Happy Wednesday everyone!

Just wrapped up Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America by Pekka Hämäläinen, and I found it to be fantastic! The book provides an excellent account of various First Nations, and their resistance to European and American expansion. My only comment would be that I wish a little mlre was said on the challenges of life on reservations today. Overall, excellent book!

I’d recommend A Brave and Cunning Prince by James Horn. It is a very well written narrative history on an often underappreciated figure in American history. He believes that Paquiquineo and Opechancanough are the same person and tells their life using evidence to support that claim

I recently listed to Albion's Seed which discusses the origins of some US cultures that came from England. Almost 30 hours but very interesting.

First off a request - I've recently been watching the Babylon Berlin TV series set in Berlin just before the Great Depression, and I really liked it. So does anyone have any suggestions on Weimar Germany or the Weimar republic, preferably not focusing too much on the Nazis.

Anyway managed to get 2 books finished but both were short (reviews are copied and pasted) -

Finished Confronting Leviathan: A History of Ideas by David Runciman

>3.5/5 going to be a bit harsh and round down for Goodreads. I got a hardcover new on clearance for £5 and for that I am happy with it. Maybe worth a read if you can find a reasonably priced copy but not a must read.

>The book is 260 pages long and summarises/explains the author's interpretation of 12 important thinkers and their works. The main theme the book focuses on is the idea of the state and state control. In terms of scope the book begins with Hobbes' 'Leviathan' and ends with Fukuyama's 'The End of History'. Each chapter has a brief biography of the individiual and explains the historical context they were writing in, then explains their ideas and ends with a bit on how this applies to the 21st century (mainly COVID related). Of the 12 works chosen there are two anti-colonial works (Gandhi and his 'Hind Swaraj' and Frantz Fanon's 'The Wretched of the Earth', I found Fanon more interesting) and two feminist ones (Wollstonecraft's 'Vindication of the Rights of Women' which was an interesting chapter and Catherine MacKinnon's 'Towards of a Feminist Theory of the State' which I found rather boring). The rest of the book is mainly political thinkers like Arendt, Weber, Tocqueville etc. At the end of the book there is a further reading section for each chapter which always includes a watch/listen like lectures on Youtube or podcasts as well as books.

>Personally I enjoyed the chapters on Hobbes, Wollstonecraft, Tocqueville, Marx and Weber the most.

>To me the author's interpretations seemed fine but I am very much an amateur on the subject. I haven't listened to the author's Talking Politics podcast this book was based on and apart from Marx and Engel's Communist Manifesto I haven't actually read any of the works mentioned. So I am basically assuming the author's takes are reasonable rather than knowing for certain.

A Brief History of The Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler by Nigel Jones. I think for ebooks it is called Hitler Heralds.

>4/5 Worth reading if interested in immediate post-WWI Germany and definitely worth reading if you are interested in the Freikorps or the German rightwing paramilitary groups after WWI as there doesn't seem to be much else in English.

>The book is short at 280 or so pages and mainly covers the period from the end of the First World War to the failure of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. The book is fairly easy to read in my opinion and doesn't feel like it needs much background knowledge. Despite the name of the book the Nazis don't really get mentioned till the last chapter (my guess is publishing gimmick as including Nazis and swastikas on the cover would boost sales). The topics that are included are the formation of the Freikorps, their use by the SPD government to fight the far left, the anti-government activities of the Freikorps (the Kapp Putsch gets a good chapter) and the nationalists and the political violence and murder campaigns once the large scale fighting had stopped. The book then ends with a relatively large (but still good) chapter on Hitler's rise to prominence in Bavaria and his attempted coup at the end of 1923. The author is sympathetic to the left (fair enough considering the subject) and does often point out the blatant bias of the authorities on behalf of the right, for example the average sentence for a leftwing political murderer was 15 years, for a rightwing murderer it was 4 months. Or that out of 354 rightwing political murders, 326 went unpunished. There are two appendices - the first is a list of all the main Freikorps, their leaders, size, dates of operation, eventual fate and any symbols. The second a biographical list of any Freikorp member who eventually became prominent within Nazi Germany or who had a major falling out with the Nazis.

>My main complaint is that the Freikorps' Baltic Campaign - offering to help the new Latvian and Estonian governments against the Bolsheivks then trying to turn these areas into German colonies, was only covered in one brief chapter. I wanted more about that topic. Additionally I felt that sometimes the more military focused bits felt like just lists of names and units.

>There is a decent further reading list but this is a book that originally came out in 1987 and was republished in 2003 so all of the books mentioned will be rather old and possibly out of date researchwise.

I'm now reading The Pike: Gabriele D'Annunzio Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War by Lucy Hughes-Hallett about an Italian proto-fascist poet who captured the city of Fiume (Rijelka) and turned it into an independent city state because he was upset about the amount of territory Italy was going to get from the post-WWI peace negotiations. Personally I have mixed feelings about the book so far, it's not bad but I'm about halfway through it (300 pages or so) and it is just about his literary work (fair enough for a biography of a poet), his financial difficulties and who he was sleeping with - it hasn't even gotten to the beginning of WWI yet and rather little on politics so far.

Heard about the book on this podcast which is probably the better choice than reading the book as it gets to the key points -

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/194-the-first-fascist/id1537788786?i=1000565720363

Has anyone got any good recommendations for a narrative history of the Dutch Golden Age? Ideally one that covers both politics and culture.

Hitler: Volume II: Downfall 1939-45. It’s a long read, but its extremely interesting insight in to Hitler. For any one interested in WW2 I’d highly recommend it.

Just got back into reading history books, and had to join reddit for this thread. Does anyone have any good recommendations on the Spanish Civil War? I am trying to find one that is fairly non-biased showing the violence and hatred of both sides.

Is this the biography by Volker Ullrich

"The Battle for Spain 1936-1939 by Antony Beevor

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Seconding Beevor's book. It's fantastic!

"The Embarrassment of Riches" by Simon Schama

There are many books on the early Arab conquests that spread Islam across the Arabian peninsula, Levant and North Africa. I was wondering if there are any good books about the expansion of Islam into Turkey, Central Asia, India, Indonesia and Africa.

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Yeah, it's the volume that deals mostly with WWII. It was good. I would recommend it.

That’s right. It’s a good read.

I really enjoyed it as well. Not many people are talking about it, but I found it a very readable introduction to Native North American history.

If you want more modern indigenous history by an indigenous historian Heartbeat of Wounded Knee focuses on the last century or so, and dives into modern life, including life on the reservations.

Bury my Heart is one of my top recommendations to everyone. Although dark, I consider it to be a must-read.

Heirs of the Founders vs The Great Triumvirate

These 2 books tackle the lives & relationships between them in early to mid 19th century U.S. Senators, Webster, Clay, & Calhoun.I am wondering which of the 2 is overall better or what distinct differences the 2 works have in the 31 year difference between publications.I only have time enough to read one, but wanted to pick up what fellow students of history thought b4 I pick 1 or the other up. The three men along with Quincy Adams and Jackson make up the first generation of politicians after the Revolution Era Thank you for any assistance that will lead me to either Heirs of The Founders or The Great Triumvirate.

Hi, I know that throughout the 19th century, advances in archaeology and historical study of ancient near east and the decipherment of texts, heavily impacted questions on the historicity of the different parts of the bible. I was wondering if there are any books which tell the story of how these discoveries changed and impacted biblical studies specifically in 19th century, thanks!

Thanks for the recommendation!

Hey there! Forwarded your question to a friend who read these, and he said that the Triumvirate is a great book, but a tedious read. Whereas the Founders was an easier read, without taking away from the content.

Sounds like it'd make a great gift for a friend. Thanks for the recommendation!

Hey there. Although I don't have a recommendation, you may want to post this on this week's thread (going up Wed at around 8 am EST). Hope you find the book you're looking for!

I will go with Founders. While I have read HW Brands work before there was already a book on the exact topic and just because a work is older doesn't mean it's less of a piece. I was curious what Brands might add to something that is already out there for three decades.

Thank you. It's hard to find the appropriate place to ask this on Reddit.

Pirates!

Looking for a book about the golden age of pirates, popularised by the pirates of the Carribbean movies. A little project my 8 year old and I are doing, learning about his interests together. This is mainly for me though, so that I can get some background knowledge on the subject

I would suggest this book. It's about 250 pages, but a broken down digestible read and you can relate the stories within to your 8 year old. It's only about $15 in paperback. https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Age-Piracy-Behind-Pirate/dp/1510738754/ref=asc_df_1510738754/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=552882832481&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5278765483288104314&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1018511&hvtargid=pla-976949717642&psc=1

HW Brands has been churning out a book almost annually while authors of the Oxford History of the United States take years to complete an entry. What is Brands next topic after Geronimo?

Hey guys are there any books about Winston Churchill's depression? How about Sherman or Grant's?

Best Comprehensive Single Volume History of Spain (in English)?

I was hoping to find an overview history of Spain. There are a lot of them, and I'm not sure which one to read.
I saw quite a few in my search:

The History of Spain by Peter Pierson
Spain A Unique History by Stanley G. Payne
A Concise History of Spain by Phillips

Any thoughts or recommendations?