Grand unified books thread

[Sheilbh]

She was a pioneer of women's rights - on the issue of drugs, however, she was (by modern standards) hilariously racist. Essentially, drugs are bad in large part because non-White races use them to degenerate Whites down to their own mongrel level. 

Yeah we had some of that in our women's suffrage movement.  I mean black men could vote (in some localities anyway) and they barely qualified as human beings so how outrageous was it that good white women couldn't vote?  Doh.

It always reminds me of the Pankhursts. Emmeline Pankhurst ended up standing as a Conservative MP. One of her daughters moved to California and became a Second Adventist evangelist. Another was a left Communist who was invited to Ethiopia by Selasie in honour of her campaigns against the Italian invasion, and later given a state funeral in Addis. The third ended up founding the Communist party in Australia and then founding a fascist movement too, she was interned during the war for her pro-Japanese views.

[Valmy]

Well, there's a whole element of strategic politics in almost any movement, where you try to leverage the prejudices (good or bad) of the powerful in your favor.

LOL ok.  I guess when some of them out in favor of lynching to protect women from being raped that was just a strategic ploy to leverage prejudices?  In any case it is just amusing from this distance.

[Capetan Mihali]

Well, there's a whole element of strategic politics in almost any movement, where you try to leverage the prejudices (good or bad) of the powerful in your favor.

LOL ok.  I guess when some of them out in favor of lynching to protect women from being raped that was just a strategic ploy to leverage prejudices?  In any case it is just amusing from this distance.

LOL I'm not saying that the predominately middle-/upper-class white women spearheading the suffragist/women's rights campaign weren't also virulent racists; I think that is amply borne out in the historical record.  (Not having to do with the vote, but it's well-known that a number of leading Progressive women's rights leaders were also passionate eugenicists.)  Only that it's not surprising that if you, as a white woman, are trying to get the vote, that part of your strategy would be pointing to the fact that suffrage has been extended to men of a race considered inferior by the powerful white men in control of the political system, and drawing the contrast against yourselves as members of the "superior" race.

[Valmy]

Only that it's not surprising that if you, as a white woman, are trying to get the vote, that part of your strategy would be pointing to the fact that suffrage has been extended to men of a race considered inferior by the powerful white men in control of the political system, and drawing the contrast against yourselves as members of the "superior" race.

In the context I usually see this sort of thing it seems almost as a way to recruit other white women to the cause as much as draw up an effective political strategy.  Also people in the 19th century tended to be more earnest, this strikes me as a very 20th century line of thinking.

[PDH]

Rereading Geary's Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium.  Good stuff, I like the rather explicit 11th century notions that if the histories don't match up to how the past should be remembered, it is right and proper to redo the histories.

[Sheilbh]

Anyone have any recommendations on Austrian history?

I've recently read a book about the 18th century where they come up a lot, and I've started reading Sleepwalkers and I'm just a little baffled how Austria-Hungary existed at all

[Syt]

Amazon seems to recommend this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Danubia-Personal-History-Habsburg-Europe/dp/0330522787/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397973986&sr=8-1&keywords=habsburgs

Or this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Habsburgs-History-Dynasty-Dynasties/dp/1441150021/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1397973996&sr=8-2&keywords=habsburgs

[Maladict]

Eric Schlosser - Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

Good book, but why are we still alive? 

[Malthus]

Currently reading Embers of War, by Fredrik Logevall, about the French-Vietnam War, sometimes called the First Indochina War (the US fought the second). It is very good (it won the 2013 Pulitzer).

My question is: is there a good book on what happened in SE Asia after the US lost in Vietnam? I know that, contrary to "domino theory" predictions, rather than exporting unitary Communism throughout the region, the communist states all turned on each other (communist Vietnam invaded communist Cambodia, and was invaded in turn by communist China). Is there any single book dealing with this, that can be recommended?

[mongers]

Currently reading Embers of War, by Fredrik Logevall, about the French-Vietnam War, sometimes called the First Indochina War (the US fought the second). It is very good (it won the 2013 Pulitzer).

My question is: is there a good book on what happened in SE Asia after the US lost in Vietnam? I know that, contrary to "domino theory" predictions, rather than exporting unitary Communism throughout the region, the communist states all turned on each other (communist Vietnam invaded communist Cambodia, and was invaded in turn by communist China). Is there any single book dealing with this, that can be recommended?

My former school history teacher was a bit of an expert on this but I think all his stuff is out of print, but it was spread across his work anyway.

I've not come across anything, besides you're only talking about a relatively small region and only a 5-6 year period before major reforms get going in China, so it might be more than adequately covered in a wider history?

[Malthus]

Currently reading Embers of War, by Fredrik Logevall, about the French-Vietnam War, sometimes called the First Indochina War (the US fought the second). It is very good (it won the 2013 Pulitzer).

My question is: is there a good book on what happened in SE Asia after the US lost in Vietnam? I know that, contrary to "domino theory" predictions, rather than exporting unitary Communism throughout the region, the communist states all turned on each other (communist Vietnam invaded communist Cambodia, and was invaded in turn by communist China). Is there any single book dealing with this, that can be recommended?

My former school history teacher was a bit of an expert on this but I think all his stuff is out of print, but it was spread across his work anyway.

I've not come across anything, besides you're only talking about a relatively small region and only a 5-6 year period before major reforms get going in China, so it might be more than adequately covered in a wider history?

It's a short time period, but tons of shit happened in it (Khmer Rouge, invasion and displacement of same by Vietnam, Vietnam "Boat People" crisis, Invasion of Vietnam by China). I would have thought it would make a very interesting study - particularly in light of the expectations that fueled the Vietnam wars.

As an aside, my mom hired a couple of "boat people" to work in her pottery studeo in the early '80s. A pair of nice, quiet and hard-working girls - sisters. You would never guess that they had watched their mom be raped and murdered by pirates. 

[mongers]

Currently reading Embers of War, by Fredrik Logevall, about the French-Vietnam War, sometimes called the First Indochina War (the US fought the second). It is very good (it won the 2013 Pulitzer).

My question is: is there a good book on what happened in SE Asia after the US lost in Vietnam? I know that, contrary to "domino theory" predictions, rather than exporting unitary Communism throughout the region, the communist states all turned on each other (communist Vietnam invaded communist Cambodia, and was invaded in turn by communist China). Is there any single book dealing with this, that can be recommended?

My former school history teacher was a bit of an expert on this but I think all his stuff is out of print, but it was spread across his work anyway.

I've not come across anything, besides you're only talking about a relatively small region and only a 5-6 year period before major reforms get going in China, so it might be more than adequately covered in a wider history?

It's a short time period, but tons of shit happened in it (Khmer Rouge, invasion and displacement of same by Vietnam, Vietnam "Boat People" crisis, Invasion of Vietnam by China). I would have thought it would make a very interesting study - particularly in light of the expectations that fueled the Vietnam wars.

As an aside, my mom hired a couple of "boat people" to work in her pottery studeo in the early '80s. A pair of nice, quiet and hard-working girls - sisters. You would never guess that they had watched their mom be raped and murdered by pirates. 

Oh dear. 

Indeed a lot happened, i guess as I remember living through it, much seems familiar and so less complex.

No doubt someone out here has written about US relations with the Khmer Rouge, from fighting the last battle in the 'Vietnam conflict' against them to within 4 years, tacitly supporting them via Thailand, in their border fight with Hun Sen's Vietnamese backed Cambodia. 

[CountDeMoney]

Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories, 5th ed.

Woof.

[Sheilbh]

I finished Gladstone and Pursuit of Glory.

I really recommend Pursuit of Glory. It's really impressive that Tim Blanning managed to write a survey history that was that interesting and didn't seem too superficial.

Currently I'm on a recent biography of Parnell, Ireland Since the Famine and still working through Age of Revolution. Also just got a mini e-book by Ryan Avent of the Economist, the Gated City which looks very interesting and a free Len Deighton novel free from Amazon for world book day

I'm looking forward to it. I love the Len Deighton-Michael Caine films so I've got high hopes.

[Savonarola]

I've been reading The Epic of Latin America by John Crow.  The author goes into details about the universities in the colonial period.  At the end of studies the successful candidate for a degree was expected to throw a lavish party.  In Lima, at the University of San Marco, the graduate was expected to host a bullfight (¡Olé!).  Say what you like about the out of control costs of American universities, at least we haven't reached that level.