Grand unified books thread

[Savonarola]

In anticipation of the upcoming Trump presidency I read Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke; now I have the strangest urge to buy a pair of pleated pants .



This book has some faults.  Like Cicero (whom Burke quotes extensively) before him, Burke is stuck trying to make the case that the then existing order was the best possible government.  Also Burke wasn't the best informed about the state of revolutionary France; his description of the October March, for instance, verges on an high drama.  Even so, the book is remarkably prescient; from 1790 he foresaw the death of the King and Queen (though he thought Marie Antoinette would be killed first), the counter revolutions, the terror, and the rise of a military dictatorship.  His explanation as to why the disaster was to unfold (that it was based purely on the abstract and done by people with no experience in government) I find satisfactory; though there are certainly other interpretations.  (Hannah Arendt thought it was because the French cared about the poor.  The American Revolution was considerably more successful since we did not; a trend that's lived on for 240 years, and counting.   )

The book is filled with a number of quotes from antiquity.  One that I'm keeping in mind for the Trump presidency is from a play by Naevius: "Tell me how did you ruin so mighty a state so quickly?"

[Josephus]

I'm looking for a good but entry level book into Roman history. Suggestions?

[Admiral Yi]

I'm looking for a good but entry level book into Roman history. Suggestions?

"The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian" by Robin Lane Fox covers more ground than that, but I thought it did an extremely good job of covering the really important Roman shit.  Very good job of explaining the political machinations of Caesar et al.

[Admiral Yi]

Yo Sav-on-a-Kaiser Rola: Just read a review of "Oh Florida: How America's Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country," by Craig Pittman.  You might want to check out.

Fair warning: the author is a Slate contributor.

[crazy canuck]

In anticipation of the upcoming Trump presidency I read Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke; now I have the strangest urge to buy a pair of pleated pants .

[Barrister]

In anticipation of the upcoming Trump presidency I read Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke; now I have the strangest urge to buy a pair of pleated pants .

You could learn a lot, Sav.

[Gups]

I'm looking for a good but entry level book into Roman history. Suggestions?

SPQR by Mary Beard is excellent.

[crazy canuck]

I'm looking for a good but entry level book into Roman history. Suggestions?

SPQR by Mary Beard is excellent.

Tom Holland's Rubicon is also a place to start for the last days of the Rubicon.  And anything by Anthony Everitt is very accessible.

[Maladict]

Mommsen, then Gibbon. None of this newfangled stuff.

[Josephus]

thanks for the suggestions.

I spent two days in Rome recently and realized I know very little about its history

[mongers]

Didn't know Dylan Thomas spent several extended periods in the 1930s/40s living about a mile from here.

He writes to a friend about it:

Thomas once wrote to a friend about staying at the Macnamara home: "This flat English country levels the intelligence, planes down the imagination, narrows the a's, my ears belch up old wax and misremembered passages of misunderstood music, I sit and hate my mother-in-law, glowering at her from corners and grumbling about her in the sad, sticky, quiet of the lavatory..."

So that's what happened to me. 

[Malthus]

I'm looking for a good but entry level book into Roman history. Suggestions?

SPQR by Mary Beard is excellent.

I just read another book by Beard - The Fires of Vesuvius. Very good, I thought. 

[garbon]

I was going to start reading SPQR and then realised Amazon had that Amazon had it for £6 cheaper.

[Malthus]

Reading Thug: The True Story of India's Murderous Cult by Mike Dash. Fascinating stuff.

Apparently, there's a bit of a controversy over the reality of the Thugs: a theory extant that the whole notion was, basically, a creation of colonial Brits, to justify their rule. This author doesn't agree at all with that theory (too much detailed evidence against it), though he points out that the depredations/death counts of the Thugs were much exaggerated (basically to boost the careers of those Brits who put them down); also, that their nature was described incorrectly (they were not motivated by religious concerns, although they were very superstitious - they were strictly motivated by making a living at murdering travelers, so the "murderous cult" part of the title is a bit of a misnomer).

[The Brain]

Just got delivery of the new book Kangzhan: Guide to Chinese ground forces 1937-45. AFAIK the first time this kind of detailed information is available in English. I would really like to see Western interest in the Sino-Japanese war increase and the trend right now seems decent (but starting from almost zero of course).