Grand unified books thread

[Tamas]

Thanks!

[The Brain]

Partial credit for The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC).

[11B4V]

Doing some nostalgic retreads

The Third World War
Team Yankee
First Clash

[Ed Anger]

Never cared for Hackett's WWIII book. Still have a copy floating around somewhere.

[Habbaku]

Now up is John Keay's The Honourable Company, A History of the English East India Company, which is incredibly exciting in the 50 pages I've read thus far.

I'm really interested in this one. Please let me know how it goes.

High quality from start to finish, Malthus. I do wish it had a little more detail on Clive's campaigns and the overall military situation in India, but different works exist for that subject.

I have learned that very little can stop a determined Englishman, though, and you'll see numerous instances of that in the book. 

[11B4V]

I can agree with that. TY is by far a better read and much more limited in scope, but using Hackett's book as the background. First Clash is about the same scope as TY, but more technical. A much harder read for the layman.

[Gups]

Now up is John Keay's The Honourable Company, A History of the English East India Company, which is incredibly exciting in the 50 pages I've read thus far.

I'm really interested in this one. Please let me know how it goes.

High quality from start to finish, Malthus. I do wish it had a little more detail on Clive's campaigns and the overall military situation in India, but different works exist for that subject.

I have learned that very little can stop a determined Englishman, though, and you'll see numerous instances of that in the book. 

Must check that out. I enjoyed his book on China

[Malthus]

Now up is John Keay's The Honourable Company, A History of the English East India Company, which is incredibly exciting in the 50 pages I've read thus far.

I'm really interested in this one. Please let me know how it goes.

High quality from start to finish, Malthus. I do wish it had a little more detail on Clive's campaigns and the overall military situation in India, but different works exist for that subject.

I have learned that very little can stop a determined Englishman, though, and you'll see numerous instances of that in the book. 

Well, I'm sold! It's a place and an era I don't know all that much about.

[Habbaku]

If you finish that one and enjoy it, you might also consider moving on to the source material for much of the book (and, honestly, the source for much of the work on the East India Company): K. N. Chaudhuri's Trading World of Asia and English East India Company. Dr. Chaudhuri did a ton of original research with the Company's own documents and the book has a voluminous series of interesting statistical analyses that help explain a lot of the action in Keay's book.

[Eddie Teach]

Reread Foundation. Still a great read.

[crazy canuck]

Now up is John Keay's The Honourable Company, A History of the English East India Company, which is incredibly exciting in the 50 pages I've read thus far.

I'm really interested in this one. Please let me know how it goes.

High quality from start to finish, Malthus. I do wish it had a little more detail on Clive's campaigns and the overall military situation in India, but different works exist for that subject.

I have learned that very little can stop a determined Englishman, though, and you'll see numerous instances of that in the book. 

I started reading this last night.  Had to force myself to put it down so I could get some sleep.  A good start 

[Savonarola]

I read Walter Isaacson's biography of Leonardo da Vinci.  It's an entertaining read, if a little light; among other things Isaacson points out how monumentally stupid Dan Brown's description of "The Last Supper" is.  I didn't know Cesar Borgia, Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli had all traveled together during Borgia's conquest of Romagna; that sounds like a setup to a Renaissance era joke.

At the end of the book Isaacson provides a description of how YOU! can be more like Leonardo (Step 1, learn to write backwards; Step 2, get a kleptomaniac rent boy, Step 3 Never finish any of your projects, Step 4 ..., Step 5 Profit!  )  (Really you're supposed to passionately curious and the like.)

[Savonarola]

I finished Michael Lang's (and Holly George-Warren) book "The Road to Woodstock."  Lang was one of the producers, and had organized a couple rock concerts before.  His biggest had been the "1968 Miami Pop Festival" which had about 25,000 attendees (and, in a recurring theme, suffered inclement weather.)  He was obviously in way over his head with Woodstock; and had to deal with everything from a belligerent zoning board to a rapacious Abbie Hoffman.  The festival was only about half ready when the concert began; I think, in part, that's what made Woodstock a legend.  The Monterey Pop Festival was very well prepared, but no more than a great concert.  Altamont had almost no preparation whatsoever (and did turn into a legend of sorts; though not exactly a fondly remembered one.)  Woodstock had enough support and facilities to prevent it from turning into anarchy, but enough hardship to make it, in time, a pleasant memory.

(Though that doesn't explain why half a million people went to the show in the first place.)

In the end Lang starts carrying on about how Woodstock is always with him and how the "Woodstock Nation" transformed America, culminating in the second major cultural event of the post World War II era, the Barack Obama inauguration; (the book was written in 2009); and I thought "How about that, the Altamont Nation triumphed in the end."   



(Of course we're not at the end.  Who knows, maybe the Zulu Nation will triumph over all.)

[crazy canuck]

The People vs Democracy - a Harvard prof paints a very dim future for the survival of Liberal Democracy and then sets out to propose ways it might be saved.  But his solutions were not very convincing and so I came away persuaded that we are at the end of the period of Liberal Democracy and entering an age of populist politics or technocrats.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976825

[Admiral Yi]

Just started Franky Fuk's Political Decay.

Also picked up the Oprah! boxed edition of Faulkner, which might not have been the optimal choice for poolside reading.