Grand unified books thread

[Oexmelin]

Yup, that's Brill for you.

[The Minsky Moment]

There used to be a sprawling French bookstore at Rockefeller Center - nice storefront and then a big section of books in the basement.  It was there for decades.  I always wondered how they could pay the rent.  Ultimately it turned out they couldn't.

[Razgovory]

Reading Ernie Pyle's "This is Your War".  Pyle was a columnist who wrote human interest stories stories about soldiers during the Second World War.  The book is a compilation of a bunch of his columns during the African Campaign.  It is very much "Ra Ra, our boys are doing great", but still has value in how people of the time saw the war and to a lesser degree how the solider's saw it.  Quite a lot of the work concerns soldiers in the rear echelons such as military police, army convoys, mechanics, and medical professionals.  Their experiences are not recorded as often as front line soldiers, so it's interesting to know how they lived and what they thought.  The books is kinda like war stories you would hear from your grandparents and the like. Not the stories of horror and blood and shameful acts but the stories of pranks played on officers, of friends they made, and of strange incidents.  The mundane stories that old people tell children and look rosier 50 years after the events.  Of course not all the stories were happy, my great uncle was in the navy and he got assigned a job coaxing Japanese die hard in caves to surrender using a bullhorn, a flamethrower and a lot of gasoline, but I think they preferred to tell the happier stories, at least to children.  Now most of those people are gone and memory of the war is vanishing...

One of the more remarkable stories Pyle tells is about bomber that was thought lost but managed limp back with only two engines working and damaged electronic and hydraulic systems.  I was curious what happened to the crew and now with the power of the internet I can satisfy that curiosity.  The pilot survived the war, and stayed in the military.  He retired a Lt. Col in 1969 and died eight years ago.

[Syt]

Quite a lot of the work concerns soldiers in the rear echelons such as military police, army convoys, mechanics, and medical professionals.  Their experiences are not recorded as often as front line soldiers, so it's interesting to know how they lived and what they thought.

Thanks for sharing this title, Raz. I agree that the non-frontline soldier experiences don't feature frequently in documentaries or books about war, despite often making up the larger part of the army. FP had an article on that: https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/08/08/fog-of-war/

[The Brain]

I started on The Italian Wars, Vol 1: The Expedition of Charles VIII into Italy and the Battle of Fornovo, 1495, by Predonzani and Alberici. It's a new book in the Helion series From Retinue to Regiment. It is written originally in Italian but unfortunately the translator (another Italian) isn't (I suspect) a "real" professional translator. The language is a bizarre version of English that makes reading a chore, and there are factual errors that may or may not be translation errors. I had to quit after a few pages. If the publisher can't be bothered to have a native speaker look over the text then it's hard for me as a lowly reader to summon the will to give a fuck. Too bad about the language, I'm interested in the subject.

[Habbaku]

  You're not the only one interested in the subject. Shame about the translation. Please post if you find something else worthwhile in English on the subject.

[Maladict]

Prague Winter, Madeleine Albright's biography of her youth and country during the 30s and 40s. Had a hard time with it, especially the wartime parts seemed bland and superficial, but I'm glad I stuck with it. Very strong finish, the 1945-1948 period is fascinating and her own convictions start coming out. They don't make politicians like that anymore. 

[The Brain]

Finished Richard III and the Battle of Bosworth, by Mike Ingram. Part of Helion's From Retinue to Regiment series. A very nice presentation of (AFAICT) what is known today about the subject. The book gives a lot of background, going back to Edward III, and also presents general military matters of the era. Only 280 pages in total, so bite-sized but still feels fairly complete.

One thing that I still don't feel sure about is the interpretation of the way battles (as in troop contingents/formations) worked on the WotR battlefield. I understand that different authors have different views on this. Having a battle covering the entire front seems to me as if it would lead to C&C problems, an interpretation of center and wings seems more intuitive to me.

[Habbaku]

Brain, have you read Goodwin's Fatal Colours yet? It covers Towton in large detail, apparently (I haven't read it yet, though it's on my list), and I'd be curious for a comparison between that and Ingram's work.

[The Brain]

Brain, have you read Goodwin's Fatal Colours yet? It covers Towton in large detail, apparently (I haven't read it yet, though it's on my list), and I'd be curious for a comparison between that and Ingram's work.

I have, and it's in my library. It's been some years since I read it so I'll have to refresh my memory to answer.

[jimmy olsen]

Neat. 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months?CMP=share_btn_tw

[Malthus]

Does anyone have any good readable accounts of the 1971 war over Bangladesh? It amazes me that this isn't better known about in the West.

[Sheilbh]

It's American focused but I've heard good things about "The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide".

[Savonarola]

Does anyone have any recommendations for a history of Medieval Spain?

[The Brain]

Guille el Cid?