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.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
I'm looking for the best accounts of the rediscovery and early excavations at Pompeii/Herculaneum, circa 1600 to 1860. They don't need to be entire volumes; articles or book chapters are fine. Academic or more popular approaches to the topic are equally welcome. Texts can be in English, Italian, French or German.
Finished reading a book called "Beloved Beasts, Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction" recently. By Michelle Nijhuis. Its a history of the Conservation movement (Primarily in the US but also elsewhere, including some fascinating stuff happening in Africa.) I really liked it, right up my field. Its pretty sad considering its about how many animals are being driven to extinction, but the point of the book is how fiercely people have been fighting against it, so there's a lot of optimism. The book is very easily readable for folks who don't have much experience in the field, and does a really good job of tying each individual chapter together so that the journey through the decades forms a tight, interconnected web instead of just different events that broadly come together.
Looking for books (preferably in Spanish) on Cuba/Cuban history from the beginning of the colonial period to today
Looking for a book that describes Mesopotamian religious rituals in detail. I would prefer Sumerian, but any time period will do.
Tyvm
I know a lot of great academic books and articles covering guns in early modern Europe. I’ve seen works dealing with their battlefield usage, technological change, manufacture, procurement, diffusion, larger effects they had on war and society, and cultural influence. My question is, are there any good books or articles that deal with pikes in the same period? I’ve been searching, and I can’t find much, which really seems like an oversight considering how important pikes were to warfare in the 16th and 17th centuries. So I’m hoping that someone here knows something.