Grand unified books thread

[Oexmelin]

Long list of the Cundill Prize revealed:

• Gary J. Bass, Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
• Lauren Benton, They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence
• Joya Chatterji,  Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century
• Kathleen DuVal, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America
• Amitav Ghosh, Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories
• Catherine Hall, Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism
• Julian Jackson, France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain
• Patrick Joyce, Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World
• Ruby Lal, Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan
• Andrew C. McKevitt, Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America
• Dylan C. Penningroth, Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights
• Stuart A. Reid  The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination
• David Van Reybrouck,  Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World

[Sheilbh]

Already heard very good things about Revolusi, Judgement at Tokyo and Native Nations. But a few others on there that look very interesting.

Really interesting to see Amitav Ghosh on there. I'm a big fan but I've only read his fiction and honestly didn't know he wrote non-fiction too.

[Gups]

Already heard very good things about Revolusi, Judgement at Tokyo and Native Nations. But a few others on there that look very interesting.

Really interesting to see Amitav Ghosh on there. I'm a big fan but I've only read his fiction and honestly didn't know he wrote non-fiction too.

Looks like it's the same subject as his latest fiction. I read the first and loved it. Not sure why I didn't follow up with the others

[Oexmelin]

Really interesting to see Amitav Ghosh on there. I'm a big fan but I've only read his fiction and honestly didn't know he wrote non-fiction too.

AFAIK, that book is made up of stuff he researched for his fiction.

[Sophie Scholl]

There is a recently released Star Wars book written by a World War I scholar that looks incredibly intriguing. It is written in character as a historical chronicle of events. It seems to have really good reviews, too. I am definitely looking forward to giving it a read as it combines aspects of my favorite reading options: history and Star Wars. 

From the description blurb:

A history of the dark times

"So this is how liberty dies―with thunderous applause."

-Senator Padmé Amidala

When Palpatine declared the birth of his new Empire, he expected it would stand for millennia. Instead, it lasted only 24 years. This is the story of how a tyrannical regime rose from the ashes of democracy, ruled the galaxy with an iron fist, and then collapsed into dust.

It is a story of war and heroes, of the power of propaganda and the dangers of complacency. But most of all, it is a story of normal people trying to live their lives in the face of a brutal dictatorship.

From the ruthlessness of Darth Vader's campaigns to the horrors of the Tarkin Initiative, this book offers fresh new insights into the dark entity at the core of Star Wars.
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[The Brain]

The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia, by Hopkirk. Informative and readable account of The Great Game. Published in 1990, so it's possible that more information has been extracted from Russian archives since then. I had never really read details about The Great Game so I found it interesting. While he does mention the Indian undercover agents his focus is on the Brits and Russians who played the game.

Viking Britain: A History, by Williams. Readable account of Viking Britain. Not saying anything new so if you already know a lot about the subject it is not mandatory reading.

[Sheilbh]

The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia, by Hopkirk. Informative and readable account of The Great Game. Published in 1990, so it's possible that more information has been extracted from Russian archives since then. I had never really read details about The Great Game so I found it interesting. While he does mention the Indian undercover agents his focus is on the Brits and Russians who played the game.

Fascinatingly the last Soviet-backed Afghan President, Najibullah, was working on translating that into Pashtun after he lost power. In a weird echo I believe Hamid Karzai regularly used to push copies of Return of a King, William Dalrymple's book on the First Anglo-Afghan War, on his American interlocutors towards the ed of his presidency.

Hopkirk's Setting the East Ablaze is really worth a read.

But yeah, no idea the extent to which the period the Russian and Soviet archives were open and easily accessible has transformed the history.