I've finished two books since I posted here last. Both of them are easily among my favorites.

The first was Eugene Rogan's The Fall Of the Ottomans. As in The Arabs, he does an incredible job of keeping a tight, engaging narrative and being highly informative at the same time. And because most WWI histories I've read linger on the first hundred miles of the Western Front, with occasional glances at other theaters, there was a lot I learned. I'd never heard of the Siege of Kut, a significant British defeat which saw thousands of men and officers starved and captured on the Tigris. And centering the book on the Ottoman perspective helped show how other famous events from that era are related, so that they're no longer little islands on my mental map of the era. What the book left me anxious to learn more about is the post-Armistice period and the Turkish War of Independence. Does anyone have a book they can recommend on that subject?

The second was Richard Rhodes's classic The Making Of the Atomic Bomb. I listened to this one on audiobook and can tell you what a difference a good reader makes. Holter Graham reads like he's performing a play, with rhythm and emotion that some other audiobooks I've listened to are sorely missing. He subtly puts on voices when reading quotes, which also adds to the experience. The book itself covers a lot. History of science, history of strategic bombing, history of the bomb project itself. A little philosophy of science. Rhodes lingers on big events like the Chicago Pile going critical, the Trinity test, and the bombing of Hiroshima, to really make you feel like you're there and give you a sense of the gravity of the moment. Another really engaging narrative. There are two things finishing this book made me want to read more about. First, I'd love a history of the development of strategic bombing. Googling turns up Max Hastings's Bomber Command, but I can't tell if it's quite what I'm looking for. Second, I'd love to know more about the last weeks of the Japanese war. The attempts of junior and senior military officers to prevent the surrender, only touched on in Rhodes, sound like they make up an exciting story on their own. Can anyone recommend anything on either of these subjects?

I'm reading The Red and the Black and as it quite precisely places each character in a very definite sociopolitical milieu, it's making me want to look into Bourbon Restoration history a little. Like Dickens is of course extremely aware of the class of his characters but he takes them as sort of timeless universals (and in a nebulous "present time" like a sitcom) whereas Stendhal is constantly referring to exact time and place.

Incidentally I feel like I've taken more crap for reading "old serious books" over this one than ever before and like, I guess it's the title because (so far at least) it's extremely funny and less cynical than the jacket suggests.

Would anyone happen to have good sources (books, articles, historiography papers) relating to democracy and mass politics in the late 19th century? General sources are fine but if possible anything to do with the French Third Republic or the Kingdom of Italy would be great. Thank you

I will be writing a final paper for my Revolutionary Russia class, I am so behind on sources, my topic is on the Gulags, I am thinking children that grew up in the Gulags and survived or children that were sent to an orphanage and survived. OR Bloody Sunday in January of 1905.

I know about the books by Anne Applebaum and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Please help me!

Are there any maps in the physical book format for Napoleons campaigns? Sometimes it is a bit overwhelming trying to Google every area and figure out where is what.