of direct comparison between places (sorry for the possibly obnoxious bolding; I figured it might help mitigate the wall of text that's mostly irrelevant to what I'm actually asking), with these comparisons going into the specific details of all relevant countries whenever comparing them. Trying to read any singularly focused book I find that whenever the topic isn't within the exact purview of the book it gets hand-waved into abstraction.

And the more minute detail the recommended work goes into the better! If it gets down into how the French vs the German armies would go about, I don't know, arranging shipping of supplies down the Rhine when campaigning in Lorraine, or differences in who sent what to whom in the process of requesting loans for the state in Britain and the Netherlands (which apparently had more developed financial instruments) as compared to France, for examples, then that's definitely better from my perspective.

Thanks in advance for any help that can be provided! :)

Started reading some random books recently, a bit of a break from Stalin and the Soviet Union (and even from hockey):

• End Zones and Border Wars: The Era of American Expansion in the CFL by Ed Willes. This covers the Canadian Football League's attempt to expand to the US in the early 1990s. Willes is/was a sports reporter in Canada, and his book on the World Hockey Association is great (I own it, and am planning to go through it again). However this was not so great. I was hoping to get some background about the CFLs struggles and the efforts to go to the US, and why exactly it failed. Instead it was a couple pages on the business issues of the 1980s, US teams were covered within a couple pages, and then a lot of focus was on Canadian teams, and the 1994 Grey Cup (which had a Canadian and US team play each other; the Canadian team won in dramatic fashion). Even odder, the 1995 Grey Cup, which had another US-Canada matchup, had the US team win, and hardly got any coverage. I was really disappointed.

• A Brief History of the Bodleian Library by Mary Clapinson. Not sure why I read this, but I was in the public library when it opened briefly here and it caught my eye. I've never been to Oxford, and am only vaguely familiar with the library system there, but this was a really neat look. I had no idea there was so much history behind their major library, which has had quite an eventful four centuries. Glad I found it.

• Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization by Andrew Lawler. Again, just randomly looking through the library and saw this, and I'll admit the title and the story intrigued me. Lawler is a journalist, not a historian, but he does a good job of tracing the history of the chicken, while also showing how culturally relevant it has been to multiple societies. He also treaded a fine line on modern production of chicken, which was impressive in how he worded it. I knew nothing going in, and came out learning quite a bit, which is always good when reading books.

• The Destiny of Canada: MacDonald, Laurier, and the Election of 1891: The History of Canada by Christopher Pennington. Like most Canadians I know next to nothing about Canadian history, and seeing a book about a late 19th century election caught my attention. And it also remained a captivating read, with a lot going on at the time that is relevant over a century later (trade with the US, Canadian identity, the electorate hesitant to elect someone other than a white Protestant from Ontario, etc).

Finally getting back into reading history again after a couple of years of feeling very disconnected after I graduated, kind of 'read out' haha. Im sure a lot of people feel kind of similarly once they get a Real Job^TM

I've recently ordered a copy of Hiram Morgans, Tyrone's Rebellion: The Outbreak of the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland. Just one I have never got around to reading before.

I really want to get a copy of Coleman A. Dennehy (ed.), Law and revolution in seventeenth-century Ireland, but it really pains me how much specialist academic books cost - €49.50! I might just have to stump up the price.

I have recently finished Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church by Joseph Kelly. The notion that after Constantinople IV (869-870) "conciliar and papal history would be inextricably intertwined" meant that the book's presentation of the succeeding councils became more like history of papacy than of councils per se, though of course this means the councils are properly contextualized. Also, the author relied heavily on John O'Malley's What Happened at Vatican II? for the chapter on that most recent council, though I don't see this as a big problem.

However, I did catch a major error: the author misidentified the pope from 1566-1572 as Paul V, which is wrong; it should be Pius V. This error is repeated in a span of three paragraphs, so not exactly a typo.

Aside from that, it's a good resource for learning about the ecumenical councils recognized by the Catholic Church.

What with the recent US recognition of the Armenian Genocide, I've been trying to educate myself on that period of history. I've also stumbled upon events such as the Burning of Smyrna, which I found interesting. Anyone have good recommendations for a broader history of the Greek-Turkish War/Turkish War of Independence, Greek-Ottomon rivalry/wars, the Treaty of Sevres, etc? Thanks.

edit: wrote American instead of Armenian, oops

Hello! I'm doing research for a novel, and I'd really love books and other resources on the daily life of British soldiers and officers in WWI, especially the fighting in France and the Middle-Eastern theater (the Mesopotamian campaign, in particular).

Both of my main Characters are university students in Britain before the war, so books on that will also be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

The fifth century BCE Athenian plague: If I were interested in getting a bit more in depth than wikipedia where would be a good place to start (classical or contemporary readings)?

I'm not so much interested in questions about around what caused the plague or what the disease actually was, but more interested in societal reactions and transformations.