Grand unified books thread

[Threviel]

Well, the war mostly played out outside of Sweden.

Depends on what you mean by "Sweden". Sweden's 2019 borders or Sweden's 1700 borders?

Both.

[Threviel]

Well, the war mostly played out outside of Sweden.

How would that have a bearing on what was written?

If one is retarded it might seem like the power fighting outside its territory is the aggressor.

[The Brain]

Well, the war mostly played out outside of Sweden.

How would that have a bearing on what was written?

If one is retarded it might seem like the power fighting outside its territory is the aggressor.

Thank you.

[Valmy]

Well, the war mostly played out outside of Sweden.

Depends on what you mean by "Sweden". Sweden's 2019 borders or Sweden's 1700 borders?

Both.

Well the initial decisive battles took place in Swedish territory because, you know, Swedish territory was being invaded.

[Oexmelin]

And I've finished it. Well worth a read for the descriptions of the way different countries dealt with the GNW. A few weird things though, one of the Swedes indicates that Charles started a war against Norway after his return to Sweden, and as a historian she must know that this is a lie. And the Danish guy writes "...an endless series of military conflicts, collectively known as the Great Northern War, in which Sweden was almost invariably the aggressor.". lolwut? Why write something like this?

How was the French chapter?

[The Brain]

And I've finished it. Well worth a read for the descriptions of the way different countries dealt with the GNW. A few weird things though, one of the Swedes indicates that Charles started a war against Norway after his return to Sweden, and as a historian she must know that this is a lie. And the Danish guy writes "...an endless series of military conflicts, collectively known as the Great Northern War, in which Sweden was almost invariably the aggressor.". lolwut? Why write something like this?

How was the French chapter?

Written by Eric Schnakenbourg. 12 pages, half covering the French view of Charles XII in the political sense and half the French view of Charles XII the man. Obviously very short and cannot be very detailed. It's not my area of expertise so I didn't find any obvious problems at least.

[Threviel]

Well, the war mostly played out outside of Sweden.

Depends on what you mean by "Sweden". Sweden's 2019 borders or Sweden's 1700 borders?

Both.

Well the initial decisive battles took place in Swedish territory because, you know, Swedish territory was being invaded.

Do you mean the Swedish invasion of Denmark (in Denmark)? The battle of Narva (in Sweden)? Or the Swedish invasion of Poland (in Poland)?

The war was about one minute of neutralizing Denmark, one minute of temporarily neutralizing Russia and 7 years of walking around in Poland, and at the end a few years of invading Norway.

But yeah, Sweden lost and most of it was overrun, so a lot of shit happened in Sweden also. It's just that most of the decisive things happened outside of it.

The decisive battle of the war was Poltava, in the Ukraine.

[Valmy]

I mean the Polish/Saxon invasion of the Baltic and the Russian invasion at the Baltic. The Battles of Riga and Narva respectively. The Swedish victories there is what made the war what it was.

[Threviel]

Fair point. That and king Charles being somewhat on the special side.

[Oexmelin]

Written by Eric Schnakenbourg. 12 pages, half covering the French view of Charles XII in the political sense and half the French view of Charles XII the man. Obviously very short and cannot be very detailed. It's not my area of expertise so I didn't find any obvious problems at least.

Thanks. I am more familiar with his (French) work on Scandinavia (and, more interestingly for me, on the French/Northern trade). Twelve page is indeed quite short.

[Threviel]

Thinking about it, I might remember wrong but the battle that ended the siege of Riga was an opposed landing over Daugava, into nominally Polish territory. So that leaves Narva in Swedish territory. Just a minor nitpick that's really neither here nor there.

[The Brain]

I finally read the first book in Jeffrey Burton Russell's series about the Devil. It's called The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (the other three books are Satan, Lucifer, and Mephistopheles, I've already read those). Like the others it's a great and informative read.

You gotta like the first sentence in the bibliography: "The literature on evil and the Devil is vast, and unfortunately much of it is useless."

[Eddie Teach]

So his books only traffic in useful information? 

[The Brain]

He doesn't strictly say.

[Oexmelin]

It's all in the little details.