(Part 3) Best historical study books according to redditors
We found 1,436 Reddit comments discussing the best historical study books. We ranked the 501 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.
Different tourneys had different rules.
Chivalry should be considered to be somewhat akin to the pirate code from the Depp movies rather than strict rules. David Hackett Fischer would get mad at you for bringing up the concept anyway.
>some nights I sleep for literally 3 hours and wake up randomly feeling completely fine and ready.
That just means you have a strong circadian rhythm and are relatively well rested when that happens.
That you need your sleep compressed into 8 uninterrupted hours a night is a myth. A lot of people don't know this and havn't stopped to think about it ....but human's havn't slept like that for 99% of their history. Natural sleep is biphasic, not monophasic.
http://www.livescience.com/12891-natural-sleep.html
http://www.livescience.com/33038-wehrs-biphasic-sleep-study-data.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/jessa_gamble_how_to_sleep?language=en
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007HXFT2C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#customerReviews
Here's a whole book going in depth into the history of sleep in humans.
I also wake up in the middle of the night, as humans have for the overwhelming majority of human history up until the industrial revolution.
When you wake up after 3 hours or 4 hours, get up for an hour or two, then have another shift of sleep. Dont just do 1 shift then skip the second. You should be feeling tired and sleepy again after being up for a bit.
You should feel way better if you embrace this type of sleep, I know I did. There's also the benefit of a nice quiet meditative state in the middle of the night.
https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Political-Authority-Examination-Coerce/dp/1137281650
https://www.amazon.com/Private-Governance-Creating-Economic-Social-ebook/dp/B00XCTPVAU/
https://www.amazon.com/State-Collected-Papers-Anthony-Jasay/dp/0865971714
https://www.amazon.com/Against-Politics-Government-Routledge-Political/dp/0415513650/
https://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capitalism/dp/1507785607
https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Theory-Essays-Market-Anarchy/dp/1479258377
https://www.amazon.com/Legal-Systems-Very-Different-Ours/dp/1793386722
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Policies/dp/0691138737
>ei esimerkiksi toimi todisteena sille että multikulttuurisuus on pahasta.
Miksi kyseisen artikkelin pitäisi olla todiste asialle minkä tueksi löytyy jo aivan tarpeeksi tutkimusta?
Arvaatko mikä on ollut historiassa suurena syynä valtakuntien hajoamiseen? Monikulttuurisuus.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Historical-Dynamics-Princeton-Studies-Complexity/dp/0691116695
Awesome, I just started reading Guns of August.
WELCOME! For a fantastic introduction to feminism aimed at an audience of men, check out Shira Tarrant's Men in Feminism. It's wonderfully accessible, quick, and easy to read. Here it is at Amazon. Used copies for under $3! http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1580052584/ref=redir_mdp_mobile
As were Bush, Reagan, and numerous other high ranking US officials, both military and civilian. There have long been close links between Riyadh and DC. For good reason.
The House of Saud, while now a convenient boogeyman for those with no sense of even recent history, has provided not just oil for many decades when there were inadequate supplies in North America (and Europe), but more importantly has been a key ally in the gulf, a place where instability is the natural state, and where Wahhabism especially would rapidly fill a power vacuum.
Is Saudi Arabia an ideal ally? No. We have many differences with them. But they are far better than the alternative. Through taking donations from the Saudis, Clinton was shoring up an important relationship while furthering the impact of her family foundation.
So you can criticize Clinton's relationship with the House of Saud, but see how quickly Trump cozies up to them.
I guess in summary, two things. One, these things aren't black and white, as cute as it may be. And second, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
For more detail you can read the following:
https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Kingdom-Modernists-Terrorists-Struggle/dp/0143118277
https://www.amazon.ca/Prize-Epic-Quest-Money-Power/dp/1439110123
The Guns of August
It is very interesting, two guys (Neil Howe and William Strauss) using their research based on generation cycles correctly predicted in 1997 that some kind of event between 2005 and 2008 would happen that would be the catalyst to fundamentally change America. Low and behold, what happened in 2008? We had a economic crash and a financial crisis. Here is a 35 min video of them on CSPAN from 1997 talking about their generational theory and research:
Neil Howe and William Strauss on The Fourth Turning in 1997 CSpan
The Fourth Turning is the first book they wrote detailing their research. (William Strauss passed away in 2007).
Strauss-Howe Generational Theory
To give you some perspective, the Millennial Generation is what they call a "Hero Generation". The most recent example of a "Hero Generation" is the generation that grew up during the Great Depression and fought in WW2 (which that generation is virtually gone now).
>Hero generations are born after an Awakening, during a time of individual pragmatism, self-reliance, and laissez faire (hmm that sounds kind of like our last 30 years). Heroes grow up as increasingly protected post-Awakening children, come of age as team-oriented young optimists during a Crisis, emerge as energetic, overly-confident midlifers, and age into politically powerful elders attacked by another Awakening. Their main societal contributions are in the area of community, affluence, and technology. Their best-known historical leaders include Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John F. Kennedy. These have been vigorous and rational institution builders. In midlife, all have been aggressive advocates of economic prosperity and public optimism, and all have maintained a reputation for civic energy and competence in old age.
If you have any interest in this kind of stuff, I highly recommend reading their book:
The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny(1997)
Neil Howe also published a book in 2000:
Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation
To quote one of the reviews:
>Still, the book is engrossing reading. It was actually recommended to me by a distinguished U.S. Army officer who suggested that the book could give military leaders insights into the wave of young people currently entering the armed services. I believe that many other professionals could also benefit from a critical reading of this book.
The recent research conducted today about the Millennial Generation largely supports Neil Howe and William Strauss generational theory.
Those two guy should be given some kind of recognition for their work.
At least according to the dude who coined the term, the first millennials were the high school class of 2000 (hence the name), so people born in 1982. The endpoint is a little fuzzier, but certainly by 2001 we'd moved onto 'Gen Z'.
I was pretty impressed with the Very Short Introduction series' History, but that may not really qualify as "academic". The author of that book, John Arnold, also wrote a solid book called What is Medieval History, if you're interested in a more specific look.
>Can't one of them just turn a few paces earlier and kill the opponent?
The whole point of duelling was that it was a ritualistic way of establishing your manhood and honor. Winning by cheating would defeat the point of entering the duel in the first place.
If you're interested in learning more, this book offers a pretty good overview of the history.
I liked American Rifle: A Biography. It was written by the same author as the book that inspired the TV show Turn: Washington's Spies. Compared to most gun books it had a lot more narrative, not just dry technical and historical recitation of fact.
Hold up, I think you're completely misreading my point.
>It protects me as a man in a shitton of things.
Of course it does, that doesn't make it an egalitarian movement though.
>The system is based on woman being submissed to men and men following a gender role of authority, competition, being mainly. They are countering that, for equality of relations.
Kind of, I think your summation of gender roles isn't the best, but yeah. I agree with the general point that men have a masculine role they're supposed to play, and women have a feminine role they're supposed to play. In most cases feminism challenges that or at least advocates for the freedom to choose what role you want.
The thing is that they're only kind of countering it. Feminism only counters sexism that negatively affects women. I don't think you're going to see a largely feminist campaign supporting putting more women in prison or giving women harsher sentences. In fact, the "Stop Violence Against Women" campaign was largely feminist supported, even though the vast majority of victims of violence are male, and, more importantly, the sexist standard that feminism initially challenged in the 1800s was advocating exactly the same thing. A lot of people get the idea that sexism was always "women are worse, men are better" when in reality the kinds of sexism that the initial feminist movements meant to challenge were more along the lines of "women are dainty, men are strong" which again, sounds similar, but isn't the same.
>Besides it's called feminism because they were the only ones defending these ideas for a shitton of time. The name was created because men didn't defend the cause until very recently.
It's understandable that you would think that, but it's factually incorrect, very significant quantities of men have supported the feminist movement since the very beginning.
>If a name called feminism offends you, you should rethink your worldview.
That's not at all what I'm saying. I was never against feminism, I'm saying it's not egalitarian, because it isn't.
The last book I read was History: A Short Introduction which was assigned reading for me in college. For whatever reason I felt like re-reading it which is stupid because there are a ton of books on my shelf right now I haven't gotten around to yet. Last weekend I picked up Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and with school starting I'm not sure when I'll get around to reading it.
That link is like a textbook example of why people need to be super critical of random sources they find on the internet - most of the links cited as "sources" there are super dodgy. Take [this]
(http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/irish-the-forgotten-white-slaves-says-expert-john-martin-188645531-237793261.html) "source," for example; it's an article which "cites" another article, which was posted on a conspiracy theorist website, and which is itself based on the book that I just pointed out is discredited. Or take this blog post, which cites a fiction book among it's sources, or this source, which appears to be a forum post by some random guy which has no citations at all.
Edit: Woah, it gets even better - if you follow the links, you also find that that article is at least partly based on this book which is published by "CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform" (ie: self-published on a vanity press), and whose author starts their author biography by pointing out that they're a "certified paranormal investigator."
I read it awhile ago in a book about the region. I'm pretty sure it was either City of Gold or Inside The Kingdom
I am by no means an expert, but in college we read Side by Side, written by a group of Israeli and Palestinian teachers in 2000.
The book has a really unique structure-- all of the pages on the left (imagine you're looking at an open book) present history from an Israeli perspective, and all the pages on the right present history from a Palestinian perspective.
Apologies if some don't consider it objective, I know how sensitive this issue is. At the very least, it's an interesting and unique literary exercise.
https://www.amazon.com/Politics-History-Political-Thought-Herodotus/dp/0871404656
They’re not the quickest of reads.
Good points, I'll have think more about it. I remember one my takeaways from an early chapter in this book was about the failings of early democracy. Admittedly the earliest democracy was, as you say, a bourgeois democracy.
The first scholar to put consolidated sleep—today’s standard ‘one straight shot throughout the night’—under the microscope was historian Roger Ekirch. In his fascinating 2001 essay ‘Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber in the British Isles,’ Ekirch revealed that across a wide range of nationalities and social classes in early modern Europe and North America, the standard pattern for nighttime sleep was to do it in two shifts of ‘segmented sleep.’ These two sleeps—sometimes called first and second sleep, sometimes ‘dead sleep’ and ‘morning sleep’—bridged an interval of ‘quiet wakefulness’ that lasted an hour or more. (The interval itself was sometimes called ‘the watching.’) Ekirch’s subsequent work offered evidence that a segmented nighttime pattern persisted well into the twentieth century in many non-Western locales, including among indigenous cultures in Nigeria, Central America, and Brazil. During the period of nighttime wakefulness, Ekirch showed, different cultures elaborated rituals—of prayer, lovemaking, dream interpretation, or security checks—and while the rituals varied, the pattern itself was so pervasive as to suggest an evolutionary basis that somehow became disrupted in the modern West. So why did this mode of sleeping fall by the wayside, in favor of the eight-hour, lie-down-and-die model that has become an unquestioned norm? According to Ekirch, the main culprit was the spread of powerful artificial lighting in the nineteenth century in Europe and North America, and later in other locales.
More info in Ekirch's book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007HXFT2C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Just how much do you know about Saudi Arabia or the Saudi political system? I ask because in your first sentence, you state that a decapitation strike against the Saudi government pushes the royal family from power, yet the House of Saud is comprised of roughly 15,000 people--2,000 of which have power in one form or another in the government. Additionally, there are systems in place to help facilitate succession of the kingdom. And there are entire military services dedicated to ensuring the security of the government against internal threats. So the idea of a decapitation strike is fairly unlikely, which is to say nothing of the numerous other political and societal structures in place that would either facilitate or inhibit any attempt at a coup (especially by a non-state actor).
Before you continue drafting your storyline, I encourage you to read up on the history of Saudi Arabia, political Islam and Islamic extremism, and the international relations of the Arab World. Additionally, I would suggest taking a greater look at the Grand Mosque seizure of 1979 and its aftermath, and instances of a monarchy being overthrown by a non-royal entity. The coups against King Farouk of Egypt (1952), King Faisal II of Iraq (1958), King Idris I of Libya (1969), and the attempted coup against King Hussayn of Jordan (1970) might be good places to start. Not all of them will be applicable to you, but it should give you an idea of what a coup entails, what a successful coup looks like, and what the aftermath is.
With that in mind, I suggest the following books as a place to start:
History of Saudi Arabia and the Arab World
Middle East Politics
Islam and Political Islam
Jihadism and Islamic Extremism
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but I've been told that On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present is fantastic. It's definitely not written in the style used by Kean or Bryson, but is one of the more thorough histories I've seen - covering over 2,500 years of political philosophy.
I really enjoyed The American Rifle: A Biography which is about American service rifles up until 20087 or so.
> What would you (or most other male customers) consider fair restitution for buttrape tho?
In these cases what the victim (for example me) considers a fair compensation is not what matters most. Just like what I think would be a fair price for what I buy or sell. Everyone thinks they are being paid too little and that they pay too much. With normal market transactions, the price is regulated by competition. In the case of a violation/arbitration, the compensation needs to be regulated by a third party (when there was no previous agreement between the parts setting what the compensation should be).
> My point was that some crimes you can't "fix" by essentially making the perp apologize.
Firstly, it's not making him apologize, but making him compensate his victim to the fullest extent feasible. Apologies can be insincere, but compensation can't.
> It's more control thinking, "this is unfair, therefore I'll make it fair." Rather than, "these people have needs that can't be fixed alone, how can we help them?"
Sorry, I don't understand what you meant here. Maybe you can clarify.
> That's kind of cool about Iceland, is there a list somewhere out there?
More info on that in David Friedman and Pete Leeson's book Legal Systems Very Different from Ours, which has a very interesting chapter on Medieval Icelandic law. You can also read a (very early, but good enough) draft of the chapter here.
Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine
I think this book does a great job of preventing both perspectives. Hope this helps :)
Nonviolence doesn't strictly mean pacifism. It can also mean civil disobedience without violence. Hence, nonviolence has worked by itself, per your own example. I found this book to have some excellent discussion on the subject, if you're interested.
For more details, see this.
If that's the case, you should really try What If?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002I1XRYU/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1
You should probably re-name this to "Fantasy Medieval City by Night"
I could explain why this has nothing to do with realism but instead, you can educate yourself! I already did the work. You can begin here;
At Day's Close; Night in Times Past
Yes. We had so much social and political change in the last 50 years for the better (more or less) and it was because strong people of character and courage stood up and resisted without having to resort to violence. Unfortunately, I believe that idea of nonviolence has eroded into pacifism. This is why I hate hippies. They appropriated the legitimate message of nonviolent resistance and turned it into granola eating, flower wearing, BS. Nonviolent resistance has absolutely nothing to do with "dropping out." It's the exact opposite.
You may like a good by Mark Kurlansky (author of Cod and Salt) called Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea. He defines "nonviolence" and makes a cogent argument that it has been, historically, the most effective form of resistance.
That the Irish immigrants were "hired" to do jobs when slave owners didn't want to risk losing their investment.
Book
There is counterfactual history. It has a very long tradition; Livy in the first century BCE was already asking what would happen if Alexander had marched west instead of east (Livy concludes Rome would have kicked his ass). This isn't quite what you describe in the sense that it doesn't have to make claims about necessary conditions for alternate outcomes (seems to me you get a get a laundry list. If one were to ask what would be necessary for Hannibal to win, you get answers like "it was necessary for Hannibal to have command of an army; it was necessary for Hannibal to gain access to Italy, it was necessary to mint coins, it was necessary to disrupt Rome's alliance system" all of which happened.)
I don't know how respected this approach is. In one sense counterfactuals are implied in any question that asks why something happened the way it did, and there are books like What If that have some very heavy hitters writing them. On the other hand, there are articles like this.
>But it's time to be sceptical about this trend. We need, in this year especially, to start to try to understand why the first world war happened, not to wish that it hadn't, or argue about whether it was "right" or "wrong". In the effort to understand, counterfactuals aren't any real use at all.
YMMV I guess.
I'm assuming you've never read any anarchist literature because you don't appear to understand what anarchism is. It's not about a "disagreement."
I've read the parable. If you seriously believe that ancaps wouldn't invade after a simple bit of forecasting then you're just proving what I've already said.
You. Need. To. Actually. Read. Books. Plural. Or listen to them on tape. Or have them summarized for you. Your belief that ancap is "anti-authoritarian" or in any way anarchistic illustrates that your understanding of anarchism is nil. This isn't just a disagreement over political minutiae, this is you not actually understanding what you're claiming to be.
You do not understand what capitalism or anarchism are, full stop.
You have no idea how infuriating it is to sit here, after years of activism and study, to see liberals claiming they're anarchists and outright refusing to learn even the very basics.
go to r/anarchy101. Ask questions. this is the perfect primer. It is the only book you will need for a basic understanding. I suggest a lifetime of reading, but if you only read one book, this is it. For more information on capitalism from a modern perspective, I recommend anything by Graeber. Youtube is not a substitute and ancap ideas are not anarchist.
if you want to call yourself an anarchist and not annoy every anarchist around you then you will actually need to educate yourself on the subject.
> One of the few subjects on which we all seem to agree is the need for justice. But our agreement is only seeming because we mean such differing things by the same word. Whatever moral principle each of us believes in, we call justice, so we are only talking in a circle when we say that we advocate justice, unless we specify just what conception of justice we have in mind. This is especially so today, when so many advocate what they call 'social justice' - often with great passion, but with no definition. All justice is inherently social. Can someone on a desert island be either just or unjust?
"The Quest For Cosmic Justice"
http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Cosmic-Justice-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0684864630
If I absolutely had to recommend a single book to familiarize someone with what historians do and the study of history itself, I'd probably go with John Arnold's History: A Very Short Introduction. It's commonly assigned in undergraduate history programs for that purpose.
It's definitely not ideal to restrict yourself to a single book, but you've got to start somewhere and Arnold's book is a good place to begin. Beyond that, the /r/AskHistorians book list is a great resource.
heres how i understand freemasons role in the nwo/illumaniti thing. the illuminati is a club within a club that started in the late 1700s. a courrier delivering the plan to take over the world was struck by lightening and killed. he was found with this letter and the leader i think of bavaria tried to warn other leaders of this plan. part of the plan was to create a global congress. this almost happened in the 1800s but a leader who was warned that this was the plan struck down the congress of vienna. that guy who stopped it was the czar whos family got killed except for a daughter named anastaisa. yea i could go on forever, just know its the people who control the banking systems that control the world or at least are trying very hard to and they took over the vatican the jesuits used to be called illuminatti something.... again i could go on forever but instead heres where i got my stuff from - watch this lecture jack otto's lecture on the people who are trying to take over the world and this book is awesome and describes everything in more detail the secret history of the world by mark booth
The opening passage of The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman.
>
“So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and green and blue and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens – four dowager and three regnant – and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.”
You should look into the [Very Short Introduction] (http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/series/VeryShortIntroductions/ series) series. About 342 books that are all in the range of 100 to 200 pages. They cover anything from [History] (http://www.amazon.com/History-Introduction-John-H-Arnold/dp/019285352X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346605671&sr=1-2&keywords=a+very+short+introduction) to [Mathematics] (http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Short-Introduction-Timothy-Gowers/dp/0192853619/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346605671&sr=1-4&keywords=a+very+short+introduction) and even really specific topics like [Relativity] (http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Short-Introduction-Russell-Stannard/dp/0199236224/ref=sr_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346605803&sr=1-15&keywords=a+very+short+introduction). It's a gold mine of information and the best part is that all of the books are usually under $10.00's. They're perfect for what you're looking for.
> Aside from the basic cultural differences which may be insurmountable (e.g. our society is individualistic where theirs is more communal/collectivist)...
On this point, see Carle Zimmerman’s Family and Civilization
To quote Christopher Hitchens (when asked if he was a neo-conservative) "I am no kind of conservative."
I am no kind of capitalist.
BTW, I'd highly recommend this anthology for anyone learning about or interested in Anarchism.
I really like history books that don't at first seem to be history books, but are explorations of societies sometimes seen through the lens of a single important concept or product. For instance, Mark Kurlansky has several books such as Salt; A World History, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, The Basque History of the World, Nonviolence: 25 Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea that teach more history, and more important history than is usually taught in US public schools.
History need not be rote memorization of dates and figures. It can, and should be a fun exploration of ideas and how those ideas shaped civilizations. It can also be an exploration of what did not make it into the history books as Bart Ehrman's Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament or his Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why and Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels attest.
I don't wish to come across as too glib about this, but I feel like the average person might well retain more useful knowledge reading a book like A History of the World in 6 Glasses than if they sat through a semester of freshman history as taught by most boring, lame generic high schools. I feel like often the best way to understand history is to come at it tangentially. Want to understand the US Constitution? Study the Iroquois confederacy. Want to understand the French? Study cuisine and wine. Want to understand China? Study international trade. And so it goes. Sometimes the best history lessons come about from just following another interest such as astronomy or math or cooking. Follow the path until curiosity is sated. Knowledge will accumulate that way. ;-)
The Collapse of Complex Societies
War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires
Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall
Genes, Peoples, and Languages
The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood
The Secret History of the World
Saved and will read chapter draft tonight, thank you for detailed response!
>Everyone thinks they are being paid too little and that they pay too much.
Hm that's pretty accurate actually. I see what you're saying.
>Firstly, it's not making him apologize, but making him compensate his victim to the fullest extent feasible. Apologies can be insincere, but compensation can't.
Can't argue there. You got me.
>Sorry, I don't understand what you meant here. Maybe you can clarify.
Control thinking is creating and implementing strategies for meeting needs instead of honestly expressing/assessing individual needs and making a request (not a demand).
Example of control thinking: Joe raped Phil, let's make Joe pay / feel ashamed / apologize
Example of honestly assessing needs and making a request: Joe raped Phil, I imagine Phil needs security, space, gentle reminders of the community's respect, counseling after some time has passed, and maybe an invitation to a recovery group. How many of these can we afford? Who's willing to invest? Why did this happen by Joe? What were Joe's needs? Can we make him part of the community involvement, helping him, and would he also be willing to invest in any of Phil's needs?
---
Also saving your links here for myself for later:
>More info on that in David Friedman and Pete Leeson's book Legal Systems Very Different from Ours, which has a very interesting chapter on Medieval Icelandic law. You can also read a (very early, but good enough) draft of the chapter here.
Okay! So I have done some digging. And apparently, it takes a lot more digging than I realized. My local library has almost no progressive feminist books and actually no masculinist works. I was disappointed.
However, I was able to find a few books by snooping online that I believe fit the bill of "remotely not pitting masculinism and feminism against each other." I am not positing that they are things that you would necessarily like if you read; I haven't even read them myself. But they appear to be a step in the right direction.
>A powerful approach to gender inequality that empowers both men and women to be part of the solution instead of just part of the problem. We are all living with an oppressive gender legacy called patriarchy. (...) He explains what it's got to go with each of us and reveals how both men and women can see themselves as part of the process of change toward something better (not matriarchy). (...)
Hopefully that's enough to answer your question. I'm sorry that I didn't find more; they are hard to find, and I have trouble sifting through things.
That's definitely a discussion I didn't think would happen ever, but I guess he raises some good points. I might recommend some Thomas Sowell as a counterpoint. (I can't find a full text of it, but that's the text I would use in defense of having children).
from what I remember this book suggested that it was (though I read it a while back so don't hold me to it!)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-History-World-Societies/dp/1590200314/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
You want studies or a book?
One of the most profound books i have ever read is this on how states rise and fall. It's the most enlighting thing I have ever read, it changed how I view the world fundamentaly
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452288193/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0452288193
Its a popular book without the mathematical models behind it
Here is the mathematical version
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691116695/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0691116695
But its quite expensive and only available as hardcover but there should be a different version coming out soon
For the study on cooperation this
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0996139516/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1517513099&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Peter+turchin&dpPl=1&dpID=41Ux9xQvfIL&ref=plSrch
On cultural evolution this books makes an incredible strong argument
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691178437/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0691178437
On how religion influences pro social behaviour this
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691169748/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517513482&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Ara+Norenzayan&dpPl=1&dpID=61TgLU80vIL&ref=plSrch
oppressed minority is a relative term. A white man in a black ghetto is an oppressed minority. or a white in south africa. Issues such as slavery are rather funny to when you think abotu it. As an Irish American i have just as much of a right to declare myself a member of a formerly oppressed minority.
if you feel like a little light reading.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Irish-Slaves-indenture-Immigrants/dp/145630612X
http://www.amazon.com/White-Cargo-Forgotten-History-Britains/dp/0814742963/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335295822&sr=1-1
Just finished reading American Rifle: A Biography by Alexander Rose. Although it does not touch on 2A (as you are looking for), it is an excellent historical read. The book starts with the Kentucky Rifle and goes all the way up through the M4, covering mostly US standard issue small arms.
History: A Very Short Introduction
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/019285352X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519248671&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=history+a+very+short+introduction&dpPl=1&dpID=514Uq4p%2Bt4L&ref=plSrch
Yes, I always thought Kaiser Wilhelm was primarily to blame because Austria would never have been able to start anything without his support. However, his mistakes started twenty years earlier when he dismissed Bismark and gave power to the militarists. Bismark predicted what would happen, including the fact that the the militarists would take control from the Kaiser. Guns of August is a great treatment of the events leading up to the war.
Doesn't change the reality of the situation. Millennials as a group are moralistic and judgmental, with strong aversion to hypocrisy and inauthenticity. We were raised to be that way, and so it's unlikely to ever just go away. We have enormous untapped power. Either use it or lose it.
There's a great study of Millennials that was put out by William Strauss and Neil Howe back in the early '00s that lays out a ton of great evidence and analysis regarding generational values based on how we were raised, educated, and protected by society. You should check it out, lots of useful insights.
For the big picture, I can't recommend this book highly enough: The Secret History of the World, as laid down by the Secret Societies.
I also recommend reading The Fish that Ate the Whale. It's a biography of a man named Sam Zemurray, who ran one of the largest corporations in the world and personally instigated at least 3 south american coups, who personally guaranteed the establishment of the state of Israel. This is a great background on how things actually work; sometimes it's not as grand a conspiracy as you might think-- it might just be someone with a whole lot of money to be made.
It was my pleasure. And thank you for taking it to heart. Interpretive bias is a serious problem for historians, and only in th last fifty or so years has anyone really taken it seriously.
If you're interested in it there are two books that I could recommend. Both classics in the field, but their examples are somewhat dated.
>Are you serious? My husband and I chose not to have kids and we contribute more money, time, resources, charity etc that all of my old christian friends.
These aren't worldly indulgences. I was also speaking on a macro level. If you don't think that a weak family structure and low birth rate is bad for society then you are uninformed.
Also, the Bible is very clear that people can contribute if they are unable to have kids but having children is preferred. Of course, individuals can buck the trend but again... we are talking on a macro level.
>You are horribly offensive and un-cited in your opinion, but I guess that's why they say "you don't have the right to not be offended".
http://www.amazon.com/Family-Civilization-Prof-Carle-Zimmerman/dp/1933859377/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373395167&sr=8-1&keywords=family+and+civilization+zimmerman
Start there.
Antony Beevor's Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945 were superb narrative histories of World War Two in the East. On the American end, the first two volumes of Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy - An Army at Dawn and The Day of Battle are great. I think somebody else mentioned The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. Just the first paragraph of that book is worth the price of the paperback.
If you're not into the whole military thing, The Worst Hard Time by Tim Egan covers the dustbowl era in the southern plains. Reads like an epic novel.
All of these suggestions prioritize craft of writing over intellectual rigor. I studied history, so I have a keen appreciation for the value (and the limits) of academic history. These books are not that sort of history, though I don't think any of them get any facts egregiously wrong. It's just that they're remarkable for being well-written - which should appeal to a fiction enthusiast - not for being pathbreaking academic treatments of their subject matter.
Relating to/Sympathizing with something is different from positively affirming it as the only truth, and shouldn't be mistaken for a claim. After all, they are only my personal feelings.
If you are seeking answers, I will redirect you to better sources than my feelings
https://www.amazon.com/Millennials-Rising-Next-Great-Generation/dp/0375707190
This book gives a good parallel primary on Israeli and Palestinian histories. It's really telling what each history omits. Both of them tell the truth. Just different truths and different sins of omission.
Won't get you much about Egypt, but it's probably necessary context.
A random selection of non-fiction recommendations for /u/MindOfMetalAndWheels:
Depends on what weapons were in fashion in your particular region. If I recall correctly duels in Louisiana and parts of Europe (I believe mainly France and Germany) most frequently involved blades, and had much higher fatality rates. Also as firearms improved the lethality increased––there'd be virtually no chance of a misfire using modern guns. Bear in mind that you could also set the distance from which shots would be exchanged; if you're firing from ten feet away you greatly increase the odds that one or both participants will be at least seriously maimed, no matter what firearm you're using. A lot depended on how bloody-minded you and your opponent were. Barbara Holland wrote a very interesting book on this subject.
Try the following, it's somewhat of a reference book but it's interesting to read through if you have the patience and desire:
http://www.amazon.com/Historians-Fallacies-Toward-Historical-Thought/dp/0061315451/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1317918013&sr=8-1
There's a lovely book called Inside the Kingdom that discusses the issue of Saudi royal support for Wahhabi ideology. I heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to understand Saudi Arabia's role in modern Islam.
Despite this video's great optimism, the M16 was borderline rejected by troops on the ground for unreliability and the need for constant cleaning. Many troops wouldn't give up their M1s or M14s. A fascinating book on the US service rifle is American Rifle.
["Sex and Culture" by J. D. Unwin] (https://www.amazon.com/SEX-CULTURE-J-D-UNWIN/dp/B000K7AQFC)
[Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation by Margareth Mead] (https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Age-Samoa-Psychological-Civilisation/dp/0688050336)
[Family and Civilization by Carl Zimmerman] (https://www.amazon.com/Family-Civilization-Carle-C-Zimmerman/dp/1933859377)
American Rifle is a good introduction to US military rifles. The Gun is a fantastic introduction to automatic weapons (Chiver's blog is worth a read too). Wolfe Publishing has a deal where you can get PDF copies of their three Magazines for about the price of subscribing to one for physical copies. They are a bit old fashioned but aren't extended ad copy like G&A is. Shooting Times is worth looking at online.
Happy to answer, yeah. I may have miscommunicated this point. When I can "free run" with little obligations, I will typically sleep something like 7:00AM/9:00AM until 3:00PM/5:00PM. This would be my "natural chronotype" or my genetically hard-wired sleeping schedule. This is the diagnoses "DSPS" itself that runs in my family.
However, in order to get by in life, I need to go to work, school, the grocery store, the DMV, etc. This means I will normally lie awake in bed for hours, starting around 12:00AM, finally falling asleep at 3:00AM or so, only to have to wake up at 7:00AM. Even though I only had 4 hours of sleep, though, I am still incapable of falling sleep at 9:00PM-10:00PM like a "normal person" would. This is due to the overriding power of my "natural circadian rhythm," the earlier described 7AM-5PM schedule.
This constant state of sleep deprivation leads to anxiety, stress, depression, weakened immune system (and thus illness), and all kinds of social consequences, like losing friendships and job opportunities.
And this is the frustrating part - if the DMV were open at 3AM and bosses just accepted that I did my work from home in the middle of the night, there would be nothing "disabling" about my condition. And while I know many people who have found successful living arrangements to accommodate their hard-wired sleep schedule, I know many more who cannot hold down jobs, who are scorned by their family for being "lazy," and who have lost many friends and resources because of their inability to participate in daytime life.
So to answer your question, in a world with minimal stresses, I would likely sleep my "natural rhythm," somewhere between 7AM-5PM. Much like I do now, I would just spend my time on hobbies and my research, and it works out well because I wake up about the time everyone gets off work, so I can still maintain a social life. The bank has the worst business hours ever, though, and my classes start at 9AM, so I still have to strike a balance between my preferred schedule and being constantly sleep deprived. I have been hoping to try our biphasic sleeping, or sleeping in two smaller blocks during the day, but am not in a place in life where I can try this.
Thanks for asking, I rarely get a chance to talk about the finer details of my sleeping disorder. Here are some further book suggestions for you. Let me know what your professor says, I'd love to hear about it. What kind of class is this for?
24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (2013) by Johnathan Crary
Sleep Around the World: Anthropological Perspectives (2013) ed. Glaskin and Chenhall
Sleep and Society: Sociological Ventures into the (Un)Known (2005) by Simon Williams
At Day's Close: Night in Times Past (2006) by Roger Ekirch
> What mindset do you mean? What atheist thinking?
You can identify it by many names, post-Christian, platonic, enlightened. The western world has a history of thinking and just because a new label is applied, doesn't mean an old pattern is expunged. I don't really see much difference between modern Christians and atheists. They both worship their ego and just project the source of what they're worshipping differently.
> How did you get to this answer? What makes you think so? I mean, years ago stoning was a very Christian thing to do... Most countries that still kill people as punishment in a legal way do this, because of Christian rules (e.g. being gay).
This is a good book on the subject.
> All wars come from schisms. Why would people fight if they agreed over everything?
Most wars are fought for economic resources or military strategic opportunism. In many cases the two groups fighting each other posses the same belief system.
People will probably joke a lot in this thread, but dueling as a form of conflict resolution has some merit.
If you are interested in dueling I recommend Gentleman's Blood: A History of Dueling by Barbara Holland.
http://www.amazon.com/Gentlemens-Blood-A-History-Dueling/dp/158234440X
Settle down. This TIL is more speculative than objective but that doesn't mean it's worthless. Not to mention respected historians have tackled counter-factual (i.e., What Ifs) scenarios in a similar manner; indeed, there is a two-book series of books called "What If" that tries to tackle how things would have turned out during pivotal moments in history.
Moreover, one doesn't have to be an Anti-Persian xenophobe to contemplate how history would have differed with Athens as a satrapy of Persia. True, it's possible that Greek thought on philosophy, society and politics may have still happened, but it's likely their dissemination would have been impacted without Alexander the Great to spread Hellenism, which itself had an impact on the development of Christianity.
It's a fascinating question and it opens up an "Butterfly Effect" can of worms if you allow yourself to consider it.
Here's a good one -https://www.amazon.com/Side-Parallel-Histories-Israel-Palestine/dp/1595586830
A Israeli and Palestinian historian go, chapter by chapter, through the history of the conflict, with each historian writing his side's perspective.
So many possibilities. I recommend these books:
What If?
What If? 2
Some personal favorites (both from these books and from other srouces, including my own idle musings):
As one example, the Louisiana Purchase might never have happened, meaning that the whole center of the present-day continental US, including Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and more would have remained French (or perhaps even Spanish) territory. New Orleans would have remained a French city. The Purchase was a plan of questionable legality, a constitutional gamble on Jefferson's part that he managed to get away with.
As another example, Adams and Hamilton had been supporters of the rebellion of Toussaint L'Ouverture in Haiti against the French crown. Jefferson was not. Hamilton and Adams saw L'Ouverture's rebellion as squarely in the same spirit as the American Revolution, a rising up of colonials against an oppressive foreign ruler. Moreover, they saw Haiti as a potential ally against the future ambitions of European royalists. Jefferson, on the other hand, as a Southern planter, was acutely aware that L'Ouverture's rebellioon was also a rebellion of African slaves against white masters, and knew very well that, whatever his own philosophical leanings might be, the southern American colonies would never tolerate an alliance with a state founded on a slave rebellion, because of fears that it would ignite a similar rebellion at home. Jefferson took the White House and the friendship between the US and Haiti failed to materialize--but it could have gone the other way.
There are tons more interesting possibilities. The books I linked cover lots of them.
This one? http://www.amazon.com/On-Politics-History-Political-Herodotus/dp/0871404656
Remember when people were writing about millenials and they meant us? Since we were graduating and turning 18 around the millennium. Those were the days.
Now I see these outraged articles about all these irresponsible millennials on their snaptalk and selfie sprees and I'm like, hmm maybe I'm Gen X? Did I get kicked out and no one told me?
Oh, it was just a taste of what they've had to endure. Here's the sources you were looking for, you really should educate yourself before spouting off like you actually know any history. ;)
https://www.amazon.com/Irish-Slaves-indenture-Contract-Immigrants/dp/145630612X
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1329616.Testimony_of_an_Irish_Slave_Girl
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-slaves/31076
http://www.thenewportbuzz.com/the-irish-slave-trade-the-slaves-that-time-forgot/7191
https://study.com/academy/lesson/history-of-irish-slave-trade.html
http://takimag.com/article/white_slavery_denial_jim_goad/print
http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/comparing-contrasting-african-and-irish-slavery-in-revolutionary
I hope you can step down from your ego, open your heart to love and learn what really happened all those years ago. Good night sweet prince.
>This sounds bad but I don't see how it's much worse than our current system. Right now taxes are mandatory
So you are comparing having to pay taxes (or not, depending on your age and income level) to watching you house burn down, or watching someone get stabbed (or blown up with an RPG because there would be no regulation over who could or couldn't own one) while private security guards stand-by watching because you weren't one of their clients? Your priorities are so far away from mine that I don't really know what to say.
>What if all the police officers in your town quit or something?
The difference is that 60% of businesses go out of business within their first 5 years, and your example happens... never.
>they can set up welfare systems to take care of them, much like current society has, except the welfare system would be voluntary instead of mandated by a government
Look to the Ozarks prior to the New Deal and you will see that is never going to happen. The standards of living were what we would consider third world today; extremely high rates of malnutrition and infant mortality for example. It is only after the government came in with the Tennessee Valley Authority that roads and electricity were pushed through to many rural southern towns. Why? Because it wasn't cost effective for a private entity to do it. The same theory applies today. How do UPS and other private couriers get their goods to where I live? On USPS (government) planes and trucks, because it isn't cost effective for them to do it themselves, and wherever USPS pulls out of, stops getting service. Post Offices are a life line to small towns.
>A court will only be in business so long as it has clients, and a court that does something like accept bribes from people it's judging won't like have clients.
Really? Thats the exact type of court I'd be looking for if I was in trouble, and had the money
Basically your philosophy affects me thusly; pay more for a lower quality product so don't have to pay a pittance in taxes. No thank you.
I am in no way trying to discourage you from exploring different ideologies. Read this book for a bunch of different anarcho ideas).
https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Cosmic-Justice-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0684864630/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505322573&sr=8-1&keywords=the+quest+for+cosmic+justice
> Guns, Germs, and Steel
I would not be so quick to dismiss Guns,Germs..etc, as I feel much of the criticism oozes jealousy and ideological sniping. I imagine any book written by an outsider that was so dismissive of their work would inspire this level of loathing.
I am reminded of the reaction to David Hacket Fishers book "Historians Fallacies" in the early 70s. It called a lot of people fools, and what was most intolerable it was proven right over time.
http://www.amazon.com/Historians-Fallacies-Toward-Historical-Thought/dp/0061315451
I have put below a defence by the author and the original review in the UK view of books.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/jun/26/guns-germs-and-steel/ - a reply to some critics
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/51
You are grossly misusing historical metaphor if you are attempting to make all of these events equivalent. Here are some books that may offer needed historiographical context: "Lessons" of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy, Ernest May and Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers, Richard Neustadt and Ernest May. Also, David Hackett Fischer's Historians' Fallacies.
Chilling tale? More like bizarre fantasy written by a sociopath, possibly with violent tendencies. Noncentralized systems of law are common throughout history (draft of the book).
I could write similarly chilling tales of horrors committed by governments, but why would I do that when reality provides numerous examples and there is no need to resort to fiction?