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>>25304749
The Road To Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 by William W. Freehling

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19255589-the-road-to-disunion

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Still on Ghost Wars & Dancing in the Glory of Monsters FML

after reading the national history of my country I have decided to read a national history of every nation on earth

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>>25304749
Any similar books besides this and Plagues & Peoples?

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The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History by Tonio Andrade

>Tonio Andrade examines the historical trajectory of gunpowder technology and its military implications, particularly focusing on China and the West. The book provides a fresh perspective on why China, despite being the birthplace of gunpowder and initially leading in its military applications, fell behind Western nations by the early 1800s.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25440222-the-gunpowder-age

>>25306686
I've considered this too, but some countries just have too much for one book and some are too irrelevant. How are you gonna get a whole book out of south sudan?

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I found this a pretty illuminating read as somebody unfamiliar with the history of the Muslim world, but what I found particularly informative was way it rendered the "Muslim mindset" to a non-Muslim. It's essentially an explainer for how Islamic culture saw the world at various points in history, how they explained history and major world events.

I had some assumptions going in about what "disrupted" referred to, and believed at first it would build up to the crusades. But as it turns out, the crusades were an altogether minor setback for the Islamic world. While they were an immense hardship for the people of the Levant, overall, Islam found the Crusader states bothersome, rather than catastrophic. The real catastrophe, that massive disruption that totally derailed Dar-al-Islam, was the Mongols. I had no idea the apocalyptic damage the Mongols did to the Islamic world, nor the effect it had on their religious beliefs.

>>25306791
Is there any other histories like this? Like global history through Chinese or Indian eyes?

>>25306791
I thought it was neat too. At first it sounded like grievance slop but the author is actually pretty mild and even-handed.

>>25304889
This guy seems like a chode but I'll look into it regardless

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Some anon recommended picrel in the previous thread - It is a great read and I'm interested in more detailed histories of some of the peoples and cultures described there. For example, the story of the Irish peregrini sailing around the North Sea was fascinating

We need a rentry for these threads. I have missed to many books rec'd here already.

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>>25306713
Epidemics and Society

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The Making of Modern Japan

>Since 1600 Japan has undergone three periods of wrenching social and institutional change, following the imposition of hegemonic order on feudal society by the Tokugawa shogun; the opening of Japan's ports by Commodore Perry; and defeat in World War II. The Making of Modern Japan charts these changes: the social engineering begun with the founding of the shogunate in 1600, the emergence of village and castle towns with consumer populations, and the diffusion of samurai values in the culture.

>>25309252
>World Economic Forum Number One Book
Ehhhh....ok I guess

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>>25304749

>>25307767
here's the updated WWI book chart from the other thread. It can't be shared here due to file resolution size.

https://i.imgur.com/TMAuNyH.jpeg

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Recent book haul.

>>25310789
I own The Little Ice Age on e-reader, how does it compare to Geoffrey Parkers "Global Crisis"?

>>25310826
I don't know, I only just got it and is on my to read list lel. I bought it based on a recommendation from another anon in the previous thread.

I've read A History of Christianity from Diarmaid MacCulloch, his other books are also worth reading? "Lower than the angels" and "Silence: A Christian History" in particular. What about "The Reformation" ?

>>25307432
Hey that was me! It's a very fun book & gives you a starting point to learn about the various cultures around the globe & their relation to the Atlantic ocean. Wished the author made a sequal for the Pacific or various others like the Indian Ocean. I think the roughest part of the book for me had to be the subchapter (subheadings?) on Viking instruments. It just didn't click with me that bit. It was interesting learning on various topics from the Calusa tribes & their middens, to Irish desert brothers braving the seas in their little boats & their various types of martyrdom. Lots of stopping of points for personal research & for other books.

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>>25310975
Also going to be starting this! I couldn't get into the Invasion of Italy books which sucks but enjoying this. Gonna do a double back to back with this & "The Battle of Stalingrad Through German Eyes: The Death of the Sixth Army" but idk if that will result in burnout so we will see. I also just finished a book on German PoWs in North Wales. I will write up my thoughts on it tomorrow after visiting a castle.
>>25310789
Went to a charity store & two Max Hastings books on WW1 & 2 for £2. Then yesterday got like 5 for £10. I can't remember the titles but I know one was of nurses in war & conflicts.

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>>25310789
>>25310988
I also want to get some Mark Felton books as some of the topics interest me but they are kinda expensive for me :/
On this note, has anyone read his books? Are they of a high quality? I've heard some people call him a fraud but I don't know enough about the situation.

>>25310904
>What about "The Reformation" ?
Yes it's quite good.

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It's just unbelievable how much superior nonfiction is to fiction. Yes, even the classics. I remember forcing myself to read shit like the Iliad and Candide and feeling like a slog. Then I picked up books like Seeing Like a State and the difference was like night and day.
Reading about ACTUAL THINGS AND PLACES just feels to much more fascinating than reading the shallow world building and character motivations of places like Oceania or Middle Earth and Ralkolnikov or Odysseus.
Really glad to see other /lit/zens are waking up to the superiority of nonfiction with these generals.
>>25310789
>>25310826
Don't know about Global Crisis but The Little Ice Age has passages like these. It's a neat little book that concisely describes the eponymous climactic phenomenon.

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While browsing Goodreads I stumbled upon this.
It has a really high score on the platform and glowing reviews BUT... I did my research and turns out this "Dan Jones" is a pop historian that seemingly prefers doing TV appearances than actual research. I'm also suspicious of the subtitle. Whenever a book advertises itself as "A New History of X" you have to assume it's revisionist, right?
Should I still give it a try anyways or nah?
Also, are Under the Black Flag and The Age of the Vikings good primers on the Golden Age of Piracy and the Viking Age respectively or should I read something else?

>>25304749
Does anyone know of a good book on the 19th Century Italian unification?

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>>25311295
Pic rel is on my TBR, so I can't personally attest to how good it is

>>25311340
I'll keep looking then

>>25311223
>Under the Black Flag
by David Cordingly? I own it, haven't read it. apparently its more of a history of piracy in popular culture than piracy in actuality, but I'd recommend Black Flags, Blue Waters if you want something more about the actual practice through the ages.

>>25311067
How does it compare to the one from Owen Chadwick?

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>>25304749
best history of penal systems besides picrel and Discipline & Punish? I'm the same anon who asked for history of law recs in the last thread.

>>25306881
I'm not sure, but I'd be interested in them as well. This book is the product of the author's personal experience as an British Afghan, somebody who has lived in both the cultural traditions of Islam, and the west, and chafed at the misunderstandings his western friends and mentors had about his homeland, and about Muslims in general. As >>25306895 pointed out, he's surprisingly even-handed in his discussions and doesn't use the book as an opportunity to vent his grievances, but rather, it is a genuine attempt to educate people.

So I think we just have to wait for a similar author to come along for China and India, though unfortunately the Chinese one is going to be hard to find in the sea of Chinese diaspora literature that exists currently.

>>25312376
Michele Pifferi - Reinventing Punishment: A Comparative History of Criminology and Penology in the 19th and 20th Century.

Jesus christ I feel like an old man. I spent easily 5 minutes figuring out the captcha. Fuck 4chan these days man.

>>25312678
>104 dollars
Welp, off to annas

>>25311223
>The Age of the Vikings
The one by Anders Winroth?

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Backcountry War: The Rise of Francis Marion, Banastre Tarleton, and Thomas Sumter by Andrew Waters

>Explores the intense guerrilla fighting during the American Revolution in South Carolina, focusing on the contributions of these three key figures. The narrative highlights their roles in pivotal battles and the broader context of the war in the southern theater.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210864310-backcountry-war

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>>25304749
I highly enjoyed The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick.

>>25311223
Read Neil Price for viking stuff

>>25314092
Yeah that one

>>25304749
What are some good histories of late 1600s/early 1700s wars?

>>25315110
Tim Blanning - The Pursuit of Glory
Howard Peckham - The Colonial Wars
Robert Gaudi - The War of Jenkins Ear
James Falkner - The War of Spanish Succession
John Lynn - The Wars of Louis XIV
Reed Browning - The War of the Austrian Succession

>>25310975
Thanks again for the recommendation!
>Lots of stopping of points for personal research & for other books.
My plan is to follow it up with more reading on the Portuguese exploration and expansion, as I have a general interest in their history, and this book proved a great starting point, putting it all in the broader context of the region.

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>>25315148
Thanks. I just got Blanning's history of Romanticism, wondering if its as good as Isaiah Berlin's work on the subject

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>>25315110
King Philip's War

Ive been reading scifi for the past decade or so. I want to read some history. I used to read shit like Herodotus, tacitus, xenophon, but I can't imagine going back to that. The last history book I read was the devils chessboard. I need some recommendations of history books that are not too long or academic but also haven't been outright debunked. I like cia/conspiracy shit, military stuff mostly modern, and stuff with action(?) thanks

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>>25316592
You might like picrel

>>25316562
Thanks

>>25316592
Read works on wars written by soldiers who were in them. Like a modern day Thucydides or Xenophon. The stuff by soldiers in the conflicts like Rhodesia and Angola is very interesting.

Will be starting the Oxford history of the US soon, looks like the book that covers the progressive era and the roaring 20s got pushed back yet again, any recs for filling in that gap? I've seen Brands' "American Colossus" and Jackson Lears' "Rebirth of a Nation" if anyone is familiar with them.

>>25316952
I actually read part of Richard White's The Republic For Which It Stands so far. Its not bad but he simps for Andrew Johnson a bit

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>>25307432
>>25315313
Just finished 'Ocean' and jumped right into this one. Still early on it feels like a straight continuation, and the style seems similar. Can't wait to get to the struggle with the Ottomans over the Indian Ocean. From what I know of the conflict, it looks kinda like an early modern version of the Cold War, proxy-wars, embargoes and puppet rulers included.

Whats the Edward gibbon equivalent for Greek civilization

>>25317460
probably Jacob Burckardt's "Greeks And Greek Civilization"

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Worth a read? I'm a crusade mood and I'm want to start from the beginning

>>25306791
Ordered and arriving today. Thanks for posting this, it sounds good.

>>25316592
I'd unironically recommend World Order by Henry Kissinger, regardless of what you may think of the man. Very digestable, fairly short and very relevant for understanding modern world politics (although it is a little bit outdated since it was written in 2013 I think?). It might not quite be what you're looking for based on what you mentioned that you liked (cia/conspiracy shit, military stuff mostly modern, and stuff with action) but I think that there's enough overlap in the subject matter to the point where you'll probably find it interesting. Give it a read.

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>>25311650
>Owen Chadwick
Haven't read him. Diarmaid MacCulloch and Roland Bainton are the most engaging authors on the Reformation that I've come across.

>>25316592
> Confessions of an Economic Hitman
The information seems right but I can't make up my mind if the author actually did the things he claims.
>Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold
Pretty sure this is the 'conspiracy' version. Saw it recced on /pol/ or /x/. Never got around to reading it though. It's about the Japanese loot from WW2 and what the Americans did with it after officially not finding it.
> Programmed to kill, the politics of serial murder.
Obligatory 4chan reading really. About the satanic elites and shows accounts of how they groom people.

>>25306791
>I had some assumptions going in about what "disrupted" referred to, and believed at first it would build up to the crusades. But as it turns out, the crusades were an altogether minor setback for the Islamic world. While they were an immense hardship for the people of the Levant, overall, Islam found the Crusader states bothersome, rather than catastrophic.
The sad part is, even though he's correct about that when it comes to the perspective of Muslims back then, a lot of modern Muslims believe otherwise.
Personally I blame how the Crusades narratives was effectively rewritten by Walter Scott's literature in changing how the Crusades were really depicted and how it later influenced mass-media like Kingdom of Heaven (it also completely ruined the reputation of the Templars for both westerners and Muslims, but that's a whole other discussion). If you speak to a lot of modern Muslims today, they will be just as ignorant about this as the average westerners unless they are particularly knowledgeable about Islamic history.
Hell a lot of Muslims genuinely believe in a lot of westernized myths about Muslims in history, which is kinda funny and sad at the same time.

Just bought Gibbons Decline and fall of the Roman empire, folio edition
Please congratulate me or call me stupid, whatever you prefer
I need anonymous online approval to justify my purchase and the hours I'm going to spend reading it

>>25317479
It is fantastic, one of my favourite history reads in recent years. Gives a very presentation of the why and how. I think you'll enjoy it.

>>25319448
Read the first book and you'll know. It has nice but bombastic prose, tons of sweeping moralistic statements, and a wholly outdated view of ancient Rome. Either you enjoy the prose and read it like a novel, read it like you would the ancient sources like Suetonius as a historiographical exercise and as a product of it's time, or you put it to the side and read something more modern. It is more of a mantle piece than something worth reading for a modern layperson imo.

>>25319553
Fuck. You. Gibbon is still the peak. He is objectively correct.
>shitting on suetonius.
You're worthless

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>>25319553
I'm more interested in thinking like a Grand Strategist. The Sid Meiers games don't give me that kick anymore. So I have to begin my self-education to become Chief of Staff for whoever leads the world government we're going to have in 25 years time.
Will Gibbons give me that kick?
Image related is the series I'm currently reading.

>>25319601
Read Luttwak and G Wess Mitchell too

Which Primary sources would you say are must read for medieval age in western europe? Joinville is already on my list.

>>25319660
get Gregory Of Tours and Einhard

>>25311223
>Powers andThrones
It's pop history of course but I enjoyed it.

>>25319448
If you're happy with it, that's all that matters. Folio has a lot of haters on this board, probably because most anons (including me) can't afford them.

>>25319660
Strictly for history there are none. The medieval mindset was so stuck in blatantly false ideas of biblical and classical mythology that most is worthless as a regular history book, and you need scholars that can cross-check tons of sources or do philological analysis to get anything out of it.

>>25317934
Ordered, thanks

>>25319284
>Programmed to kill
Yeah, obligatory, though it was recommended to me by my ex girlfriend in like 2008.

>>25320421
>blatantly false ideas of biblical and classical mythology
Modernist presentism.

>>25320421
This is one of the stupidest fucking most pseudo-historian takes I've ever fucking seen.
Hell the moment you seriously start to engage with classical antiquity, you realize classical antiquity primary sources do arguably MUCH worse in that era than anything from the medieval era.

Anyone got any recommendations on books about the Assyrians?

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>>25321271
The only one I know is this one

>>25321271
You have a little bit about Assyrians in "Ancient Iraq" by Georges roux but among other topics.
>>25321574
That's one of the best on the subject for casual reader.

>>25321271
The Assyrian by Nicholas Guild isn't a history but it's well researched historical fiction. You might enjoy it.

>>25320421
Lolwut

>>25321574
>>25321638
>>25321664
Thanks lads

>>25322304
hey at least I tried

>>25320767
So what? The point is not to learn what people of the past thought, the point is to learn the past. You're supposed to use modern perspectives.
>>25321131
Hardly. Most classical histories reduce their scope to what they can source, and the extent to which they mythologise has been greatly exaggerated by pseuds - especially Herodotus. The one that mythologises heaviest is Josephus, who is drawing on biblical lies just like the medievals, but at least he wasn't pretending everyone was a secret trojan or lost tribe of israel.

>>25322833
>The point is not to learn what people of the past thought, the point is to learn the past.
what is the history of mentalities?

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Why is the word "nigger" so funny to modern ears? I am reading about the tulsa race riot and I can't stop laughing at the part when a white guy walks up to a black guy and refers to him as "nigger"

>>25323716
That was the ‘red summer’ of nineteen nineteen or something like that

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I don't think there was ever a point in history where Russia's military WASN'T full of incompetent fucking retards, lmao.

>>25319553
>a wholly outdated view of ancient Rome
>read it like a novel
>read it like you would the ancient sources like Suetonius
I detest this contemporary view of history wherein every single detail has to be corroborated and checked and checked again. This isn't how human memory works, every single person remembers shared experiences completely differently. History is amorphous, a long tale of trillions of personal anecdotes woven together, on certain dates certain events categorically happened, but the details of them, the interesting details that is, come from oral histories, witnesses, participants anecdotes, and if an event was written about centuries after it occurred, then with reverence for the mythology that the event has taken on in the intervening years. Once history lost its mythology, its fantastical elements, it lost all soul and became a boring academic wank session. The Greco-Roman historians are amazing, and they should be taken as gospel.

>>25324430
Female moment

What's your favorite history book in regards to China? I've been stuck on and mystified by China for years now and I feel like I can never discuss it on /lit/.

>>25323716
Because it has been rendered absurd by progressives
>>25323283
A subgenre of history and not what most history is for, stop being disingenuous.
>>25324446
It's hard to get into desu. I'm annoyed that the cambridge history of china STILL isn't finished so I'll probably try out the harvard history of imperial china series

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>>25324476
>stop being disingenuous

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Any good books on court jesters? This was okay, but it felt pretty unfocused and didn't really give me a complete picture of jesters in any culture.

Any good books on semiotics and symboles meaning and evolution through history? Around the medieval period would be best or the progression from antiquity to early middle ages maybe linked to the theological aspect of the changes happening throughout europe at that time.

>>25326177
Hey, I got that for my birthday but haven't finished it. What's wrong with it?

>>25323716
It was just a generic term for a Congoid back then, but just like Negro academia and the "elite" suddenly decided it was the highest form of blasphemy so that's what it has been for a few decades now.

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>>25324391
>>Yeneisei, set about mining the approaches to the harbour. The sea was choppy and a mine waswashed against the ship’s rudder. She blew up. Eighty of the ship’s company of 200were saved, but the ship took with her the charts of the minefields laid so far. Thecruiser Boyarin, sent out to investigate the loss of the Yeneisei, hit one of the mines and was subsequently abandoned.

>>25325836
How detailed is it? I have the Villa bio by Friedrich Katz, but haven't gotten to it yet.

What's that Frederick II biography everyone's been going crazy for?

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>>25326177
Oh crap sorry you didn't like it. I recommended it on /lit/ without reading it so that may be my fault if you got it from here.
If you want to read the one other book on fools that I have but haven't read there's this one (in image).
I also have a book named Catafalque by Peter Kingsley and the 1st chapter is 90 or so pages on the 'Mystical Fool's but that's Jungian stuff and I haven't read it so once again, not sure if that's of any interest to you.

That's where my foolish suggestions end.

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>>25327817
The only one that I'm aware of is by Robert Asprey, I thought it was quite good.

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>>25326221
gotchu

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Cnut the Great