Grand unified books thread

[Capetan Mihali]

Going to start

A Savage War of Peace; Algeria 1954-1962.

Frenchies and Ragheads, OH MY.

Excellent book.

On slavery I've been reading Hugh Thomas' books on the Spanish empire and I had no idea how widespread slavery was in peninsular Spain before then, or how recently conquered and colonised the Canaries were - the first sugar mills in Spain and somewhere the colonisers of the Americas took a lot of ideas from, as in the Caribbean the native population more or less went into permanent decline very rapidly.

Yes, slavery not serfdorm was the norm well through the Middle Ages, and the Canaries (as well, as Southern Italy, Crete, Cyprus, and Madeira) were all tried out as areas for producing the white gold of sugar through intensively-managed large-scale slave plantations, before the discovery of the Americas blew the doors open and rendered it irrelevant.

African slavery was actually introduced into Iberia several decades before it was introduced in the Americas, making up for some of the morisco depopulation, most strikingly in the Portuguese province of Alcazar do Sul -- whose population today, unsurprisingly, has the highest "sub-saharan African" genome markers in Europe (up to 20%).

[11B4V]

Going to start

A Savage War of Peace; Algeria 1954-1962.

Frenchies and Ragheads, OH MY.

Excellent book.

Enjoying it. Seems like he researched it very well. I don't know much about the war, but the general narrative sounds vaguely familiar. 

Frenchies have a bizarre system.

[Sheilbh]

Enjoying it. Seems like he researched it very well. I don't know much about the war, but the general narrative sounds vaguely familiar. 

It was a set text in the Pentagon I think during the Iraq War.

Alastair Horne's done a series of excellent books on French conflicts: Price of Glory on Verdun, Fall of Paris on the Siege and the Commune and To Lose a Battle on 1940. Not read a bad one yet. And he's Harold MacMillan's official biographer so I think his off-the-record knowledge of a (highly partial) insider in the 40s-60s is probably a really interesting informing factor in those books.

[Valmy]

Next on the list. One for Seedy.

Interesting. What story is this about?

Yes, slavery not serfdorm was the norm well through the Middle Ages

Interesting. That certainly explains a bit about why the Spanish acted like they did in the New World. What was the source of that? The wars?

[11B4V]

Next on the list. One for Seedy.

Interesting. What story is this about?

Yes, slavery not serfdorm was the norm well through the Middle Ages

Interesting. That certainly explains a bit about why the Spanish acted like they did in the New World. What was the source of that? The wars?

The St. Francis raid against the Abanaki

[Sheilbh]

Interesting. That certainly explains a bit about why the Spanish acted like they did in the New World. What was the source of that? The wars?

Not sure about the implication about the Spanish in the New World.

But apparently slavery was fairly common in Southern Europe at this point. In Spain they had black slaves from Africa and born in Europe, slaves from the Maghreb, a few native Canarians and even in the late 15th century there were still some Eastern European slaves.

[Valmy]

Interesting. That certainly explains a bit about why the Spanish acted like they did in the New World. What was the source of that? The wars?

Not sure about the implication about the Spanish in the New World.

But apparently slavery was fairly common in Southern Europe at this point. In Spain they had black slaves from Africa and born in Europe, slaves from the Maghreb, a few native Canarians and even in the late 15th century there were still some Eastern European slaves.

I meant in the sense that they quickly took to enslaving and using slaves in the Canaries and as they expanded. If they were already doing that in large numbers in Spain that might explain things.

Did the Cordobans use sub-saharan slaves extensively and the Spanish just took that over? I know the Italians used slavery a bit in the Mediterranean but on a comparatively small scale.

[Sheilbh]

Possibly.

My understanding - from this one book in which it's a minor feature - is that slavery was fairly common across Spain, it was not just a feature of Islamic Spain. As I say there were Christian slaves in Christian Spain. But by the late 15th century at least they were importing slaves directly from the Portuguese who at that time had a monopoly on the Guinea coast. I imagine that prior to that they took over at least some of the trade that existed in the Muslim bits of Spain. As I say it was only a little bit but I found it very surprising.

[Capetan Mihali]

Well the Visigoths picked up Roman slavery, for one thing.

[Savonarola]

The White Goddess – Robert Graves

Like The Golden Bough, only more so (though Graves does link Frazer to Hitler near the end.)  Graves, using some dubious philology and extraordinary leaps of logic, demonstrates that a universal matriarchal cult that stretched from India to the British Isles; pre-dated the patriarchal Abrahamic and classical religions.  The focus of the cult, the triple goddess, bears an extraordinary resemblance, in her many guises, to the women in Graves's life.  He also demonstrates that all true poetry (as defined by Graves) is based on a central myth about her and her two rival god suitors.  Graves openly admits that the book is a work of poetic truth rather than historical fact.  So long as you don't take it seriously, this is a fun read.  It was an influence on both Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

[CountDeMoney]

Next on the list. One for Seedy.

Seedy understands that the white man is a dog to his women.

[Ed Anger]

Read Beevor's D-Day book. Some nice Monty bashing in it. 

[CountDeMoney]

Read Beevor's D-Day book. Some nice Monty bashing in it. 

You just fapped over the French body count.  Don't lie.

[Ed Anger]

 

[11B4V]

Read Beevor's D-Day book. Some nice Monty bashing in it. 

The only D Day book I can remember reading is The Longest Day. All others have been on operations after the landings. Like Danglish's books on Goodwood and others about the Canucks.