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.
Technically speaking this isn't a reading suggestion, but for the last week I've been listening to /u/Trevor_Culley's History of Persia podcast and it's great! He spends a considerable length of time discussing almost every aspect of Achaemenid history, with episodes on culture and religion mixed in with the narrative history, and he's very easy to listen to. Best of all, he's very careful to rely on Achaemenid and Near Eastern sources as much as possible, and on modern scholars of Achaemenid history, avoiding a lot of the issues of relying too much on Classical scholars and Greek sources.
I do have a couple of very, very minor niggles on the military history side, where I think the preference for Achaemenid scholars has resulted in missed opportunities to relate interesting recent historiography (such as Jeffrey Rop's recent article, "The Phocian betrayal at Thermopylae") but, as I've said, these are very minor and don't impact the narrative at all.
I definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about Achaemenid Persia and what was going on in the Ancient Near East, Central Asia and Egypt in the 5th and 6th centuries BCE (I'm only up to episode 54, but I think the narrative is still in the mid-5th century).
I am looking for books on the history of Minor League baseball and Negro League Baseball.
Are there any good English-language books about the history of coffee in Japan? Hopefully not too dry but not too lightweight and breezy either.
I am looking for books which explains the history of architecture, how it evolved from stone age to the present.
I'm looking for books on Imperial Russia with a particular interest in the Romanov family. Any biographies or deep dives into the family would be great.
So when you're looking for a book on a particular topic(let's say the Ogaden War) where do you start searching. Are there websites that have lists of academic works on different topics?
I am looking for books on Yankee (New England/Puritans/descendants across NY/Upper Midwest) golden age culture (c. 1790 - 1870), literary, religious, political, and so on.
I’ve read:
What Hath God Wrought
Bonds of Womanhood
Some Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, Finney, Tocqueville (so not looking for primary sources rn)
I’m looking for books on the history of key west
Seeking recommendation on books about 1940s farmers union movements in the southern United States (Tennessee specifically would be great).