What history book are you reading or planning to read?/ The history bookreview thread

Keep going back to Robin Lane Fox, the guy is a tweedy provacateur. Love it.

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Originally Posted by Moros

...my pet subject; the Ancient Arabians. ...

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Have you read this one? Probably you know it, but as an outsider I found it a fascinating ramble on a thorny subject.

The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads Jan Retso

He gets all interesting and speculative just at the end bit (and he parenthesises it, saying hes dropping the scholarly paradigm for some fun) talking about Hud and arab druid/bard equivalents. Not saying Arabs had druids, just my take on the sort of notions he was prepared to have a flaky stab at in an afterword kinda way.

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Originally Posted by fomalhaut

i am having a hard time believing that Latin and English are allowing you to read a french history book, how are you doing this?

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French is based on Latin, and advanced English contains an awful amount of French loanwords. Add some very basic knowledge of French and it will work.

If any of you are into fiction, there's a nice, short read on Varus and the Germans by Harry Turtledove. It's called Give me Back My Legions!

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Originally Posted by athanaric

French is based on Latin, and advanced English contains an awful amount of French loanwords. Add some very basic knowledge of French and it will work.

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yes surely i know this, but this bolded was the crux i was looking for. sorry to go OT just was wondering.

Vienna 1814 How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna

http://ebooks-imgs.connect.com/ebook...0081263_s4.jpg

It's a great book and reads like a novel instead of a textbook, I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the Napoleonic era.

Just started Alexander the Great by Krystof Nawotka. So far so good. Not as slanted as Green.

I recommend the books of Adrian Goldsworthy. I've read three of his books so far, and I fully enjoyed every single one of them. His language is easy to understand, yet he mentions everything worth telling. He's also rather objective, and uses many different sources.

If you're interested in ancient Rome and want to learn more than some basic and already well known facts, I suggest reading these books:

Caesar
The Fall of the West
The Fall of Carthage

Especially the book about Caesar greatly amused me, but the Fall of Carthage contains a lot of information that I believe is rather unknown.

I have Fall of the Roman Empire and The Punic Wars by him. I love his writing style, you can just turn page after page yet still not miss anything of significance.

Eh. Goldsworthy's all right but his books seem a little...superficial. His attempts at wading into late antique scholarship haven't exactly gone well, either.

he does his stated purpose with great skill; distilling all the complexities of ancient history and some of its ambiguities to a wide, mainstream audience. He states that specifically in the intro for the Punic Wars, saying that because classical antiquity is no longer a part of our socialization process in schooling that other venues must be sought to bring important history (not myth) to a wide audience. though he also says its sort of a lost cause but that's not the point

it is very useful resource to me who is not on a the sub level or actual historian (hobby or profession) level like many here.

I'm not Goldsworthy's biggest fan. I know it's terribly snobby of me, but he seems willing to churn out any ole crap for a buck.

The comparison of the creation of the Notitia Dignitatum to Hitler maneuvering imaginary divisions on the map in the Führerbunker in 1945 was what got me. I mean, I know the guy's a bit of an enthusiast for the Republic and the early Empire, but really?

I've read Goldworthy's books and they're fine but lacking in detail. It just seems sort of shallow so I'll recommend it for amatuers and beginners but probably not for more advanced readers. I'm currently reading R. Malcolm Errington's 'A History of the Hellenistic World', John Julius Norwich's 'Byzantium' and Bryan Ward Perkins' "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation'. All three seem fine but for style Norwich's is definitely the best.

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Originally Posted by strategos roma

I've read Goldworthy's books and they're fine but lacking in detail. It just seems sort of shallow so I'll recommend it for amatuers and beginners but probably not for more advanced readers. I'm currently reading R. Malcolm Errington's 'A History of the Hellenistic World', John Julius Norwich's 'Byzantium' and Bryan Ward Perkins' "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation'. All three seem fine but for style Norwich's is definitely the best.

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his intended audience

Kiev Rus by B. Grekov is my current challenge. It's big, about 600 pages, but it looks to have an incredible amount of information not only on the Rus, but also the Slavic tribes that preceded them.

Also, I'm going to check out Schutz' Prehistory of Germanic Europe from the local university library tomorrow, along with some books on the Celts and Vikings. I'm probably spreading myself way too thin here, but there's so much to learn I can hardly help it. :beam:

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Originally Posted by strategos roma

I've read Goldworthy's books and they're fine but lacking in detail. It just seems sort of shallow so I'll recommend it for amatuers and beginners but probably not for more advanced readers. I'm currently reading R. Malcolm Errington's 'A History of the Hellenistic World', John Julius Norwich's 'Byzantium' and Bryan Ward Perkins' "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation'. All three seem fine but for style Norwich's is definitely the best.

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Interesting that you say that Goldsworthy's for "amateurs and beginners" and then state you're reading Norwich and Ward-Perkins. :snobby:

Treadgold, Haldon and Vasiliev would be the Byzantine texts for a properly hardcore hobby-historian.

Norwich is really just a blender, but he does make a nice history-flavoured smoothie. Ruderless his stories veer from gossip to battles to art, academically spineless but a nice treat.

I'm re-reading The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama by Sanjay Subrahmanyam. He offers enough opinion and source criticism as well as narrative and I feel like a grown-up when he pulls back the curtain on juicy knots like the state of trade in the Indian ocean in the 15th century and the politics of monarchy, greater and lesser nobility and the knightly orders in reconquista Iberia.

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Originally Posted by Constantius III

.. Vasiliev ..the Byzantine ...historian.

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Makes me think hard. Good for a flabby mind like mine.

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Originally Posted by TheLastDays

If anyone could recommend a book about Pre-Alexander Middle East (Assyria, Babylon...), I'd be grateful

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Persian Fire - a great read and contextualisation of the timeline.....not sure all the assumptions and interpretations are correct but pays great respect to heroditus in the content used.

Really enjoyed reading it and found informative especially in terms of fitting all the persian/greek social/political/military developments together into an enegmatic timeframe.

I've read Treadgold and Vasiliev and I'd in fact highly recommend the former. I'm just re-reading Norwich for leisure.

Ward-Perkins is indeed a bit shallow but I like his more personal style when compared to older authors like Bury.

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Originally Posted by Constantius III

Interesting that you say that Goldsworthy's for "amateurs and beginners" and then state you're reading Norwich and Ward-Perkins. :snobby:

Treadgold, Haldon and Vasiliev would be the Byzantine texts for a properly hardcore hobby-historian.

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Just have been a week in Scotland and read beneath (again) Kyrou Anabasis the book "Clan Donalds Greatest Defeat: The Battle of Harlaw 1411" by John Sadler. He's not a historian but it is a nice small book for train or plane, gives some insight in Scottish inner politics. Some infos about the weapons and the feeling of battle. Most is correct as far as I can judge, however, some strange statements are also included (e.g. mail is relatively light as armour ... häh??).

PS: Given the fact that it is not so clear who had won the battle at Harlaw the title of the book is a little bit weird.

Just finnished Philip De Souza (ed.), The Ancient World at War: A Global History, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2008. Pp. 320. ISBN 978-0500251386. Great book which i highly recommend.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-At-War.../dp/0712667822

V.

I wanna get Bezalel Bar Kochva`s The Seleucid Army: Tactics and Organization during the Great Campaigns.

What do you guys think about it?

Isn't that one completely avaible at google books? (could possibly be only just because I'm on my campus network)

Anything Bar-Kochva wrote is worth the read, imo. Might be a tad dated though.

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Originally Posted by Ichon

I just got into "The Victors and the Vanquished: Christians and Muslims of Catalonia and Aragon, 1050-1300" Cambridge University Press, 2004 and so far its interesting. Not really the EB time period but still... if anyone has some recommendations of books on Iberia or Roman Hispania I'd be interested.

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Hispaniae: Spain and the Development of Roman Imperialism 318-82 B.C. has been posted before, and I can recommend it. Also worth a look is in my opinion Aspects of the Roman Experience in Iberia 206-100 B.C. by Robert Knapp.

Just finished W.H. Prescott's The History of the Conquest of Mexico, now reading his next book on La Conquista, The History of the Conquest of Peru.
I really love reading those 18- and 19-century historians such as Prescott and Gibbon. They may be somewhat outdated, not so scientific or analytical by modern standards, but their storytelling, no matter on whatever subject, is always so dramatic and enjoyable, almost as much fun as reading Treasure Island.

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Originally Posted by Moros

Isn't that one completely avaible at google books? (could possibly be only just because I'm on my campus network)

Anything Bar-Kochva wrote is worth the read, imo. Might be a tad dated though.

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It is not fully available, only a bit

I'm working on Norwich's Byzantium at the moment. It's nice light reading for the summer

I guess I had full acces thanks to having internet provided by the university, which automatically gives acces to a whole lot of databases, full text articles and stuff.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask but nonetheless i'd like to know if anyone has a recommendation on a good book about Syracuse. It's political developing but also about the day to day life in about 400-200 b.c. As far as I know it was enourmesly influential and big (I've read about more than half a million inhabitants) and i'm very interested in it's history until it's domination by rome.

EDIT: English and german is ok, other languages will probably trouble me ;-).

I personally don't know about many books that cover that. I've seen a couple of more specific subjects (on the destruction of the Athenian fleet for example).
Perhaps this one might interest you though:
http://books.google.be/books?id=tBud...ed=0CCoQ6AEwAA