(Part 3) Best great britain history books according to redditors
We found 1,758 Reddit comments discussing the best great britain history books. We ranked the 746 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
51. Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the SAS and the Secret War in Iraq
3 mentions
ABACUS
If you don't want to go too far back I would say start in 2010. By that year ISIS was on their last legs, they had been wiped out out from Anbar, Baghdad and their previous capital in Baquba. US, UK and Iraqi special forces had taken out 34 of the top 42 leaders of ISIS in relentless raids, including Masri and Omar al-Baghdadi. By then they were reduced to small cells conducting assassinations in Mosul and bombings every couple of months in Baghdad.
However then the Syrian Civil War happened and they got their big break. Without doubt the number one reason they were able to ever recover was the Syrian Civil War, weapons from around the world, fighters from all the way in China, millions in gulf funding were getting into Syria and all ISIS had to say was that they were fighting the Syrian Government and they would benefit from this bounty. At first they kept a small profile embedding themselves with the rest of the rebels as any other group (Battle for Menagh Airbase) but that would not last long, when they accumulated enough resources they wiped out the rebel competition in Raqaa and all over northern Syria and got ready to head into Iraq and reestablish their "state".
They started of with relentless attacks against Shia civilians, by 2013 this mean't at times 10 car bombs a day in Baghdad killing hundreds. This not only heightened sectarian tension but also stretched Iraqi security forces, which they took advantage of by attacking prisons all over the north, freeing hundreds. By this time the Iraqi government was desperate, a lot of Anbar had been taken and they could see ISIS setting up shop in the desert outside of Mosul with their newly accumulated weapons and foreign fighters from Syria and had limited ability to do anything about it. They begged the Americans to lend a supporting hand but no one was coming to help and as they say, the rest is history.
For some reading about the American and British wiping out the ISIS leadership check out: Task Force Black: The explosive true story of the SAS and the secret war in Iraq.
For ISIS embedding themselves in the Syrian insurgency and benefiting from it check out the work of: Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi and news reports from the time.
For the Iraqi insurgency in 2013 (The Breaking the Walls Campaign) check out this Institute for the Study of War report and many more: http://www.understandingwar.org/report/al-qaeda-iraq-resurgent
I read a book when I was in high school that had a chapter about this incident in it. I really wish I could remember the name of the book, it was fascinating. Every chapter was about a different infamous killer/cannibal throughout human history. I think I remember the cover of the book had the painting "Saturn Devouring His Son" on it...
Anyone by chance know what book this is?
Edit: The folks over at r/tipofmytongue found it for me! It's called "Eat Thy Neighbor: A History of Cannibalism"
https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Thy-Neighbour-History-Cannibalism/dp/0750943734
Fantastic book if you are interested in these kinds of things!
18 years in the military. 11 tours in Iraq, 2 in Afghanistan. Left in 2012.
Edit: in case you doubt, this is a pic of me taken from BIAP tower in 2006, posted on Reddit a while back. I was a Puma pilot for the majority of my time in. If you care to read the book Task Force Black by Mark Urban you can find out what the Pumas were doing in Baghdad at the time. I think that would answer your questions about my CI involvement.
Why Priti Patel is wrong about overseas aid and immigration | Fraser Nelson | Coffee House
The Empire for International Development has a tough job justifying its deeply unpopular budget. In recent years, it has made out that development aid will stem the flow of migration. The following line appears in a piece that Priti Patel, the DFID Secretary, writes for the Sunday Telegraph today.
>We are taking immediate steps to protect our borders and tackle people smuggling. But the only way to resolve this crisis in the long term is to address the root causes. We need to create jobs across Africa and provide its growing population with a route out of poverty where they are.
Her overall point – about how Africa needs more capitalism – is brave and correct. But this idea about development quelling immigration is the opposite of the truth. Now and again, you hear this line trotted out – offering a Marie Antoinette-style view of migration. Do the Africans come here in rubber boats? Well, give them jobs! Hand them a rake! See if they can keep or roast some chickens! This misses the reason why people move. They want better jobs than those on offer at home; they want a better life. They want what we have; they want their children to have the chances ours have. And understandably so.
Emigration is a sign of development, not poverty, as I argued in my Daily Telegraph column a while ago. The only people who join the Great Migration are those who have the money – often thousands of dollars – that it costs. They seek better jobs, a better life. This is the most powerful force in human history, the force that created the United States of America, the force that led so many from Scotland and Ireland to risk their lives making the Atlantic crossing a few generations ago. They sold assets to pay for the journey – and moved to what they hoped would be something better.
Bill Clinton had an excuse when he repeated the ‘development means emigration’ trope: he was speaking a generation ago, before scholars had assembled the massive database of census data which today allows us to compare a thousand censuses from hundreds of countries. Results, from World Bank data, are below. When a poor country starts to become richer, its emigration rate soars – until it’s a middle-income country, like Albania. And only then does extra wealth mean less migration.
[Graph]
And for emigration flows, the same relationship holds:-
[Graphs]
Michael Clemens, the American development economist who published the graph, explains it thus:-
‘>In all years, there is no hint of a negative relationship between income and emigrant stock between PPP income per capita of roughly $600 (that of today’s Niger or Ethiopia) and about $7,500 (today’s Albania or Colombia). In this range of income, in fact, the relationship is positive. The rise in emigrant stocks associated with higher income levels in this range is statistically significant at the 5% level. The magnitude of the positive relationship is substantial. Early in the second half of the 20th century, richer countries in this range on average had emigrant stocks about three percentage points larger than the poorest countries. By the end of the century, this difference grew to nine percentage points, and seems to have continued growing since then.’
It doesn’t take too much imagination to work out why. Let’s consider our own recent history. In 1948, the UK government passed the British Nationality Act allowing all 600 million of Commonwealth subjects to live and work in Britain. Here’s Andrew Marr, in his History of Modern Britain:-
>‘It was generally assumed that the Black and Asian subjects of the King would have no means or desire to travel to live in uncomfortable, crowded Britain. Until the fifties, so few black of Asian people had settle in Britain that they were often treated as local celebrities. Officially, it was not even considered worth while trying to count their number.’
Indeed, hardly anyone took up this offer; even during the partition of India, which claimed a million souls and displaced ten times as many, there was no clamour to seek refuge here. The Indians and Pakistanis were far, far poorer than they are today – but that’s the point. They were so poor that not many could afford to come to Britain, not many had means of finding out that a better life was available. Why go to this cold, wind-battered island – which itself was losing people to the New World?
In 1951, the UK signed the UN Refugee Convention saying that we’d shelter anyone – anyone!—with a well-founded fear of persecution. Such offers were easy to make, then, because no one really had been showing up: the famous influxes were tiny by today’s standards: 50,000 Hugenots, for example. After the war we offered 200,000 Poles the right to live in Britain, rather than face the Soviets: about 162,000 did (pdf) – a fraction of today’s Polish population. Even in the early 1990s, immigrants were arriving at about 150 a day.
Now, it’s 1,500 a day. Globalisation has kicked in, global poverty has halved over 25 years. The poor world is becoming richer, so people are on the move. War acts as a catalyst; far more of those affected by violence have the means and inclination to flee. But globally, there is less war and less poverty than at any time in our history. The Great Migration should be understood as the flip side of the greatest triumph of our age: the collapse in global poverty.
Study after study shows this to be the case. When aid was given to poor rural Mexican villages in exchange for occupants attending school and health clinics, it led to them leaving rather than staying.
As I wrote the last time Priti Patel made this point, she would be right if she meant that when middle-income countries become richer, the migration rate falls. But even the politicians who make this caveat talk as if this process is a short-term thing. In fact, it takes generations. I’ll leave the final word to Michael Clemens:-
>‘At a healthy real per capita growth rate of 2% per year, it would take 133 years for a country starting from $500 per capita (today’s Niger or Burundi) and 63 years for a country starting from $2,000 per capita (today’s Cambodia or Zambia). At a strong growth rate of 3% per year, these durations would be 89 years and 42 years, respectively. These are optimistic growth scenarios, given that during 1960–2000 the average country experienced real growth in per capita income of 1.8% per year. And most poor countries grew more slowly.’
If Africa develops as Ms Patel hopes, then we can expect more rather than fewer immigrants. We’ll need a better strategy for dealing with the Great Migration than to hope that it will just go away.
The acts outlawing witchcraft do not mean that witchcraft was still a common problem. In fact Brian Levack (a reputable historian in the field) states that
'The formal decriminalisation of witchcraft had little bearing on the broader process of decline [...]. The blanket repeals that took place in Great Britain and Sweden had no effect whatsoever on witchcraft persecution in those countries because the last trial had long preceded the legislation effecting the change.' Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (2006, 3rd ed.), p. 279.
The end of witchcraft prosecutions is much more complex.
It important to note that during the period of intense persecutions there were sceptics, early modern opinion about witchcraft was by no means unanimous. Famous sceptics are Johann Weyer a physician, Reginald Scot, Cornelius Loos, and Friedrich Spee.
In general though, during the 17th and 18th centuries prosecutions and executions came to an end. It happened at different times in different countries. For example, 16th in Netherlands but Poland not until 18th century.
As to why they ended historians propose a number of reasons. Here is a a general overview that I usually give my undergraduates.
a) Judicial Changes: there was tighter regulation of local justice by either central or superior judicial authorities. In addition those in charge of judicial machinery became persuaded that they were executing people for crimes they had not committed. Excesses led to criticism of the way the trials were conducted- such critiques led to formulation and greater implementation of stricter procedural rules for the use of torture. The body of work criticising use of torture grew in the 17th century some written by Jesuits such as Friedrich Spee and Adam Tanner, and some from Protestants such as Johann Meyfard and Johann Greve, and Christian Tomasius. There was a growing demand for conclusive evidence of maleficium (harm caused). The meant that there was a realisation that the crime of witchcraft was extremely difficult to prove, if not impossible, and this in turn led to increasing number of acquittals. Ultimately, without proof, it meant that witchcraft as a crime could no longer be effectively prosecuted.One o f the major factors was that confession was no longer seen as sufficient proof of guilt. Prior to this, in parts of the Holy Roman Empire, confession alone could be considered proof of witchcraft.
b) Increasing knowledge of natural explanations for illnesses and crises. People began to argue that events attributed to supernatural causes might have had natural causes.
C) Promulgation of decrees restricting or eliminating persecutions--as mentioned above, these do not co-incide with the termination of witch-hunting.
• France 1682
• Prussia 1714
• Great Britain 1736
• Habsburg monarchy 1776
• Russia 1770
• Poland 1776
• Sweden 1779
The formal decriminalisation of witchcraft had little effect on the decline in prosecutions which was already underway, often the last trials long preceded the legislation effecting the change.
Obviously, illegal lynching took place long after these acts in various parts of Europe.
If you need references please pm me. I am away at the moment and am not near my library. Pretty sure, most of this information is available in Brian Levack's The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe
Right. As a student of Irish History (i'm currently writing my dissertation on the army in Northern Ireland in 1972-1985, but i'm not some /r/AskHistorians flaired user), i probably would not use this as a good document of what happened in the period. It seems to present a more heavily nationalist slant which can be a little misleading.
One of the best starting points is Peter Taylor's excellent three part series on each major group
Brits: the war against the IRA looks at the role of the British government and Army during the Troubles, especially the role of 14 intelligence company.
Provos: The IRA and Sin Fein looks at the Republican (those natives who wanted a united Ireland through violent means) side of the conflict while
Loyalists looks at a much less explored topic of the loyalist (natives who identified themselves as British) side of the conflict. They are all relatively neutral in their stance and are excellently researched with a touch of humanism yet balanced by a strong journalistic style which makes for compelling yet enlightening reading
Each book was accompanied by a television series which can be found on youtube, although it is a little fragmented.
If people would like to know a little more I'd be happy to answer questions or point people in the right direction...
EDIT: mine engrish is naccht su gut today
The welcome [leaf](/e "page") has some good stuff - the discord, wordbook, and so on. If you're looking for books, two newish ones are How We'd Talk if the English Had Won in 1066, and Hastings, 1066 - Words We'd Wield if We'd Won - both by David Cowley. Otherwise there are a quite a few older books - for [byspell](/e "example") The Arte of Rhetorique, Pure Saxon English.
For more details read Ronald Hutton's book "The Stations of the Sun".
It wasn't all that dissimilar from many marriages today. Two people gathered together with their friends and families, which often constituted their entire village. They gathered at the medieval community center most often, which was usually the local church or chapel. The purpose of meeting here was not only to receive the blessing of God on their marriage, but also to announce their marriage in a public setting with reputable witnesses, of which any official member of the clergy was included. These witnesses legitimized the marriage in the eyes of God and the people, especially important before government records were regularly kept and customs were still largely oral.
Well known modern scholars on the subject are Frances and Joseph Gies, Life in a Medieval Village, here, or Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages, here. Barbara Hanawalt has one of the most respected books on medieval peasantry in the last generation called The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England, here.
Finally, a duller look of medieval marriage according to canon law can be found in Gratian's Decretum here.
I hope this helps a little. Happy Reading!
Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA by Richard English is pretty thorough and well balanced. He is neither overly dismissive nor celebratory of the militancy of the IRA, but he examines its successes and failures pretty fairly.
https://www.amazon.com/Armed-Struggle-History-Richard-English/dp/0195177533
These 2 would probably go well together The Making of Modern Britain & History of Modern Britain
Always used to think Andrew Marr had his finger on the political pulse while he still had the Westminster slot on BBC. Don't know about any good Tory books though.
If you want Early Modern European magic, then read Keith Thomas and Stuart Clark's Thinking with Demons. These are the premier books on the period I'd recommend.
'Bandit Country' by Toby Harnden is a book I recommend - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bandit-Country-IRA-South-Armagh/dp/0340717378/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1466718229&sr=8-2&keywords=bandit+country
Peter Taylor's trilogy, 'Brits', 'Provos' and 'Loyalists' cover each of the three factions involved in the conflict.
The AH books and resources list is your friend, but as its recommendations are scattered through a mainly geographical listing, I will compile some of the key cites for you here.
Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas (1971): One of the pioneering works on how anthropology can help our study of history focusing on superstition in the late medieval/early modern period, this is a fantastic read and a real insight into a still-young school of historical analysis.
Thinking with Demons by Stuart Clark (1999): this is one of two mandatory books on Early Modern Witchcraft (the other is Keith Thomas' Religion and the Decline of Magic). It's hard to summarize what is a monumental piece of work, but examines the idea of witches and how that idea functions through different intellectual sections of life. It has a bibliography that will make you weep with inadequacy and throw your work into the nearest witch-bonfire.
The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft by Ronald Hutton (1999). A study of the history and development of modern Pagan Witchcraft.
Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain by Ronald Hutton (2009). A history of the intertwined development of modern Celtic scholarship and religious revivalism in Britain.
The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe by Brian Levack: Levack gives important background and context to his discussion of the witch-hunt. The work's value as an introduction to the topic is evident, as the book is now in its third edition.
Theology and the Scientific Imagination: From the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century Funkenstein, Amos. 1986. An interesting read detailing the various views of emerging scientific thought and the prevalence of religious faith. The book takes time to work from a sociological as well as historical viewpoint to allow for a broader take.
Alright, hold onto your seat, there are quite a few haha
Some ecology books, good for your approach to nature itself
These are more Druid-centric books
These are more historical and culture books about the ancient Celtics, very good for context. Anything by Ronald Hutton I'm going to suggest, though he does tend to have a very dry, academic style. Reading his stuff is more like reading a text book than anything else. So if you do get any of these, pace yourself. I would still suggest getting and reading one Celtic historical book, it's important to know the history.
As you go, you'll figure out what works for you and what doesn't, you might end up mixing in shamanism or witchcraft, even wicca, or buddhism, druidry works with a number of other approaches. Keep an open mind, try things, and don't be afraid to ask questions. Paganism in general can be pretty overwhelming, and Druidry has even fewer guidelines than most. Good luck with your coursework!
Andrew Marr had two tv series with tie-in books that were a fairly good overview of the 20th Century in British Politics.
The Making of Modern Britain Book and DVD
History of Modern Britain - Book and DVD
Edit: stream availible here:
http://britain.docuwat.ch/videos/history-of-modern-britain/history-of-modern-britain-01-advance-britannia-1945-1955-
So - here's the dangerously short version.
18th French Masons had difficulty accepting the idea that Freemasonry was of "rude" origin, viz. stoneworkers. Common replacements became religious heretics, chivalric orders (eventually everyone agreed KT was the best story), the Rosicrucians, Ancient Egypt, lost heirs and pretenders, gray aliens, Knights with red feathers on their head... you name it.
The origin of eccosais (french for Scottish) is that during the Glorious Revolution when the Scottish King - er, um - bravely ran away to France (circa 1786) a number of Scottish Masons/Engineers were in tow thus bringing Freemasonry to France.
Eccosais currents were often Jacobite, almost always include the preservation of the Word (a direct jab at the English for loosing it), and gear towards the Qabbalah, not chivalric currents - though in time, as seen in the AASR, everyone learned how to play along and chivalric Masonry was placed firmly above everything else - unless you count the secret work, which is a whole other discussion.
Reading List
Wikipedia to the rescue, strangely enough, second reference here, but then again it's hard to ignore a historian of Joyce Lee Malcolm's stature who wrote a book so focused on the subject, and published by Harvard University Press. The book in question which covers this is her 2002 Guns and Violence: The English Experience, per the editorial blurb:
> Malcolm also offers a revealing comparison of the experience in England experience with that in the modern United States. Today Americans own some 200 million guns and have seen eight consecutive years of declining violence, while the English--prohibited from carrying weapons and limited in their right to self-defense have suffered a dramatic increase in rates of violent crime.
Haven't read the book, but remember her comment about the most startling revelation from her research.
The 200 million in 2001 (when the book was in the production process) was low, I'm pretty sure, and now the number is 450 million as a bare minimum to maybe even 600 million guns, with a lot more gun "use" due to the final wave of shall issue or better concealed carry laws.
Which would include every single Constitutional Carry state law except Vermont, which until yesterday had the rare distinction of never restricting guns, although the gun grabbers there as elsewhere in formerly gun friendly states are not daring to take away carry rights. And our violent crime rates continued to drop, until BLM of course, from memory that can be seen in the statistics as of 2015-6. And most of that crime is in states and cities with very restrictive gun laws.
Completely unrelated tidbit that Bing somehow coughed up in my searching, "No Obama documents in Obama library? Historians puzzled by Chicago center plans". Nope, nope, there's no possibility making them only available as scans will be used to hide stuff.
Steyr Scout
1911
Bandit Country
You sure do read a lot of weird stuff about this book. On the first page Graves offers what can be interpreted as a disclaimer. He says he is serious about his poetry, and he only writes prose for the money. Hutton's analysis is ambiguous. Included: "It's a crazy book and I didn't mean to write it". That is one of the weirdest disavowals I have ever read. It is equivalent to saying "I didn't mean to go work for those six months." Crazy indeed.
Hutton's discussion is on p. 145 of The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles.
I really want to CYV on this. Honestly, I feel like the reddit historical community (at least /r/badhistory and /r/AskHistorians) has failed to explain itself on this subject well. Most criticisms of GGS we see are caught up in (justified) nitpicking, and perhaps a little bit of elitism, perhaps caused by the fact that Alfred Crosby wrote a book that did everything GGS did but better and 10 years earlier. Crosby's book, of course, received nothing close to the acclaim GGS did despite coming out earlier and avoiding all the problems GGS has, probably because in comparison to Diamond, Ecological Imperialism reads like particularly bad Twilight fan fiction.
But, other than the well documented problems with Diamond's scholarships and the details of GGS(read some reddit takedowns here and here ), why do historians get so upset about Diamond?
The problem comes from Diamond's misinterpretation of Yali's question (or at least, what the historical community is convinced is the important question). Diamond hears Yali ask why Westerners have so much stuff, and Papua New Guineans have so little, and responds by writing a book that explains how the Westerners got so much stuff. Diamond's central thesis is that Europe was able to dominate the world because their environment gave them the resources to do so.
The question of how is an important and interesting question to answer, and Diamond does an alright job of it (although, it should be stressed if only to better understand historians' hostility towards Diamond, that Crosby did the same thing better 10 years earlier) even if I think he still leaves out a great deal of important stuff. But Diamond doesn't purport to answer the HOW question, he purports to answer the WHY question, and in doing so screws up majorly.
Essentially, by arguing that Europeans dominated the rest of the world because of their superior resources, he implies that this domination was somehow inevitable and natural. That all societies seek to maximize their own advantage at all times, even at the expense of others. That if you give a man Steel, a Gun and some Biological Weapons, he'll immediately set out to use them on others. This is not the case. We can point to many different societies that don't ruthlessly exploit others for their own benefit, even people within their own society. More important to historians then HOW Europeans dominated the world is WHY they chose too. The Capitalist and Mercantilist systems that gave rise to European imperialism are unique in history, but Diamond paints it all as just emerging from the inevitable march of history, that every society placed in the same environment would evolve the same way. In doing so, he removes human agency from the equation. Yet we can easily prove that vast differences in culture can emerge from places that have nothing to do with the areas Diamond identifies as being the key ones in human development. Jesus, Aristotle, and Locke all played major roles in shaping western thought. It's difficult to connect any of their ideas to the presence of livestock in the old world.
One unintended consequence of Diamond approaching Yali's question this way, especially ironic given the intention of his book, is that the Western view of the world is reinforced. The Western concepts of capitalism and imperialism are portrayed as something universal, inherent to humanity and their development as inevitable. The real question for historians, the WHY, is to examine these concepts, how they worked and why they appeared. Diamond, and his audience outside the historical community, ignore Yali's real question, content in the knowledge that they have answered it.
So that's why GGS is generally hated among the historical community, it misses the point so entirely while being completely assured that it has found the ultimate answer to one of histories deepest questions. And it's popularity has led large portions of the world (including my high school history teacher) to cease looking for an answer to one of the world's most important questions.
I do think GGS has a role as a book. It's well written and it examines history from a perspective that most people never look at it from, excellent for introducing people to "Big History." But if it's the only book you've read on the subject, you're missing out on a lot.
I only vaguely remember 3 day weeks and electricity blackouts so I read this book.
I would recommend: The Story of Britain: From the Romans to the Present: A Narrative History, by Rebecca Fraser. I found the book to be accessible, unpretentious, and a good survey of British history since Roman times. It was evenhanded and meritorious in its handling of more controversial moments in British history—Margaret Thatcher's time in leadership, for example. While it is close to 800 pages in length, it can be brief in covering events at times. Still, it makes for a wonderful introduction .
If you are truly dedicated to your quest—and you want something much more in-depth and scholarly—I would recommend the new Oxford History of England. It covers the history of England and later Britain in great breadth and detail, comprising eleven volumes to date (and more on the way.) Its sourcing is top-notch and its writing, while academic in quality, is quite readable to the lay-person. But it is not for the faint of heart, and it can be quite expensive.
COWS by Mathew Stokoe amazon
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk amazon
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks amazon
Contingency Cannibalism: Superhardcore Survivalism's Dirty Little Secret by Shiguru Takada amazon
Apocalypse Culture by Adam Parfrey amazon
Eat Thy Neighbor by Daniel Diehl and Mark P. Donnelly amazon
We So Seldom Look On Love by Barbara Gowdy amazon
Those are just a few of my favorites.. by far COWS is the worst on the list.. You feel like you need a shower after finishing it, but at the same time if you're as into morbid stuff as I am, it's oddly cathartic in that you'll feel no need to scour the depths of the interwebs for nastiness for days (maybe weeks) afterwards..
I know I'm a bit late to this thread, but Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain is fantastic.
One thing which may give you some good information in the non-traditional form is to read/read about the Domesday Book.
Also follow the trail of technology, 3 field system, plough design, etc.
I took a course on medieval peasants in undergrad, but I'm having a hard time recalling the bibliography, it was 15 years ago.
This was one of them:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ties-That-Bound-Families/dp/0195045645
This stuff is probably a bit later though, although you can probably glean some information.
But you may have an easier task if you narrow the time period a bit, you're arguably trying to cover ~ 500 years, as well as a location, Europe is somewhat of a broad area as well.
Bandit country is an interesting book about one of the more infamous areas of IRA activity
https://www.amazon.com/How-Wed-Talk-English-1066/dp/0755211677
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Modern-Britain-Andrew-Marr/dp/0330510991
Hmmm. But it ENDS at VE Day.
Judith Bennett’s [A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1295-1344] (http://www.amazon.com/Life-English-Manor-Conditions-1150-1400/dp/0521091055/) (1998) is a brief, well-organized view of 14th-century peasant life in England that I always recommend. Though very dated (1937!), H. S. Bennett’s (no relation) [Life on an English Manor: A Study of Peasant Conditions 1150-1400] (http://www.amazon.com/Life-English-Manor-Conditions-1150-1400/dp/0521091055/) covers things in great, entertaining detail. Barbara Hanawalt's [The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England] (http://www.amazon.com/Ties-That-Bound-Families-Medieval/dp/0195045645) (1988) is very good. For France, the go-to authority is Georges Duby’a [Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West] (http://www.amazon.com/Rural-Economy-Country-Medieval-Middle/dp/0812216741) (1998), though it's more technical than the 2 Bennetts.
A strong recommendation:
Religion and the Decline of Magic. It's not really an academic work, but it is well foot-noted and has a good bibliography.
It's a fascinating topic, and this is easily the best book I have read on the topic. No hysteria and lots of good information and analysis.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Revolution-Story-Official-Workers/dp/0141028459
This is a really good book.
After reading books like for example "The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party" I can never say things like "the IRA are alright after all"
Highly recommended.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Revolution-Story-Official-Workers/dp/0141028459
UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1447212495/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511315060&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=armed+struggle+the+history+of+the+ira
US - https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0195177533/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511315083&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=armed+struggle
I would look at this section of the FAQ, featuring mostly answers by /u/thejukeboxhero.
/u/itsallfolklore has written a lot about fairies in the past.
/u/platypuskeeper and I have addressed a related question before.
Have you read a book called Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton? The link is an Amazon page where you can buy the book and support the subreddit at the same time.
The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy https://www.amazon.com/dp/0631189467/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_j6QJDbPZ74WZR
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Task-Force-Black-explosive-secret/dp/0349123551/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407609760&sr=1-1&keywords=task+force+black
Not the first time the SAS have been deployed in a kill/capture unit in Iraq of course- this is a good book on a joint operation with delta force.
I'd recommend starting with Solomon's Builders by Christopher Hodapp. Founding Fathers, Secret Societies by Dr. Robert Hieronimus would be a good followup.
If you really want to delve into the older history, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590 to 1710 by David Stevenson is your best bet.
If you really want to understand the secrecy angle - read The Craft Of Intelligence by Allen Dulles, It's not about Freemasonry, but the tools and tactics are the same. Secret Societies and the Intel Community have a lot in common.
Link to discussions in r/askhistorians.
A book on the same subject that predated Diamond's and seems to be more highly regarded by historians is Crosby's Ecological Imperialsm
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Provos-IRA-Sinn-Fein/dp/0747538182
There's a book about terrorists.
If you want to know about political history, how it affected/effected normal people and how we got to where we are then there are loads of books.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Heat-History-Swinging-1964-1970/dp/0349118205/ref=pd_bxgy_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=ZR96JDQZ8FWFYDHFA6YV
This is the beginning of a series of books about British society from 1964 up to 1979 and how society was changed by the politics of the time. It's great for explaining lots of things about where we are now and how we got here. Many of the problems and issues we face now were seen in their early stages here.
There's other books like:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Lights-Went-Out-Seventies/dp/0571221378/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494748230&sr=8-1&keywords=when+the+lights+went+out+book
which also looks at how politics impacted society and created many of the problems and benefits of modern society.
You can even go further back with books like:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unfinished-Empire-Global-Expansion-Britain/dp/1846140897/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494748507&sr=8-1&keywords=unfinished+empire
which is a general introduction to the empire and how it continues to connect to us now.
These sorts of books won't exactly teach you about political parties and where they stand, but they can help you to understand these issues that continue to be the most important.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Provos-IRA-Sinn-Fein-Peter-Taylor/0747538182
I think Peter Taylor is highly regarded on the Troubles - I intend to read those 3 (in the "Frequently bought together" section) some day but haven't yet so I'm only going off what I've seen on the internet.
35 years of people telling us that the 70s were an entire decade of horribleness, entirely due to the socialist policies of the Labour Party. There is some truth to this (most big lies contain some truth) but there is a lot more to it and you need some context to really understand what went on in the 70s. I liked this book.
But quickly, Callaghan wasn't really a socialist, the unions weren't on strike for the entire decade, the dead not being buried was not a widespread occurrence, there weren't power cuts every week, except the ones the tory govt imposed in 73/74.
It was a shitty time economically, there were too many strikes and Callaghan was not a great PM but do me a favour and do some reading beyond comments online.
A book for you:
http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Thy-Neighbour-History-Cannibalism/dp/0750943734/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367433278&sr=8-1&keywords=eat+thy+neighbor
Alfred Crosby's Ecological Imperialism is a fantastic book on this topic (Crosby is, in reality, the father of the field of environmental history).
Link to Amazon
In response to #4 in your comment:
I looked up Stuart Clark's Thinking With Demons on amazon. Yikes! $60! ($60 at the cheapest.) Could you perhaps recommend something a bit more economical? I love reading about Medieval Europe but I cannot afford to drop that kind of cash!
I'll expand on this a little bit, if you don't mind
> Before the troubles their was the IRA which was Marxist Leninist, however this split during the troubles into the official IRA, the IRA from before which were referred to as the stickies as they didn't use violence and lost a lot of support, the provisional IRA , which was a purely Republican movement.
The IRA was heavily influenced by Marxist-Leninism following it's 1950's border campaign which failed to garner much support. It set about creating a broad platform which would be entirely independent of it's own structure. The Civil Rights Movement was a massive change in strategy for the Republican movement, born of the frustration of a failed armed campaign in which the northern nationalists showed little to no interest. The NICRA was heavily influenced by the Civil Rights campaign in the USA ^source
> The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (Irish: Cumann Chearta Sibhialta Thuaisceart Éireann) was an organisation which campaigned for civil rights in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in Belfast on 9 April 1967, the civil rights campaign attempted to achieve reform by publicising, documenting, and lobbying for an end to abuses in areas such as housing, unfair electoral procedures, discrimination in employment and the Special Powers Act. The genesis of the organisation lay in a meeting in Maghera in August 1966 between the Wolfe Tone Societies which was attended by Cathal Goulding, then chief of staff of the IRA. The hope of the IRA, which four years earlier had ceased military operations after the failure of its Border Campaign, was that out of the already-nascent civil rights movement in Northern Ireland begun in 1963-4 by the Homeless Citizens' League and the Campaign for Social Justice there would arise a campaign of civil disturbance which would assist its efforts to unseat the unionist government in Belfast, and that the creation of NICRA would enable it to direct that campaign's course. Although socialist republicans and one IRA member were among those involved in the creation of NICRA, the IRA did not direct it.^Source
The crux of the split In the IRA was not entirely an ideological one but one of strategy; it was a small organisation at this time but very influential in the initial stages of the Civil Rights movement. It did not forsee the level of violence with which the state would react to very moderate demands; around Electoral representation, Policing, Housing and Employment. Escalating violence from the Police and Loyalists saw a need for defense in Catholic areas, The Battle of the Bogside ^1, Bloody Sunday ^2, Played their part in hardening the nationalist populations will towards going on the offensive, the split arose due to the perceived inaction of the IRA leadership ^3 The PIRA was a sporadic and spontaneous reaction to events that unfolded around it, its ranks swelled in accordance with violence meted out by the state. Northern Ireland was a one party gerrymandered state that habitually discriminated against it's minority. National identity alone was not a catalyst for violence even when faced with such discrimination. The key change in all of this was demands for improvement in material conditions within the NI state, not a United Ireland, i.e Civil Rights. It is important to remember that these demands where not calling for a United Ireland but an end to discrimination in electoral representation, policing, employment and housing. It was the fact that the state reacted so violently to these reasonable demands that led to mass violence. It led those who once held high hopes for equality within the NI state to smash it altogether.
The Official IRA maintained an armed wing throughout The Troubles their position being one of defense rather than offensive regarding the escalating violence; ‘”We stand not on the brink of victory but on the brink of sectarian disaster”, Liam McMillen, Bodenstown June 28th 1973’ However the INLA/IRSP ^4 was a breakaway group that whilst Marxist-Leninist saw the need for an armed offensive campaign against the British State. The Political Wing of the OIRA the Workers Party did have modest success electorally in the south of Ireland, but a large rump within the WP had shifted to the right.
> In early 1992, following a failed attempt to change the organisation's constitution, six of the party's seven TDs, its MEP, numerous councillors and a significant minority of its membership broke off to form Democratic Left, a party which would later merge with the Labour Party in 1999.
>The reasons for the split were twofold. Firstly, a faction led by Proinsias De Rossa wanted to move the party towards an acceptance of free-market economics.[22] Following the collapse of communism in eastern Europe, they felt that the Workers' Party's Marxist stance was now an obstacle to winning support at the polls.^Source
Sinn Féin, the politically aligned to the PIRA have broadly been a leftist organisation, their position today could be argued to be Populist Social Democratic.
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Regarding your earlier statement
> Northern Ireland, where two reactionary parties split the workers to avoid them pushing for anything.
I would argue that the present difficulty of a Left movement in the North of Ireland is not due to the actions of these parties but the nature of the state itself; Northern Ireland is designed to perpetuate sectarianism it is a reactionary state as James Connolly on partition noted
> such a scheme .. the betrayal of the national democracy of Industrial Ulster, would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements while it lasted. ^source
For further Reading i would recommend these Books.
Oooooh, I'm actually not all that familiar with Early Modern Germany, but I think I've found a few books that may help you with the religious, political and military aspects. Some of these books are pretty expensive, so I'd recommend finding a good library or seeing if your local library does inter-library loans with larger libraries. Usually you have to read the books pretty quick, but it saves paying $150 for a book if you're not in a position to do that. Just be sure to take plenty of notes!
I'd also be willing to look at what you've got but, like I said, I may not be as useful as I first thought.
The Reformation: A History
The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy
The Rise of Modern Warfare: 1618-1815
The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe
The Witchcraft Sourcebook
Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume I
Society and Economy in Germany, 1300-1600
Flesh and Spirit: Private Life in Early Modern Germany
Panaceia's Daughters: Noblewomen as Healers in Early Modern Germany
Ecology, Economy and State Formation in Early Modern Germany
Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany
The Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany: Civic Duty and the Right of Arms
He Is the Sun, She Is the Moon: Women in Early Modern Germany
The Realities of Witchcraft and Popular Magic in Early Modern Europe: Culture, Cognition and Everyday Life
The Lesser Key of Solomon
The Art of Combat: A German Martial Arts Treatise of 1570
> You're being a tad exaggerational with the build up to the PIRA there. However, calling them an amateur army doesn't excuse their actions. The fact remains that in the War of Independence innocents were killed as accidental casualties and the PIRA killed innocents for shock and fear.
Prove it. Give me a list of all known deaths and we'll examine how they died.
The first people killed during the "war of independence" were not accidental casualties. Dan Breen gunned them down in broad daylight. Their crime? They refused to hand over explosives to him.
You're out of your depth here. You should read the following:
http://www.amazon.com/Armed-Struggle-History-Richard-English/dp/0195177533
Ronald Hutton is always a good bet http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stations-Of-The-Sun-History/dp/0192854488
Archives for the links in comments:
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I'm reading The Story of Britain: From the Romans to the Present: A Narrative History by Rebecca Fraser. At 848 pages it is longer than I would like but it is easy to read so I'm already up to the Tudors.
Officially free masonry started with the Grand Lodge in 1717. But it's not so cut and dry as all the that. It's almost like asking when did the United States start. July 1776 was the declaration of independence but the thinking, motivations, and political stirrings started far before that. You could argue it started with the Jamestown settlement, it really depends on how you look at it.
I believe Lodge 1 of Edinburgh has "lodge" minutes back to 1599 or 1600. Since that was before the Grand Lodge in 1717 there weren't really free masons but they were that kind of muddy water. Some records of free mason like activity can be traced back much further, depending on your historical slant one could argue Hiram Abiff was a free mason but I digress. There are some very basic minutes of business for stone masons as far back the 900s in France if memory serves. There was a really good book on this that my first WM lent me when I was an apprentice but I can't remember the name of the book.
If you want to dive in pre 1700s of free masonry I'd recommend https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Freemasonry-Scotlands-Century-1590/dp/0521396549 but it's not a casual read if that makes sense.
I am currently reading The Story of Britain by Rebecca Fraser. It's a narrative history of Britain from the Roman invasion/infiltration (~55 BCE) up to the early 2000s. Fraser does an excellent job of telling the highlights with attention to timelines, there's a fair amount of supplemental media (artwork, family trees, maps, etc) woven in to each chapter, and it reads quick easily, like a good narrative history should.
Highly recommend, especially as a comprehensive primer on British history.
How We'd Talk If the English Had Won in 1066
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