Grand unified books thread

[Jacob]

Can anyone recommend good survey works on pre-colonial Africa, pre-Muslim Persia, and pre-colonial Indochina?

Haven't read it yet but I have A Fistful of Shells: West Africa From the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution on the shelf. I suppose it depends on how you see what' pre-colonial but I undertand it's on the early modern period so before the 19th century colonies - I think Oex also said it was good.

Haven't read or bought it but there's also The Golden Rhinoceros about the African middle ages - I saw them reviewed together.

In terms of Persia - again I haven't read or bought it - but I've read good things about Iran: A Modern History. It covers imperialist meddling and modern Iran, but I think it also basically starts in the early modern so I think it's basically 1500 (and the rise of the Safavids) up to the modern day.

Edit: No idea on Indochina - I imagine there's definitely some good options on the Khmer empire.

Thanks - yeah what I'm after is the earlier history - "Middle Ages" I suppose - prior to the whole "Europeans in ships with cannons" dynamic was a major factor (for Africa and Indochina), and pre-Islam for Persia.

[Habbaku]

Can anyone recommend good survey works on pre-colonial Africa, pre-Muslim Persia, and pre-colonial Indochina?

In terms of Persia - again I haven't read or bought it - but I've read good things about Iran: A Modern History. It covers imperialist meddling and modern Iran, but I think it also basically starts in the early modern so I think it's basically 1500 (and the rise of the Safavids) up to the modern day.

[crazy canuck]

Just got Dan Jones new book, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages.

Starting reading it today too.  Meant to just read a few pages, but got hooked.  Had to force myself back to the things I needed to get done today.

What sets it apart from the regular run of the mill history of the Middle Ages?

He doesn't get bogged down in minutia.  He has a compelling narrative style.

[The Minsky Moment]

In terms of Persia - again I haven't read or bought it - but I've read good things about Iran: A Modern History. It covers imperialist meddling and modern Iran, but I think it also basically starts in the early modern so I think it's basically 1500 (and the rise of the Safavids) up to the modern day.

The book is definitely worth reading; however, not only does it not cover the pre-Islamic period, the weight in terms of coverage is more towards the modern (19th/20th century) period.

For the pre-Islamic period, I recently got the following book for kindle but haven't started it yet:

https://www.amazon.com/Decline-Fall-Sasanian-Empire-Sasanian-Parthian/dp/1784537470

[garbon]

In terms of Persia - again I haven't read or bought it - but I've read good things about Iran: A Modern History. It covers imperialist meddling and modern Iran, but I think it also basically starts in the early modern so I think it's basically 1500 (and the rise of the Safavids) up to the modern day.

The book is definitely worth reading; however, not only does it not cover the pre-Islamic period, the weight in terms of coverage is more towards the modern (19th/20th century) period.

For the pre-Islamic period, I recently got the following book for kindle but haven't started it yet:

https://www.amazon.com/Decline-Fall-Sasanian-Empire-Sasanian-Parthian/dp/1784537470

One concern on that book is author advances an alternate theory of how the Sasanian Empire operated and then also spends substantial time pushing that Islamic conquests of Persia have been misdated and began occurring under Muhammad.

[garbon]

Just got Dan Jones new book, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages.

Starting reading it today too.  Meant to just read a few pages, but got hooked.  Had to force myself back to the things I needed to get done today.

What sets it apart from the regular run of the mill history of the Middle Ages?

He doesn't get bogged down in minutia.  He has a compelling narrative style.

I have mixed feelings about Dan Jones. I really enjoyed his Plantagenet and Hollow Crown books where he could build a narrative. His Crusaders was a bit of a slog.

[The Brain]

Started on Bismarck: A Life, by Steinberg. I haven't read any details about Bismarck before, and this seems to be a decent modern biography. Some weirdness though. In the first chapter the author stans hard for Frederick the Great, but doesn't really explain why, so that is kinda left hanging in the air. A bit later he mentions "Adolph Hitler". What is up with that? From time to time you come across this even by authors who should know what Hitler was called. Is it some kind of code for something? Hmm, have I asked this before? Don't remember.

Finished it. Overall I found it an enjoyable read, and AFAICT it's a decent introduction to Bismarck. Some comments though:

The author writes a lot about Bismarck the person, his psychological makeup etc, which makes sense. He writes about the women in his life etc. But he is almost completely silent on his relationship to his children. He doesn't even mention the births of his kids, and the only child we get any info at all about is Herbert, in connection with Herbert's semi-scandalous planned marriage. Seems an odd blind spot.

The annexation of Alsace-Lorraine seems to me to be a matter of some importance, but the author doesn't write much about it at all. We are not told what the reasoning behind it was, or what Bismarck's thoughts on it were. Which is weird especially since the author earlier commented on the productive lack of really harsh terms on Austria in 1866, paving the way for later alliance, and how the peace with France made France impossible as a potential ally to Germany.

The author at one point mentions casually, while speaking about Bismarck stoking a German sense of military insecurity, that if Germany had stayed on the strategic and tactical defensive in 1914 the enemies would have been killed en masse and Germany would have won WW1. He doesn't elaborate on how this would be so. This seems to me to be some kind of back-of-a-cereal-box understanding of WW1, and that's being generous.

The author several times mentions stuff from WW2, but it's not at all clear how they would be relevant to events 100 years earlier. A descendant of some guy in the 1840s was a July plotter and was killed by Hitler. OK...?

The author has a tendency to blame Bismarck for events under Hitler, and that seems weird to me. Did Bismarck influence the development of Germany? Sure. Was he some divine being who unilaterally directed trends in German and European society? Hardly. It's hard to see a credible way to divine a lot of information about Bismarck from events under Hitler. After Bismarck left office there was a quarter of a century of peace under an incompetent Emperor who didn't have a political genius under him. Then there was WW1, a cataclysmic event. Then you have revolution, Weimar, the Depression, and then Hitler. The author mentions more than once that Hitler was made Reich Chancellor ("the office created by Bismarck"). OK? If anything it seems to me that the 20th century demonstrated the horror of idealists, actors who don't subscribe to Realpolitik. Hitler would never have come to power under a hereditary Hohenzollern Empire, blaming Bismarck for him seems to be stretching reality beyond breaking point. Now the author doesn't come out and say that Bismarck single-handedly caused Hitler, but stuff like "Bismarck's legacy passed through Hindenburg to the last genius-statesman [sic!] that Germany produced, Adolf Hitler [correct spelling this time yay], and the legacy was thus linear and direct between Bismarck and Hitler." is a bit over the top. His comment on WW1 (see above) also makes me doubt the author's general understanding of 20th century history.

The author several times mentions how Bismarck had no power base, how he was completely dependent on the King/Emperor, but he doesn't take this to its logical conclusion that the King has to be given more screentime in a book that tries to understand Bismarck. Unlike some other backseat rulers in history Bismarck was never in a position to make major decisions in the King's name, he had to get the King to agree to things. The King could have dismissed Bismarck at any moment (which the author correctly states several times). The book could have used some more info on Wilhelm I's take on things.

Some whining maybe, but overall I recommend the book to a Bismarck n00b. It is not the definitive biography of Bismarck though, and my impression is that the author doesn't have the intellectual maturity to write the definitive biography. But everyone can't be a genius.

[Sheilbh]

I skim-read

Thanks - yeah what I'm after is the earlier history - "Middle Ages" I suppose - prior to the whole "Europeans in ships with cannons" dynamic was a major factor (for Africa and Indochina), and pre-Islam for Persia.

It might be worth having a look at Fisftful of Shells. The first half seems focused on the situation in West and West-Central Africa before the Europeans arrive (chapters on the empires of the Sahel, trading centres from Senegambia to Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and gold trade, Benin and Biafra and the Kingdom of Kongo). Then the second chapter is about the impact of the Europeans arriving and the Atlantic slave trade. If nothing else it might have some decent pointers in the bibliography.

[The Brain]

The author has a tendency to blame Bismarck for events under Hitler, and that seems weird to me. Did Bismarck influence the development of Germany? Sure. Was he some divine being who unilaterally directed trends in German and European society? Hardly. It's hard to see a credible way to divine a lot of information about Bismarck from events under Hitler. After Bismarck left office there was a quarter of a century of peace under an incompetent Emperor who didn't have a political genius under him. Then there was WW1, a cataclysmic event. Then you have revolution, Weimar, the Depression, and then Hitler. The author mentions more than once that Hitler was made Reich Chancellor ("the office created by Bismarck"). OK? If anything it seems to me that the 20th century demonstrated the horror of idealists, actors who don't subscribe to Realpolitik. Hitler would never have come to power under a hereditary Hohenzollern Empire, blaming Bismarck for him seems to be stretching reality beyond breaking point. Now the author doesn't come out and say that Bismarck single-handedly caused Hitler, but stuff like "Bismarck's legacy passed through Hindenburg to the last genius-statesman [sic!] that Germany produced, Adolf Hitler [correct spelling this time yay], and the legacy was thus linear and direct between Bismarck and Hitler." is a bit over the top. His comment on WW1 (see above) also makes me doubt the author's general understanding of 20th century history.

In case of messerschmitt:

Yes, I am aware of the reasoning that Germany might have avoided the path that led to Hitler if it had gone parliamentarian in the 19th century. Something that Bismarck fiercely resisted, likely both because of his background and his desire to keep his one source of influence: personal royal power. He did introduce a lot of liberal reforms, more than most countries in the 19th century, but not actual parliamentary power. But say that it had, unless WW1 doesn't happen you're still in a crap place with opportunities for extremists. A parliamentarian Germany wouldn't have magicked away the great power conflict areas of turn-of-the-20th-century Europe. IMHO there are so many ifs that meaningful predictions of fundamentally different turns of events are hard to find. And obviously, it was parliametarianism that made Hitler's rise to power possible, and the author would have called this "ironic" if he had commented on it. Hitler may have gotten the job created by Bismarck, but there was no All-Mighty at the top to give Hitler orders, which was a key component of the the old Prussia/Germany.

I think that the odds would probably have been better with a parliamentarian Germany instead of Wilhelm II Show, but the uncertainties are huge. France was a (male) democracy and it had rampant antisemitism, aggressive dreams of military conquest, conflict between state and Catholics... My guess is that "Weimar France" would have been about as ripe for extremist takeover as Weimar Germany.

[Tamas]

Was looking for a Battle of the Somme book.

Got a sample of Bloody Victory by William Philpott. Jesus F Christ what drivel. The guy starts off by explaining how people close to the event either had too much personal stake to be objective (Churchill) or were too close to the actual fighting to have any sort of valuable judgement of it (people fighting the battle and then reporting on it).

He continues to thus dismiss the foolish notions of it being a battle full of British misjudgements and bad decisions. No, apparently, it was a clear victory, fulfilling the strategic ambitions of bleeding Germany dry and protecting civilisation.

Holy hell. Like, I can accept people can go overboard in blaming stupid generals for the battle but come on. Pretending like it wasn't an ultimately failed search for the Big Breakthrough is extremely dishonest.

So I have switched to The Battle of the Somme by Alan Axelrod. Now, this is much more in line with my interpretation of the war and the battle but it's very close to be just the polar opposite of Mr. GREAT Britain of the other book. Highlighting how Falkenhayn was a bore and kind of dumb is a weird way for a book on a historical event starting off explaining him and his war policies. Even if its true.

[Sheilbh]

I always find WW1 interesting on this because my understanding is that academic historians are broadly far more in the direction of Philpott, but it hasn't move public perception or the received memory of any of the battles or the war itself at all. Which is perhaps why they feel the need to strongly correct the record.

[The Brain]

I've enjoyed Jack Sheldon's books on the German army on the Western Front in WW1. For instance Fighting the Somme: German Challenges, Dilemmas and Solutions, which might be of interest.

[The Brain]

FWIW my impression is that the old led by donkeys school has been rightly discredited. What strikes you when you read about WW1 is the extreme pace of innovation and frantic slaughter of many (not all) sacred cows. Top brass was enacting enormous changes in how things were done in their quest for a way to break the stalemate. You're not completely wrong if you say that the difference between an army in 2021 and 1918 is smaller than an army in 1918 and 1914. That being said the "spectacular failure to reach objectives combined with enormous casualties was actually a cunning victory Hail Brexit" modern school is complete BS.

[Tamas]

Yeah it's easy to spot that a lot of the "led by donkeys" thing is/was too emotionally charged.

But pretending British goals at the Somme were to engage in a war of attrition just seems like it can be easily disproven.

[The Minsky Moment]

FWIW my impression is that the old led by donkeys school has been rightly discredited.

Were any Austro-Hungarian soldiers alive today they might beg to disagree.