(Part 2) Best french history books according to redditors
We found 965 Reddit comments discussing the best french history books. We ranked the 310 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
The answer is one of doctrine
through most of the second world war, the primary combat weapon for an infantry soldier in almost all armies was a bolt action rifle, in most cases supplemented by a squad/platoon level machine gun section (this varied drastically from formation to formation of course)
the idea was to have the "squad" MG as a suppression weapon to allow for the infantry to maneuver from a fixed anchor point (or two, for example german schewere panzergrenadier formations sometimes had two MG42s at the squad level), this doctrine was largely common to the European combatants, and i believe the french followed along, as they used the Lebel in conjunction with the FM 24/29 (and Brens, and chauchats, and anything they could dig up towards the end..)
for the soviets it was the the Mosin–Nagant 91/30 with a DP mg
for the british it was the Lee-Enfield MK4 with the Bren
for the germans it was the Kar 98k with the MG42 (the GW43 not being issued until 43, and never eclipsing the Kar98 except in mountain and as i recall falshimjaeger units)
for the italians it was largely the Carcano M91/41 with a number of Breda Mgs
only the americans used an "automatic rifle" doctrine, where the Garand was a standard rifle, and the BAR supplemented it (the BAR most definitely not being a full MG), only Armored rifle and Airborne platoons tended to have incorporated light 30cal Mgs. the automatic rifles provided each infantry soldier more individual firepower, and a better individual capability to offer suppression fire, at the cost of not having a lynch-pin squad level MG. (it mostly worked... but like most ww2 american doctrine, it had its major drawbacks... See tank destroyers....)
the automatic rifle was the anomaly, not the standard.
the other side to it is production, as the war dragged on, most combatants started to add more and more automatic rifles into the mix, the SVT rifle became more common, the gw43, etc, but these weapons were in general more complicated to produce, and in most cases, a greater number of bolt-action rifles were preferable, except in the US where production of Garands was sufficient as to not require "dropping down" to a bolt action rifle.
and last, well, frankly, the french military establishment after ww1 was a clusterfuck.. between the maginot line, balkanized weapons production, and scandal after scandal, modernization programs were a very stop and go affair, with semi- automatic rifles inevitably being a victim here.. i still really like "to lose a battle" by Alistair Horne for insightinto the french military pre-ww2
http://www.amazon.com/To-Lose-Battle-France-1940/dp/0141030658
Edits: formatting and spelling
What actually happened was quite disastrous, but I do wonder if the French would have even been able to hold back the Germans if they hadn't made the mistakes they did. Sure, they could have responded to reports of troops in the Ardennes, and fought at the French border instead of in Belgium (assuming a total rework of French strategy from top to bottom), but I think there's room for debate as to whether a properly-led French army could have taken on the Wehrmacht. It was superior on paper, but there were sure a lot of force multipliers going for the Germans. French morale was pretty bad at the time, and most of the troops were relatively poorly-trained conscripts, as opposed to the Germans just coming out of Poland. The French generals, with the possible exception of Weygand and de Gaulle, were completely inferior to their German counterparts. Naturally, the French people weren't nearly as enthusiastic about being at war as they had been at the beginning of WWI. Back then, they could look forward to reclaiming Alsace-Lorraine, but at the beginning of WWII, they found themselves at war for the sake of another country, and they still remembered the huge casualties from 20 years back.
The biggest problem, I think, would still have been the complete inferiority of French air assets compared to the Luftwaffe. Their planes were relatively modern, but there were very few of them. They realized by the late 30s that they really needed to start building up, but they just couldn't keep up with German production, and they especially couldn't compensate for things like the combat experience of units that fought in Spain and Poland.
The other thing is the French armor strategy. They dispersed their tanks for infantry support, instead of making schwerpunkt type armored breakthroughs. It's a failure in strategy, of course, but one that you don't really learn without being in combat and figuring it out for yourself.
All that having been said, you can identify several points where French command made mistakes that should have been obvious even at the time. They might not have been able to completely stop the Germans, but they at least could have significantly delayed them. It really is pretty astonishing that they allowed themselves to be defeated so quickly.
To Lose a Battle is a pretty good book about all this, for anyone who might be interested.
> how much would you have to spend to keep a dirt road serviceable?
You're kind of underthinking it. Keeping a road serviceable for regular traffic, especially when taking into accounts vehicles like wagons, is a lot of work. Some decent rain will turn that road into mud when there's heavy traffic, and suddenly you barely have a road anymore.
If you have nothing better to do with your time, I could actually recommend The Pursuit of Glory, which points out proper road maintenance as one of the core pillars of Europe entering the modern age.
As a mild addendum, the German tank lines moved faster than even the Germans were prepared for, at the direct urging of master Blitzkrieg and armored warfare strategist Heinz Guderian. Guderian's concern for the speed of the assault was paramount to the rapid success of Germany's invasion, including at one point fighting his direct superior, von Kleist (verbally, von Kleist conceded to Guderian's reasoning in pragmatic German fashion), in order to attack at poorly defended Sedan, which kept German armor out of the range of French artillery and allowed them to continue pushing forward before the French could regroup. If I recall correctly, both Rommel and Guderian's Panzercorps ended their initial push into French territory nearly 100 kilometers past the initial plan had hoped, which was already far more than the French could have imagined. (Unfortunately I can't seem to find my copy of Sir Alistair Hornes To Lose a Battle: France 1940 which gives an excellent portrayal of the events at hand - which I believe to include Guderian's personal orders to push forward until fuel supply became critical) Point being - while the French units were certainly underwhelming it is impossible to overstate exactly how unprepared their leaders had left them. Greater point being, Guderian was a magnificent bastard and it's probably shameful that the only German general most people can name is Rommel.
It's an interesting question and one I would like to see answered by better minds than my own since, for the most part, I have been unable to locate any reliable form of record either way.
(apologies in advance btw, a half assed browser hijack just killed my better post)
Where as in field rewards for gallantry etc were common I cannot find many 'rewards or punishments' expliticly stated for killing a noble during open conflict or even under tournament conditions. (Gabriel the count of Montgomery accidentally killed Henry II of France in 1559 by a lance wound to the face, Gabriel requested execution for his act, but the dying king forbade it ~ The Queen of Pubes bore a grudge though so don't discount the people, social norm and exceptions abound).
Within The Law of War and Peace by Grotius 1625 there is no mention of punishment for killing under war conditions but only percieved legal or illegal killing. (poison is illegal for example)
During the Hundred Years War ransom taking was the go to get rich quick method even going so far as to be formalised and taxable. Prisoners of War in the Hundred Years War: Ransom Culture in the Late Middle Ages. Actually Remy Ambuhl has made a fascinating study of it.
For other information i would suggest Juliet Barker. (Conquest & Agincourt)
I agree. I think even the blandest tweets, in context, can say something about the day they're written - what will people think of the plethora of "thoughts and prayers" in the future, for instance. If Syrian refugees are dying and the majority of tweets that day are about a celebrity's butt, that can be illuminating too... I just read Tim Blanning's The Pursuit of Glory and this stuck out at me:
>[Even if Louis XIV never said ‘L’etat, c’est moi,’], the heightened sense of excitement induced by the royal arrival from the chase was authentic. More securely documented is the obverse of this episode, the entry made by Louis’ great-great-great-grandson (but only next-but-one successor) in his diary for Tuesday, 14 July 1789: ‘nothing’. Even Louis XVI must have been aware that the fall of the Bastille was of some importance. What he meant by ‘nothing’ was that he had not gone hunting that day. To rephrase the Roman Emperor Titus, Louis counted a day without hunting a day lost. The following extract provides a good idea of his priorities: ‘July 1789 - Wednesday, 1st, nothing. Deputation from the Estates [General] ... Thursday 9th, nothing. Deputation from the Estates. Friday, 10th, nothing. Reply to the Deputation from the Estates. Saturday 11th, nothing. Resignation of M. Necker ... Tuesday, 14th, nothing ... October, Monday 5th, shooting party at the Chatillon Gate; killed eighty-one items of game. Interrupted by events. Left and returned on horseback.’ The ‘events’ were the ‘October Days’, when the Queen was nearly lynched by a mob of Parisians and the entire royal family was, in effect, taken prisoner and escorted back to Paris.
The diggers didn't call themselves diggers, they called themselves the True Levellers, which helps us quite a bit in understanding their relationship with other ideas and groups of the late 1640s/early 1650s.
Levellers were a large and powerful faction within Parliament's army, they were associated with people of low birth and radical Protestant beliefs (e.g. Baptists, Independents, Anabaptists.) The Levellers organized soldiers to advocate for an end to political and religious hierarchies (especially against tithes) and demand manhood suffrage. Their basic idea was that since Parliament had asked the people to support it during the war, and the people had won the war for Parliament, that Lords and gentry could not go back to tyrannizing the common people. By this time the soldiers of the army thought of themselves as serving a higher purpose than their immediate orders.
From The Case of the Army Truly Stated
> that the Army took up arms in judgment and conscience for the people’s just rights and liberties, and not as mercenary soldiers, hired to serve an arbitrary power of the state, and that in the same manner it continued in arms at that time. And . . . it was declared that they proceeded upon the principles of right and freedom, and upon the law of nature and nations. But the strength of the endeavours of many hath been and are now spent to persuade the soldiers and Agitators that they stand as soldiers only to serve the state, and may not as free Commons claim their right and freedom as due to them, as those ends for which they have hazarded their lives, and that the ground of their refusing to disband was only the want of arrears and indemnity
So in this atmosphere of revolution there is a smaller movement, led by Gerard Winstanley, that takes it further still. Their religious beliefs are extremely radical-- indeed their theology is protomaterialist-- but they're on the spectrum of radical Protestant thought. The Diggers aim to bring waste and common lands under cultivation and end private landholding, they don't aim to do this by armed force but by example; they are one of many groups who see God's hand in England's recent events and expect God's kingdom to be shortly established on Earth. Diggers, like many other religious radicals, believe in equality and personal independence, that God speaks to all people, very similar to the contemporary Quaker concepts of 'Inner Light.' From The True Levellers Standard Advanced:
> And the Reason is this, Every single man, Male and Female, is a perfect Creature of himself; and the same Spirit that made the Globe, dwels in man to govern the Globe; so that the flesh of man being subject to Reason, his Maker, hath him to be his Teacher and Ruler within himself, therefore needs not run abroad after any Teacher and Ruler without him, for he needs not that any man should teach him, for the same Anoynting that ruled in the Son of man, teacheth him all things.
As for texts, if you want a good primary source to start with you can read Gerard Winstanley's justification and call to action. For secondary sources I recommend Christopher Hill's book
Grover-Williams wasn't the only multi-GP winning driver to be hunted down and killed by the Nazis. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Benoist
Joe Saward has a great book on the subject called The Grand Prix Saboteurs:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Grand-Prix-Saboteurs-Saward/dp/0955486807
This one's kinda sensationalist but it's got a bunch of primary source photos and accounts: https://www.amazon.ca/Eye-Deep-Hell-Trench-Warfare-World/dp/0801839475
I can't recall actually reading a book on the conditions on the various fronts, at the various times in the war (like a trench from 1914 looked dramatically different than one in 1917), it's mostly just stuff you glean in passing by reading about the war. It's worth learning about the whole conflict - I maintain that it is the most important event in the modern world and nearly everything else that's happened since is resolution of stuff that started in the Great War (that's a bit of an exaggeration but whatever).
Some market-friendly anti-capitalism might be good by way of introduction:
A book called The Anatomy of Revolution (Wiki, Amazon) - which examines how revolutions throughout history have played out - almost perfectly describes what is happening to the feminist and broader "social justice" movements.
Spoilers: It probably doesn't end well.
"The World Turned Upside Down" by Christopher Hill is a fantastic Marxist analysis of the English revolution.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Turned-Upside-Down-Revolution/dp/0140137327
Tell me you don't think Winstanley is awesome after reading this book.
I'd suggest reading Anatomy of a Revolution. The author goes a bit too far with his model, but in general, he makes a convincing case that revolutions do not happen when people are really oppressed, but rather, they happen when a group as acquired latent power that is not yet formally recognized.
So in general, I think the causal chain goes the other way. People see an opportunity to gain an advantage -- Virginians wanted access to Western lands, Boston merchants wanted a continuation of low taxes and loose enforcement of the Navigation Acts -- and then they craft a narrative about how terribly oppressed they are.
Since the revolutionaries won the war, and many loyalists were driven underground or to Canada, they got to write the history books. The narrative thus was far more anti-Britain and anti-monarchist than was really warranted based on the facts of what happened.
> Also, how did the colonials expect taxation (which was low anyway) with representation to work?
From what I've gathered, they never expected representation in British Parliament to happen, that was never a serious claim and both sides knew it. What they wanted was no taxation.
> Long story short, they weren't being denied any rights that extended to anyone other than the wealthy. So why?
Some of the populist support for the revolution came because the very wealthy were allied with the British government. So for instance, in Virginia, the poorer, back-country folk were inspired by Patrick Henry's calls for democracy, and saw both the wealthy eastern elite and the British government as standing in their way.
Also, don't underestimate the ability of twenty-year old men with guns to be spoiling for a fight, and ready to listen to any silver tongued orator who inspires them go fight against a great oppressor.
I also highly recommend Albert Beveridge's The Life of John Marshall. It's a very human and three-dimensional look at the early years of the republic. He describes the early call to arms:
> Thomas Marshall's minister, Mr. Thompson, preached militant preparation; Parliament had deprived the colonists of "their just and legal rights" by acts which were "destructive of their liberties," thundered the parson; it had "overawed the inhabitants by British troops," loaded "great hardships" upon the people, and "reduced the poor to great want." The preacher exhorted his flock "as men and Christians" to help "supply the country with arms and ammunition,"
>
> When news of Concord and Lexington finally trickled through to upper Virginia, it found the men of her hills and mountains in grim readiness; and when, soon after, Henry's flaming words came to them, they were ready and eager to make those words good with their lives.
Hyperbole and a Half
The War That Ended Peace
The Hobbit
Looked at it on [Amazon] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004R1Q296/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1), used the Look Inside feature, and according to the title page it's a detail from Death, One of the Four Riders of the Apocalypse by Pol de Limbourg, from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (see [here] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_Duc_de_Berry)
So u/deynos74 was right about it being French, and pretty close with late C14th, actually very early C15th, 1412-16 is when it was painted.
>the people they live among consider them outsiders and don't really let them do more "honorable" professions, and the people around them are heavily discouraged from doing those same professions.
That's actually not entirely accurate. Jews did normal stuff too. They tended to cluster in population centers for a number of reasons:
1: Strength in numbers.
2: It's where banking was in most demand.
3: Cities were run somewhat more meritocratically than areas run by nobility. Cities typically had councils/mayors that were at least somewhat representative of the leading citizens of the town. These folks tended to be a bit smarter, on average, than those who just won the birth lottery. This led to cities having far more sensible rules regarding Jews and citizens in general.
In large cities Jews could frequently expect:
1: The right to have their own synagogue.
2: Equal protection under the law of the city.
3: Slight protection from the more capricious and arbitrary rules of the Princes. Jews who lived in large cities were often spared the worst of royal decrees confiscating their property and/or banishing them. The city government would frequently run interference on a Prince banishing/robbing Jews by some combination of obfuscating their Jewish heritage, fabricating Christian family-members, or even making up a christening record for the Jew, insisting that the Jew had left, and have the Jew continue to exist in the town and own his property under his fake name until the heat died down. They had an incentive to do this for multiple reasons:
A: If the Jews had their property taken, it was usually not the city who got it. It was the King/Duke/whomever. So the city was really getting the raw end of the deal.
B: Business was a messy thing in the medieval era and a large scale transaction may involve three or four parties. If a Jew was part of your business agreement and was banished, he obviously can't uphold his part of the contract and it all falls apart.
C: Jews actually helped Christians observe their religious holidays and vice versa. Jews could labor on the majority of Christian holidays.
D: Because separation of church and state were not a thing and many city services/funds went towards religious causes, Jews were taxed equally but did not use city services/funds equally. Modern day equivalent would be people who pay school taxes but don't have kids.
Jews were perfectly able to go into whatever profession they wanted provided it was not towards a religious end (like doing stuff for a Church/Cathedral). But they were drawn disproportionately to lending simply because they had such an advantage there. There were also clever work-arounds so that Jews could borrow money from Jews and Christians could loan money to Jews without either violating their beliefs.
If a Jew needed money, he would involve a Christian to accomplish it:
1: Jew A gives Jew B 100 ducats. Let's say the "interest" is 1.1% per year.
2: When it comes time for interest of 1 ducat to be paid, Christian A pays Jew A 1 ducat then and there in exchange for a short-term debt (usually forty-five days) owed him by Jew B for 1.1 ducats.
3: Jew B pays Christian 1.1 ducats and pays principal back to Jew A normally.
In this way:
-Jew A has profited.
-Christian A has profited.
-Jew A has not charged Jew B interest.
-Christian A has not charged anyone interest at all.
Whether or not it actually followed the spirit of the two religions' laws was much discussed by both religions' clerics, but nevertheless it did happen. And, to be fair, there were also Christians who simply ignored the religious code and loaned money for interest or found other work-arounds. I'm sure some Jews did similarly.
Highly recommended reading on the subject:
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Medieval-City-Frances-Gies/dp/0062415182
Has anyone read this? Is it a good book? 14-18: Understanding the Great War by Stephane Audoin-Rouzeau
So as /u/XenophonTheAthenian said, judging a tank simply on how readily it might burn when knocked out is a pretty narrow metric with which to measure the effectiveness of a tank, and by that metric the Sherman doesn't actually do that poorly. Xenophon already mentioned the problem wasn't unique to the Sherman at all but I figured I would back that up with some actual data, and then I wanted to add some actual context to what the Sherman actually was and what it wasn't because I have a feeling that your friend wont simply be convinced just by learning that the Sherman didn't catch fire any more than any other tank did (and less often than some other famous tanks).
So how often the Sherman was considered to burn really depended on the circumstances in which the data was collected. An American study conducted in France for instance found that 65% of Shermans burned when they were knocked out.^1 While a study of the British 8th and 24th Armor Brigades found that about 56% of there tanks burned when knocked out.^1 Another study found that they burned about 80% of the time. These rates all really depended on the sample of course so you are never going to get a single definitive rate.
The causes of this was primarily the storage of ammunition. In the early version of the Sherman, which I will refer to as "small-hatch" Shermans from now on, all of the ammunition was either stored in the turret (the ready-rack) or in the ammunition racks in the sponsons over the tracks. The problem with that location is that most of the time when tanks were knocked out, it was from hits to the sides which meant that the ammunition racks were quite often directly in the line of fire!
Even so, the Sherman was by no means the only offender in this regard. The Panther stored its ammunition in literally the same location, so did the Panzer IV, and the Tiger. This meant that any time these tanks were hit from the side they were very likely to burn. And according to an allied study the Panzer IV was the worst, burning more than 80% of the time.
The American's however recognized this as an issue with the Sherman and quickly set about attempting to fix the issue.
The first thing the US did was to issue an armor applique kit which would be applied in tank depots before being issued to troops in the field. There were four different kits but the one I am referring to can be seen in this picture. Each of those armor plates were intended to simply increase the thickness of the hull armor over the ammo racks. Eventually the applique armor, on M4A1s at least, was made part of the actual hull casting, but on tanks like the M4, M4A2, M4A3, and M4A4 the applique armor was simply welded on till the production of those tanks ceased.
The applique armor was never seen as the final solution however, and in December 1943 the second generation of Sherman's, or large-hatch Shermans, began rolling off the production lines. This new generation of Shermans included a number of improvements but perhaps the most obvious change was the the front of the hull which can be seen in this picture of a small-hatch and large-hatch M4A3. The important thing to note however is that on the large hatch Sherman there is no applique armor plates.
This was one of the major improvements of the large-hatch Shermans, at least as far as fires go anyway. According to studies conducted by the Ordnance Department the best place for the ammunition was on the floor of the tank, and in some reports they specifically refer to this arrangement as the "Soviet manner", because this was how ammunition was stored in the T-34. So all the ammunition was moved to the floor in armored containers, and the turret basket was removed to allow access to the containers. Another feature that was added was called Wet Storage.
Wet Storage was basically this: all the ammunition boxes which were in the floor were surrounded by a water jacket. The idea was that if the ammunition racks were hit they would be flooded with water and put out any fire. On 75mm armed Shermans the water jacket could hold 38.1 gallons or .366 gallons per round (104 rounds total) and in 76mm armed Shermans 34.5 gallons or .515 gallons per round (71 rounds total).^2
Wet Storage worked extremely well, Shermans equipped with it now burned between 10 - 15% of the time as opposed to the 55 - to 80%^3 of the time, making the Sherman by far the safest tank on the battlefield as far as fires went anyway.
Another thing your friend will probably mention is the Sherman's gas engine, and he will probably cite this as a source of the fires in the Sherman. If he does this, you should point out that all German tanks also had gas engines, and ask why didn't their tanks have the same reputations. (Though they really ought to have anyway, they caught on fire just as often).
Now as for the context as the first comment here put it. Now I could go on and on but I figure a good way to give you sort of the readers digest version is by addressing most the points I mentioned in this post. So lets do each one in order.
This simply isn't true, and when the evidence is examined you will see that US forces did quite well. In a study of 87 tank engagements involving involving the 3rd and 4th Armored Divisions the US actually destroyed more enemy tanks and equipment then they lost, and in these engagements they were quite often fighting Panthers.^4
In the first 3 examples in the study, which involved a total of 27 engagements, a total of 155 M4s faced off against 114 Panthers. The US lost 10 M4s while the Germans lost 70 Panthers^4.
And the Sherman had been designed from the get go to fight other tanks. In FM 17-10 it states explicitly that both medium and light tanks should be used to fight other tanks. In 1942 the Sherman was more than capable of taking on any tank on the battlefield. Its 75mm gun could kill any German tank at the time and with 90mm of armor on the front of the hull (effective) it was mostly impervious to any German tank except at close range.
This situation remained about the same until mid 44, yes the Panzer 4 was upgunned, but even the 7.5cm KwK L/48 couldnt penetrate the front of the Sherman beyond 1100 meters while the Panzer IV remained vulnerable from about the same distance.
The Panther did outclass the Sherman, there is no doubt of that, and unlike what that other poster said it even outclassed the late war Sherman, but the Panther had its own issues, and while it did outclass the Sherman one on one, it was not so superior that it couldn't be overcome as the study I mentioned showed.
2.It took X number of Shermans to kill Panzer IV/V/VI
This is a very silly claim and there is no basis for it. Keep in mind that the Germans lost more tanks to the US than the US lost to the Germans.
Really, the Sherman was a tank that was comparable to other medium tanks of the era, for instance the T-34. Both tanks were armed and armored in similar ways, and they both served about the same roles in their respective armies. Neither tank was perfect, but they were good enough to do the job that was expected of them and they did them well.
Anyway, I feel that the second part wasn't all the eloquent but I am way past my bed time. If there was anything I did not explain well, let me know and I will clarify, I admit I was sort of pulled in all directions wile trying to put this together.
Oh by the way, the Ronson nickname is almost certainly anachronistic. The "lights first time, every time" was a slogan that didn't come out until the 50s. Ronson did make flamethrowers for Shermans though and I think that is probably where the name came from.
List of sources:
As compared to the British and the Germans? It's a valid question.
But the real answer is so much more interesting than most people have the time to learn. So instead they make jokes about the easily surrendering French.
This sure touched a sore point going by the comments here and people raging against the sterotyped surrender monkey stuff, nearly all of them raging about how France was just outnumbered in WW2 and their soldiers served with distinction.
You guys are missing the point that Britain and France have been at war with each other hundreds of times over the last thousand years, its only recently we are allies. This is why we pretend to hate each other, this is why we have sterotypes about them being rubbish at war
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Years-Annoying-French-Stephen-Clarke/dp/0552775746 interested read, obviously biased but funny and in the spirit of this post.
http://www.militaryfactory.com/battles/french_military_victories.asp lists quite a lot of their major military engagements over the same period showing the victories and defeats over the centuries of Anglo French warfare.
Before you go raging at people and quoting recent events, try and think more about the history between Englang/Britain and France and realise its all just a god damned joke.
Got a 5 on the AP, here’s what I did
If you don’t have a good textbook (looking at you Kagan) get one of these two they’re both solid review books. I personally like birdsall more
Ap Achiever Exam Prep Guide European History 2017 (Ap European History) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0078976421/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_k2NOAb1W9VHJ9
Modern European History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0070674531/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_V2NOAbN4J3224
The Pursuit of Glory:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Pursuit-Glory-Revolutions-1648-1815/dp/0143113895
It's a huge book, but interesting reading, and begins by outlining tons of minute social, political, and economic changes leading up to the Napoleonic era. I found it one of the most climactic reads, as after a lot of minutia, then the end actually just walks you through historical events, all of which suddenly make tons of sense given the environment!
If yuns want to read a good book, buy The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 by Margaret Macmillan.
> That's some pretty bad odds there friendo. Sorry to obliterate your idea that the American tanks were deflecting shots from 88s with their rear armour and flying around on magical American rainbows.
No, thats a strawman.
I am not saying that it had impenetrable Armour (please link me to where I am though). I am saying that it had enough Armour to outmatch the vast majority of the advisories that it faced during the war, while also having a capable gun in conjunction with being very fast and cheap to produce.
In regards to your last point, you do realize that after the ammo storage problems were solved, a ~1944 Sherman crew had one of the highest survival changes for a penetrating hit out of any tank of the war right?
Judging a tank simply on how readily it might burn when knocked out is a pretty narrow metric with which to measure the effectiveness of a tank, and by that metric the Sherman doesn't actually do that poorly. The problem wasn't unique to the Sherman at all but I figured I would back that up with some actual data, and then I wanted to add some actual context to what the Sherman actually was and what it wasn't because I have a feeling that your friend wont simply be convinced just by learning that the Sherman didn't catch fire any more than any other tank did (and less often than some other famous tanks).
So how often the Sherman was considered to burn really depended on the circumstances in which the data was collected. An American study conducted in France for instance found that 65% of Shermans burned when they were knocked out.^1 While a study of the British 8th and 24th Armor Brigades found that about 56% of there tanks burned when knocked out.^1 Another study found that they burned about 80% of the time. These rates all really depended on the sample of course so you are never going to get a single definitive rate.
The causes of this was primarily the storage of ammunition. In the early version of the Sherman, which I will refer to as "small-hatch" Shermans from now on, all of the ammunition was either stored in the turret (the ready-rack) or in the ammunition racks in the sponsons over the tracks. The problem with that location is that most of the time when tanks were knocked out, it was from hits to the sides which meant that the ammunition racks were quite often directly in the line of fire!
Even so, the Sherman was by no means the only offender in this regard. The Panther stored its ammunition in literally the same location, so did the Panzer IV, and the Tiger. This meant that any time these tanks were hit from the side they were very likely to burn. And according to an allied study the Panzer IV was the worst, burning more than 80% of the time.
The American's however recognized this as an issue with the Sherman and quickly set about attempting to fix the issue.
The first thing the US did was to issue an armor applique kit which would be applied in tank depots before being issued to troops in the field. There were four different kits but the one I am referring to can be seen in this picture (ignore the red box). Each of those armor plates were intended to simply increase the thickness of the hull armor over the ammo racks. Eventually the applique armor, on M4A1s at least, was made part of the actual hull casting, but on tanks like the M4, M4A2, M4A3, and M4A4 the applique armor was simply welded on till the production of those tanks ceased.
The applique armor was never seen as the final solution however, and in December 1943 the second generation of Sherman's, or large-hatch Shermans, began rolling off the production lines. This new generation of Shermans included a number of improvements but perhaps the most obvious change was the the front of the hull which can be seen in this picture of a small-hatch and large-hatch M4A3. The important thing to note however is that on the large hatch Sherman there is no applique armor plates.
This was one of the major improvements of the large-hatch Shermans, at least as far as fires go anyway. According to studies conducted by the Ordnance Department the best place for the ammunition was on the floor of the tank, and in some reports they specifically refer to this arrangement as the "Soviet manner", because this was how ammunition was stored in the T-34. So all the ammunition was moved to the floor in armored containers, and the turret basket was removed to allow access to the containers. Another feature that was added was called Wet Storage.
Wet Storage was basically this: all the ammunition boxes which were in the floor were surrounded by a water jacket. The idea was that if the ammunition racks were hit they would be flooded with water and put out any fire. On 75mm armed Shermans the water jacket could hold 38.1 gallons or .366 gallons per round (104 rounds total) and in 76mm armed Shermans 34.5 gallons or .515 gallons per round (71 rounds total).^2
Wet Storage worked extremely well, Shermans equipped with it now burned between 10 - 15% of the time as opposed to the 55 - to 80%^3 of the time, making the Sherman by far the safest tank on the battlefield as far as fires went anyway.
Another thing your friend will probably mention is the Sherman's gas engine, and he will probably cite this as a source of the fires in the Sherman. If he does this, you should point out that all German tanks also had gas engines, and ask why didn't their tanks have the same reputations. (Though they really ought to have anyway, they caught on fire just as often).
Some Myths -
This simply isn't true, and when the evidence is examined you will see that US forces did quite well. In a study of 87 tank engagements involving involving the 3rd and 4th Armored Divisions the US actually destroyed more enemy tanks and equipment then they lost, and in these engagements they were quite often fighting Panthers.^4
In the first 3 examples in the study, which involved a total of 27 engagements, a total of 155 M4s faced off against 114 Panthers. The US lost 10 M4s while the Germans lost 70 Panthers^4.
And the Sherman had been designed from the get go to fight other tanks. In FM 17-10 it states explicitly that both medium and light tanks should be used to fight other tanks. In 1942 the Sherman was more than capable of taking on any tank on the battlefield. Its 75mm gun could kill any German tank at the time and with 90mm of armor on the front of the hull (effective) it was mostly impervious to any German tank except at close range.
This situation remained about the same until mid 44, yes the Panzer 4 was upgunned, but even the 7.5cm KwK L/48 couldnt penetrate the front of the Sherman beyond 1100 meters while the Panzer IV remained vulnerable from about the same distance.
The Panther did outclass the Sherman, there is no doubt of that, and unlike what that other poster said it even outclassed the late war Sherman, but the Panther had its own issues, and while it did outclass the Sherman one on one, it was not so superior that it couldn't be overcome as the study I mentioned showed.
2.It took X number of Shermans to kill Panzer IV/V/VI
This is a very silly claim and there is no basis for it. Keep in mind that the Germans lost more tanks to the US than the US lost to the Germans.
Really, the Sherman was a tank that was comparable to other medium tanks of the era, for instance the T-34. Both tanks were armed and armored in similar ways, and they both served about the same roles in their respective armies. Neither tank was perfect, but they were good enough to do the job that was expected of them and they did them well.
Anyway, I feel that the second part wasn't all the eloquent but I am way past my bed time. If there was anything I did not explain well, let me know and I will clarify, I admit I was sort of pulled in all directions wile trying to put this together.
Oh by the way, the Ronson nickname is almost certainly anachronistic. The "lights first time, every time" was a slogan that didn't come out until the 50s. Ronson did make flamethrowers for Shermans though and I think that is probably where the name came from.
List of sources:
Your sir, are the french knights at Agincourt. Mobility is everything in a Medieval battle and in that instance we see that the French charged into an extremely muddy and slippery situation which caused their defeat. Taking ques from their defeats at Crecy and Poitiers we still see the french over-anxiety for battle clash with the failure to better understandof the effects the previous week's torrential downpour would have on their tactics and the battlefield. The french knights took the field and became mired in mud thus allowing the English to rain arrows down upon them and eventually flank the first wave of dismounted french knights and take advantage of their lost mobility.[1]
A knight in full armor was not so hindered by it that one might think, Imagine wearing a back pack full of rocks everyday of your life and you will see that after awhile it becomes almost like second skin. Armor was made to be comfortable to the wearier as these men's lived depended on it and by the 15th Century armor was at a technical high point for the contrast of use and comfort. Armor was many things but Water proof was not one of them and knights that had been dealing with rain and mud for days were well accustomed to the irritations that came along with it. Examples of such miseries include Galling, Blisters, Rashes, and Fungi. These men however we ready and able to deal with these nuisances but the mud was not something that knights could easily conquer and lead to the deaths of innumerable knights. Imagine walking in a muddy field with a pair of rubber rain boots but first fill them up with mud and you get a general understanding of the loss of mobility these knights had to content with. The Danger of drowning in such a situation was minimal unless you were seriously wounded and went unnoticed by routing allies as a knight was fully able to stand up again even in these wet and muddy circumstances. In a downpour you could expect to become directly waterlogged but in most cases men at arms and knights took steps to keep their armor from rusting buy greasing and oiling their armor and storing it in dry places. One would also expect a long nights worth of polishing and oiling your armor back to a water resistant state again after such a melee.[2]
In many cases during the medieval period we see lightly armored soldiers pursuing and overtaking heavily armored knights as this was just the nature of medieval warfare. One good example of this is the Battle of Mauron, 1352. In this battle a group of French Knights became routed and were chased down by the lightly armored English Archers suffering almost complete causalities. The dangers of light versus's heavy armament lies not with mobility but with the situation, when a group of knights or men at arms is broken up or routing their group advantage is lost and when knight become distracted they are easy targets for lightly armored soldiers. The best option in such a case would have been to advance slowly in a organised unit and attacked over short range as long charge would see your organisation broken up and leave you open to flanking by lighter dangerous troops.[3]
Also the dangers of lightning are possible as every man is holding a lighting rod in the form of a sword and covered with metal but to my knowledge I have never read or heard of it happening, but we can safely assume it would have a much higher mortality rate and and one strike could kill multiple people.
If you want to learn more about the Diggers, I'd really really recommend checking out The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill, it's pretty incredible.
And also the great song The World Turned Upside Down by Billy Bragg, which was inspired by the book.
> Panthers did not make up a high proportion of German armour in Normandy
in the first ten days or so of the campaign, nor at any time, and the 17-pdr
gun, either towed or carried in Sherman Fireflies and in modified M10 tank
destroyers, could certainly deal with the Tiger or Panther at standard battle
ranges (up to 1,000 yards).
[...]
> Even to the south of Caen, Canadian after-action
reports indicated that the mean range of anti-tank fire was still under 1,000
yards, while US figures for June–August showed that the average range of
lethal engagement by anti-tank gunnery was less than 600 meters.
[...]
>Sabot ammunition was less accurate at ranges over 1,000 metres than other
rounds, though for most of the Normandy campaign this was less of a disadvantage
as anti-tank firing, more often than not, took place at under this
range
All from British Armour in the Normandy Campaign, 2004. These values appear to match what I've read in other books. That book is excellent, by the way!
Regarding reasons for 'many' military interventions in the Middle East: for most of the last 100 years, core essence of most of these were relations between various foreign powers, and their attempts to directly influence developments in preferred direction. 'Oil' did play its role, no doubt, but by far not as often as generally accepted. In period 1991-2015, reasons were slightly different (i.e. primarily related at outside powers attempting to re-shape the Middle East once again), but more recently relations between the West and Russia are dominant once again.
Here I would recommend readings like A Line in the Sand and The Great Syrian Revolt - as 'starters'.
In the first, you can read how mutual relations between Great Britain and France - plus their relations to various other powers (Germany, Russia) - influenced their shaping of the modern-day Middle East. The second is a rare insight (even more so because it's based on French documentation, but published in English) into one of early reactions of local people (and their motivation) to such behaviour.
It remained very much that way during the subsequent times, i.e. after 1945. For example, at least a part of British involvement in the Suez War of 1956 was British concern about 'raising Soviet influence in Egypt' - and London's failure to convince Nasser to join the Baghdad Pact. French, on the other hand, were curious to remove Nasser because - between others - he was providing support to Algerian insurgents and various other anti-colonial movements in Africa. For a very good insight into contemporary way of thinking I would recommend Roy Fullick's and Geoffrey Powell's Suez, the Double War.
Similar reasons were crucial for the British intervention in Jordan, and the US in Lebanon, of 1958: both operations were launched in reaction to what was seen as a 'threat' of 'Soviet clients' - Egypt, Syria and Iraq - prompting local uprisings that threatened pro-Western governments. By 1961, this came so far that Britain launched another intervention in Kuwait after Baghdad merely 'thought loudly' about a possibility of invading its southern neighbour.
Through the 1960s, the USA were gradually dragged into openly supporting Israel - out of Israeli interest in securing US military aid but also the US interest in securing Israeli support for the US intervention in Vietnam. These efforts went so far that President Johnson granted permission for export of F-4 Phantoms to Israel expecting Israeli government would express its support - which never happened. Versa-vice: in 1970, Soviets launched a military intervention in Egypt in reaction to what they saw as US providing Israel with vastly superior military capabilities - F-4 Phantoms - which in turn required bolstering Egyptian defensive capabilities. 'Bonus' were basing rights in places like Marsa Matruh and at Cairo West: these bases were interesting for Soviets exclusively within the context of the Cold War rivalry with the USA. In this regards, I would recommend Taking Sides.
1970s were characterised by the Nixon Doctrine (see: 'we arm our allies so they can defend themselves on their own'), and 1980s by most of involved parties maintaining the status quo. Thus, there were relatively few military interventions. Exceptions were such like operations against Libya in 1981 and 1986, and the intervention in Lebanon of 1983. A fine study of backgrounds is El Dorado Canyon.
Motivation for more recent interventions - i.e. those launched since 1990-1991 - was slightly more complex, though still dominated by the same topics like before, including 'maintaining the status quo' (Iraq, 1991), or 're-shaping the Middle East' (Iraq, 2003; Libya 2011).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415267358/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809046431/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0192893254/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
These are the books we used in that class; it was on memory of the war as well as the war itself. They're all good but I especially liked the middle one.
It's the right subreddit. I find WWI fascinating. Go for:
The Guns of August
The First World War, by Kohn Keegan.
American Heritage History of World War I.
Eye Deep in Hell.
> Well yes, I guess I just don't get it...or at least understand the purpose. I made a thread a while ago aimed at not necessarily socialists but anyone who believed in personal property. The question was, what is the purpose of making such a distinction? What are the ramifications (for yourself, for society)?
> I still don't understand that. That is, what the purpose is of making the distinction. I can admit that property ownership is wrong, but then can't accept that personal ownership (derived from use) is any more right.
This in particular is where we usually result to Proudhon who tackles the issue directly in a compendium of different works. The general idea seems to be that private property isn't natural to us, what is, is possessiveness as a human disposition. It isn't that if I have a PC in my house, everyone in my community is entitled to use it, or that nothing that I have is truly mine. Privatizing the means of production, vast amounts of natural resources, arable land, etc, isn't natural to who we are. I'll leave it to any other socialist to wants to expand or add an addendum to that, but that's basically it.
> Regarding your point about ideologues. Ancaps usually split themselves into the categories "deontological" and "consequential" (not mutually exclusive, i would say i'm more deotonlogical). ancaps tend to believe ancap philosophy is more of a conclusion arrived at, rather than a political ideology to promote, that relates most closely to how you should act in situations. being anarchists first, they obviosuly believe the state is irrational or immoral, but that capitalism is what would arise if there is no state. the deontological pathway is the moral question. that is they arrived at ancap by trying to figure out how best to act or think morally and believe ancap philosophy best categorizes this and falls in line with their beliefs (and considering the subject of this thread that is the way i answered). consequentialist ancaps use pragmatics to arrive at the same conclusion. that is, they believe an ancap society would be the best that is most productive, most "free", most respectful, and so on. They're logic is not necessarily amoral, just that they believe that regardless of whether ancap/anarchism/statist ideologies are the most morally sound, ancap philosophy creates the best result for everyone involved.
Thanks for going into it more. Part of what is frustrating in speaking to many ancap's is I rarely hear them explicitly state the value premise of their argument. Some are ancap's on a set of principles that has nothing to do with the results or efficacy of their system in practice. Others are for it because they actually believe it promotes ideals shared by say, Social Democrat's for example (results in greater levels of equality, level's the playing field, etc), and some believe it for a mix of both, and all these reasons get conflated a lot in the heat of the debate, switching back and forth between them as defense of their positions become more difficult.
> you might find that response just as ideologically based as well though, haha
It was insightful to say the least.
A Distant Mirror
784 pages of 14th century Europe, non-fiction. Just started last night.
I've been doing some world-building myself, and these are the links that I've found that help me the most:
- medieval demographics, based on data found in this book
- magical medieval society, a 3e reference book
- travel speed discussion
That analysis is straight of Crane Brinton's The Anatomy of Revolution, which is a comparative analysis of the English, American, French, and Russian revolutions. It's considered one of the seminal works in looking at the macro structure of revolutionary politics, and does a great job of distilling the commonalities that feature in most popular revolutions (as opposed to military coups, etc.)
But really, when was the crown massacring people during the French Revolution? The Day of the Tiles barely counts, and after the calling of the Estates General the crown never really exercised much in the way of corporal power again (though various royalist groups did occasionally perpetrate violence.)
I absolutely loved both The Hundred Years War and Wars of the Roses both by Desmond Seward.
> The French fought valiantly, but they were betrayed by their leadership.
Stabbed in the back, eh?
Sure, the French political leadership was vacillatory, and their general staff appallingly clueless, but in a democratic society, the people have to take some fair share of responsibility for the failures and successes of those chosen to lead. It's also a fact that the French forces were vastly outclassed by the Germans, even though they had rough parity in men and equipment. Morale eroded steadily during the Sitzkrieg, and while individual units may have "fought valiantly", most were sent scrambling.
It's incontrovertibly clear that decades of petty squabbling and shortsightedness among the French body politic, from the Dreyfus Affair on down, left them woefully unprepared to deal with the resurgent German menace. Shirer's The Collapse of the Third Republic covers this descent exhaustively.
Finally, I think what you rather melodramatically call "Anti-French hatred" wasn't limited in its origins to their catastrophic performance in WW2. You can't forget that during the Cold War, France took more than a few military adventures upon herself, nearly none ending well, while at the same time acting as at best a temperamental ally.
1000 years of annoying the French.
It's quite funny as long as you take it with a pinch of salt.
Maybe something by Norman Davies. I am not sure about the language level, though.
Click at the Look inside and check out the writing style, if it fits you: http://www.amazon.com/Europe-History-Norman-Davies-ebook/dp/B003ZDO8XE/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1420959075
http://www.amazon.com/Vanished-Kingdoms-Rise-States-Nations/dp/0143122959/ref=sr_1_3/175-7897043-1491535?ie=UTF8&qid=1420959075&sr=8-3&keywords=norman+davies
There's a whole book which (tongue-in-cheek-ly) delves into this.
The short of it is that it's more of a historic in-joke because there's always been tensions between France and the UK (which later spread to other English-speaking parts of the world). Some people that grow up without understanding that it's an ongoing joke, think that it's real and find ways to reinforce the prejudice I presume.
I'll give you two that I've enjoyed lately:
Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations talks about some states that you see in Eu4 like Aragon, Burgundy and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century takes you into the life of a French nobleman during the Hundred Years War. I'd check out pretty much anything else by Tuchman while you're at it.
To add to that, Grand Prix Saboteurs tells the story of Robert Benoist and a few of the other GP stars of the 20s/30s
About 15 years before, actually!
Here's a great book about the time period.
They knew their was probably oil in mosul. That's why they took it from the French when it was previously on the French side of the demarcation. They ended up giving the French 23% of the Iraq Petroleum Company.
https://www.amazon.com/Line-Sand-Anglo-French-Struggle-1914-1948/dp/0393344258
Agincourt by Juliet Barker is definitely worth reading.
Not gonna lie your Euro class sounds kinda aids. That being said, I believe in you! Reading is obviously going to be extremely beneficial and if you havent already gotten a review book, been reading the textbook, or been reading some supplemental book I would suggest doing that. One of the books I found most helpful last year was Viault's Modern European History. Its kind of a no bullshit approach to everything. Only what you need to know.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0070674531?keywords=viault%20modern%20european%20history&qid=1449366444&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1
Not sure how much help this was but good luck!
I haven't read any of these personally, but I googled "books on the viking influence in Britain" so here are some books on amazon. These are ordered from most similar to your request to less similar.
https://www.amazon.com/Vikings-Britain-Henry-Loyn/dp/0631187111
https://www.amazon.com/Vikings-Britain-Ireland-Jayne-Carroll/dp/0714128317
https://www.amazon.com/Norman-Conquest-Hastings-Anglo-Saxon-England/dp/1605986518/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Good luck! I think I speak for all of us when I say that we would like to read your finished product!
Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies is pretty interesting
Those all suck. Get this
>But if it came down to actually tangling toe-to-toe with china, a few hundred miles off their coast? It would be hard to keep our fleet floating against anti-carrier ballistic missiles. They might even be willing to nuke us on the open water.
The Taiwan Strait is much narrower than a few hundred miles: its 81 miles at ts widest point.
Instead of thinking about it from the American side, think of it from the Chinese side: do you really want to launch an entire amphibious landing across 81 miles of laboratory-perfect conditions (flat, dark cold background with hot, large objects) for missiles to scan, acquire, track and engage targets? You could damage Taiwan with a saturated missile strike (like N Korea could level S Korea's Seoul with artillery bombardment within an hour) but you wouldn't hold any ground and you'd get attacked by other nations for killing tens of thousands of unarmed civilians.
We would get involved because the chance that we'd win would be very, very high.
They only have a few Russian super-sonic anti-ship missiles. You're probably thinking of the SS-N-22, the Subburn, right? We've spent billions of dollars on anti-missile technology and packaged all that into the umbrella Ticonderoga escorts:
They have dozens of SM-2s which can, and have, engaged incoming hostile missiles.
They also have CIWS (the R2D2 domes) which can throw out a wall of lead in seconds.
They also have SM-3s which are low-level satellite-killers to knock our enemy surveillance and data relays.
An orbiting Hawkeye using the GrIIm RePer upgrade could identify, track and sort practically all airspace targets clear into Mongolia and Tibet so missile launches would be identified, tracked and engaged as quick as the computers' brains could sort it out.
>What if they shock and awe'd taiwan, and took it over within a matter of days/weeks, ala France during WWII?
France fell from internal socio-political conditions that started in 1860s and worsened over the next 80 years. Read Shirer's "The Collapse of the Third Republic" for an indepth analysis of the conditions present. Nations don't "fall" the way France did... or else Afghanistan would've bowled over when we invaded instead of having an active insurgency now a decade later. We've spent more time in Afghanistan than we have in Vietnam but that's another debate.
>Our hands would be effectively tied at that point, as I don't see us carrying out an amphibious landing to liberate Taiwan in the teeth of determined Chinese resistance.
China wouldn't create one to begin with so that's a moot point.
>Americans would feel bad at Taiwan getting invaded, but I don't think we've got the political will and stomach for the level of carnage that would result in.
The American people haven't had a say in what wars the US' leadership decides to declare since oh, ever?
There's a book preview on Amazon as well: http://www.amazon.com/Property-Theft-Pierre-Joseph-Proudhon-Reader/dp/1849350248
If you're interested in more reading:
http://www.amazon.com/War-That-Ended-Peace-Road/dp/0812980662/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462295092&sr=1-1&keywords=war+that+ended+peace
I just finished this book. Pretty good detail of the time period leading up to the war.
For reading on trench warfare, [John Ellis' Eye-Deep in Hell] (http://www.amazon.com/Eye-Deep-Hell-Trench-Warfare-World/dp/0801839475) is a must have.
Old, but a good general place to start for understanding revolutions. https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Revolution-Crane-Brinton/dp/0394700449
Widely acclaimed scholar Theda Skocpol. Considered a must read for scholars of revolutions.
https://www.amazon.com/States-Social-Revolutions-Comparative-Analysis/dp/1107569842
Hello! I'll suggest the following:
I hope this will help you understand the conflict. Have a enlightening read~!
I just finished reading "The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England by Marc Morris. I highly enjoyed it, he does a good job of looking at all the available sources and interpolating what most likely happened from all of them. I haven't read any books specifically about the Domesday Boom, but Morris' book has a pretty good chapter on it, although it's mostly about the change in property values and figuring out where armies moved based on value changes rather than on the writing of the book itself.
If you want a copy of the Domesday book though, I have this edition and like it a lot. It's almost completely the Book however, the introduction is just a page so it's not a lot of info on Domesday itself.
Hope that's helpful!
Try The Pursuit of Glory: The Five Revolutions that Made Modern Europe: 1648-1815.
If anyone needs something to read, this book is all about the Anglo-French rivalry after the Ottoman fall.
The Vote: How it Was Won, and How it Was Undermined - Paul Foot
The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution - Christopher Hill
My reading is normally/naturally about 700wpm. Not sure how or why, but I long ago stopped looking at small words, and haven't internally voiced what I read since 1st grade. I was able to read The Collapse of the Third Republic in about 4 evenings, probably half of that time being consumed by checking references and such things. And by evenings I mean a couple hours per.
I do slow down and mentally voice out a lot of what I read when it's fiction or purely for enjoyment, otherwise the insights and overall 'texture' or 'feel' of it is lost, which defeats the purpose. I'm not sure reading The Catcher in the Rye in 10 minutes would have any purpose or lead to any personal growth.
Bernard Cornwell, one of my favorite writers, has a series set in the 100 years' war (The Grail Quest). I've only read the 1st two books. Excellent books.
he also has a stand alone book, called Agincourt, which is also fantastic
He always has a historical note at the end of his books. he recommends The Hundred Years War: The English in France 1337-1453
George RR Martin (Song of ice & Fire aka Game of thrones) calls Cornwell one of his writing influences.
Agincourt by Juliet Barker, and Conquest - on the following Hundred Years War.
Have just finished both, and as well as being extremely readable, are filled with interesting facts and figures about 15th century life in England and France. Highly recommended.
Also Return of a King by William Dalrymple; superbly written book about 19th century Afghanistan. Best book I've read in a long time...
Modern European History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0070674531/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_NDeQzb2VA6DF1
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grand-Prix-Saboteurs-Drivers-British/dp/0955486807
I'm hastily summarizing from 1000 years of Annoying the French here:
Dom Perignon was actually trying to reduce the fizziness of champagne, because it kept exploding the bottles which it was kept in (he had started using corks instead of wooden pegs - much more efficient, but causing collateral bottle damage). However, the English were actually quite pleased with the results, and the industrialised coal-furnaces of Newcastle, were adept at making glass which didn't explode all over you when filled with champagne.
The proof of this is in Christopher Merret's paper to the, royal society in 1662 where he describes the process, and how to make champs even more bubbly.
(Bubbly) Champagne was very popular in English socialites, and the fame passed over the seas and was adopted by King Louis XIV as his wine of choice, as now, thanks to English technology, it was safe to drink. [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_(wine_region) has a slightly additional take on why it became popular.
I'm looking into how cities work and urban planning. How they decide what goes where and when and how big. I love the idea of how my city works, within its walls and everything, but I need to plan out its inner workings and its streets and neighborhoods to make the peoples fit into it. So I read a lot of things like Life in a Medieval City and I look at maps a lot.
Looking at the Desmond Seward book, (page 57 in the edition I have) he mentions Welsh and Cornish knife-men at the Battle of Crécy. Irish "kern" were among them, and the whole light infantry lot was referred to as "certain rascals who went on foot with great knives."
https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Years-War-English-1337-1453/dp/0140283617
The answer also changes depending on the year - a horse and rider moved a lot faster in 1815 compared to 1648 thanks to the quality of the roads.
Source: The Pursuit of Glory
Life in a Medieval City this book covers every thing i've ever wondered about the renaissance era. next up is the calamitous 14th century.
You should check out Desmond Seward's critically acclaimed account of the 100 year's war. It describes the use of Total War. I have it at home, but I am not there.
And, in the common parlance, scorched Earth involves doing something to ruin the productive value of the land.
It is mentioned in Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War, during about the 7th or 9th year of the war, when the Spartans, outside the walls of Athens and to Piraeus, ruin a lot of orchards.
From the book "Agincourt" by Juliet Barker
Yes, it's quoted on the page for The Merry Wives of Windsor as well, though both articles cite different sources (and neither are sources I'm familiar with). I first encountered it in college during a class I took on the origins of the Great War, I just don't remember which book I first read it in.
I highly recommend checking out both Rites of Spring by Modris Eksteins and 14-18: Understanding The Great War by Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau & Annette Becker, in any case. Both are fantastic books, easy to get into - and 14-18 was reissued in 2014 in a new edition for the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War.
A good (if maybe dated) overview - Alistair Horne - To Lose a Battle (France 1940)
certainly very complex as the other person posted, but yeah- the French had a vacuum in leadership, as well as manpower - something like 25% of France's male population had died in WWI. Plus their tactics of static defense had not kept up to the German tactics. The German army I've heard described as a prize fighter- can hit knockout blows, but is not built for a long slog of a fight. The French also didn't believe the Ardennes could be passable to German tanks, and the French employed their tanks widely dispersed, rather than concentrating them en masse.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Turned-Upside-Down-Revolution/dp/0140137327
Had more been referring to Gamelin's debacle, of anything! They reaaally didn't listen to Estienne or de Gaulle after him in the push to create independent armored divisions until it was far too late, right around the first Czechoslovak Crisis (The May Crisis) in '38. It was his words that Guderian had reflected in his formation of the Panzer divisions, as well as Guderian's experience on the opposite side of such a combined forces action during the "Black day of the German army," 3ème Bataille de Picardie, circa 1918 - if I'm remembering correctly! Guderian even credited the French in his memoirs, no less.
It's de Gaulle's espousing of Estienne's teachings so closely that helped urge the creation of LeClerc's 2e Division Blindée (aside from LeClerc's performance with the unit prior to the name, of course!). Prior to this the Tanks were interspersed throughout the units of the standing, defensive forces under overly-cautious Gamelin.
...There's much that can be ranted on regarding the debacle, The Collapse of the Third Republic by Shirer being quite a good book for such musings! He does not hide his bias therein, though his detailing of events is still quite stellar.
My great-uncle served with one of the Forces françaises libres divisions as a radio operator during the invasion of Germany at the end, and my grandfather as a submariner in the Les Forces Navales Françaises Libres - despite having been in port during la bataille de Mers el-Kébir, to be true - so the disposition of French forces has always been a passion hereabouts. Je suis un Franco-Américain, il est bon de savoir que l'histoire des deux côtés!
Have you taken any practice tests for the SAT/ACT yet? I wouldn't worry about them now but those tests are very important for college admission.
What AP exams are you thinking of studying? I am rather "old" but in my time crash courses are fantastic book for AP self-studying--I am only 21, am I old :?
This is also a great book that I used for the AP European History exam (score 4, shy of 5 >:(
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-European-History-Birdsall-Viault/dp/0070674531/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419553771&sr=1-12&keywords=ap+european+history
Whoops, link wasn't posted :(
I found Barbara Tuchman's 'A Distant Mirror' to be a very engaging book about the late middle ages. It was written in the 70s so I don't know if any of the research has been superseded since then.
If you're in the US, see http://www.amazon.com/Distant-Mirror-Calamitous-Century-ebook/dp/B004R1Q296/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382314669&sr=1-1&keywords=a+distant+mirror
Which reminds me, there is actually a whole chapter dedicated to all the Burgundies in Norman Davies’ Vanished Kingdoms. Of course, while interesting in pointing out how the concept of Burgundy shifted around geographically, it will not really tell you anything on how the Duchy of the Valois Dukes worked. I would not recommend it if you’re specifically looking on insights in how the medieval dukes organised their various and farflung holding from Bruges to Dijon. But it’s otherwise a very interesting book.
I don't think I'd be able to really stay updated, I never do with that sort of stuff. But, I have a reading list that you should add- that is if you are doing payed books:
For full on historians looking for depth in medieval subjects:
-Asbridge's The Crusades is a far better Crusades history that goes into good depth than any other I've read
-Morris' The Norman Conquest oncemore just a great book for depth and detail
-Jones' The Plantagenets this one I would avoid if you hate sensationalism in history, Dan Jones is a real historian and he writes it as a real historian but he's on the edge of being more entertainer level than educator level
-Moore's 2008 edition of The Formation of a Persecuting Society is definitely the best analysis of medieval heresy I've read
(+ for more details into his actual thought process and the full counter argument to his critics that came out against him later on )
For casual historians looking for analysis and shorter reads:
-Phillip's Holy Warriors is probably an overall better analysis than Asbridge but far less deep, if you like battles go for Asbridge but this is a far shorter read
-Asbridge's The Greatest Knight good book on the Plantagenets through the eyes of the knights
-Golding's Conquest and Colonisation a slightly more boring read, maybe go with the "A short introduction to" book isntead
-Pegg's A Most Holy War for lighter reading on medieval heresy