What has Veeky Forums been reading?

Switching topic is always nice, gives you a break.

>What would be a good primary source on Byzantium?

It depends upon the period you are interested in. If we are sticking to narratives (as opposed to chronicles) and are looking for entertainment value, I'd choose:

>Early Period
Zosimus' Historia Nova
Procopius' Wars
Procopius' Anecdota
Theophylact Simocatta

>Middle Period
Liutprand of Cremona's Antapodosis
Anna Comnena's Alexiad
Michael Psellus' 14 Byzantine Rulers
Michael Attaleiates

>Late Period
Niketas Choniates
Georgios Acropolites
Laonikos Chalkokondyles
Doukas

A lot of these are available either via Loeb or the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library.

>primary source
Nothing recently, unless you count Sledge's "The Old Breed," or Tim Bax's "Three Sips of Gin," as primary sources. Don't have anything planned either since I'm pretty erratic in what I read.
>secondary source
Christopher Matthew's, "A Storm of Spears, Understanding the Greek Hoplite at War," which is fantastic, but sort of information over load at the same time. If anyone plans on picking this book up, and I highly recommend it, keep a notebook handy. It's extremely analytical and dense, but I've enjoyed it immensely.
>planning to read next
Not entirely sure since I just jumped off the weeb train (historical, not otaku) but I think I'm going to continue on with Ancient/Classical Greece and then move on to the Romans, especially the Regal and Republic periods. Which is cliche for sure, but who cares, I read for pleasure mostly.

My most recently finished books are "The Last Samurai, the Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori," and "Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration," both of which are excellent introductions to the Boshin War/Meiji Era.

Currently I am working John Keegan's "Second World War", which is dense and dry, but full of interesting information.

I previously read Procopius' Secret History, which is hilarious because seeing such a character assassination (claiming Justinian directly killed over 100 million people) is great.

Next I'm planning to either read "Soldiers and Ghosts", which is the ancient warfare equivalent to Keegan's "Face of Battle", or read Ronald Syme's apparently brilliant "Roman Revolution"

I've got Soldiers and Ghosts queued up on my reading list as well, along with Warfar in the Classical World. Will take a peek at Roman Revolution, I haven't heard of It before.

About the finish Merridale's "Ivan's War", which has been a great read. It goes through the beats of any book about the Eastern Front, but the focus is mainly on the common soldier and the civilians caught in the front. Also read "Stalin's Generals" to go with it. It's a collection of biographies of Soviet commanders, so the same information often pops up again and again. But it has some great info regarding the development of Soviet battle doctrines and the politics surrounding the Red Army.

I'm not sure what to read after this. Continuing with Soviet history, I got Kotkin's "Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse" and Volkogonov's "Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy" lined up. But I also found an online copy of "Schoolbooks and Krags", which is about the Philippine-American war. It's from the 70s, so it may be outdated, but it might serve as a good intro for the subject before I look into newer books.

>Primary Source
I've been reading The Jewish War by Josephus, though at the moment I only have a Penguin translation which I suspect to be sub-par,
on the other hand I have been reading and thoroughly enjoying the works of Aristotle, which aside from his philosophical insights also
provides and interesting look into what shaped so much of Western thought thereafter.

>Secondary Source
Also picked up Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, though mostly out of interest in it's place in the development of historical
scholarship.

Thomas More's Utopia. It's a wonderful look into the mind of a communist from this period and highlights the important qualities we must share as a current capitalistic market, being we already should maintain the understanding of profit/class margins.

Bump

>primary source
letters and telegrams from secretary of war Stanton, President Lincoln, and various generals.
>secondary source
Landscape turned red: The Battle of Antietam

> I'm looking around for something that fills that gap.
pic related

see especially the section on the rise of spanish militarism

I've been reading the Institutes of the Christian Religion and the Institutes of Elenctic Theology.

Are there are novella/ novel length history books? I don't have the time to read 900 page books like Napoleon A Life and stuff like that right now.

lancaster pamphlets aren't literature material but they're short 40 to 100 page introductions to a subject. you can download them free on libgen

thanks

bump

OUP Very Short Introduction series.

Currently i'm reading the rise of theodore roosevelt. Pretty much 800 pgs with tons of primary sources to back it up. I'll probably know more about him as a person than I know about other people.

...

Reading vodka politics it is amazing.
>amazin parties with dancer dwarves that pop out of cakes.
>Forcing people to drink great eagle which is giant goblet full of vodka killing most of people.
>pet bear at mansion
>prussia-boo gets the throne immediately allies with prussia even thou they were war against each other and they almost won it.
>Princess who wants to coup offers soldiers unlimited vodka if they help her do it. She couldnt pay the bill fully for years after being queen of russia.
>vodka brought %53 of income of all state economy at one time.
>cooking book about traditional russian food was banned because people of ussr didnt have access to ingredients to cook them.

bump

> primary sources

Ibn munqidh " book of contemplations"and Fulcher of Chatted " chronicles"

> Secondary sources

Madden's "concice history of the Crusades" and Adam Roberts "Napoleon" because I'm a spurg

>Primary

Currently reading through Marco Polo's The Travels. A very interesting book that is basically a glorified Lonely Planet book where they talk about how savage the Muslims are and how magical Christians and Idolaters are. It fun trying to guess what is real and fake.

>Secondary
Nothing

>Planned
SPQR by Mary Beard. Just wanted to finally get some proper written history of the Roman empire that isn't memorising Wikipedia articles or stealing Veeky Forums memes

>A Storm of Spears
One of my professors shilled this book so hard, I'm glad to hear that it's very well done.

It's pretty fantastic, really. The author knows how much the Hoplites spear weighed, how it was wielded, exactly how he knows it, and why everyone who's studied it before is wrong. He goes over literally every little thing and it really paints a picture on how they fought.

That's what my prof said, it's pretty cutting edge in terms of military history and that's why he shilled so much.
His theory on how the spear was held and the usefulness of the counterweight is really intriguing. I'll pick it up.

There's like 4 fucking chapters about the way the spear was held, and why it not only wasn't, but couldn't have been, wielded in an overhead posture. It's nuts man.

Nice, thanks.

Anyone got anything on the
>H
>R
>E
I've legit become fascinated by this mess, how it functioned, scientific developments within the Empire, etc.

"The Heart of Europe" by Peter H. Wilson. Apparently there's multiple versions, I have the newer one and I'm not sure what the differences are.

It's incredibly dry at times and not in chronological order, but it's quite possibly the most autistic book about the HRE you'll ever find.

depends on what era

I have a copy of it and want to read it alongside the historians history of France. Is it organized by topic?

Have you listed to the Robin Pierson interview? It's pretty interesting.

Robin is mai waifu

Almost done with Moby Dick, might start reading Polybius's Rise of The Roman Empire next.

Yup. He breaks up the book into individual topics, so you end up covering 1,000 years of history a bunch of times from different angles.

Halfway done Er Ist Wieder Da and going to start John Adams soon.

if a wanna read greek and latin literature where do i start? I have read plutarch stuff and some commentaries but i want to read things in chronological order .

"Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, volume 3: The Divine Essence and Attributes" by Richard A. Muller.

Probably gonna start on his book on free choice soon.

"To Hell and Back" by Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in American history, he ground pounded his way through the European theater of the second world war with the finest outfit around

What's a good place to start for learning about medieval Europe, specifically 100 year war era stuff? Fiction or nonfiction, doesn't matter.

Distant Mirror covers the first half of the war quite well, along with the rest of the fourteenth century

Gonna second this. It's somewhat out of date, but incredibly readable and well put together.

THAT DEATH DOES WAIT
THERE'S NO DEBATE
SO CHARGE AND ATTACK
GOING TO HELL AND BACK

Is Sabaton /ourband/? Very Veeky Forums related

Maybe if you're an autistic fuck with no taste for music. You do realize that it's possible to have music with historical themes that's actually good, right? Iron Maiden showed it's possible.

...

Iron Maiden is fucking gay too though

It's been a great read so far about Rome's Zaniest Eastern Enemy.

No primary sources right now though I'm considering reread my copy of Thucydides.

Finished reading Destiny of the Republic which is about James Garfield and his assassination and can't recommend it enough.

Currently reading Napoleon A Life which is good so far.

I've been reading For My Legionaries which is a primary source. It's pretty much this guy talking about how he led to the rise of fascism in Romania. It's really engaging.

Jonathan Sumption for the Hundred Years War. It is fantastic. There are 4 volumes so far of a planned 6.

Do you mean in Latin and Greek or translations (not asking to be a knob, just helpful to know)?

It is VERY old now, but Cambridge did two volumes between c.1900-1925 called 'A Companion to Greek Studies' and 'A Companion to Latin Studies'. I don't have the volume on Greek, but do have a copy of the Latin - I assume they are of the same format. Between pp.609-693 in the volume on Latin studies there is a chronological list of major authors between c.250 BC and c.600 AD. This list remains a useful reference, although pretty much anything else you read in the book I would take with a large pinch of salt given its age.

archive.org/details/acompaniontolat00sandgoog

pp.117-189 look like they serve the same function in the volume on Greek, although it appears that the literature is broken down by genre, and isn't in such strict chronological order.

archive.org/details/cu31924026954804

Hope this helps.

>tfw not reading anything
I'm such a fucking brainlet

I guess this counts as a primary source, although it felt more Veeky Forums than Veeky Forums.

Anyone got good sources on reconquista age iberia, and/or on the dawn of the kingdom of portugal?

...

bump for more reading material

This a bathory board, nigger
youtu.be/OyYnstGB3rM

I am reading Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Anglorum at the moment. I am really enjoying it, even though I know the whole Jutes/Saxons/Angles thing is very artificial - hell, Bede himself later adds Frisians, Franks and even Huns to the mix.

I think it is interesting that Procopius, writing a couple of hundred years earlier says Britain is divided by 3 peoples - the Britons, the Angles and the Frisians.

I don't know what to read next - I have been reading Frank Stenton, but it is a bit too dry. I have heard James Campbell's Anglo-Saxon England is good.

What's a good place to start if I want to learn about ancient Mesopotamia? Sumer, Ur, all that. I've got a PDF of Portrait of a Dead Civilisation but that's from '64 and I'm not sure what's been written more recently than that.

I'll give you two options

1. For a more accessible read, read George Roux's "Ancient Iraq". It's a bit out of date, but in terms of value it's top notch a.co/5OPDB3x

2. For a more updated and more undergrad type of work, get Blackwell's "Ancient Near East: 3000-323 BC". It's gonna cost you more. a.co/c1X1w9L

Do you know of any good books on the Silk Road? Any respected authorities on its history and stuff?

Bump

"The Silk Roads" by Francopan is supposed to be good

Both secondary source
>A brief History of Ireland
>Dancing in the shadow of monsters
And then LOTR for a change after i read a chapter or so of the other two

Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civlization by Paul Kriwaczek is a good start. It covers everything from the dawn of civilization in the fertile crescent to the Persian conquests.

It's lacking in many areas - ironically enough, it felt like it glossed over Bablyon - but it's a nice brief introduction that's especially interesting in its discussions of the very early periods.

Was looking for a good overview or history book on Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, anyone have any recommendations?

Just start anywhere you want user. Trust me I used to be a brainlet and now I constantly read.

It is not. He makes errors of basic fact, EVEN when speaking about the periods that are his specialism.

Bump

Please dont read SPQR. It is garbage.

Any book on a big picture of the Bronze Age and all the cultures and civilizations that flourished before the collapse?

It only covers the near-east as far as the Mediterranean littoral, but I would highly recommend Cyprian Broodbank's The Making of the Middle Sea.

This.

How come? I've just bought it myself and I'm pretty keen to see how it is.

In my experience, the only people who seem to hate it are the ones who haven't read it. A lot of people seem to have a vendetta against Beard for some reason - IIRC her other works are a bit politically biased. People who've actually read it seem to have enjoyed it.

However, take all that with a grain of salt, as I haven't read it either.

How is it this? Saw it on amazon a coupla months back and thought about getting it.

Seems like Nassim Nicholas Taleb's band of obsessives have latched onto his absolute hatred of her and its spiralled from there.

I'm looking forward to it either way.

I’ve been reading a lot of Antony Beevor’s stuff. It’s generally high quality except for the few odd misspellings.

>Seems like Nassim Nicholas Taleb's band of obsessives have latched onto his absolute hatred of her
huh? Who's that?

He's an american/lebanese writer who's a former stock trader. He's written a few books what you could call philosophical essays based on ideas of probability, uncertainty etc.

Cos of his dealing s as a stock trader he's as jaded as you can come. Constantly lashing out at Nobel prize winning economists, academics in all sorts of areas and historians. Mary Beard being one of them.

Through out this and his books he's got a pretty hardcore following.

His twitter hints at what he's like. Sometimes I agree with him and other times I just think he's a total mong.

twitter.com/nntaleb

No idea what it's spaced everything like that. So apologies for the reddit style reading.

Ah, so the Noam Chomsky effect? An expert in one area thinking he's magically an expert in everything?

Ha! Exactly that.

Pretty good, very informative and I like his writing style (it centres around a particular slave, Thomas Pellow, with his story of capture and servitude woven through a general overview of the Barbary Slave Trade)

Worth parting with a few shekels if you can, as all of Milton's books seem to be overwhelmingly positively-reviewed

>also bought a relative 'The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare', which he said was an excellent read

It's people who disagree with Beard's constant habit of interjecting her profession into political nonsense outside of her specialty, like the thing with the black Celts.

I've read both Beard's SPQR and Anthony Everitt's Rise of Rome and they are nearly identical in their information. I like Everitt's style better personally, as he starts talking about the Regal Age by saying "Hey guys, we're pretty sure all of this is bullshit myth, but I'm going to lay it out for you since it's important culturally to later Romans."

Beard spends 3 chapters talking about a myth, then proceeds to make her own educated guess, and then says nobody really knows and it's not that important. She does this over and over again, and it makes the book a little hard to get into. After that though, it does pick up considerably and get much more informative and easy to read.

>Tl;Dr
Read Everitt's "Rise of Rome," instead, then follow it up with his biographies, "Cicero," and "Augustus," respectively. They're great follow ups and excellent books in their own right.

:/ so are there any definitive authorities on the history of the Silk Road? Any reputable reads?

Bump

Anyone got any good resources for post-WW2 Horn of Africa history? I'm specifically looking for stuff on the Ethiopian-Somali cripple fights.