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.
Does anyone have suggestions for books about birth control in the Soviet Union during the '70s & '80s? Especially about intrauterine devices or other LARC and how such devices were designed/built/sold/used in different SSRs.
I do not know how to read Russian.
Hello!
I am just finishing up George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and I have heard that a major conflict in the books is loosely based on the War of Roses. I tried reading the Wikipedia, but I don't have any kind of context on what's happening and who's who and end up going down a huge rabbit hole. Does anyone have a book recommendation that could help me out? Thank you in advance.
Does anyone have a book recommendation for learning about naval ship and technologies? I'm fascinated by ships and I'd love to learn more about the different types and classifications, their intended purposes, and historical development.
I was just at a bookstore today and was looking at the history books when I noticed that there were plenty of books on WWII Japanese history, but not much else. Could anyone recommend a book or books that focus on the history of Japan before WWII? A survey style book geared toward the layperson would be great, since I don't know much about Japan's history and I do not know the language at all.
Is there a book written about the historiography of "The Fall of Rome"? It seems like it ought to be a ripe topic, but I've got no idea what narrative anyone told about it before Edward Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".