Happy Wednesday everyone!

Just finished Reign of Arrows: The Rise of the Parthian Empire in the Hellenistic Middle East , by Nikolaus Leo Overtoom, and I absolutely loved it!

Although the book leans more on the academic style of writing, I personally found that it flows quite well. I quite enjoyed the author's framing of Parthian history against the contexts of the Hellenistic world, geopolitics, and even political theory.

I am currently reading “Twilight of the Gods”, the last book in Ian Toll’s Pacific Trilogy. The trilogy is the best I’ve read covering the Pacific war and gives a lot of attention to the Japanese side of the war, in particular,the political landscape. If you are interested in WW2 history, this is a must read as far as I’m concerned.

Finished reading: The Bookshop of the World: Making and Trading Books in the
Dutch Golden Age by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen. A
comprehensive history of the Dutch book trade. Good history with no
appeal to popular fancy, but not dry either. The Yale University Press
copy I have is paperback and and well illustrated with high-quality
colour plates which is unusual in a not large paperback.
Who else here is reading in this strain?

I just received Book of the Sword by Sir Richard Francis Burton, aka the most interesting man in the world. First published in 1884, Burton draws on a wealth of linguistic, archaeological, and literary sources to trace the millennia-old history of the sword. He takes us from its earliest days as a charred, sharpened stick to the height of craftsmanship in the modern era.

I’m not too far into it, but so far it’s really good. I can’t speak for the accuracy of the subject matter of a 140 year old book about the history of weaponry, but it’s written in an eloquent prose fitting a 19th century renaissance man which I’ve always found enjoyable.

I can tell that Burton’s writing style is a bit unique. His writing is very erudite, opinionated, and often pedantic in the extreme. The main reason I wanted this book is because I find the author and his life incredibly fascinating, and I want to collect more of his work.

You might dig the Ross King book, Booksellers of Florence. You can hear him talk about it at the Philadelphia Free Library. https://libwww.freelibrary.org/podcast/episode/2003

I'm reading Half American by Matthew Delmont about Black servicemembers in WWII. The sheer waste of man power and talent is maddening and the coddling of white supremacists is enraging. He doesn't get into draft numbers, but I'd like to see a comparison. In the south during WWI, Black Americans were disproportionately drafted. I'm wondering if the discrepancy went away for WWII b/c it was more popular.

Also, I mentioned this in another thread, but I wish I could write movie scripts. Some of these guys served in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion before hand. There's a woman, Salaria Kea, who volunteered as a nurse in Spain and in WWII and could only get work outside of the war in the US in TB wards at hospitals b/c of prejudice. She apparently went on to do a bunch of work in the civil rights movement. Someone else brought up Edward Carter who was an officer in Spain and then had to deal with the US army's prejudice during WWII.

It's insane that we have movies about people like Desmond Doss that had to be totally hyperbolized when we have these other stories that probably have to be down played to be believable.

Also, the section on the Port Chicago disaster made me so mad. White officers basically wasted 300 soldiers lives for petty bets and the navy blamed the enlisted men. It was just a galling dereliction of leadership and duty.

I'd definitely recommend the book.

Does anyone have any suggestions about the German Freikorps after WWI (but only in English)? The only one Google has found that sounds interesting is A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler by Nigel Jones (also called Hitler's Heralds on kindle)

Anyway finished my first two books of the year (reviews copied and pasted) -

Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front 1915-1918 by John MacDonald, Zeljko Cimpric

>4.75/5 really good at what it sets out to do.

>Short at 187 pages plus a 2 page bibliography, all in English so good for further research. First 50 pages cover the stuff that isn't the battles, Italy's entry into the war, the terrain, the state of the armies in terms of morale and equipment then a biographical list of the main leaders on each side. Then the rest of the book covers each of the 12 battles of the Izonso, describing the main attacks, the reasons for success and failure, and what the battles actually achieved (most of the time nothing gained and at huge cost in terms of casualties). Each chapter tends to be under 10 pages but the more significant battles like the 6th battle and the 11th battle get about 15. The 12th battle, Caporetto, gets 20. 1918 and the final Italian offensives are wrote about in very broad strokes, not a lot of detail. The writing is accessible if you like military history, enough info on troop movements and locations to understand what is going on without getting bogged down with every unit. There are a lot of pictures throughout the book with mostly decent quality, but personally I wanted some more maps and for the maps to be better quality.

>I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in WWI but if you want a more indepth book (especially on the political side of things such as the Italian leadership deciding to enter the war and the cultural impact) then I'd suggest The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson alongside this book.

Just finished today The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism by Anthony Read

>Might be a little bit harsh but 3.5/5 rounding down for Goodreads.

>Narrative and chronological history of 1919. The writing style is pretty good but more focused on the narrative than analysis. A little bit of prior knowledge of the political time period might be helpful but I don't think it is needed. The book is mostly about two topics -

>1 - The post-WWI revolutions and civil wars in Europe, particularly Germany. These parts are decent imo and I personally found them to be the more enjoyable parts of the book. Despite the book being about the Western reaction to communism there isn't that much on the Russian Civil War beyond broad details to follow what was going on. The topic of the Russian Civil War is mostly just the Western leaders and politicians arguing over whether to continue the military intervention there. The political section is very focused on Europe and to a lesser extent the USA, there is a short chapter on the colonial issues (India with Amritsar and the Third Anglo-Afghan War) but it isn't that good.

>And 2 - Industrial disputes and how the fear of the Bolsheviks and Bolshevism was used by employers and governments to smear striking unions with mostly ordinary economic concerns (wages, hours, conditions etc) as being revolutionary communists intent on bringing down the government. While this theme is covered in a range of European countries I'd say the bulk of it is on the USA and the Red Scare. The author is pretty sympathetic to the unions and the workers. There is some content on the racial side of things but it is in the context of communism, the press at the time saying things like the "the blacks are being tainted by Bolshevism" or "Lenin and Trotsky are trying to lure in black support". As I'm not American and a lot of this content is about the USA I didn't enjoy this part as much.

>Overall maybe worth a read if you are interested in the post-WWI period as you can get used copies pretty cheap on Amazon nowadays. However the dual focus means that there are better books that focus on one theme or the other. If you want the post-WWI revolutions and civil wars just read The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End by Robert Gerwarth instead. I'm sure there are plenty of books on the Red Scare and the unions in 1919 America but I haven't read any of them

Next up is probably going to be A World Undone: The Story of the Great War by G.J Meyer which should take me a while

The Bookshop of the World is on my reading list. Did you read it in hardback, paperback or ebook? I've seen the paperback, and the print is small, but the hardback is quite expensive...

I'd also echo The Bookseller of Florence by Ross King - an excellent narrative history of the twilight of manuscript printing in Renaissance Florence.

I've posted a few posts recently about history books about books / manuscripts. Some recent examples include The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club by de Hamel, and The Lost Gutenberg by Margaret Leslie Davis

Recently finished two books.

The Writing of the Gods by Edward Dolnick is a narrarive telling of the race to crack hieroglyphs. Its main protagonists are Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion. It's a good story, though Dolnick is prone to meander at times, and sometimes repeats his key points - the book lacks flow somewhat. However, it has spurred me to sort out a ticket to the hieroglyphs exhibition currently on at the British Museum...

Have also read Princes of the Renaissance by Mary Hollingsworth. This is a lavishly illustrated telling of the warring Italian city-states during the later 15th and 16th centuries, told through the lens of the key families and dynasties. It's not quite the book I was hoping to read - I was hoping for more of an intellectual history of the Renaissance, but it was more about the power struggles. I found the sheer size of the cast to be a bit overwhelming and confusing, and got a bit lost in parts. I was also surprised that there wasn't a significant chapter on Florence and the Medicis.

I thought I might mention in connection to "The World on Fire "" recently Anthony Beevor wrote "Russia -Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921" I haven't read it yet but Beevor is an excellent historian who presents the facts very fairly.

Agreed! Those books are incredible. I also highly recommend Rick Atkinson's "Liberation Trilogy". It follows the US Army's campaigns in North Africa, Sicily/Italy, and Western Europe.

I did a favorite pass time on day off and went to used bookstores , and came up with "The Strange Case of Jim Crow" by Yale University Historian C.Vann Woodward ,maybe the best known writer of the deep south USA ,from the American Civil War onward.. "The Historical Bible of the Civil Rights Moveement"is what Dr. King said of this book

Good book, his later edition with the added foreword is nice too but not enough to specifically search for if you have one of the earlier publishings already.

I got the later one with new forward by William Mcfeely

I just picked up Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages and I am enthralled. Who knew that a treasure cache would lay undiscovered for 1,600 years to become known as the Hoxne Hoard.

I've only just began to scratch the surface of the Middle Ages, but what was once an uninteresting period of history to me, has recently become a fascination for me.

I want to get my hands all over the Middle Ages and to discover what once existed, and what still remains.

"Japan 1941 Countdown to Infamy" by Eri Hotta is also a good one that examines the Japanese perspective of Pearl Harbor.

I am reading pomegranates and promises

I finished this a few weeks ago and loved it. As someone who knew very little about the Middle Ages I thought the author Dan Jones did a really good job of writing informatively but keeping it interesting and surprisingly relevant to the modern era. I’m definitely going to check out some of his other books, I know he did one on the Crusades that sounds interesting. Also if you’re interested you can find some interviews/podcasts with the author on YouTube which are also pretty interesting - one I liked was where he kind of overviewed all of the crusades and their importance and Dan Carlin did a podcast episode with him also which is where I learned about the book originally.

You might dig Fox Margalit's book, The Riddle of the Labyrinth about deciphering Linear B. It was pretty interesting to see how you would go about something like that before computers.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16240783-the-riddle-of-the-labyrinth

Funnily enough, Dolnick references Fox Margalit's book in The Writing of the Gods. Will have to add it to the reading pile...

Thanks to both commentators for the Ross King suggestion. My Yale UP copy of The Bookshop of the World is indeed a paperback and looking at it again I can agree that the print is small by common trade paperback standards today. Perhaps it needed to be produced as a larger format paperback.

And the two new suggestions are very welcome too. While we are on the topic of the history of books and printing, I have an additional title to suggest that I read two years ago: The Paper Chase by Joseph Hone, a case-study of a clandestine printing operation in Queen Anne's London. Cheers! and Happy New Year

If you find you enjoy Woodward’s book I recommend you read,Simple Justice by Richard Kluger. In his book, Kluger outlines the NAACP’s long and tortured battle against segregation in education. He brings little known significant figures to life. For example, who is Charles Houston? Houston was Thurgood Marshall’s law professor and mentor at Howard University. Through Houston, Marshall joined the NAACP. When Houston left the NAACP, he selected Marshall to succeed him as head of the Legal Defense Fund. Simple Justice is considered a classic. It was originally published in 1975 and the author says that it has never been out of print. For anyone interested in the eradication of educational segregation, Simple Justice is a must read!!

I just finished World Undone. It was a good read approximating something of a very detailed timeline of the war. It doesn't (and often acknowledges it can't) delve too deeply into specific battles and events, but has enough detail to tell the story of the war with sufficient breadth.

Have you found anything (or previously read anything) that has a similar layer of detail bridging the story from World War I to World War II?

I'm struggling to think of much

I liked Fracture: Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938 by Philipp Blom but that is more about the culture, mindsets/views and lifestyles of the time rather than an overview of the politics.

It's been a while since I've read it but you could try The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s by Piers Brendon . It has a little bit on the 20s and then in the 30s it covers each of the major powers with their own chapters. It's pretty long as well

I always find this thread helpful!

Probably unlikely but has anyone here read anything on japanese nationalism after WW2? In the last week i read three tigers one mountain which had a large section on the attitude towards Koreans in Japan which will be useful for my dissertation.

Me too, I really appreciate each and every comment!

What's it about?

Haven't come across anything myself, but you may want to try this week's thread which'll get posted this morning!