Not going to lie, I spend most my time on /misc/.
That being said, what are some of your best historical book recommendations that are free of propaganda?
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Book Recommendations
Not going to lie, I spend most my time on /misc/.
That being said, what are some of your best historical book recommendations that are free of propaganda?
It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
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It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
all books are propaganda, only difference is you like what it’s saying
No physical evidence for battle of Stalingrad
nobody here reads books I just read the Wikipedia articles AT MOST and then come here and argue
>nobody here reads books
Why?
most people on this website are zoomers who grew up with any fact being one click away. Why go and buy a book and read it when you can save days by just googling something and reading the abbreviated version of it and probably get the same amount of knowledge out of it bar a few details
True,but I can't help feeling something valuable has been lost.
yeah there defiantly is your right. To be honest it doesn't help that many good books can be very expensive especially on topics that aren't really in "the mainstream". Like recently i wanted to buy something on the 2nd Congo war but the book I got recommended was something like 60$ and at that point I'd rather just have my half knowledge from free sources online
>why dont you pirate?
reading books on a screen is like watching a movie blind
>reading books on a screen is like watching a movie blind
My sentiment exactly.
>To be honest it doesn't help that many good books can be very expensive..
I don't let that deter me. I've forked hundreds of dollars on books I could have simply downloaded or torrented. The only thing this meant to me was realizing I need to have deeper pockets.
>Get actual history book
>Try googling certain things for more information
>Practically 0 results for the things I wanted to know more about
For reference it's rural pre industrial life in the latest case. Especially good information on specific tools has been hard to find
Look up books by Dorothy Hartley, also the Domestic Revolution by Ruth Goodman is fricking great, lots of niche info on minutiae of daily living pre industrial revolution.
I live in Sweden and specifically reading about my history for now. So it deals more with specific and regional differences. Especially the north/south divide in work and tools.
I might check them out when I'm done with home.
Something I would love recommendations of however is old contemporary accounts of wherever. It's very interesting in a completely different way.
Based primary sources reader! I suggest looking at bibliographies of more modern meta texts to narrow down primary sources on subjects you are looking for. Best of luck.
That's a good suggestion. Can't believe I didn't think of it
There’s a book called blood and roses or something like that. It’s a collection of/commentary on the Paston letters which details a real set of letters sent by various members of the Paston family in England in the 1400s. It’s the oldest surviving English family correspondence and it covers the wars of the roses. It’s fascinating for those small details.
Helen castor is the author.
Montaillou by Emmanuel Le Roy Laudrie (1300s) and The Cheese and the Worms by Carlo Ginzburg (1500s) are two classic small scale studies that try and get inside the mindset of the people who lived in rural communities using inquisition records.
>I just read the Wikipedia articles AT MOST and then come here and argue
Pathetic. I for one get all the knowledge I post on IQfy straight from the akashic records
On which subjects, anon?
Anything really. I do like psychology and philosophy, but if it can keep my attention then war and politics.
If you like philosophy you should definitely check fr. Copleston's History of Philosophy.
On the American civil war this one is probably the best
thanks
The time life published book series on the Civil War is also really good, but I'm not sure how available those books are. Lincoln's biography by David Herbert Donald is probably one of the best books on Lincoln. I haven't (fully) read the battle cry of freedom but I have read another of McPherson's books (pic related) and I remember that he had a HUGE hateboner for McClellan and sucked Lincoln's dick a bit much but otherwise I found it alright, so I'd tell OP he might want to keep those things in mind if he decides to read it.
Anyone have recommendations on either the Aztecs or mesoamerican civilizations in general?
>Anyone have recommendations on either the Aztecs or mesoamerican civilizations in general?
Seconding this.
Mesoanon here, here's my WIP reading chart.
If you have specific subtopics or anything I can maybe also give other suggestions. See also: pastebin.com/p42q14Ff
This includes prior dumps I;'ve done here on IQfy, and I link to an art drive, a book drive (which has hundreds of books), and a link to a reddit post by somebody I collab with which has it's own set of resources, notably an Askhistorians post directory (IMO binging that is perhaps the best place to get a starting foundation on mesoamerica)
A lot of this stuff needs to be updated, though: The pastebin itself hasn't been in a while, so it's missing a dump I did on Mesoamerican polearms (desuarchive.org/his/thread/9543560/#9555797), a conquest related one(desuarchive.org/his/thread/9543560/#9549778 ); one with various excerpts of Aztec cities, markets, palaces, etc (arch.b4k.co/v/thread/533899049/#533929352)and my Mesoamerican media recommendations (desuarchive.org/co/thread/119651972/#119695404 note this doesn't mention Onyx Equinox, which the thread itself was about), and me disputing that the Aztec were on the decline/there was stagnation in Mesoamerica when the spanish arrived arch.b4k.co/v/thread/473816781/#473824067 and here tbharchive.org/his/thread/7312549/#7317474
The art/book drive and reddit posts haven't been updated in a while either: For the art drive in particular, there's a LOT of other images I need to sort through to add; and I'm undecided if photos, site maps, or content from artists who already post their content online (vs now where it's mostly older art, nat geo stuff, etc, with a few photos of featherwork) etc will ever get added
So if you are wanting images, info, etc not contained in any of these (or have questions about any specific images (as not everything is labeled or 100% accurate) or books) there's a good chance I may still have what you want, you just need to ask. My throwaway email is in the pastebin link, though i'm bad about replying quickly
Have you read Fehrenbach's history of Mexico? It's admittedly dated but he makes a claim that the Aztecs could've ended up like the Roman Empire if they had some way to incorporate non-Aztecs into their political system like the Romans did when they extended citizenship to conquered elites - was this ever considered by the Aztecs?
>Fehrenbach's history of Mexico
I have not
>the Aztecs could've ended up like the Roman Empire if they had some way to incorporate non-Aztecs into their political system like the Romans did when they extended citizenship to conquered elites
What does "like the roman empire" mean here, exactly?
Anyways, I don't think what you're saying is something that makes any sort of sense in the Aztec political system. When the Aztec Empire conquered a city-state, that polity generally kept it's rulers, laws, and customs and got left alone to self manage as long as some basic obligations were met of taxes, military service, etc. Those conquered subjects still effectively were independent states that merely acknowledged Tenochtitlan etc as a dominant party in their political relationship. The Aztec Empire, for the most part, only really had actual imperialistic influence and power over it's subjects or vassals via the indirect means, of states wanting to not step out of line for fear of military retribution, or by Tenochtitlan flexing it's economic influence or power to get states to align with it to suck up for political marriages or greater trade access, etc. Most direct interaction with subjects would have been via their tax collection officials/hierachy, who still weren't actually managing local bureaucracies, just checking in with them
There were occasional instances of rulers being replaced by appointed military governors, and there are so called "garrsion colonies" (but what they really did and how they worked is debated), but for the most part the Aztec Empire was less an "Empire" as the term is used in Eurasia, and more a network of city-states linked via political marriages and tax/tribute relationships, with said influences being quite fluid and states regularly switching side, backstabbing, and couping each other
See:
https://pastebin.com/VqW97h93
reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/p4vm1e/common_historical_misconceptions_that_irritates/h927tle/
>Anyways, I don't think what you're saying is something that makes any sort of sense in the Aztec political system
I guess Fehrenbach meant in the sense of integrating non-Aztec polities rather than having them as permanent vassals, if that makes sense
Well, without the specific idea I can't give specific input, but there is precedent of more hands off Mesoamerican empires like the Aztec switching to a more directly managed structure that had defined borders and directly appointed governors that answered to the emperor: The Purepecha Empire to the Aztec's west underwent that shift in the mid 15th century and it's credited as being one of the reasons they were able to BTFO Aztec invasions (but that's also partially because the Purepecha empire was also just large and powerful, the third largest in the Americas after the Inca and Aztec)
I'm not sure what it would have taken for the Aztec to undergo a similar shift. The trouble with a more directly managed imperial structure in Mesoamerica is that the terrain is largerly either valleys and hills and mountain ranges Central Mexico and other highlands around there, or dense jungles and wetlands in the lowlands and in the Yucatan Peninsula; and there's no draft animals to aid in long distance transportation and supply lines; so long distance logistics and management is difficult. I'm not sure what exactly the Purepecha did differently, if anything, allowed them to get away with that shift. Most Meso. empires were pretty hands off (even if not all as mcuh so as the Aztec), though.
There are some sources which suggest the Aztec were increasing the pressure and tighting their grip on subects a bit in the lead up to the Spanish arriving, and maybe that gradually could have resulted in something, but it was steps in that direction, if anything, not taking a huge leap.
>There are some sources which suggest the Aztec were increasing the pressure and tighting their grip on subects a bit in the lead up to the Spanish arriving
qrd? And thanks for the effortpost response Mesoanon
>qrd?
I don't really have much to say about it, tbh. Apparently "5th sun", the more recent townsend one, talks about it. Haven't read the book yet.
His "For Cause and Comrades" was one of my favorite work of history ever written. I couldn't put it down.
If this does not get your blood pumping, nothing will. A once in a millenium historical event. An adventure of a fricking LIFE TIME! Imagine finally making it to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher...after fighting your way from northwest Europe, across Anatolia, all the while being attacked by hostile turkish/arab savages. And they WON, unreal anons, unreal.
This man literally hated the Crusaders with a burning passion and decided to write a three part history on them
Is the book accurate or biased?
On the same level of Gibbon's first three parts. A good narrative history, ignoring the Latin Empire (which he was basically clueless about). I read it, it was good. I just wouldn't take it as much else other than the recounting of events though.
What's a better book to read regarding the Crusades?
The Crusader States by Malcolm Barber or God's War: A New History of the Crusades by Tyreman. Victory in the East by John France is currently standard in the first Crusade as a book, there's also Peter Frankopan's first Crusade.
Honestly if you aren't too interested in being completely informed than it is a lot cheaper (unless you are pirating lol) and shorter with Runciman. Anything on the Latin Empire is a rarity though even today, The Latin Renovatio of Byzantium is currently the largest work on it.
>This is not a classic; I found it difficult to get through and abandoned the whole book after less than 100 pages. It's a very liberal and partisan approach to history which I found tough to take - lefties and ultra liberals will love it.
This is a review of God's War that I found. A bad sign already.
Oh no, a bad review. How about reading it for yourself, homosexual?
>I found it difficult to get through and abandoned the whole book after less than 100 pages
Finding it difficult to read a book is a sure shot way of knowing they are a moron
I'm seconding God's War, it's the most extensive and in-depth work written on the subject. I found Asbridge's The Crusades to be a good introduction, but it's a bit more on the pop history side.
Nothing. That's the best book. Ignore the trannies.
I dont know if we hated the Crusaders, but he was biased. He writes brilliantly. He was definitely pro Byzantine, loved the Byzantine Empire. And i love when he calls the Turks a "primitive people, everywhere they went the roads and infrastructure of the Byzantine Empire fell into ruin". He is a great writer, biased, but its all well written.
Everyone with a brain knows that the First Crusade was 100% justified. The burning of the Holy Sepulcher by a muslim radical justified ALL, thats right, ALL of the massacres of the First Crusade. It was Gods will that the muslim city states of the Levant were genocided. T'was Gods will.
>On the same level of Gibbon's first three parts. A good narrative history,
>.t seething academic
None of these fools ever go into detail on why Runciman is supposedly outdated.
He was also primarily a byzantinist (for whom he is super apologetic for) rather than a crusades specialist or even an orientalist, though this isn't to say that he lacked the linguistic ability to read chronicles in their original languages or anything, just that it wasn't his primary field of study. He also romanticizes the islamic world of the time quite a lot (the turkic warlords of the time in particular were infamous for their brutality even among the muslims), all in an effort to dunk on the crusaders even harder. Really, most people in the business just don't believe anymore in the "comically evil and barbarous crusaders, angelic and innocent byzantines, enlightened and civilized muslims" picture that he painted.
Madden summarizes him thus :
>It is no exaggeration to say that Runciman single-handedly crafted the current popular concept of the crusades. The reasons for this are twofold. First, he was a learned man with a solid grasp of the chronicle sources. Second, and perhaps more important, he wrote beautifully. The picture of the crusades that Runciman painted owed much to current scholarship yet much more to Sir Walter Scott. Throughout his history Runciman portrayed the crusaders as simpletons or barbarians seeking salvation through the destruction of the sophisticated cultures of the east. In his famous "summing-up" of the crusades he concluded that "the Holy War in itself was nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God, which is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
Very interesting. Not sure if you were the one who recommended those books but im absolutely going to read them. I am just finishing Christopher Tyreman's book, and he adds a ton of great information. Such as various blood libels that the israelites were preforming all throughout Europe, they would use christian children, thus in some cases the crusaders fell upon the israelites in brutal fashion. I enjoyed his brief chapters on the Reconquest of the Iberian Pennisula, for the that was a joint European effort, in many way different then that of the crusades in the holy land. He claims it was a lot more about money in Spain. While in the holy land the crusaders fought for religious salvation, and to protect the holiest sights of Christianity.
i just ordered Victory in the East by John France.
Yea I was the same guy. Victory in the East is probably one of my favourite books, as you can see my copy is a bit fricked. My main interest is in the Latin Empire although we are unfortunately only with two major book studies on the topic and the rest is just articles.
>NO HE DOESNT LIKE MUH CRUSADERINOS THEREFORE HE IS OUTDATED
The absolute state...
Why are you being daft, anon? Everybody knows Runciman was biased as shit, regardless of what you think of le heckin epic trad Crusades
Bias is a useless term when it comes to history
Indeed, but in Runciman's case bias is a key word. He was first and foremost a Byzantologist, which tells you all you need to know. Again, it goes without saying he wrote an epic and defining work, but unfortunately he also shaped many misconceptions along the way, misconceptions that historians who specialize in Crusades have since then worked to unravel.
>He was first and foremost a Byzantologist, which tells you all you need to know.
No it doesn't. All it means is that he had a deep understanding of the background of the crusades.
Again, it goes without saying he wrote an epic and defining work, but unfortunately he also shaped many misconceptions along the way, misconceptions that historians who specialize in Crusades have since then worked to unravel.
What bullshit. They aren't any misconceptions they are simply his own ideas and beliefs that he presented in his works. Literally ever single writer and historian does this. To call it bias is to be petty and an attempt to undermine it. I've read the authors you've been shilling and in paritcular the stuff they wrote about Runciman. Their tone is aggressive and well seething. As I mentioned before that sutff reads like polemics. Funny how you keep throwing the word bias around and then post that crap as proof. All that shit is them saying
>Runciman is outdated please buy our books instead
Which is pathetic
>They aren't any misconceptions they are simply his own ideas and beliefs that he presented in his works
His 'ideas' on the Latin Empire are all unironically wrong and inaccurate. It's not even disguised about how much he weeps over Byzantium.
> To call it bias is to be petty and an attempt to undermine it
No it isn't. Writing about history with a particular slant towards a side (which Runciman had.) is not just a petty attempt, it's a real and serious thing. The same reason why all historians critically analyse bias in primary sources, the same applies to modern ones. Just turning your brain off because you want to fanboy is stupid.
is outdated please buy our books instead
Nobody says this.
>because you want to fanboy is stupid.
t. crusader fanboy
Imagine taking polemics by jealous turds seriously
>Throughout his history Runciman portrayed the crusaders as simpletons or barbarians seeking salvation through the destruction of the sophisticated cultures of the east
He's not wrong. These frickers killed eastern christians without a hint of remorse. During Amalric's attempt to take Egypt he massacred coptic city
>These frickers killed eastern christians without a hint of remorse.
Everybody killed others without remorse. Muslim Turks tortured, killed and massacred cities even out of enjoyment. The Byzantines often employed cruel punishments, depopulated cities and sacked them while killing others. It's basically a non argument.
Crusadergays justify the crusades with the claim that they wanted to protect Christians
>Crusadergays justify the crusades with the claim that they wanted to protect Christians
That was quite literally the bottom of their concerns when it came to ticking boxes.
Books on what topic? History? Politics? Humanities?
>I spent most of my time on /misc/
You utter fricking moron. Here
maybe some of their iq will rub off on you.
This book and Bernard B. Falls "Streets without joy"
Read Cline's "1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed" and Mann's "1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus."
Both are broad overviews of fascinating time periods most people have very little knowledge about.
Does anyone have a good one on the ancient human migrations and the genetics behind it? Can be technical.
Who we are and how we got here
Who We are and How We Got Here by David Reich. He doesnt shy away from ancient Hominid admixtures and actually has nuanced thoughts on the whole "diversity within races being larger than diversity between races" schtick that modern anthro is always (falsely) touting around. He can get away with it because he is one of ~~*them*~~ but that is a part of whythis bookis so interesting
Thank you for all of the recommendations. This went way better than I expected.
I should also note that I am very interested in advanced ancient civilizations (not ancient aliens and other stupid shit, but gobleki tepe and shit) or even Atlantis. I've read Plato's Critias and Timseus and started reading the Oera Linda and am looking forward to find more books like this.
You should read Herodotus, especially with your preference for primary sources. It's helpful to read an annotated version, but the scope of his work is pretty outstanding for the ancient world.
Thank you.
this man needs Polybius
>As the proverb tells us that a single drop from the largest vessel suffices to tell us the nature of the whole contents, so we should regard the subject now under discussion. When we find one or two false statements in a book and they prove to be deliberate ones, it is evident that not a word written by such an author is any longer certain and reliable.
These are IQfy required reading
Official History of the Qing Dynasty...por favor...
All historical books are propaganda. Nobody writes an account with a "neutral" perspective. Everyone has an agenda. Science is no difference. There are no noble truth seekers.
I'd like to think I am.
IQfy is the pursuit of the truth anon.
>free of propaganda
Primary sources about subjects you're interested in are likely your best bet.
Need so stuff on late Roman administration of both state and army, the integration of Christiniaty into the state society and the barbarian kingdoms and late Roman warlords. Basically, anything relating and from to the reforms of the dominate to the fall of the west, even beyond, into the early barbarian kingdoms and how they evolved from and out of their Roman foundations. Thanks.
>late Roman administration
Ruling the Later Roman Empire by Christopher Kelly
>army
The late Roman army by Pat Southern
>late Roman warlords
Late Roman Warlords by Penny MacGeorge
Reading about American history makes me depressed anon. Considering the current state of the United States, and our cities willed with tons "latino" and asian economic migrants who have no business being here. This country has become absolute fricking awful in comparison to its glorious past.
I’m of the belief that only through a Supra political movement can this be reversed. Getting Americans reconnected to their glorious past will give them a sense of pride, responsibility, and vitality to fix it. I spread a lot of this stuff across multiple popular websites in the hopes of inspiring particularly young people who probably learn nothing other than to hate themselves
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (4 volumes) and The Second World War (6 volumes) by Winston S. Churchill.
Yeah THAT Winston Churchill. In addition to being a badass war leader he was also a prolific writer and historian.
Commentary on True and False Religion by Ulrich Zwingli
I would like to read more about African history. Namely post 1900 I'd say. Most interested in the congo and fascist occupation, and general colonial efforts too.