(Part 3) Best historical european biographies according to redditors
We found 2,560 Reddit comments discussing the best historical european biographies. We ranked the 765 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.
Reading a book on world war 2 right now, it's amazing how little the Brits ever considered they'd lose the war. They just armed themselves with handmade weapons like Molotov cocktails and waited to fuck up some nazi's if they ever invaded their island
Edit: If anyone is curious about the book, it's called The Last Lion by William Manchester. It's the last book in a trilogy about Winston Churchill's life and the first part of the book focuses on how Churchill came up with war strategy and basically kept the country together when they were fighting the Nazi's alone. It's absolutely fantastic.
TIL white people were originally a small tribe of albino outcasts.
Snapshots:
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Fair warning, the War of the Roses is a very complex and dense topic to dive into. Any book you pick up worth it's salt, will have (and better have) at least two chapters dedicated to just background before you even begin to get to the foundations of the causes for the War. The WotR is easily the most defining moment in English history between the Norman invasion and the Civil War and covers decades of history, literally.
Having said that, while this is not my subject area, and I'm not terribly well read in the topic, I do have a recommendation for a book that sits astride "popular history" and "academic history". I say that, because again, this is a dense subject and no book that is worth your time would be purely "pop history".
Alison Weir's War of the Roses, does a good job of making the subject accessible to readers of history, though not to fans of "lite history." "Lite History" to me are those pulpy history paperbacks that tend to populate the military history sections of bookstores about Navy Seals, Special Forces, Nazis, and those god awful books about the Merovingians being descendants of Jesus.
While the book only has one footnote that I can recall (giving a rough estimation of price equivalencies between 14th century money and late 20th Century), it does have an extensive bibliography and helpful index. Footnoting would be helpful in knowing the sources and providing additional information (my favorite thing about footnotes!) provided, but since the book is not "academic" its overlooked. The most helpful addition to the book are simplified family trees which I promise will be useful as the overlapping and twisting mixtures of marriages, second cousins, and family offshoots played a major part in being the cause and agitator of the war, and I promise you will refer to it more than once.
While the writing style is very casual and doesn't run down various rabbit hole topics that would fascinate an academic (and confuse the casual), it is still very dense. Keeping track of the names of the players, which Houses they were loyal to, and what role they play requires close attention to be paid or you will find yourself backtracking. I myself restarted the book three or four times before I reached page 100 over the years as I easily became lost and confused. I don't fault the writer at all as this was my first book on the subject and I often found myself lost. You will still need to sit quietly and read alone; this is not a book to read on a busy cross town bus, its by no means is a summer page turner.
Weir has a background in history, but is not a formal academic. She focuses mostly on historical fictions and biographies of England's royalty from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. You can clearly tell that she has strong familiarity with the subject, knows how to research, and is thorough in covering the topics she tries to tackle (though through out her career some have been better than others). She presents her works in a way that makes complex histories and dense materials accessible to those who want to go beyond a tv documentary familiarity but not ready to delve into the dense undergrowth of an academic book.
For a casual yet informative and quality work, I recommend Alison Weir's War of the Roses.
Just don't use it as a source for your history paper.
All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0008215170/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_wdRTAbFG8PNZM
?
Don't fret!
Calc and the higher maths are like a video game on paper.
This is a good intro and quite the stirring read.
That has to be the Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler story. Maybe this book?
>The only book to tell the full story of how and why Britain voted to leave the EU.
>This is the acclaimed inside story of the EU referendum in 2016 that takes you behind the scenes of the most extraordinary episode in British politics since the Second World War.
>With unparalleled access to all key players, this is a story of calculation, attempted coups and people torn between principles and loyalty. It is a book about our leaders and their closest aides, the decisions they make, how and why they make them and how they feel when they turn out to be so wrong.
>In All Out War, Tim Shipman has written a political history that reads like a thriller, exploring how and why David Cameron chose to take the biggest political gamble of his life, and why he lost.
If you were only allowed one book about Brexit, it’s the one most people seem to recommend
The Game of Thrones books (finally!) and an autobiography of Alan Turing called The Enigma, which is taking forever to get through, but is very interesting nonetheless.
According to this book, it was widespread to Soviet satellite such as Romania. She talks about how they were able to go from one choice in toilet paper to 2, and it was a huge deal in her town. Everybody was talking about it.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Survived-Communism-Even-Laughed/dp/0060975407
Thanks! I hope you enjoy it.
Unfortunately I don't know ancient Greek, so I had to rely on translations. I tried to use several translations and compare and contrast. My two favorites: The Oxford World Classics and The Landmark Arrian.
So I didn't look for linguistic similarities, but more subject matter similarities and what I knew to be Ptolemy's bias.
Europe's Last Chance: Why the European States Must Form a More Perfect Union by Guy Verhofstadt ;
The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy by T. R. Reid ;
On Governing Europe: A Federal Experiment by Andrew Duff ;
Towards a Federal Europe by Alexander H. Trechsel
The first two Afghan Wars are covered in Byron Farwell's Queen Victoria's Little Wars- Though Farwell's descriptions of the campaigns are brief, they are far better than anything I could write on the subject. You might also want to check out Osprey publishing's Essential Histories of the Anglo-Afghan Wars, which I must admit, I've not read. However, in my experience, the series gives good overviews of military campaigns and I'd imagine this volume would be no different.
So ANOTHER biggish problem is the Stalin section -
The story of Stalin here is ,essentially, the Trotsky version. The scheming, plotting, just kinda randomly came into power, was never an heir or protege of Lenin.
Of course the Stalinist version of Stalin isn't accurate either.
Here's what I can add to this :
All I got to say about that. Other than read Kotkin's book if you haven't already.
Or see posts that try to give a reasoned pro-union argument shoot of to -10 whilst a pro-indy get +50?
There is a distinct risk of creating an echo chamber here. You just have to look across the pond to see what could happen. see the now infamous sub of don-the-ald.
Echo chambers aren't good.
Yes Westminster has issues, but so does independence, as does the EU. I caught part of Guy Verhofstadt on Hardtalk and he fully admits that there are problems in the EU. His solution of more integration actually would solve a lot of these, using Brexit to force the EU countries to really get serious and not keep kicking a can down the road, is sensible. How far you actually agree or disagree with the solution is one debate, the other is does Europe get serious or keep kicking the can? What worked for 6 or 12 is becoming unworkable at 27+.
The Campaigns of Alexander by Arrian
You were responsible for either appeasing, empowering or financing fascism and leninism.
And don't let other redditors be fooled, the Western powers threw even Western countries under the bus, like that one time British bankers did anything in their power to protect the noble independence of central bankers, applying their “gentlemanly” rules and so appeasing the Nazis one last time.
http://holocaustonline.org/bank-for-international-settlements-bis/
http://holocaustonline.org/bank-of-england/
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/how-six-months-before-the-second-world-war-britain-gave-hitler-9-million-in-gold-that-belonged-to-another-country
http://www.globalresearch.ca/profits-ber-alles-american-corporations-and-hitler/4607
//www.amazon.com/Who-Financed-Hitler-Funding-1919-1933/dp/0671760831
http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Secret-Bankers-Neutrality-Holocaust/dp/080652121X?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaFklTLNy8c
http://www.amazon.com/Wall-Street-Bolshevik-Revolution-Capitalists/dp/190557035X
Downvote all you like, this doesn't erase the support and finance the fascists received from western bankers and governments until he proved to be a wild card.
I read The Wars of the Roses by Dan Jones after I finished the ASOIAF books. Really shed some light on history for me and how medieval politics and warfare really worked.
I would say most developed countries used a great deal of "planning" in their industrializing phases including the United States which basically went to a semi-planned economy and even a practically fully-planned economy during World War II (which had great benefits after the war). I also think most developed capitalist economies today are basically semi-planned corporate oligarchies.
I would also recommend the book "MITI and the Japanese Miracle" by Chalmers Johnson which is about Japanese industrial policy from 1925 to 1975. Description from Amazon:
>The focus of this book is on the Japanese economic bureaucracy, particularly on the famous Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), as the leading state actor in the economy. Although MITI was not the only important agent affecting the economy, nor was the state as a whole always predominant, I do not want to be overly modest about the importance of this subject. The particular speed, form, and consequences of Japanese economic growth are not intelligible without reference to the contributions of MITI. Collaboration between the state and big business has long been acknowledged as the defining characteristic of the Japanese economic system, but for too long the state's role in this collaboration has been either condemned as overweening or dismissed as merely supportive, without anyone's ever analyzing the matter.
>The history of MITI is central to the economic and political history of modern Japan. Equally important, however, the methods and achievements of the Japanese economic bureaucracy are central to the continuing debate between advocates of the communist-type command economies and advocates of the Western-type mixed market economies. The fully bureaucratized command economies misallocate resources and stifle initiative; in order to function at all, they must lock up their populations behind iron curtains or other more or less impermeable barriers. The mixed market economies struggle to find ways to intrude politically determined priorities into their market systems without catching a bad case of the "English disease" or being frustrated by the American-type legal sprawl. The Japanese, of course, do not have all the answers. But given the fact that virtually all solutions to any of the critical problems of the late twentieth century―energy supply, environmental protection, technological innovation, and so forth―involve an expansion of official bureaucracy, the particular Japanese priorities and procedures are instructive. At the very least they should forewarn a foreign observer that the Japanese achievements were not won without a price being paid.
Now, I'm not dodging your question. Regarding the Soviet Union, I would recommend the book "Farm to Factory" by Robert Allen, who is not a Marxist economics historian by any means. And he shows the absolute superiority of Soviet planning policies in the 1930s and 1940s compared to any realistic alternative, but which ran into serious problems in the 1970s and 1980s.
From one of the reviews:
>The final part of this book contains a much smaller and less detailed discussion of the failures of the Soviet planning models in the late 1970s and the 1980s. The author here makes various subtle and interesting arguments. Firstly, he points out that investment put into military production and upkeep was from a purely economic point of view practically entirely wasted, mostly because it came at the expense of investment in other types of heavy industry than armaments, which the USSR dearly needed. The enormous losses of WWII also contributed here, with much capital being destroyed. A second result here was the enormous costs in manpower for the USSR of their almost Pyrrhic victory in WWII - the end of large quantities of newly free labor coming in from the countryside limited the expansion possibilities of all labor-intensive industry, which the USSR had hitherto relied on. Here again appears as useful the model of Soviet economics developed by Abram Feldman, which explored the interaction between capital and labor and how extra capital in a poor country like the 1920s USSR could lead to a positive feedback loop effect if invested in heavy industry (i.e. production of more 'capital'), since every unit of capital in such a situation led to vastly larger increases in output than every new unit of labor. From the late 1960s on labor, however, became the main constraint in output, and the old Preobrazhensky accumulation strategy no longer worked.
>The main question is of course why the Soviet government did not adequately respond to this, and here Allen is for the first time severely critical: he identifies a number of major planning and investment errors on the part of the Brezhnev leadership. The most important of these is the wasteful retooling and upkeep of old industry where the production of new modern industry would have been more efficient, and secondly extremely wasteful unproductive investment in raw materials production in Siberia. This latter part was the result of the minerals and oil production in European Russia, the Ukraine etc. being largely depleted, so expansion had to be sought in Siberia, where costs were vastly higher. Coal production in the Donbass region peaked in 1976, after which the Soviet government was forced to massively invest in lignite (brown coal) production in Krasnoiarsk. Brown coal is not very efficient and the costs of operating in a vast desolate area as central Siberia are high, so that productivity of capital invested plummeted. Much the same applied to oil. Only natural gas production was something of a success story, which can still be seen today in Russia's position as major exporter of natural gas to the European continent.
>Allen negatively compares this autarkic development strategy to that pursued by Japan, which had much fewer natural resources after WWII, but nonetheless greatly expanded its industrial production in these sectors by importing the raw materials. Drops in transport costs after the war made this profitably possible. Of course, the USSR, as Allen acknowledges, had political reasons for indigenous development even at higher costs, where Japan could operate entirely as an American vassal. It must be said though that Soviet energy use was very high per $1000 of GDP, and that conservation programs and saving the natural environment mostly failed due to the antique state of much of Soviet industry and the enormous scale of its factories. Short term "shock" responses to these problems by Brezhnev and successive governments only made the situation worse. Here Allen points to systematic deficiencies in proper cost accounting and saving, which had (correctly) not been a priority in the 1930s, but had to become one in the 1970s. The Soviet political system at that time was not very well-suited to adapt to this, and Brezhnev et al.'s 'dropping the ball' on these major economic reform issues played a large part in the fall of this system. Allen emphasizes though that it was not planning as such that failed, just that the plans were bad. These analyses are also along the lines of those provided in Paresh Chattopadhyay's excellent study of Soviet economic policy.
My favorite: Alison Weir
Peasants level? I would assume then that you mean the Red Army. Try the following:
Blood on the Shores
Over the Abyss
Through the Maelstrom
Red Sniper on the Eastern Front
Panzer Destroyer
Guns against the Reich
Alan Turing rocks! It's way past time for the British government to apologize, but better late than never.
If you're at all curious about Turing, I recommend "Alan Turing: The Enigma." (http://www.amazon.ca/Alan-Turing-Enigma-Andrew-Hodges/dp/0099116413/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252681070&sr=8-1)
It's the best bio I've found of him and seems to provide the basis for some of the other bios out there.
" has enough war".... oh boy.......
I
m stull surprised to see how little people know about warfare in this period..<br /> <br /> Heres something for you to read, just scroll down untill the late 1800s and youll find more than a little warfare.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Africa#African_Great_Lakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_Kingdom#United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland_.281801.E2.80.931922.29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Germany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Netherlands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_France#French_Colonial_Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Belgium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Spain#Restoration
https://www.amazon.com/Queen-Victorias-Little-Byron-Farwell/dp/0393302350
I would recommend 'Tommy - The British Soldier on the Western Front' by Richard Holmes. It is very respectful to the men and I didn't become bogged down in difficult and confusing reading as I do with some books. There's an interesting chapter on the structure of the British Army which I really couldn't get my head around until I read it.
For the First World War I strongly recommend Richard Holmes' Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front 1914-1918 which is both comprehensive and accessible. Holmes' masterpiece Soldiers: Army lives and loyalties from Redcoats to Dusty Warriors is excellent, but has a much broader scope so may offer less detail.
For a view on how Junior Officers and NCOs interacted you can try John Lewis-Stempell's Six Weeks: The short and gallant life of the British Officer in the First World War. I must caution that I am only half way through it and so far have found it to be rather sentimental and lacking in critique, but it is a good read nonetheless.
On a point of order Colour Sergeant is a rank specific to the infantry and Royal Marines, in the Household Cavalry it is Staff Corporal (or Company Quartermaster Corporal) and in other cap badges the rank is Staff Sergeant: something to bear in mind if you're interested in broader research. Also The Rifles spell it as serjeant.
You should check out both Tiger Tracks and The Last Panther by Wolfgang Faust. Memoirs of his experiences as part of a Tiger and Panther crew on the Eastern Front and last days of the war in Germany. They aren't that long so you will probably breeze through them but they are very engaging.
In the interest of trying to recommend books you may not have read, I am suggesting some that may seem far afield from books like HPMOR. But I have read each of them multiple times and loved them, and all of them gave me a lot to think about.
I just created a comment for Chapter 85 recommending Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks. It is non-fiction, a painfully honest autobiography, and not very similar except for the bits about Knut Haukelid, but it is an amazing book. The author was the head of codes for SOE during WWII and so the book is about cryptography and secrets. And courage. I'm reading it for the third time right now.
Tuf Voyaging is a collection of short stories by George R. R. Martin (no one named Stark is in it), about Haviland Tuf, a misanthropic cat-loving merchant who starts with his humble ship "Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices" and ends up with terrifying power and some hard decisions to make about how to use it. I'd call it comedy because it is hilarious, but it is also brilliantly-written horror.
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is a tiny surreal book by Stanislaw Lem, about a journal uncovered by a post-apolcalyptic civilization. The main character has no name, and is apparently a spy on a mission so secret even he doesn't know about it. It is nightmarish, has absolutely no rationality to it at all, is clever and unlike any other book I've read, and most people haven't heard of it.
The Control of Nature by John McPhee is another non-fiction book. I recommend it for the beauty of the language, the depth of the research, and the fact that it is incredibly fascinating and impossible to put down. McPhee makes every person he meets into someone you want to know, and his science has substance without ever losing that sense of wonder.
What you're looking for is the first book of the Stalin trilogy
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stalin-Paradoxes-1878-1928-Stephen-Kotkin/dp/1594203792/ref=sr_1_2?crid=23KDC6NFEEFH4&amp;keywords=kotkin+stalin+volume+3&amp;qid=1573896635&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=kotkin%2Cstripbooks%2C199&amp;sr=1-2
Yes it's 900 pages but it's amazing. I actually put off listening to Hardcore history because I was reading this and didn't want to be interrupted. I'm about to read the second book, which is about the 1930-41 period and expect it to be just as good.
Check out How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed, by Slavenka Drakulic
It may well be on the net somewhere, but it's all in this incredibly detailed and unbiased book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Out-War-Britains-Political/dp/0008215170/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1540993346&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=all+out+war+tim+shipman
>Is that authoritarian and fascist?
It can be authoritarian and not fascist. You know. Fascism has lots of economics tied to it (not always, like José Antonio's Falangists were sorta Trans-class Syndicalist and anti-capitalist, but after the '36-39 war Franco said fuck that and they did as most fascists do. Beak unions, get rid of workers rights, give massive tax subsidies and tax cuts for the wealthy... Like Benny said, he likes to call it Corporatism, stuff that antifa certainly doesn't promote. You can say they're authoritarian for rioting for a troll (though even there I suspect there were some folks in black hoodies who were WAY too organized at the beginning of the protest, lots of agent provocateurish stuff... though now, Mimesis, kids do it 'cause they saw it on in Berkeley...)
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You don't have to believe me about the fascism and $$$ go to your library and read ; Palmiro Togliatti, Lectures on Fascism (New York: International Publishers, 1976) Daniel Guerin, Fascism and Big Business (New York: Monad Press/Pathfinder Press, 1973); James Pool and Suzanne Pool, Who Financed Hitler (New York: Dial Press, 1978)
Hawking's On The Shoulders of Giants
Gribbin's The Scientists
Smithsonian's Timelines of Science
There are also a ton of good historical books on almost every major milestone in physics - a few I enjoyed:
The Clockwork Universe by Edward Dolnick
Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electric Field by Nancy Forbes
E=MC2 by David Bodanis
Quantum by Manjit Kumar
The Big Bang by Simon Singh
I can't link you to any histories of biology or chemistry, sorry, those aren't my areas of knowledge.
Thanks very much! Would anyone happen to have a PDF version of 'Farm to Factory' by Robert Allen?
Verhofstadt is an unabashed Americophile. Here's the description of his last book, which is subtitled "a more perfect union":
>https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465096859/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
>The answer, according to Guy Verhofstadt, is for Europe to remake itself in the model of the United States of America. The former Prime Minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt is currently the leader of a powerful center-left coalition in the European Parliament, and he has seen first-hand the dismal failings and pernicious stalemates of Europe's leadership. As it stands Europe suffers from the worst of both worlds, with the EU combining the bureaucracy and obstinacy of empire with all the divisiveness and bigotry of old nationalisms. Much as America's sovereign states traded self-government for the security, efficiency, and prosperity of a federal government--and thus laid the foundation for the immense wealth and power of the U.S. today--so too must Europe's independent nations accept the mantle of federalism so as to remain prosperous and influential into the future.
He also wrote another book which is simply titled "The United States of Europe." So yeah, when he said the US was an "empire" in that speech, he was definitely describing something he wanted the EU to aspire to be. It may not have been the most politic choice of words, but he said it. Farage didn't make it up.
edit: and now that that's settled, you have redditors saying that he didn't know what he was saying, because he's Belgian. Please- he has a firm grasp of English and is doubtlessly aware of the connotations of the word.
As far as Stalin biographies go, I would recommend you read volume one of Stephen Kotkin's three part bio on him. Here's the link:
Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594203792/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_EsJfvb01P8RMZ
It's very interesting, and definitely not dry at at all.
Edit: Additionally there is also Oxford's History of the Soviet Union post-1945, although seeing as I haven't had the chance to read it yet I can't tell you just how readable it actually is.
Last of the Empires: A History of the Soviet Union 1945-1991 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0192803190/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_WuJfvb0JSYHNT
I don't know which category this would go under- it best fits "Broad overviews" but it's so in-depth I would hesitate to place it there. Maybe a new category of something like "Great Britain" or "English Perspective"?
Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front (link) by Richard Holmes (2005)
Incredibly in-depth overview of England during the War that thoroughly explains the experience of the average Tommy and how the English army operated. Uses extensive primary sources (letters, diaries, etc.) and is a good place to go if you're interested in England during the War, although it's pretty long for a casual read (~750 pages).
http://www.amazon.com/Farm-Factory-Reinterpretation-Industrial-Revolution/dp/0691144311/
http://www.amazon.com/Economic-Transformation-Soviet-Union-1913-1945/dp/052145770X/ref=pd_sim_b_1
These two should be helpful!
to me, the most interesting mathematical history books are those with a targeted goal, meaning they cover the historical aspect of a specific topic, time period, person or group of people, etc. these, at least in my opinion, provide the most insight, as some of the more general books, particular those written for the general public, are too overarching to get much out of. also, another suggestion is to find biographies of mathematicians or physicists. i personally do not find any math history prior to the 1500-1600s or so that interesting, so all of my suggestions are appropriately biased.
a few suggestions are:
i don't know of many books that follow the history of a certain subject that are any good. most of my historical knowledge regarding a certain subject is taken from multiple sources. a good method is to read articles, track down the books and/or papers that are referenced by a certain book or paper you like, find biographies of the mathematicians involved, etc. for instance, interviews with mathematicians (like those in the ams notices and the one i posted the other day) are fantastic troves of information regarding the history of certain topics, because the story is being told by a direct participant.
I've been meaning to read this book, which addresses these questions. Unfortunately, I can't find a pdf. From the book description:
>To say that history's greatest economic experiment--Soviet communism--was also its greatest economic failure is to say what many consider obvious. Here, in a startling reinterpretation, Robert Allen argues that the USSR was one of the most successful developing economies of the twentieth century. He reaches this provocative conclusion by recalculating national consumption and using economic, demographic, and computer simulation models to address the "what if" questions central to Soviet history. Moreover, by comparing Soviet performance not only with advanced but with less developed countries, he provides a meaningful context for its evaluation.
>Although the Russian economy began to develop in the late nineteenth century based on wheat exports, modern economic growth proved elusive. But growth was rapid from 1928 to the 1970s--due to successful Five Year Plans. Notwithstanding the horrors of Stalinism, the building of heavy industry accelerated growth during the 1930s and raised living standards, especially for the many peasants who moved to cities. A sudden drop in fertility due to the education of women and their employment outside the home also facilitated growth.
>While highlighting the previously underemphasized achievements of Soviet planning, Farm to Factory also shows, through methodical analysis set in fluid prose, that Stalin's worst excesses--such as the bloody collectivization of agriculture--did little to spur growth. Economic development stagnated after 1970, as vital resources were diverted to the military and as a Soviet leadership lacking in original thought pursued wasteful investments.
Pretty much all of the books about Alexander the Great are based on Arrian, Plutarch, and (had to look it up) Rufus. I found Arrian very readable, and now that there is a Landmark Arrian, you might as well read it. There are maps on almost every page. It's pretty sweet.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Landmark-Arrian-Campaigns-Alexander/dp/1400079675
If you want a book specifically about Turing the man, rather than just his mathematical work Alan Turing: the enigma by Andrew Hodges is great.
Edit: See reviews here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alan-Turing-Enigma-Andrew-Hodges/dp/0099116413
Alison Weir is a good mix of informative and readable; this book in particular would be a good start.
I highly recommend a book called The Clockwork Universe. Not specifically about Leibniz, but discusses him quite a bit (mainly in context with Newton) and is a very accessible read.
Read All Out War by Tim Shipman, it doesn’t have many kind words for Cameron
The actual book that the movie was based on is actually pretty good. There is also Enigma: Battle for the Code that goes into much more detail about all the players involved in breaking the Enigma, not just Turing.
You might also be interested in r/history's recommended reading list (on their side bar).
Some nice books for you to read describing the russian side:
On of the best documentaires i have seen about the eastern front is BBC's war of the Centrury, with interviews with russian and german veterans
Enjoy
Bull shit. when? where?
Edit: I am wrong. according to this biography he did hold a view similar to the quote, but he never said exactly that.
For his campaigns, this is a great edition of the main history we have (has maps, appendices on important topics etc.)
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https://www.amazon.co.uk/Landmark-Arrian-Campaigns-Alexander-Anchor/dp/1400079675/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549829953&sr=8-1&keywords=landmark+arrian
He might not have acted drunk, but he was definitely drinking a lot. He woke up to a watered down brandy, and drank several watered down brandies all through the day. At both lunch and dinner he would drink champagne and brandy, and he would imbibe heavily after dinner.
I recently finished Volume III of The Last Lion, which dedicated a lot of space to Churchill's true drinking habits. He was definitely a high-functioning alcoholic.
I'm not trying to disparage Churchill -- he's my hero, in fact. He came from a different time during which it was acceptable for English aristocrats to drink heavily.
"A Higher Call" by Adam Makos and Larry Alexander
You can find the book on Amazon with the following link, or (As I highly recommend) check out a copy from your local library. It's available as an audiobook as well, if that's more your thing. A good read/listen.
Link is to the Amazon Kindle edition.
https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Call-Incredible-Chivalry-War-Torn-ebook/dp/B0095ZQ36G/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1
The Royal Stuarts by Alan Massie is a fantastically written account of the Stuart dynasty, from their origins in Scotland to their ultimate fall in the early 18th century.
The Plantagenets by Dan Jones an equally enthralling account of the Plantagenet dynasty (the Angevin line), from Henry II to Richard II--which I believe will give you what you're looking for in the medieval period. More books along this line could be Edward III: The Perfect King by Roger Mortimer which gives a much more in-depth and nuanced view of one of England's greatest monarchs (as well as some controversial opinions of Mortimer's regarding Edward II). Another of Mortimer's books Henry IV: The Righteous King gives a good, well-written look at the "usurper" of the Angevin line and the beginning of the reign of the House of Lancaster.
You might then move on to The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir or The Wars of the Roses by Dan Jones for a good account of the tumultuous civil wars of the 15th century (I've read the former twice and adore it; I have not yet had the opportunity to read Jones' sequel).
I too am still searching for a satisfying biography of Cromwell!
Great book:
https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Call-Incredible-Chivalry-War-Torn-ebook/dp/B0095ZQ36G/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_img_14?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Y5Q0EATT0JQGT71A44SM
Between Silk and Cyanide, memoir of a British codemaker during the 2nd World War
> no, no the resources of capitalism aren't there to help people, how naive do you have to be to believe that? They're hard at work making a profit, if they help people it's purely incidental.
Not that I agree with your contention but even if their "helping people" is only incidental does that not still count as "helping people?" Aside from that even what you may consider to be "useless trinkets," like say 22" chrome wheels with spinners or frivolous single-use items, still provide some value in helping to alleviate societies ills. Demand for those products often directly lead tools and processes that directly help people, or aid the development/production of those things by creating economies of scale that reduce the input costs of other things.
You also seem to hit on this profit motive in a way that reminds me of that old Warrant album from the 80s. There are plenty of companies, and people, these days that incorporate social causes into their business plan, and for that they are rewarded with regular, repeat business. Starbucks paying over market price for their coffee comes to mind. As do Patagonia, Costco, Cliff Bars etc. Those companies all have business practices that result in voluntarily paying higher costs to deliver the same goods "because it is the right thing to do." Thus, I simply disagree with your implied contention that its all "just for the profit." There is certainly a lot of that, but its far too broad a brush to paint everyone that way, and much to cynical.
> Also what's your proof that even the social democracy of marxist-leninist states wasn't capable of solving these problems better than your free market countries?
Well a search of marxist-leninist societies doesn't turn up much. Not that a lack of them means it isn't as good or better, but it doesn't give us much to work with. The only example I can think to point to would be the USSR, but even some academics seem to think Stalin just used that label to justify his methods. So, if you assume it was an example of marxist-leninist capability then I direct you to this book. As she notes, that government was unable to provide even basic life necessities like feminine care products that were commonplace elsewhere in the world.
Further, the fundamental tenet of free-market systems being better at allocating resources is based on the idea that a self-organizing system of individual transactions is better able to provide what people need (or think they need) than a centrally planned system run by a group of "enlightened" individuals. Since that would basically require omniscience to execute with perfect effect it isn't the slightest bit unreasonable to think that the actual output would be substantially less than perfect. I am not saying a free-market system is perfect, by any means, but it does appear that crowd sourcing your economic planning, if you will, provides a greater level of omniscience than whatever single party ruling could do. This makes the structural level of output much higher in my view.
>
> Anyway your last paragraph is a straight up lie so we're done here.
Well, whether its a lie depends on my subjective belief as to its veracity. Since I believed it when I typed it, it isn't a lie. I suspect you meant that its incorrect. If it is, tell me how it is that a lack of food in famine areas is a result of people being too freely able to grow and sell food there? How is the existence of people made homeless because they can't afford a place to live a result of too much development or too many units for rent/sale?
Getting back to the original topic of discussion about socialism's tendency to result in totalitarianism, you have all the evidence you need for that in your own words.
>Or make people want a good or service. Both work and making people want a service they don't need is easier as we already have everything we actually need, or at least the people with lots of money do.
When read together with your other statements it seems quite obvious that you would view many of the free-market's pursuits as frivolous and needless in the face of the suffering of others. How can socialism actually prevent that "waste" in your eyes without, in fact, regulating the minutiae of daily life and people's decisions? The simple fact that you and I differ on this is evidence of the natural variability in thought. Since people who think differently value different things how can you possibly divert all that effort to alleviate suffering without, to some extent, limiting the pursuits of those with different values? If your answer to that is to somehow make their values align, how is that not totalitarianism in every conceivable way?
Libertarians these days are becoming increasingly known for rather high marks on systemizing and exceptionally low marks for empathy. If that is true, then I wonder if for socialists it is the reverse. It would explain a lot.
>What is your definition of fascism?
Funding by capitalists https://www.amazon.com/Who-Financed-Hitler-Funding-1919-1933/dp/0671760831
>Yet, beyond this diversity, all these fascist regimes had two characteristics in common:
> (1) In the circumstances, they were all willing to manage the government and society in such a way as not to call the fundamental principles of capitalism into question, specifically private capitalist property, including that of modern monopoly capitalism. That is why I call these different forms of fascism particular ways of managing capitalism and not political forms that challenge the latter’s legitimacy, even if “capitalism” or “plutocracies” were subject to long diatribes in the rhetoric of fascist speeches. The lie that hides the true nature of these speeches appears as soon as one examines the “alternative” proposed by these various forms of fascism, which are always silent concerning the main point—private capitalist property. It remains the case that the fascist choice is not the only response to the challenges confronting the political management of a capitalist society. It is only in certain conjunctures of violent and deep crisis that the fascist solution appears to be the best one for dominant capital, or sometimes even the only possible one. The analysis must, then, focus on these crises.
>(2) The fascist choice for managing a capitalist society in crisis is always based—by definition even—on the categorical rejection of “democracy.” Fascism always replaces the general principles on which the theories and practices of modern democracies are based—recognition of a diversity of opinions, recourse to electoral procedures to determine a majority, guarantee of the rights of the minority, etc.—with the opposed values of submission to the requirements of collective discipline and the authority of the supreme leader and his main agents. This reversal of values is then always accompanied by a return of backward-looking ideas, which are able to provide an apparent legitimacy to the procedures of submission that are implemented. The proclamation of the supposed necessity of returning to the (“medieval”) past, of submitting to the state religion or to some supposed characteristic of the “race” or the (ethnic) “nation” make up the panoply of ideological discourses deployed by the fascist powers.
(the above is what trump was up to in his campaigning).
https://monthlyreview.org/2014/09/01/the-return-of-fascism-in-contemporary-capitalism/
The question of capitalist “decay”; the meaning of Lenin’s definition of imperialism as “decaying capitalism”; the role of fascism as a phenomenon of an advanced stage of this process in the period of the general crisis of capitalism; and, in particular, the role of fascism as a retrograde factor in relation to the development of the productive forces.
The question of the “inevitability” of the victory of Communism over capitalism and fascism, and the correct understanding of this inevitability is not automatic, not mechanical, but dependent on the human factor.
It should be explained that the general aim of my book on fascism as to analyze fascism on the basis of the whole present stage of capitalist development, following and carrying forward Lenin’s analysis of imperialism to the present stage, and showing in what sense fascism represents an extreme phenomenon of this process of capitalism in decay, whose guiding laws were already analyzed by Lenin.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/dutt/articles/1935/question_of_fascism.htm
>Can you show me them being debunked?
Well for a start, the stats dont adjust for anything, like proximity, people that live boxed up together are more likely to commit crime, black people are more likely to be boxed up together, white working class are more spread out.
If white collar crime was treated like working class crime the prisons would be full of white people.
The most prolific mass murderers by far in america are elite wasps, murdering people in other countries.The largest financial crimes are perpetrated by white collar criminals, again this is wasps.
Lots more debunking here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fuckthealtright/comments/6xhtog/alt_right_talking_points_debunked_race_and_crime/
The far right tell all sorts of lies, one of those is that Hitler was socialist. He murdered all the socialists in his party, another is scapegoating other races.
Dont trust right libertarian info any more than feminist info.
>As noted above, he was not a pagan and his opposition to Cyril was a purely political struggle for hierarchical supremacy in the city and had nothing much to do with religion. And he was not murdered by anyone, though he did get a stone to the head in a demonstration which in turn sparked the tit-for-tat factional killing that ended with the political assassination of Hypatia.
>
>>"Cyril next began to plot against his other major Pagan opponent in Alexandria, Hypatia. As a woman who represented heretical teachings, including experimental science and pagan religion, she made an easy target."
>
>More fantasy. We have no evidence she did any "experimental science" and there is no reliable evidence that her learning, any "heretical teachings", her paganism or even her gender were factors at all. She seems to have been targeted simply because she was a political ally of Orestes in a factional squabble.
>
>>"He preached that Christ had no female apostles, or teachers. Therefore, female teachers had no place in Christianity. This sermon incited a mob led by fanatical Christian monks to attack Hypatia as she drove her chariot through Alexandria. "
>
>Again, this is straight from the 2009 movie. There is no such preaching even hinted at in the sources.
>
>>"The Dark Ages Begin"
>
>Anything that we could call "the dark ages" began somewhat later and in far off western Europe, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Hypatia lived in the Eastern Empire, which lasted for another 1000 years
>
>>"Hypatia’s students fled to Athens."
>
>There is no evidence of them fleeing anywhere.
>
>>"The Neo-Platonism school she headed continued in Alexandria until the Arabs invaded in 642."
>
>So much for her death bringing on a dark age then.
>
>>"When they burned the library of Alexandria, using it as fuel for their baths, the works of Hypatia were destroyed."
>
>The legend of the Caliph Omar burning any library in Alexandria is dated to centuries after his time and is almost certainly nonsense. And the actual Library had ceased to exist before Hypatia was even born anyway, as explained above.
>
>>"Her writings are only known today through the works of others who quoted her "
>
>No they aren't and no they didn't.
>
>>"Cyril, the fanatic Christian who incited her destruction, was made a saint."
>
>At least they managed to get one thing right. These articles about Hypatia are usually riddled with nonsense, but I count at least 26 errors of fact or outright fantasies and inventions in this one. I think this must be some kind of record.
>
>Sources:
>Maria Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (harvard, 1995)
>Edward J. Watts, Hypatia (Oxford, 2017)
Something to really look forward too, I'm half way through the book by Adam Makos called "A Higher Call" about a German fighter pilot and a B-17 Bomber crew. Most people who flew bombers in WW2 must have ad a death sentence or something. One of of the fascinating things I've learned is pilots in bombing squadrons all volunteered
https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Call-Incredible-Chivalry-War-Torn-ebook/dp/B0095ZQ36G/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Adam+Makos&qid=1572876521&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&sr=8-2
This author is amazing at telling stories that are captivating
[New biography of Stalin] (http://www.amazon.com/Stalin-Volume-Paradoxes-Power-1878-1928/dp/1594203792)
Also I would recommend these two books https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War
and https://www.amazon.com/Last-Lion-Churchill-Defender-1940-1965/dp/0345548639
They will enlighten you as to the aspect of personal integrity in the face of adversity. Taking the right and honorable path despite personal pain and sacrifice but at the same time not abandoning who you are or becoming a pleb. This music I find most inspirational also https://youtu.be/KkM71JPHfjk
I didn't "concoct" anything. You just don't pay attention to what your leaders are doing.
Germany tried this before, but was stopped by Britain, and has decided to go forward, anyway, just like it did with the EU constitution.
It's not a "conspiracy" when the actor in question says what they want to do, and then does it.
Well of course the first place to start would be Wikipedia. You could look up:
1936 Soviet Constitution, Gosplan, five year plans, collectivization, kolkhoz, Gulags, the Virgin Lands campaign, TASS, Izvestia, Pravda, Elektronika, their incredible space program, etc. And of course the leaders. And the various republics (SSRs) would be good to know. In fact the country itself was CCCP = SSSR.
Read about all the post-collapse conflicts: Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Chechnya, Transnistria, Russia-Georgia war, Ukraine Crisis. And about how turbulent the 90s were.
There are personal accounts of the gigantic conflict with the Germans, like those of Vasili Grossman and Marshal Zhukov. There are transcripts of interviews with Khrushchev and the books that Gorbachev wrote on Glasnost and Perestroika. Historian David M. Glantz writes almost exclusively about the Soviet military. There are the accounts of dissidents like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov.
There are some classic pieces of literature like Master and Margarita and Dr. Zhivago. And music on YouTube by people like Shostakovich.
There are surplus stores like Soviet-Power.com that sell helmets, medals, coins, busts, and the like if that is what you are into. And blogs like English Russia.
r/history here on reddit probably has some articles to peruse. r/HistoryPorn often has old Russian photos.
And of course I've talked to several people on this forum who lived during Soviet times. I'm sure some here or elsewhere on reddit would be happy to tell you.
This book (if accurate) paints the nightmare scene of panzers in the East.
https://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Tracks-Classic-Panzer-Memoir-ebook/dp/B00UASW4GK/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1492711632&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=Panzer
In terms of the whole war, no, that would be very hard to find. Still, if you're willing to settle for the British perspective, Richard Holmes' Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front, 1914-1918 is a wonderful volume. It's written with a popular audience in mind, but it's rigorously sourced and -- at 600+ pages -- very detailed. I've recommended it a lot in this subreddit, but I have no qualms about doing so again!
https://www.amazon.com/Wars-Roses-Fall-Plantagenets-Tudors-ebook/dp/B00INIXM42
i bet you'll like this.
>As noted above, he was not a pagan and his opposition to Cyril was a purely political struggle for hierarchical supremacy in the city and had nothing much to do with religion. And he was not murdered by anyone, though he did get a stone to the head in a demonstration which in turn sparked the tit-for-tat factional killing that ended with the political assassination of Hypatia.
>
>>"Cyril next began to plot against his other major Pagan opponent in Alexandria, Hypatia. As a woman who represented heretical teachings, including experimental science and pagan religion, she made an easy target."
>
>More fantasy. We have no evidence she did any "experimental science" and there is no reliable evidence that her learning, any "heretical teachings", her paganism or even her gender were factors at all. She seems to have been targeted simply because she was a political ally of Orestes in a factional squabble.
>
>>"He preached that Christ had no female apostles, or teachers. Therefore, female teachers had no place in Christianity. This sermon incited a mob led by fanatical Christian monks to attack Hypatia as she drove her chariot through Alexandria. "
>
>Again, this is straight from the 2009 movie. There is no such preaching even hinted at in the sources.
>
>>"The Dark Ages Begin"
>
>Anything that we could call "the dark ages" began somewhat later and in far off western Europe, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Hypatia lived in the Eastern Empire, which lasted for another 1000 years
>
>>"Hypatia’s students fled to Athens."
>
>There is no evidence of them fleeing anywhere.
>
>>"The Neo-Platonism school she headed continued in Alexandria until the Arabs invaded in 642."
>
>So much for her death bringing on a dark age then.
>
>>"When they burned the library of Alexandria, using it as fuel for their baths, the works of Hypatia were destroyed."
>
>The legend of the Caliph Omar burning any library in Alexandria is dated to centuries after his time and is almost certainly nonsense. And the actual Library had ceased to exist before Hypatia was even born anyway, as explained above.
>
>>"Her writings are only known today through the works of others who quoted her "
>
>No they aren't and no they didn't.
>
>>"Cyril, the fanatic Christian who incited her destruction, was made a saint."
>
>At least they managed to get one thing right. These articles about Hypatia are usually riddled with nonsense, but I count at least 26 errors of fact or outright fantasies and inventions in this one. I think this must be some kind of record.
>
>Sources:
>Maria Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (harvard, 1995)
>Edward J. Watts, Hypatia (Oxford, 2017)
With respect to the Haredi community, you're probably right; however, the question arises: Is it possible to evoke pressure from the inside? Put differently, is the Haredi community so well isolated that it will be essentially unresponsive to any outside influence whatsoever? On the other hand, are there ways to effectively appeal to change?
I'm thinking of some parallel to Slavenka Drakulic's description of the true Iron Curtain during the Soviet era being made up of "glossy pictures of beautiful women in amazing clothes," i.e. representing a winsome boundary with the West marked by appeal and not just partition. (Can't remember if this was in Cafe Europa or How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed.)
>As noted above, he was not a pagan and his opposition to Cyril was a purely political struggle for hierarchical supremacy in the city and had nothing much to do with religion. And he was not murdered by anyone, though he did get a stone to the head in a demonstration which in turn sparked the tit-for-tat factional killing that ended with the political assassination of Hypatia.
>
>>"Cyril next began to plot against his other major Pagan opponent in Alexandria, Hypatia. As a woman who represented heretical teachings, including experimental science and pagan religion, she made an easy target."
>
>More fantasy. We have no evidence she did any "experimental science" and there is no reliable evidence that her learning, any "heretical teachings", her paganism or even her gender were factors at all. She seems to have been targeted simply because she was a political ally of Orestes in a factional squabble.
>
>>"He preached that Christ had no female apostles, or teachers. Therefore, female teachers had no place in Christianity. This sermon incited a mob led by fanatical Christian monks to attack Hypatia as she drove her chariot through Alexandria. "
>
>Again, this is straight from the 2009 movie. There is no such preaching even hinted at in the sources.
>
>>"The Dark Ages Begin"
>
>Anything that we could call "the dark ages" began somewhat later and in far off western Europe, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Hypatia lived in the Eastern Empire, which lasted for another 1000 years
>
>>"Hypatia’s students fled to Athens."
>
>There is no evidence of them fleeing anywhere.
>
>>"The Neo-Platonism school she headed continued in Alexandria until the Arabs invaded in 642."
>
>So much for her death bringing on a dark age then.
>
>>"When they burned the library of Alexandria, using it as fuel for their baths, the works of Hypatia were destroyed."
>
>The legend of the Caliph Omar burning any library in Alexandria is dated to centuries after his time and is almost certainly nonsense. And the actual Library had ceased to exist before Hypatia was even born anyway, as explained above.
>
>>"Her writings are only known today through the works of others who quoted her "
>
>No they aren't and no they didn't.
>
>>"Cyril, the fanatic Christian who incited her destruction, was made a saint."
>
>At least they managed to get one thing right. These articles about Hypatia are usually riddled with nonsense, but I count at least 26 errors of fact or outright fantasies and inventions in this one. I think this must be some kind of record.
>
>Sources:
>Maria Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (harvard, 1995)
>Edward J. Watts, Hypatia (Oxford, 2017)
>The general gist of this statement pretty much agrees that an immobile Abrams took some hostile fire and survived.
Which is the only thing that is true, the rest is made up flavour details straight from Tom Clancy's imagination. It reads a lot like that bogus Tiger Tank memoir.
>I've encountered it myself, reading about (non-military) events that I took part in. To expect anything else, or be surprised or outraged is naive.
I guess you have never encountered competently written history and have only ever read yellow journalism. Hence you have no familiarity with the means by which historical accuracy is pursued. Why else would someone seriously quote Tom Clancy for anything but his novels.
"Queen Victoria's Little Wars"
Great collection of short looks at a lot of various actions in the period.
amazon.com/Queen-Victorias-Little-Byron-Farwell/dp/0393302350/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451157936&sr=8-1&keywords=queen+victorias+little+wars
http://uncensoredhistory.blogspot.com/2012/09/vasily-grossman-ostfront-eastern-front-ww2-narrative.html
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Panzer-Destroyer-Memoirs-Army-Commander/dp/1844159515 - Vasiliy Krysov goes into detail about an incident where three Red Army sergeants raped a 23 year old German woman and got no punishment because "The Germans did it too".
Nikolai Safinov, who was an infantryman in WWII and writes for IRemember.ru: "There were also cases of raping German women. I remember a widely known fact of a group rape when 33 soldiers raped a German woman. There were talks that after that news reached General Kotikov, the chief of the Political Department of the 61st Army, he shook his head especially wondering at those who were at the tail end of the line of rapists. Nevertheless, that criminal case had been dropped." No punishment.
Yurii Koriakin, Rifleman in the 10th Guards Rifle Division: A Politburo officer told him "Well, and concerning the woman question, you can treat the German women rather freely, but so it wouldn't look organized. 1-2 men can go, do what they need (that's exactly what he said: "what they need"), return, and that's all. Any kind of pointless damage to German men and women is inadmissible and will be punished."
"This conversation made us feel that he himself didn't know exactly what norms of behavior should've been followed. Of course, we were all under the influence of propaganda, which didn't differentiate Germans and Hitlerites in those times. That's why I know of a ton of cases when German women were raped, but not killed. Treatment of German women (we almost never saw men) was free, even vengeful. In our regiment the Sergeant Major of the supply company set up practically an entire harem."
This was literally a five minute Google search. You can research the individual accounts yourself; I don't have the time to do so to win an internet argument.
I read a pretty decent book by Vasily Grossman called "a writer at war: a Soviet journalist with the red army, 1941-1945." Fairly short read and gives some solid insight to life in the eastern front.
https://www.amazon.com/Writer-War-Soviet-Journalist-1941-1945/dp/0307275337
Also, Antony Beevor's books, "Stalingrad" and "Berlin: the downfall, 1945" are both solid reads about the eastern front.