Barzun is great. I also recommend Colin Wilson's Outsider Cycle, especially the first several volumes: >Religion and the Rebel (1957) >The Age of Defeat (1959) >The Strength to Dream (1962)
and the summary volume: >The New Existentialism (1966)
as well as his: >The Occult (1971) >Beyond the Occult (1988)
And: >Morning of the Magicians by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier >Revolt of the Masses by Ortega y Gasset
>No one will ever take these books seriously >Jacques Barzun
holy shit you people see the word "decadence" and think it's some nazi propaganda when it's literal mainstream normie core cultural history.
I'll add The Ancient City by Coulanges for those who want to study how Roman and Greek paganism declined through the formation of the city and subsequent attempts at empire.
The Great Game Peter Hopkirk
Stalin 1&2 Kotkin
A People's Tragedy & Crimea: The last crusade Orlando Figes
30 Years War C V Wedgewood
Chronicle of the Navarez Expedition: Cabeza de Vaca
Journal of the Plague Year: Daniel Dafoe
If anyone else has good primary source journals or travel journals let me know, those are the best.
You guys know any good books about the dark ages? Not buying the “we don’t know anything lol” bullshit when we are apparently able to confidently describe life in 2500 BC.
The European ones? Mohammed and Charlemagne by Pirenne, Framing the Middle Ages by Chris Wickham, The World of Late Antiquity by Peter Brown. These all cover up to 750-800~. I'm not sure of anything that covers 800-1000 specifically other than nitty gritty books on more specific subjects like Llewellyn's Rome in the Dark Ages, or obviously the Vikings. Things do get kind of sleepy in Europe when the most that's going on is the Ottonian restoration projects, Alfred the Great, and the ongoing Carolingian fragmentation in France.
The biggest event to know about after the Carolingian renaissance, aside from maybe the Ottonian/Salian attempts at a renovatio imperii, is the Cluniac reforms (910~ onward), which lead to the Gregorian reforms. The 11th century is incredibly vibrant and culturally active, and it increases exponentially every century from then on. The 12th Century Renaissance is still an amazing classic, and Thirteenth Greatest of all Centuries is fun.
Philip Daileader has a good three-part lecture series on the Middle Ages (Early, High, and Late) with the Great Courses company. There's also Cantor's book on the Middle Ages.
Europe was never really fully dark but it got fairly quiet in, I'd say 600-900.
Your recommendations are much appreciated. What led to you cultivate such a high knowledgeability about this time period? Was it the books, studies, or just being around a while?
Thanks for the high praise, but that stuff isn't super advanced or niche or anything, don't worry. I just really like the Middle Ages, and I had a friend who studied it so we would read and talk together. I'm also generally a big fan of reading "classic" works on a topic even if they're considered outdated or old-fashioned, because I think getting overviews and cementing the basic landmarks and reference points is important. It all starts connecting in your mind after a while, since obviously it's all interrelated in some way or another. The best overviews often come from some guy who just loved the shit out of the 13th century, out of total pro-Catholic bias or whatever, enough to motivate him to turn over every stone trying to prove his point. You can always nuance your understanding later.
For this reason I'm also a fan of the Durant books, as they introduce you to the "names worth knowing" in a fun and memorable way, and they're well-written.
Are the great courses decent? I've tried them twice an both were absolutely awful freshman 101 tier shit.
Also do you know any diaries from that period?
It's been years since I listened to them but I loved many of them, not all but many. Harl's are all incredible, Daileader's were pretty good if I remember correctly, gayan's was great for an introduction to Rome, and Brier's was great on Egypt. Some are more thematic than others but I still think you get a better coverage than most undergraduate classes today anyway. Most classes these days are scared to give you basic overviews and go through the material "traditionally," instead they try to bribe ADHD students into giving a frick. The newer ones might suck though, I have no idea.
Diaries from the Dark Ages specifically, nothing pops to mind like the famous Pitti and Dati ricordanzi type things from centuries later, aside from really obvious stuff like Augustine (Peter Brown has a good biography of him). There are a lot of personal details in things like Einhard's Vita of Charlemagne? Or the Egeria pilgrimage narrative but I think that's actually late antique and only the manuscript is from 1000~.
>Are the great courses decent?
No they're shit for high schoolers pretending to be first years.
Christine d'Pizan's epic prose forms a diary introspection of household management and the proper ordering of the christian woman. Abelard's castrated letters to Eloise form a diary of sorts. You can imagine her reply.
I really strongly recommend Annales if you're interested in North European medieval culture. Bloch's Feudal Society was seminal. Personally I'm into household studies. You can get a lot out of births deaths and marriages if you also have rent rolls.
Good suggestions here too although I disagree about the Great Courses assessment. Abelard is shockingly personal, almost Rousseauesque.
The Annales school is the go-to if you like nitty gritty "history from the bottom" stuff, mostly the second generation following Braudel, with books like Ladurie's Montaillou and Duby's Maconnais, but most of them focus on the early modern period and later for the obvious reason that there are many more sources on economic and social life from those periods. The third generation of Annalistes is also good and went back to focusing on the "mentalities" of the Middle Ages, like Bloch's Feudal Society did. The two biggest names there are Jacques le Goff and Georges Duby, both amazing.
Yeah I've read many of the early Christian authors but getting his nuts cut off is a bit to real for me. Also the romantic shit is boring personally. >Christine d'Pizan
Honestly by the 1400's there much more interesting shit going on in the arab world and I'd rather read what they have to say on the matter.
Bloch sounds promising. I'm a little put off by the low page count though. Based on what his project is as he describes it, seems a little low no?
Idk. Personally I find that podcasts are the best when it comes to history outside of an academic context. There are several very good ones which cover the equivalent of 30 or 40 full books.
Whenever I see a book on anything historical that isn't incredibly specific, I am very skeptical if it isn't 2000 pages long.
Bloch's Feudal Society is two medium sized volumes I believe, it's not terribly short. It's considered outdated now but it's still the best one stop overview arguably. Although Duby has some good overviews too.
11 months ago
Anonymous
>The two biggest names there are Jacques le Goff and Georges Duby, both amazing.
Totally
>It's considered outdated now but it's still the best one stop overview arguably. Although Duby has some good overviews too.
I recommend Engels and Hammond & Hammond, so I'm quite willing to recommend Bloch not because he's least incorrect, but because his method of introspecting on problems, available sources, and available claims is worthy. I mean I think EP is out of date, and a faux pas actually, and that CPGB's best work is Chris Hill not that fricking "Age of" shit. I'm really upset that the UK translators in the 1980s published all the theorists out of Italy and none of the fricking historians. AO/PO generated some great arse-up historians. I mean CLR James for that matter. The recent paper on African roller mill steel technologies in Jamaica as a b***h magic fight stealing white men's penises in order to be able to murder each other is basically CLR from the bottom up. Black Jacobins? Have some Black Roux.
Are the great courses decent? I've tried them twice an both were absolutely awful freshman 101 tier shit.
Also do you know any diaries from that period?
>Are the great courses decent?
No they're shit for high schoolers pretending to be first years.
Christine d'Pizan's epic prose forms a diary introspection of household management and the proper ordering of the christian woman. Abelard's castrated letters to Eloise form a diary of sorts. You can imagine her reply.
I really strongly recommend Annales if you're interested in North European medieval culture. Bloch's Feudal Society was seminal. Personally I'm into household studies. You can get a lot out of births deaths and marriages if you also have rent rolls.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah I've read many of the early Christian authors but getting his nuts cut off is a bit to real for me. Also the romantic shit is boring personally. >Christine d'Pizan
Honestly by the 1400's there much more interesting shit going on in the arab world and I'd rather read what they have to say on the matter.
Bloch sounds promising. I'm a little put off by the low page count though. Based on what his project is as he describes it, seems a little low no?
Idk. Personally I find that podcasts are the best when it comes to history outside of an academic context. There are several very good ones which cover the equivalent of 30 or 40 full books.
Whenever I see a book on anything historical that isn't incredibly specific, I am very skeptical if it isn't 2000 pages long.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Bloch is the seminal text for Annales as a school of french social history. After Bloch try Mediterranean (Braudel The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II 2 vols)
The best hidden secret among cultural histories is Egon Friedell's A Cultural History of the Modern Age. If you know German then it's an absolute no brainer, though if you are stuck with English it might be a bit hard to find, though you will be rewarded for seeking it out.
Barzun is great. I also recommend Colin Wilson's Outsider Cycle, especially the first several volumes:
>Religion and the Rebel (1957)
>The Age of Defeat (1959)
>The Strength to Dream (1962)
and the summary volume:
>The New Existentialism (1966)
as well as his:
>The Occult (1971)
>Beyond the Occult (1988)
And:
>Morning of the Magicians by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier
>Revolt of the Masses by Ortega y Gasset
great recommendations
Frick off with your nazi propaganda. No one will ever take these books seriously
huh? how is that nazi propaganda?
Stfu, spread your propaganda elsewhere
Perhaps go leave?
Troll or moronic
leftypols are insane
Weirdo
Cool guy
Recommend me some more nazi propaganda IQfy
Unironically, Bramwell's book on Walther Darre and anything by Savitri Devi
https://counter-currents.com/2021/09/remembering-savitri-devi-12/
https://counter-currents.com/2012/11/two-volumes-by-gottfried-feder/
i take them seriously though albeit
Why are you and your trannies at Verso Books and glowies at Yale Press the judges on what is taken seriously?
>Frick off
I shan't.
>No one will ever take these books seriously
>Jacques Barzun
holy shit you people see the word "decadence" and think it's some nazi propaganda when it's literal mainstream normie core cultural history.
but it is
Barzun was famously anti Nazi and anti racist being you know French and living through WW2
uhm. uhm. uhm.
>The New Existentialism (1966)
Bro this is not nazi, this is reddit
my favorite is the one you posted, OP
The Story of Civilization
No!
why?
Anything by Carlyle.
The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy by Jacob Burckhardt
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2074
Came here to post this.
I'll add The Ancient City by Coulanges for those who want to study how Roman and Greek paganism declined through the formation of the city and subsequent attempts at empire.
The Great Game Peter Hopkirk
Stalin 1&2 Kotkin
A People's Tragedy & Crimea: The last crusade Orlando Figes
30 Years War C V Wedgewood
Chronicle of the Navarez Expedition: Cabeza de Vaca
Journal of the Plague Year: Daniel Dafoe
If anyone else has good primary source journals or travel journals let me know, those are the best.
>Journal of the Plague Year: Daniel Dafoe
I loved this one. Was a really entertaining and informative read.
You guys know any good books about the dark ages? Not buying the “we don’t know anything lol” bullshit when we are apparently able to confidently describe life in 2500 BC.
The European ones? Mohammed and Charlemagne by Pirenne, Framing the Middle Ages by Chris Wickham, The World of Late Antiquity by Peter Brown. These all cover up to 750-800~. I'm not sure of anything that covers 800-1000 specifically other than nitty gritty books on more specific subjects like Llewellyn's Rome in the Dark Ages, or obviously the Vikings. Things do get kind of sleepy in Europe when the most that's going on is the Ottonian restoration projects, Alfred the Great, and the ongoing Carolingian fragmentation in France.
The biggest event to know about after the Carolingian renaissance, aside from maybe the Ottonian/Salian attempts at a renovatio imperii, is the Cluniac reforms (910~ onward), which lead to the Gregorian reforms. The 11th century is incredibly vibrant and culturally active, and it increases exponentially every century from then on. The 12th Century Renaissance is still an amazing classic, and Thirteenth Greatest of all Centuries is fun.
Philip Daileader has a good three-part lecture series on the Middle Ages (Early, High, and Late) with the Great Courses company. There's also Cantor's book on the Middle Ages.
Europe was never really fully dark but it got fairly quiet in, I'd say 600-900.
Your recommendations are much appreciated. What led to you cultivate such a high knowledgeability about this time period? Was it the books, studies, or just being around a while?
Thanks for the high praise, but that stuff isn't super advanced or niche or anything, don't worry. I just really like the Middle Ages, and I had a friend who studied it so we would read and talk together. I'm also generally a big fan of reading "classic" works on a topic even if they're considered outdated or old-fashioned, because I think getting overviews and cementing the basic landmarks and reference points is important. It all starts connecting in your mind after a while, since obviously it's all interrelated in some way or another. The best overviews often come from some guy who just loved the shit out of the 13th century, out of total pro-Catholic bias or whatever, enough to motivate him to turn over every stone trying to prove his point. You can always nuance your understanding later.
For this reason I'm also a fan of the Durant books, as they introduce you to the "names worth knowing" in a fun and memorable way, and they're well-written.
It's been years since I listened to them but I loved many of them, not all but many. Harl's are all incredible, Daileader's were pretty good if I remember correctly, gayan's was great for an introduction to Rome, and Brier's was great on Egypt. Some are more thematic than others but I still think you get a better coverage than most undergraduate classes today anyway. Most classes these days are scared to give you basic overviews and go through the material "traditionally," instead they try to bribe ADHD students into giving a frick. The newer ones might suck though, I have no idea.
Diaries from the Dark Ages specifically, nothing pops to mind like the famous Pitti and Dati ricordanzi type things from centuries later, aside from really obvious stuff like Augustine (Peter Brown has a good biography of him). There are a lot of personal details in things like Einhard's Vita of Charlemagne? Or the Egeria pilgrimage narrative but I think that's actually late antique and only the manuscript is from 1000~.
Good suggestions here too although I disagree about the Great Courses assessment. Abelard is shockingly personal, almost Rousseauesque.
The Annales school is the go-to if you like nitty gritty "history from the bottom" stuff, mostly the second generation following Braudel, with books like Ladurie's Montaillou and Duby's Maconnais, but most of them focus on the early modern period and later for the obvious reason that there are many more sources on economic and social life from those periods. The third generation of Annalistes is also good and went back to focusing on the "mentalities" of the Middle Ages, like Bloch's Feudal Society did. The two biggest names there are Jacques le Goff and Georges Duby, both amazing.
Bloch's Feudal Society is two medium sized volumes I believe, it's not terribly short. It's considered outdated now but it's still the best one stop overview arguably. Although Duby has some good overviews too.
>The two biggest names there are Jacques le Goff and Georges Duby, both amazing.
Totally
>It's considered outdated now but it's still the best one stop overview arguably. Although Duby has some good overviews too.
I recommend Engels and Hammond & Hammond, so I'm quite willing to recommend Bloch not because he's least incorrect, but because his method of introspecting on problems, available sources, and available claims is worthy. I mean I think EP is out of date, and a faux pas actually, and that CPGB's best work is Chris Hill not that fricking "Age of" shit. I'm really upset that the UK translators in the 1980s published all the theorists out of Italy and none of the fricking historians. AO/PO generated some great arse-up historians. I mean CLR James for that matter. The recent paper on African roller mill steel technologies in Jamaica as a b***h magic fight stealing white men's penises in order to be able to murder each other is basically CLR from the bottom up. Black Jacobins? Have some Black Roux.
Are the great courses decent? I've tried them twice an both were absolutely awful freshman 101 tier shit.
Also do you know any diaries from that period?
>Are the great courses decent?
No they're shit for high schoolers pretending to be first years.
Christine d'Pizan's epic prose forms a diary introspection of household management and the proper ordering of the christian woman. Abelard's castrated letters to Eloise form a diary of sorts. You can imagine her reply.
I really strongly recommend Annales if you're interested in North European medieval culture. Bloch's Feudal Society was seminal. Personally I'm into household studies. You can get a lot out of births deaths and marriages if you also have rent rolls.
Yeah I've read many of the early Christian authors but getting his nuts cut off is a bit to real for me. Also the romantic shit is boring personally.
>Christine d'Pizan
Honestly by the 1400's there much more interesting shit going on in the arab world and I'd rather read what they have to say on the matter.
Bloch sounds promising. I'm a little put off by the low page count though. Based on what his project is as he describes it, seems a little low no?
Idk. Personally I find that podcasts are the best when it comes to history outside of an academic context. There are several very good ones which cover the equivalent of 30 or 40 full books.
Whenever I see a book on anything historical that isn't incredibly specific, I am very skeptical if it isn't 2000 pages long.
Bloch is the seminal text for Annales as a school of french social history. After Bloch try Mediterranean (Braudel The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II 2 vols)
I'm intrigued. Will check it.
Barzun wrote write a few similar books. The Use and Abuse of Art is excellent.
Bloch Feudal Society
The best hidden secret among cultural histories is Egon Friedell's A Cultural History of the Modern Age. If you know German then it's an absolute no brainer, though if you are stuck with English it might be a bit hard to find, though you will be rewarded for seeking it out.
why even ask?