(Part 2) Best historiography books according to redditors

How the fuck can anyone on earth label Soviet gulags as progressive? Here's a letter from a gulag prisoner, I'm quoting fully:

>We appeal to you, asking you to pay a minimum of attention to our request.
We are prisoners who are returning from the Solovetsky concentration camp because of our poor health. We went there full of energy and good health, and now we are returning as invalids, broken and crippled emotionally and physically. We are asking you to draw your attention to the arbitrary use of power and the violence that reign at the Solovetsky concentration camp in Kemi and in all sections of the concentration camp. It is difficult for a human being even to imagine such terror, tyranny, violence, and lawlessness. When we went there, we could not conceive of such a horror, and now we, crippled ourselves, together with several thousands who are still there, appeal to the ruling center of the Soviet state to curb the terror that reigns there. As though it weren't enough that the Unified State Political Directorate [OGPU] without oversight and due process sends workers and peasants there who are by and large innocent (we are not talking about criminals who deserve to be punished), the former tsarist penal servitude system in comparison to Solovky had 99% more humanity, fairness, and legality. […]
People die like flies, i.e., they die a slow and painful death; we repeat that all this torment and suffering is placed only on the shoulders of the proletariat without money, i.e., on workers who, we repeat, were unfortunate to find themselves in the period of hunger and destruction accompanying the events of the October Revolution, and who committed crimes only to save themselves and their families from death by starvation; they have already borne the punishment for these crimes, and the vast majority of them subsequently chose the path of honest labor. Now because of their past, for whose crime they have already paid, they are fired from their jobs. Yet, the main thing is that the entire weight of this scandalous abuse of power, brute violence, and lawlessness that reign at Solovky and other sections of the OGPU concentration camp is placed on the shoulders of workers and peasants; others, such as counterrevolutionaries, profiteers and so on, have full wallets and have set themselves up and live in clover in the Soviet State, while next to them, in the literal meaning of the word, the penniless proletariat dies from hunger, cold, and back- breaking 14-16 hour days under the tyranny and lawlessness of inmates who are the agents and collaborators of the State Political Directorate [GPU].
If you complain or write anything ("Heaven forbid"), they will frame you for an attempted escape or for something else, and they will shoot you like a dog. They line us up naked and barefoot at 22 degrees below zero and keep us outside for up to an hour. It is difficult to describe all the chaos and terror that is going on in Kemi, Solovky, and the other sections of the concentrations camp. All annual inspections uncover a lot of abuses. But what they discover in comparison to what actually exists is only a part of the horror and abuse of power, which the inspection accidently uncovers. (One example is the following fact, one of a thousand, which is registered in GPU and for which the guilty have been punished: THEY FORCED THE INMATES TO EAT THEIR OWN FECES. "Comrades," if we dare to use this phrase, verify that this is a fact from reality, about which, we repeat, OGPU has the official evidence, and judge for yourself the full extent of effrontery and humiliation in the supervision by those who want to make a career for themselves. […]
We are sure and we hope that in the All-Union Communist Party there are people, as we have been told, who are humane and sympathetic; it is possible, that you might think that it is our imagination, but we swear to you all, by everything that is sacred to us, that this is only one small part of the nightmarish truth, because it makes no sense to make this up. We repeat, and will repeat 100 times, that yes, indeed there are some guilty people, but the majority suffer innocently, as is described above. The word law, according to the law of the GPU concentration camps, does not exist; what does exist is only the autocratic power of petty tyrants, i.e., collaborators, serving time, who have power over life and death. Everything described above is the truth and we, ourselves, who are close to the grave after 3 years in Solovky and Kemi and other sections, are asking you to improve the pathetic, tortured existence of those who are there who languish under the yoke of the OGPU's tyranny, violence, and complete lawlessness…

Isn't this enough? Here's another anectode from a gulag from Lenin's time:

>I witnessed the following incident: one of the inmates, an ill old man belonging to the “counter revolutionaries, “shortly before the cessation of work, completely lost his strength, fell into the snow and with tears in his eyes said he was unable to work anymore. One of the escorts at
once cocked the trigger and shot him. The corpse of the old man was for a long time not removed in order "to frighten other sluggards"

Ask how brutal the gulags to (Kolyma)[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolyma#The_Arctic_camps] prisoners, not some fuckin' Stalinist lover blogger. Conquest wrote a whole book about it named Kolyma: The Arctic Death Camps

One of the best books on gulags is Gulag Voices: Oral Histories of Soviet Incarceration and Exile It's a book consisting interviews with Gulag survivors, a very powerful book. Everybody should read imho.


There can't be any excuse about softening what really happened. These fuckers say "Stalin defeated fascism", but Stalin was as fascist as Hitler. These tankies should be forced to read letters, interviews, lifes, stories of Soviet citizens. Maybe, maybe they'll rethink what they're doing and be ashamed of themselves.

Japan isn't the only nation that glosses over these parts of history. Austria tends to gloss over the part that they allowed themselves to be annexed by Nazi Germany. France tends to gloss over the part where major French leaders gave names of Jews to the Nazis.

I wish I had an online source for this, but I don't. Instead I have a book everyone on this subreddit should read. Margaret MacMillan's Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History.

Badhistory's handbook, of course: Anatoly Fomenko's History: Fiction or Science?

To quote one reviewer:

And now a brief history of... well history, as seen through Fomenko-vision: History begins when Andronicos Comnenos dies and becomes Jesus. History records him as an unsuccessful Greek emperor with no real successes who was beaten to death by the mob and not a poor prophet from Nazareth who was crucified but hey, what do they know. It's not like the crucifixion was an important part of the story or anything. Immediately all of Europe decides that they're Christian and march against the Muslims. It may sound confusing why they'd blame the Muslims for what was an internal coup but they were probably just confused because Mohammed wasn't born yet. At some point they changed their minds and decided to skip the first three crusades and jump straight onto the Fourth (except that they didn't. It was actually the same as the First. Obviously. Please try and keep up). They then sacked Constantinople which was also Rome which was Troy which was Jerusalem. At some point they get confused and occupied the Holy Land as well and then forget all about Constantinople and let it fall back to the Greeks since Jerusalem was now Constantinople which was Troy which was Rome. People back then had very short memories often forgetting why they did something before they even did it. Very sad. During the First Crusade the Greeks decide to avenge the kidnapping of their queen by... also sacking Constantinople. After sacking their own city they quietly vanish for a few years, probably in embarrassment. Some time later Erasmus wrote the New Testament confusing generations of scholars who wondered what they had been copying out for all that time. Having now written a New Testament it was decided that they needed an Old one.

Yikes, the cult paradigm. For some history, I was involved with the whole David Icke movement when an extremely close and dear friend of mine got involved with it and it takes an absolute deluge (hah, ancient astronaut pun for those who get it) of scientific information and instruction on logical thought to pull people out of that mindset.

There's a couple things I'd like you to look into:

The book Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History by David Aaronovitch. It's a great book that explains why people believe in conspiracy theories and it also does a passable job debunking some of the less and more common conspiracies (moon landing hoax, Kennedy assassination, death of Princess Diana, 9/11, etc.).

This book applies greatly to the Raelian/Annuna/Sumerian gods as ancient astronaut theories and should give you some insight into the why behind your father's beliefs.

I'd also like to give you some advice on this plane: You cannot debunk the ancient astronaut theory to these people. Despite evolution being the obvious answer supported by mountains of nigh indisputable scientific evidence, the ancient astronaut theory is still more likely than virtually any religion when it comes to the questions of the origins of life (be it cellular or intelligent) on Earth. It is pointless to argue this point beyond the fact that there is no credible scientific evidence to support this viewpoint. What makes things worse is that the whole ancient astronaut community is usually tightly intertwined with the more extreme elements of the New Age Movement which, as I'm sure you know, bases nothing on fact but instead pseudoscience and nonsensical mystical gibberish bastardized from Indo-Chinese mystical traditions (and on occasion mystical traditions from the Abrahamic faiths such as Kabbalah).

I know you didn't come here for options (and obviously there are many more) but I would like to make two suggestions for how to proceed from here:

1. Let your dad believe his crazy beliefs and just move on with your life.
   
   
2. Read up on exit counseling (the non-violent version of cult deprogramming).
   
   If you're interested in exit counseling then I suggest you start with this Wikipedia article and from there you should be able to find good books on the subject with advice on how to find counselors that could be of help to you.
   
   I hope everything goes well with you and your dad, whatever decisions you decide to make.

Oral histories on tragic events can make you lose sleep for sure:

Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Gulag Voices: Oral Histories of Soviet Incarceration and Exile

And I will never forget the Sand Creek Massacre part of Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee.

Check this out at you local public library or online.
https://www.amazon.com/Invented-Knowledge-History-Science-Pseudo-religions/dp/1861898177

Also here http://indiafacts.org/the-myth-of-islamic-science/

And yet their Holocaust Denier heroes like David Irving (and others) deliberately falsify information to support their horrendous agenda. Irving had his ass haded to him in his libel case against Deborah Lipstadt, who he sued for simply calling him a Holocaust Denier. That case brought a lot of revelations to light. Here’s her book on the trial if anyone’s interested.

Here are two books I haven't read but I think are relevant. I hope to get to them soon. The second might have some interesting lessons for futurists.

1. What Should We Be Worried About?: Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up at Night
   
   
2. Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought

It's from a collection of essays called "What If?"

Stuff like, what if Hastings went differently or what if a historical Christ wasn't crucified.

https://www.amazon.com/What-If-Foremost-Military-Historians/dp/B00B558TSO

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/042518613X/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_2/168-3137911-6644427?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=XS4TNQMCCPD0M0Y7BW6D

Here you go.

I think you are confusing the study of history with the manipulation of the historical record and sources traditional historian rely upon. Stalin was purposeful in this manipulation but failed in the end as it left a trail of disappearing people in published photographs.

There is no evidence. Podesta mentions pizza in like 3 emails and everyone flips out and over analyzes everything to piece together stuff that isn't there.

"But that picture is weird" Doesn't mean its a child sex ring.

"But they are gay lovers" Oh so being gay = child sex ring?

"They are business partners!" So anyone you have ever been business partners with or worked for/with suddenly shares your same sexual preference and helps develop an underground child sex trafficking ring?

"This artist is a whack job. Just look at her art" Yup she is nuts....oh this is also evidence for child sex...it's exhausting.

This is how every single conspiracy theory works. You grab a couple "facts" interject your own opinion which can change the context of those "facts" tie it loosely to other "facts" pose a question "Isn't it odd that x is related to x?" Let the audience feel like they have been apart of discovering this complicated theory.

If your interested this is a fantastic book a couple people from this forum have talked about it before too I think.

https://www.amazon.com/VOODOO-HISTORIES-CONSPIRACY-SHAPING-HISTORY/dp/0224074709

Another thread about debunking:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebunkThis/comments/5dqwta/debunk_this_pizzagate/

Everybody in this thread should read Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History.

With respect to the approaches to the past portion of your question, it's hard to do better than Iggers' Historiography in the Twentieth Century. It's one of the rare books that manages to cover most everything without being interminably long. It's also cheap.

Some of the book may be a bit over the heads of HS students, but I'd imagine that the intros and overviews would be quite useful.

The main problem with the PLO were they were bourgeois, so much so that they lived in different worlds materially and philosophically and had left Palestine, and so had problems a) maintaining credibility with the people back home b) essentially sold out to the colonial power, recognizing its legitimacy when it has none. Fast forward to 2017 and the PA basically acts as Israel's proxy force, literally traitors. I could go on, but there are lots of books about the history of Palestine. I recommend this one.

I agree with the other poster that the Sibree version is inferior—I actually found the recent English translation by Ruben Alvarado to be markedly better, and its pricing is quite reasonable...

That's not true at all, he built his models for historical agrarian societies in the beginning.

You can read all about it here

https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Dynamics-Princeton-Studies-Complexity-ebook/dp/B076ZX45Y6/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=historical+dynamics+why+states+rise+and+fall&qid=1567769162&s=gateway&sprefix=Historical+dyn&sr=8-1

The book secular cycles are case studies based on the theory developed here.

So if you want to know what he is about and why he used the data he uses in ages of discord you need to start here.

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Here, have a book.

Wheels aren't actually that intuitive to make. Even a wheelbarrow that a human can efficiently move requires a well-established knowledge base of its function. You can make a primitive wheelbarrow using a cross-cut log, maybe, but even with one wheel it'd be so clunky that you'd be better off with a tumpline or travois.

On China by Henry Kissinger is the first book to start out with.

I don't know any real comparative political approaches, but another book that outlines the general Western Thinking at that time, like /u/imaspacesuit suggested, is End of History and the Last Man. Realize that End of History was originally written in 1992 and it outlines the neoliberal perspective of the late 1980's and early 1990's after the fall of the Soviet Union:

>What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man

The whole existential threat that the neoliberal world order is trying to wrestle with is whether China proving this thesis wrong, or does it just need more time, or does it need to be forced or coerced to realize the end of history?

Edit: The Wikipedia links a good article from 2008 from Fukuyama which talks about China. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/22/AR2008082202395.html

>Not so fast. We are certainly moving into what Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria labels a "post-American" world. But while bullies can still throw their weight around, democracy and capitalism still have no real competitors. The facile historical analogies to earlier eras have two problems: They presuppose a cartoonish view of international politics during these previous periods, and they imply that "authoritarian government" constitutes a clearly defined type of regime -- one that's aggressive abroad, abusive at home and inevitably dangerous to world order. In fact, today's authoritarian governments have little in common, save their lack of democratic institutions. Few have the combination of brawn, cohesion and ideas required to truly dominate the global system, and none dream of overthrowing the globalized economy.

This is what scares so many today: China could potentially dominate and overthrow the globalized economy and world order. The more time goes on, the more strength China gets, and the more brawn, cohesion and ideas required to truly dominate the global system, and might dream of overthrowing the globalized economy.

I'm just going to post this generic catch all website because I'm not getting suckered into wasting an hour of my life finding more and more sources while deniers say all my sources are faked by the Jews.

I recommend the book [Denying History] (https://www.amazon.com/Denying-History-Holocaust-Pseudohistory-Happened/dp/B002L32MPU/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=)if you want to know about the insanity and misleading tactics of major Holocaust deniers.

Relevant must read!

If you are looking for someone to prove why history is important, Margret McMillan's Dangerous Games will do so and will do so quite loudly. It's a boisterous read that is bound to generate some discussion and debate. It's historiography without calling itself historiography. She's even able to sneak in some Collinswood without you realizing it. It's a collection of case studies, so she bounces around a lot. Some of the chapters are up on Amazon; I'd read a few pages and see if the flavor appeals to you.

Best of all for your purposes though - it's short.

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.

• E.H. Carr, What is History?
  
  
• David Hackett Fischer, Historians' Fallacies

This was one of my favorite subjects in school, so I will apply what limited knowledge I have.

Basically you have guys like David Irving promoting the idea that the Holocaust was a myth, Hitler didn't know the extent of what some camps were doing, there was no active plan for genocide, most of the deaths came from disease, etc., because they hate Jews and de-legitimizing the Holocaust 1. removes what they see as the main source of international sympathy for Jews and 2. implies that there is a worldwide Jewish conspiracy covering it up, a longtime favorite topic of antisemites.

The book "History on Trial", a non-fiction book about a Holocaust denier suing a Jewish professor for libel, is a good place to start on the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Trial-Court-Holocaust-Denier/dp/0060593776

Edit: I see someone else has said that there are five groups of people who are Holocaust deniers, but I would add that there may be some variations in people's motivations for denying it, they are all rooted in virulent antisemitism.