Book recommendation/request thread

[Thanas]

I'd suggest first reading Christopher Clark's "Iron Kingdom" and then, if you really want to get into it, you should read Lothar Gall's Bismarck: The white revolutionary (2 vols), which are IMO by far the best books about the period there are but might be expensive.

[Fire Fly]

I'd suggest first reading Christopher Clark's "Iron Kingdom" and then, if you really want to get into it, you should read Lothar Gall's Bismarck: The white revolutionary (2 vols), which are IMO by far the best books about the period there are but might be expensive.

Thanks. My university library has them so I'll just get both books from there.

[loomer]

Could anyone suggest any good books about Medieval European warfare, specifically during the High and Late Middle ages in the Feudal Kingdoms? It seems quite hard to find anything useful online about this subject, at least about the tactics employed and army composition.

Start with Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages by Michael Prestwich, or works by Contamine (his essays in War in the Middle Ages are broader than you like, but very interesting.)

[Adam Reynolds]

Does anyone have any good recommendations on the lead up to the war in the Pacific from a Japanese perspective?
I am currently reading Nomonhan:1939 by Stuart Goldman and I was interested in something that goes into the politics leading up to that period throughout the 1930s in Japan. I recently saw the book Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy by Eri Hotta that will come out in October that seems to be almost exactly what I was looking for, and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations in the meantime or if I should wait for that book. I was somewhat thinking of something analogous to The Coming of the Third Reich and Third Reich in Power for Japan.

What do people think of John Dower's works War Without Mercy and Cultures of War?

[Sir Sirius]

Could anyone recommend a good source/s on the Korean War?

[Sea Skimmer]

The Forgotten War America in Korea 1950-1953 by Clay Blair would be your best one stop shop for Korea. Its long and not ideal, but few full histories have ever been written and most are frankly too short to even be worth reading, or else hyper specific to some random ass marine unit. Because rar marines were the only people to fight in the war or something.

[ray245]

Does anyone have any good book to recommend regarding the Allied occupation of Germany and Japan post-ww2?

[KrauserKrauser]

So I'm on a bit of an alternate history kick and in need of a new series.

I've read the 1632 series, the Nantucket trilogy, the great war stuff by Turtledove (ugh) and all the Stuart Slade stories.

I need another good storyline to devour while I am in the mood.

Thanks in advance.

[Toby the Tram]

So I'm on a bit of an alternate history kick and in need of a new series.

I've read the 1632 series, the Nantucket trilogy, the great war stuff by Turtledove (ugh) and all the Stuart Slade stories.

I need another good storyline to devour while I am in the mood.

Thanks in advance.

Perchance have you heard of 'For want of a Nail' by Robert Sobel? Though if you're looking for something a little more 'Storyish' I'd recommend 'Years of Rice and Salt.

Also:
http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.p ... nd_survive

[Thanas]

This is not for alternate history. It especially is not for linking to idiot magnet sites like alternatehistory.+com, which is a big pile of stupid dressed up in massive ignorance and dropped into the permavirgin sea of fattynerdness.

[PainRack]

Hi, I'm looking to expand my Russian WW2 history collection.

So,here's the question,between when Titans clash, Operation Barbarossa and Battle of Kursk, which one is a better read?

[K. A. Pital]

Hi, I'm looking to expand my Russian WW2 history collection.

So,here's the question,between when Titans clash, Operation Barbarossa and Battle of Kursk, which one is a better read?

A late reply perhaps, but I found When Titans Clash more interesting. All of Glantz and House is highly recommended, though.

[K. A. Pital]

There's two books I want to bring the attention of the folks to:

The Stalingrad Protocols (German), 2012:
http://www.amazon.de/Die-Stalingrad-Pro ... 3100302133

There's been enough said about this book when it came out in 2012, but the praise is well-founded: the accounts are very frank and candid, and based on archived interviews, they are probably a good counterpart to the "Nurnberg Protocols", i.e. the interviews carried out with the key Nurnberg accused, as well as to the deeply unsettling series of interviews that the Soviet officers carried out with two of Hitler's SS guards about his last days... The book also blows apart the Goebbels' racist propaganda (which finds its way into most Western books) that the Soviet soldiers were some sort of subhumans driven to war only by terror and ruthless commanders.

SS In Action (German), 1958, reissue: 2015
http://www.amazon.de/SS-Einsatz-Eine-Do ... 336001832X

SS in Action. The European counterpart to Japan's "Devil's Kitchen", this 1958 book that painstakingly details the SS "Death Empire"... Not for the faint-hearted. Got a re-issue for the 70-year anniversary. The word "good" is not really well-fit here. Book is based on the vast document trail that the SS left in its wake, where every little atrocity was recorded in crazy detail... and interviews with captured SS criminals after the war, so there is not much material there which isn't bare documents... And still. One of the most dreadful books you can find.

And highly recommended.

[sgt67]

K. A. Pital, would you have any recommendations of good historical works on Bloody Sunday and Father Gapon? I've been fascinated with the subject since writing an undergraduate thesis on it but English-language sources seem to all be old and contradictory. My Russian reading skills aren't much but I can slog through advanced texts with a dictionary.

[General Mung Beans]

Two book recommendations.



While I'm not sure if Emerging Republican Majority technically counts as a work of history, there is literally no better work for understanding American electoral geography from 1865 to 1968. Kevin Philips does an amazing job of breaking down the vote on state, county, electoral district, and precinct levels to demonstrate voting trends among almost every significant ethnic, religious, and racial group present in the United States in 1968. For example, Philips notes that while Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968 may have had surface-level similarities in both being anti-civil rights, pro-Southern candidates, Thurmond attracted mainly middle-class whites in black-majority urban areas while lower-class rural whites especially in majority white areas still remained Democratic while by 1968 Wallace attracted the latter group of voters with many of the former having gone Republican. While the book is most famous to-day as a politically prescient work predicting the Republican coalition of the Nixon-Reagan-Bush years, it has yet to be rivalled as a work of electoral geographic history.



The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 by William Sheridan Allen is a vivid and engaging work on the experiences of a single German city during the Weimar Republic while also demonstrating how it reflected larger trends regarding Nazi support.

Also how good is Hobsbawm's trilogy on the 19th Century? I'm about 100 pages through the first volume and its been fairly insightful so far.

[Bernkastel]

Could anyone give me their opinions on The Habsburg Empire by Robert Kann? Any information on the author or any issues with his works would also be appreciated.

[madd0ct0r]

book review: if you liked Guns, Germs, you'll like The Silkroads

The Silk Roads, Peter Frankopan is a good chunky read that focuses on world history and development as driven by resources, currency flow and attempts to control the silk roads.
Guns Germs and Steel is an engaging read looking at early human history that takes you largely up to the founding of the first cities. The Silk Road takes on the narrative at about that point. The first third of the book is focused on the actual Silk Road, and the silver, slaves, gold and horses that were fed into it, and the great empires that rose and fell along it. This is my favorite part of the book, because this is a huge and interesting part of the world that I hadn't learnt about before. (and it's currently the setting for the campaign I'm running, I enjoyed it that much).
The second third of the book is the age of sail (and brutal conquest and theft) and the final third is the age of oil (ahem). Like a lot of history, the details are stacked up and up the closer the topic gets to the present, and I kinda miss the orbital level view we're given in the opening third of the book. Still, it means no matter the level of technology you are thinking about, the book has something for you.
The chief appeal of the book to me, as a world builder, is the same as Guns Germs and Steel. It boils out a few rough rules of thumb that interact with each other to generate endlessly different but coherent and believable worlds. It also has an endless sack of nice gritty details and words that can be sprinkled onto things to taste.

[Konsuna]

I am looking for recommendations on good history books on some german units (esp Waffen-SS). I have a decent knowledge about WW2 and I have already read a lot of general books (pretty much everything by Keegan, Beevor, Stahel, Lopez, Glantz). I am now looking about more in depth description of ww2 units (mainly on the eastern front).

My problem is the following: it seems that many books covering german units and Waffen-SS in particular are either written by Nazi fanboys who are looking to glorify those units insisting on how brave they were in the face of swarm of russians. These will typically present the units are top elite units (which is dubious in many case, given the lack of training and the shortage of manpower they had to face as the war went on). Or books written by some authors presenting every soldier as a war criminal. Ok I am a bit exagerating each case but you get the picture.

Is there any reliable and objective book on the subject? That will present the history of the unit, the battles it was engaged in, its order of battle through time, its war crimes.

I ordered God, Honor, Fatherland and death of the leaping horseman which are said to be excellent on 2 Heer units. The situation seems to be much more tricky/political when it comes to SS units.

I heard that Soldiers of destruction was good, any comment on that one? Any other recommendations?
Many thanks

[Dalton]

I approved this post - do not lock for thread necromancy.