Veeky Forums book thread

See also gen.lib.rus.ec for PDFs/epubs pf books and sci-hub.bz for PDFs of journal articles

Op here, it depends. It can take me up to a month or more to finish depending on how tired I am from work and how tedious the book/topic/writing style/length is. Destiny of the Republic by Millard I read in two weeks total but about 20 pages a day when I was able to read. Couple that with a great flowing narrative writing style, the book's length, and the relatively simple thesis, it made me want to continue reading it when I was able to.

Others like The Thirty Years War by Wilson took about 3 months due to the length, the tedious details (which are incredible but dull), and the amount of names and information that made me reread pages of the book or passages a few times cause I would not understand something.

I am currently reading Napoleon A Life, I started a few days ago and have read 115 pages despite the 900 pages. It is easy to read, almost like a novel, and just flows nicely.

A People's History of the World.

dank.

Bump

Just about to start this, apparently it's considered essential reading for anyone interested in Roman studies

What are some good books on the Middle East and Central Asia ?

Could someone link me the guide to conservative political literature? thanks in advance

What's a good book on how scandinavian countries developed?

Looking for the best books on:
>Yugoslavia, including the war
>Iran-Iraq war
>Twentieth century Latin American conflicts in general

>filesize
>still shitty, shaky quality
Phoneposters were a mistake.

But for dildo, that is a pretty good book.

I just bought Caesar's "Conquest of Gaul," and am pretty excited to read it, have the next three days off so I should be able to finish it.

Quran desu

Here's a question: when it comes to primary sources, who usually does it better: Penguin Classics or Oxford World Classics? I was thinking of picking up Josephus' Jewish War

I'm looking for books focusing on communism in Asia. Specifically the Khmer Rouge and Mao's rise and the creation of communist China. Anyone have any recommendations?

Looking for a good book about Chinese history. desu, I don't know a lot about it and want to get an overview first

China: A History is a great introduction.

Thanks a lot

books on Europeans colonising Africa? I want to read a bit more about this period in time

See the OP, there is the King Leopold's Ghost book

Dumping my book charts.

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And my joke list, because why not.

>The Proud Tower and A Distant Mirror on the legit charts
>The Guns of August on the troll chart
You have to be more consistent when taking recommendations.

Trivium stuff for the brave autodidact.

It looks like the books in those charts are pulled straight from rec threads in the order they're posted I remeber the ones from the first few charts

Heres one on german colonisation

is there one like this for the civil war?

I dont have one but the guy who made all these probably does. I dont have his bat signal though.

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This is the argument for realism over liberalism when it comes to foreign policy. It's considered one of the more influential books in foreign policy literature.

Book I'm reading now. It's short, around 450 pages, and was updated last in 2006.

Any good French Revolution books? I'm talking pre-napoleon here.

How does Volker's Hitler book compare to Kershaw's?

love that book.

this is one on battle of antietam. there's also ones on ACW cavalry, medicine and artillery so far

oh also on civil war navies too

Anyone else think these guys look like the Wildlings from GoT?

No offense, but I feel like just dumping a huge pile of books without any context isn't really helpful.

fags like you shouldn't be allowed to post, it probably took you 3 tries to select the street signs in the captcha
>title and picture tells you more than enough about almost every book posted
>if confused you can google it and get a solid 3 sentences giving an outline of what the books about
sorry to be the one to tell you this but none of them are picture books.

Actually it's pretty awesome. I got to add some books onto my reading list. Much more helpful than pictureless comments

Did the Carthaginians leave behind writing? Is that why we talk about them a lot, was because they left behind writing? I'm just wondering why they are talked about more than the Hittites who from what I understand did more damage and lasting consequences.

carthaginians had writing but most of what we know about them comes from roman sources and archaeology. the interest in them has to do with several things: hannibal being the most famous figure in antiquity, hannibal and the carthaginians posing the biggest threat to the hegemony of rome in its history putting up a resistance even greater than the hellenistic kingdoms of the east, carthage being a state descended from phoenician migration from the eastern mediterranean making them mysterious and exotic, carthaginian cultural feats such as sailing western africa, having a rich city with advanced port facilities and an intellectual culture possibly rivalling rome and the greeks

btw pic in the post above is a chart that has books on the hittites, so they haven't been ignored

also hittite scholarship is dominated by germans, so i suspect a lot of info on them isn't familiar to english speaking audiences cause most is in german

Any good stuff about Asian History? Mainly China that's not a Spence's and Kay's book?

what period of chinese history though

Rome destroyed almost all of it. We have barely any, mostly just on sculptures.

They are talked about a lot because they were essentially Rome's greatest rival.

There is a lot of study on the Hittites but they aren't too mainstream. If the Hittites had lasted past the Bronze age collapse, things could possibly have been different. Antiquity is heavily focused through Greek and Roman eyes, way after this time. I don't see how they "did more damage" or had more "lasting consequences".

From what I understand the Hittites wiped out a lot of the ancient Middle Eastern empires if I remember correctly. Sweeping down from Asia Minor.

Not really. Most of the empires they beat ended up beating them later on like the Assyrians and Babylonians. They did bring iron, and had a very effective system with chariots, and overall interesting. I wouldn't claim them as some super influential nation though. Especially in comparison to Carthage/Phoenicians. Just want to clarify I think both cultures were awesome.

I want to get back into reading, but I just can't settle on one book to read.

How do you guys go about your reading? One book at a time? Or perhaps two?

One at a time. Pick a topic I either don't know much about or something I've always been interested in, German history for me, and go from there. Pick a set time which you always read, maybe 30 mins before bed and just do it.

Definitely one. Start slow. It's ok if you only read like 20-30 pages at a time. You have to find something you like, that's the important thing.

>WW1-boo
based
Also, anyone have any good books on the DRCongo? I've already read Dancing in the Glory of Monsters. Books about Belgian Congo would work too

The big one I see for Belgian Congo nowadays is King Leopold's Ghost, although I don't know if it's any good.

Thanks user

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What are Veeky Forums favourite books on Japan and China? Particularly interest in the 19th century onward, more particularly interested in the Great Leap Forwards and the Meiji period.

Here's a chart of stuff

I've never before had any interest in history, but recently started getting interest after reading articles about historical economic crises and found economic history really interesting.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_economic_crises
So what books would you recommend a history-newbie read more about this?

What time period are you looking for?

Pretty much anything starting from that page. Looking for more in depth info than these articles, many of those articles are very short or stubs.

This isn't crises but look into Diocletians edict on prices. It gives a good idea on the economics of Rome at the time. There were a ton of economic crises in the bronze age as well, and fairly decent documentation by them on it as well. Sorry for poor specifics, my focus is maritime trade.

maybe this book
libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=E3900023FA4795978431DCFC0A275673?

ignore that questionmark at the end

Thanks but I actually already did have that one.
I started with googling the first article from that list that is really short and found a longer more in depth one here that looks pretty interesting and even names a economic historian that seems to have published a lot of books
smithsonianmag.com/history/kipper-und-wipper-rogue-traders-rogue-princes-rogue-bishops-and-the-german-financial-meltdown-of-1621-23-167320079/

for the south sea bubble
Dale, Richard. The First Crash: Lessons from the South Sea Bubble. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
>Scholarly but accessible history of the South Sea Bubble, the crash in the market for stocks and government debt in London in 1720, with several chapters describing in detail the role of the coffeehouses in supporting and forming the organization of the market in these financial instruments.
Neal, Larry. “I Am Not Master of Events”: The Speculations of John Law and Lord Londonderry in the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.
>An account of the twin financial crises that marked the intersection of financial speculation, politics, and colonial trade and expansion in the early 18th century. Both French and British enterprises—especially Law’s Mississippi scheme—revealed the great potential and perils of the European enthusiasm for global expansion in the early 18th century.

These look like they could be promising. Thanks.

no problem. that article you posted was interesting. i found one more book to suggest
Dawson, Frank Griffith. The First Latin American Debt Crisis: The City of London and the 1822–1825 Loan Bubble. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1990.
>Outlines the disastrous history of the first loans contracted by independent Latin American nations. British investors loaned more than £20 million to representatives of Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Buenos Aires Province, the Central American Federation, and Brazil, nearly all of which quickly failed to meet their repayment schedules. Suggests that destructive borrowing patterns set early have persisted to the present day.

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Nice

I'm trying to find something equivalent of Suetonius/Livy/Thucydides//Arrian for China/Japan/Korea. I know of Sima Qian. , and alot of that is translated, and I know of the Pillow Book but that's about it. Anything else?

Maybe anybody know, where i can find full version of this book? except buying

I just started this but it has been great so far, and books that start great usually end great. Really gets the late cold war juices flowing.

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Anyone have some book recs on World War One? I've only read Sleepwalkers. Looking for any book about any part of it, how it started, the war itself, etc.

Just finished Dancing in the glory of monsters, might read Bloodlands next
Only other one i'd be interested in would a book about WW1 in the sort of chronological, in depth and all-inclusive way Antony Beevor writes

Ring of Steel is a good look at the home front for Germany and Austria Hungary, though that comes at the expense of almost no discussion of fighting.

A World Undone is my official recommendation, alongside African Kaiser which focuses specifically on Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and the Great War in Africa.

No one know?

>a book about WW1 in the sort of chronological, in depth and all-inclusive way

A World Undone. I'm serious, it's great. The Audible version has an outstanding narration as well, by the same guy who voice Zaeed in Mass Effect 2.

How are Beevor or Glantz's books about the Eastern Front? I've seen their names thrown around a lot when it comes to Eastern Front material.

It is good. I've recommended it several times in these threads. I've enjoyed it thoroughly and he does get detailed into what happened. Impactful enough to cause Belgium to reevaluate their colonial past.