Best italian history books according to redditors
We found 278 Reddit comments discussing the best italian history books. We ranked the 97 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 278 Reddit comments discussing the best italian history books. We ranked the 97 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
This is literally the history of Venice
Yes, righteous shitpost, but that's not what "fascism" means.
http://www.amazon.com/Mussolinis-Intellectuals-Fascist-Political-Thought/dp/0691127905
>fascism is literally anti-communism after all.
Well, actually fascism is literally a result of marriage between Italian revolutionary syndicalism and Italian nationalism but I don't expect socialists to know socialist elements of fascism. Don't tell them about Sergio Panunzio, Georges Sorel, Enrico Corradini, Ugo Spirito and their ideal of Proleterian Nation (which is what fascism is originally) or their head might explode.
I've been there 3 times. Never saw much during the day. Lucky you. I've dreamt of seeing tigers at Corbett since I was 10.
shameless plug incoming, not for me though
This book by Jim Corbett about the various man-eaters he killed in 10 villages got me hooked on tigers and Kumaon history and culture. It was part of my Class 6 curriculum. I want as many people as possible to experience it. Enjoy.
Hunt and Murray's History of Business in Medieval Europe
Jan Morris's Venetian Empire
Roger Crowley's City of Fortune
Graeber makes a passing mention to it in Debt that has his usual detailed citations and further reading. There are others whose titles escape me, and it turns out I didn't have these listed in my Amazon wishlist or Goodreads after all.
Hell, it's even on the wikipedia page:
>The crucial problem with sugar production was that it was highly labour-intensive in both growing and processing. Because of the huge weight and bulk of the raw cane it was very costly to transport, especially by land, and therefore each estate had to have its own factory. There the cane had to be crushed to extract the juices, which were boiled to concentrate them, in a series of backbreaking and intensive operations lasting many hours. However, once it had been processed and concentrated, the sugar had a very high value for its bulk and could be traded over long distances by ship at a considerable profit. The [European sugar] industry only began on a major scale after the loss of the Levant to a resurgent Islam and the shift of production to Cyprus under a mixture of Crusader aristocrats and Venetian merchants. The local population on Cyprus spent most of their time growing their own food and few would work on the sugar estates. The owners therefore brought in slaves from the Black Sea area (and a few from Africa) to do most of the work. The level of demand and production was low and therefore so was the trade in slaves — no more than about a thousand people a year. It was little greater when sugar production began in Sicily.
>In the Atlantic ocean [the Canaries, Madeira, and the Cape Verde Islands], once the initial exploitation of the timber and raw materials was over, it rapidly became clear that sugar production would be the most profitable way of using the new territories. The problem was the heavy labour involved — the Europeans refused to work as more than supervisors. The solution was to bring in slaves from Africa. The crucial developments in this trade began in the 1440s...
The Crusades introduced sugar to European markets and it was expensive as hell, so merchants were all over it, especially Venice and Genoa. Venice managed to seize Cyprus and Venetians and Cypriot landlords enlisted their Turkish and Greek serfs to work the plantations (and they were plantations in every sense of the New World term). Alongside this, Venice and Genoa made regular adventures to Azov and the Crimea and Black Sea coast, and among the commodities they would return with were slaves. Eventually sugar harvesting proved so labor intensive that they switched to slave labor.
Also during this time, Europeans were trying to grow sugar everywhere they could -- which wasn't very many places. There was some success in Sicily and in Spain, but the real gamechanger was the discovery and settlement of the Atlantic islands. Genovese merchants approached the Portuguese almost immediately about establishing sugar plantations in the usual model, and the proximity to Africa made importing slaves from there instead of across the Mediterranean a logistical sensibility.
This didn't happen overnight, it took a couple hundred years for these interlocking developments to progress, but there you have it.
I would read Gramsci. Gramsci recommends a very slow revolution which is centered on a changing of ideological hegemonies whithin society. So, if Capitalism is a hegemonic ideology, you must use propaganda, protest, strike, education, etc. to at least undermine capitalism to a significant point or to the point where socialism/communism replace capitalism as ideologically hegemonic. Gramsci realized that you need the majority of the population on your side, likely a vast majority, for the radical change of society to be able to taken place democratically.
You can get some of his best work here: http://www.amazon.com/Selections-Prison-Notebooks-Antonio-Gramsci/dp/071780397X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334741766&sr=8-1 or maybe a local or university library nearby will have it(but I doubt it).
Well, remember Italy was also the home of Giulio Douhet, probably the most famous aerial strategist from the interwar period. There's no lack of appreciation by some strategists and Mussolini of the potency of airpower - whether that gets implemented at the procurement and air force organization levels is a different story. Same goes for the naval requirements branch. It's all too easy to assume one aspect of a country applies to every part of it, and we need to be careful about making such generalizations. I wish I had Bagnasco and de Toro's book on the Littorio class at hand - I suspect it would provide some more definitive answers regarding these unique windows.
I think that's part of it, but Great Man theory isn't the only historical framework that puts an emphasis on characters, even singular important characters. One example that comes to mind is Shiela Fitzpatrick's Commissariat of Enlightenment (https://www.amazon.com/Commissariat-Enlightenment-Organization-Lunacharsky-Post-Soviet/dp/0521524385). It is very much based in social history, but also focuses on the importance of Anatole Lunacharsky throughout. It is not only his story, but it is a story to which he is central and someone who is interested in stories could certainly find an interest in that book.
Another example is microhistory - something that really hasn't proven to be very popular at all outside of academia. This is a kind of history that focuses intensely on something very small, sometimes a single person. Gizberg's The Cheese and the Worms is the prototypical example of the genre in this case (https://www.amazon.com/Cheese-Worms-Cosmos-Sixteenth-Century-Miller/dp/0801843871).
There is something kind of easy about it though. Our popular media is filled with stories of archetypal heroes and villains and the Great Man theory does, perhaps, lend itself to writing stories about characters that can slide into that particular kind of narrative.
That being said, Great Man history isn't the only thing that sells well. Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History has been very popular and is about as far from a narrative about a single person as you can get (especially if you don't count salt as a person!!)
I think a great place to start is with Tom Leoni's translation of Giganti.
https://www.amazon.com/Venetian-Rapier-Nicoletto-Gigantis-Curriculum/dp/0982591128
Glorious.
If she's as fun to play as the Cesare, this will be well worth the purchase. It'd be fantastic if she gets released in time for the Christmas holidays.
It will go along nicely with a book I recently ordered.
>What was the first usage of this title [Rex] during Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages, and how did it's perception change?
The earliest I found was Holy Roman Emperor Henry II (1014-24) who used the title, "Rex Romanorum," -- King of the Romans. {Source}
Undoubtedly earlier adoptions of Latin-sounding titles exist. It makes you sound more impressive if your title is in Latin.
The reasons perceptions "changed" was because the people adopting the title weren't Romans.
>And, if I may ask a similar question, when did the term Republic become common to describe governments in Italy?
I wouldn't say the word republic ever went out of fashion in Italy. Republican ideals didn't die with the Empire. Plato's The Republic and Aristotle's Politics made a comeback in the Renaissance, but their ideas didn't disappear entirely in the 6th century. Venice has been calling itself a republic since at least the 8th century. {Source} In 1115, Florence was established as a republic. {Source} Genoa (1015-ish), Siena (1199-ish), Ragusa (1358) all claimed the term. The term was common as soon as the Republics were founded.
>Did the Italians of this time perceive their states are Roman successors?
Of course. It goes without saying. Everyone wanted to be the New Rome and be seen as the successor to the Republic (if not the Empire), not just in Italy but everywhere in Europe. This goes back to your post's first statement:
>The title Rex was despised by the Romans, yet this Latin title was used by medieval kings.
Naturally, you wouldn't dare call yourself Emperor; the Emperor was reigning in Constantinople until 1453. Even Caesar was still in use as a title in the Eastern Roman Empire. But Rex or Dux (Duke) was tasteful for international relations.
Historical books are a chore if we're talking academia, so don't go into them too fresh. Renaissance Italy is not my forte so I dug around on google, here's some that may be interesting:
Calamities and the Economy in Renaissance Italy, Guido Alfani
This one is a bit too expensive for the content it offers, but from a quick skim on Google Books preview, it seems worth looking over if your local library has it in stock. Author credibility is okay, not one of the 'big names' though. Economic history is interesting to look at, especially when you put it in context of the "big" historical events such as war or famine.
The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall, Christopher Hibbert
This is a good one, very cheap and by a well known historian. Its one to keep around for sure, however, it seems to stray from the timeline of AC2. Still worth a read nonetheless.
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The Borgias and Their Enemies, 1431–1519, Christopher Hibbert
Another one by Hibbert, stalk this dude, he seems to know his Renaissance.
Agree. It was a terrifying time, and is still I presume for people that share space with these tigers. There's a wonderful documentary out there about how people have adapted to living with tigers in the mangroves (sunderbans)
For folks that enjoy reading, there are fantastic books about man-eating tigers. Man-eaters of Kumaon. See related items for others at this link
Yay people clapping each other on the back because they all know how bad the Italians are, woohoo!
Re: TDS. Read Bagnasco's book for a more thorough explanation, excellent book cheap price. Just a link to hard copy to look at, electronic version is on google play and other formats.
https://www.amazon.com/Littorio-Class-Largest-Battleships-1937-1948/dp/1591144450
Pretty much every prewar TDS was not as good as imagined. For some odd reason the Italians are singled out although if you look at the system in war time usage it did about as well as everyone else. Aka not as well as the designers imagined. I won't go into arguments, the book above gives several examples. Basically as with every other ship that had to work up during the war hard lessons where learned and things became better over time.
The Brits, per Brown, underestimated wartime torpedo payloads and even wargamed battleships taking multiple hits without severe degradation to the fighting capability of their battleships.
For an incompetent navy the Italians still managed to keep the sea lanes open, cause the British to cancel operations, halt other operations to run operations in the Med, go to long lengths to plan convoy missions, etc.
https://www.usni.org/store/world-war-ii/struggle-middle-sea
Don't believe me just read the book by an American author.
There was more than one Inquisition. There was a Roman Inquisition and a Spanish Inquisition, and so forth. The Cheese and the Worms is a study of a trial of a heretical miller by the Roman Inquisition using trial records. You will be "surprised" at how even-handed the proceedings were. Far more professional than other trials of the 1500s.
The Spanish Inquisition was less concerned with justice. It was used as an instrument of the Spanish rulers for expansion and religious persecution. Good example why Christians should never mix their faith with political authority.
So you need to ask "which one?"
There's actually a book on him and his adventures and I can recommend it myself.
I can't think of any 'study guides' per se, but there are a number of resources that can help you out getting started in bolognese.
The best way to go about it is to read the primary texts and use modern supplementary material to help you sort out what is going on.
Here are some suggestions:
Giovanni D'all Agocchie's manual on the use of the sidesword can be found translated online in places. It's pretty easy to follow compared to other primary bolognese sources so is a good place to start. It contains a couple of very basic 'katas' which is what I like to start my students on as they are intended to help teach and learn the fundamental movements of the system. A full copy of his manual including stuff not directly related to side sword can be found here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/jherek-swanger-and-giovanni-dallagocchie/the-art-of-defense-on-fencing-the-joust-and-battle-formation-by-giovanni-dallagocchie-paperback/paperback/product-23737371.html
A 'cheat sheet' for the techniques contained in the manual can be found here and is a useful for guided practice: http://www.lulu.com/shop/reinier-van-noort/dall-agocchie-cheat-sheet/paperback/product-22581086.html
Manciolino covers mostly sword and buckler, and Tom Leoni does a decent job of presenting the material in a format that is easy to follow and practice from: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982591136?pf_rd_p=c2945051-950f-485c-b4df-15aac5223b10&pf_rd_r=0WWCFEQSX1PFS73V14BW
A modern 'clift notes' version of the bolognese style can be found here, but I prefer reading straight from the master's pen: https://www.amazon.com/16th-Century-Single-Sword-Combat/dp/150321429X/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?keywords=16th+century+italian+fencing&qid=1551209540&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmr1
There is also a complete translation of Marozzo's manual on lulu.com which is the most comprehensive of all the bolognese texts, and covers side sword with all the companion weapons as well as longsword (spadone) and polearms. However it is much harder to follow than the others mentioned above, so I would hold off on tackling it until you have a good understanding of the basics.
Other important works of the Bolognese system are the Anonimo Bolgonese which is one of the older bolgonese texts. It contains a lot of important information regarding the system and contains a large number of techniques. It is however kinda badly organized and not as clear as the other texts, but it makes for a good supplement.
Also important is Viggiani's manual. It is a very different approach to the bolognese style, and is not a complete system like the others. However it presents much more of the body mechanics that make for good defensive/offensive maneuvers. It should likewise be viewed as a supplement to the general bolognese system.
I'm sorry I could provide more links as I am on my mobile, but I hope this helps.
Not everyone who comments on politics or acts in the political arena is a political philosopher (Hitler is no more a philosopher than Hillary Clinton is), if you want the philosophical side of fascism the sorts of people you'd be looking at are Giovanni Gentile (who co-wrote The Doctrine of Fascism with Mussolini), (to an extent) Martin Heidegger, and possibly some further from mainstream names like Julius Evola. I'll pass on a recommendation I've heard before of Mussolini's Intellectuals by A James Gregor.
Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries edited by Bengt Ankarloo & Gustav Henningsen
-contains article: "The Ladies from Outside: An Archaic Pattern of the Witches' Sabbath" by Gustav Henningsen, discusses Sicilian witches who interacted with fair folk/local spirits.
Pentamerone by Giambattista Basile
-A collection of fairy tales which provides insights into interacting with local spirits.
Magic: A Theory from the South by Ernesto de Martino (Sud e Magia), tr. by Dorothy Zinn
Under the Devil’s Spell: Witches, Sorcerers and the Inquisition in Renaissance Italy by Matteo Duni
Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath by Carlo Ginzburg
Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by Carlo Ginzburg
Incubation, or The cure of disease in pagan temples and Christian churches by Mary Hamilton
-Discusses the practice of incubation among pre-Christian and Christian Italy, informative regarding the use of dreams in Southern Italian folk practices.
Thracian Magic: Past & Present Paperback by Georgi Mishev
Man-eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett is also a very interesting read, it talks about man eating Bengal tigers in India. Imagine a smaller tiger with double the vengeance - you get the bengal tiger.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195622553/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_dp_T1_86mozbRJPW1VJ
Oligarchies by nature seek political stability. They fear populist sentiments and the accumulation of too much power in the hands of a single individual. Especially, they fear excessive factionalism; that infighting amongst the elite could be exploited to collectively end their domination of political life. Oligarchies therefore tend to develop a very corporate identity, seeking unity of purpose and a relatively equal distribution of status across all members of the elite. I would expect your mercantile elite then to be very concerned with political stability.
One of the main countries in my world is governed by a mercantile oligarchy as well. The Numanthian ruling elite is obsessed with stability. Indeed, almost every facet of Numanthian governmental, social, and economic life is geared towards maintaining such stability. Over several centuries, this elite has consolidated its control over the state, slowly closing the senior offices of state off from provincial elites and the lower classes. This is not to say that social mobility is impossible in Numanthia. Indeed, the mercantile focus of the Numanthian economy makes it far less difficult to achieve wealth and status, even for foreigners, especially compared to other states. It is just extremely difficult to enter the established ruling elite. I strongly model this country on Venice, with elements of the Roman Republic as well.
I’m not sure what time period you’re basing this society off, but I would definitely look into Venetian political history for influence. Chapin Lane’s [Venice, A Maritime Republic] (http://www.amazon.com/Venice-Maritime-Republic-Frederic-Chapin/dp/080181460X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412792305&sr=8-1&keywords=chapin+lane+venice) is still the best scholarly examination of Venetian political history, and is very readable. It’s the main text I reference for anything relating to Venetian politics.
I’ve also a few notes on slaves. The real advantages of owning a slave is that they cannot take their labor elsewhere to seek higher compensation. Remember, slaves aren’t cheap. Aside from the cost of acquiring them, slaves need to be fed (and when performing manual labor a sufficient diet is necessary), housed, clothed, and cared for if ill. You also need overseers to monitor them, a further cost. For unskilled work like mining, it’s much cheaper to hire free labor. Free labor needs only be paid for the work they do, with none of the upkeep costs listed above. Indeed, recent scholarship of Roman mining has deemphasized slave labor in favor of such free laborers. Just keep these costs in mind when determining the role you want slaves to play in this society’s economy. Apologies for the length, I hope this is helpful. Please feel free to ask any questions you have!
The Cheese and the Worms is awesome. Glad you mentioned it, it's an even-better example of what I was trying to explain.
TL;DR: Your friend is correct that Beowulf is not authentic, from the viewpoint of a contemporary Pagan Viking. However, I highly recommend that your friend learns Old Icelandic and reads Hrolfs Saga in its original language, if he ever wants to be able to argue about this, rather than just bitch inelegantly about the very real Christianization of European literature.
Everyone in this thread has grossly oversimplified their answer to what is a grossly oversimplified statement. Beowulf IS DEFINITELY ARTIFICIALLY CHRISTIANIZED. That does not make it "trash." However, studying it in a vacuum DOES make your efforts sadly less effective than if someone bothered to put Beowulf into cultural and religious context. You'll get a nice poem and some religious propaganda, but you won't understand its place in history.
The problem is that it's difficult to address the problems in Beowulf without admitting the Christian effort in the Late Middle Ages through the modern era to eradicate non-Christian culture. It's vicious, and it must be owned up to, or the literature simply doesn't make sense. And readers, or teachers, who are Christians themselves find this erasure to be difficult to accept, as if their medieval ancestors never did nothin' wrong.
And students who are Pagan themselves find a lot of anger when they find out exactly how badly their own (or what they feel are their own) traditions have been suppressed. Your friend's an edgy teenager, sure, but he's not wholly wrong, either.
When you first discover how very much has been lost to political/religious bickering over the years, it's really easy to just get sad, and angry. We are looking at the attempted eradication of entire cultural traditions, and as an historian, a modern neopagan, or a lover of literature, it's very hurtful. It's depressing. It's like hearing about the lost libraries of the ancient world, or book burning in 1930's Nuremberg or 1990's Ohio. It's a loss to the world, and it sucks, and it's OK to be ticked off about it.
What if someone re-wrote Star Wars to champion Scientology, and then tried to destroy all mentions of the original? It's a lot like that. You'd be sad and angry about anything lost deliberately to history, because someone 500 years ago or 1000 years back wanted to hide alternative thoughts from future generations. It was censorship as much as it was creativity, and this does need to be acknowledged.
Dismissing this sense of loss as "fedora tipping" or "/r/atheism is leaking," as some below have done, doesn't help anyone understand why a literature student may have a personal, heartfelt beef with the Christians of centuries past. Dismissing this is shallow and narrow-minded; destruction of literature is wrong no matter who's doing it. And we should all be able to sympathize with someone who's pissed off about its loss, even if that person is speaking with more anger than erudition.
There is a strong argument to be made that Beowulf represents an opportunistic appropriation by a Christian culture, of older stories written by a pre-Christian culture. When you examine Europe's literature during this period, you see quite a bit of this, and there's a deep sense that the Christian scholars busy re-working and translating other stories didn't have respect for the original content. They had contempt for the concepts of pagan religion, and were not shy about changing the story to make it Christian-affirming. It's Christianized, all right.
It's not "trash." Books aren't "trash" and major historical sagas, national epics, and key examples of turbulent, transitional periods of history are not to be fucking referred to as trash. That's what the original appropriators did: they trashed the old versions in favor of their improvements. That's why you don't respond to book-burning by burning the other guy's books.
First, framing your friend's objections as simply "disliking mentions of Christian content" dismisses the problems with political/religious erasure and cultural appropriation. It's definitely problematic, and those problems should be addressed. Just like we don't throw the work out because of its appropriation, we don't put it on a pedestal and ignore the problems, either. One should NOT read Beowulf without a running explanation of which elements were injected solely to provide a Christian context to future readers, to make it seem like this story, and all stories, were Christian stories only. It's part of the experience.
I'd go further to say that the proper companion to Beowulf is Hrolfssaga, as this is the pagan text that Beowulf is well-understood to be the Christianized, and Anglicized version of. Beowulf was intended to communicate something FROM Christians TO Christians, most of whom would have been already familiar with the stories of Hrolf Kraki, Bo∂ar Bjarki, or the quest against that monster. Eliminating the original work just leaves you with half the story.
The Christian erasure of Europe's non-christian past has been wildly successful over the years. So much so that modern people aren't even aware it's happened. The impulse of individual Christians to re-appropriate, gloss over, or outright deny other cultural expressions in literature and history seems to be long-lasting. Early Modern translations of Old Norse works read side-by-side with the original language, for example, might leave out key mentions of gods, or remove references to pagan funeral rituals.
Another example: Carlo Ginzburg, of The Cheese and the Worms fame, wrote a very revealing history of an Italian town's dealings with the Inquisition, in which a peasant tradition of apparent Shamanism is wiped out (over the course of a century) so thoroughly that not even the local residents were aware their traditions used to be different. That book is The Night Battles, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to argue about "Christianization" of Pagan Europe.
In fact, if you argue any stance on the subject of Christianization of literature or culture in Europe, and have not read The Night Battles, I think you are missing an enormous piece of the puzzle; Ginzburg (a Catholic, and very highly regarded by the Vatican) was given access to inquisitional records which had been sealed or ignored for centuries. He uses this to re-construct not only the richly syncretic cultural environment of a Europe which was transitioning from Pagan to Christian, but the exact cultural process by which ordinary people were convinced that their traditions were other than what they really were.
The importance of this work is enormous: Before the Inquisition, local people thought that their beliefs about witchcraft were traditional, and historically-derived: they got their beliefs from their ancestors, same as everyone. Their beliefs were that witchcraft was for the benefit of the community, and resembled Shamanism in practice and belief, but Christianity in vocabulary -- Witches fight the Devil!
AFTER the Inquisition, local people believed that they had always believed that witches were followers of the devil. Turns out, the Inquisition made this up and then convinced everyone a) to believe it, and then b) that they'd always believed it and that their ancestors had also believed it.
a great resource for fencing manuscripts is http://wiktenauer.com personally i would recommend taking a look at Giganti a translation of which you can get right off Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0982591128/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1481352452&sr=8-2&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=Giganti+fencing
I've had to remove some links from the main post. Added here:
General works - more advanced material
You should read at least one book from the preceding section before looking at books here. They are a more advanced treatment on the topic that may include viewpoints that are not commonly held.
This book discusses the war in general through transcripts of live discussions between leading historians. An unconventional look at the war which ranges widely while avoiding the academic tone of most books - highly recommended.
Sheffield reinterprets the war, debunking the myths of 'lions led by donkeys' and futility which arose from popular culture and powerfully arguing that the war had to be fought, and was won by a British Army which by 1918 was the most effective fighting force in the world.
This book is a narrative of the war that takes a detailed look at the conscientious objectors and the rise of the socialist movement in the context of the greater war. It is highly focused on British people and events.
An in depth look at the origins of World War I with particular focus on Balkans politics and events such as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
Seems to be the only recent English language work on the Italian front that I and it brings to light a long forgotten front that had some of the most extreme fighting in the war.
General works - personal accounts
Online resources
This is also a description of how German stormtroop tactics evolved, but much shorter. It is worth to mention because it is available as a free PDF, and good enough that you will find it quoted in books now and then. Gudmundsson's book is a more comprehensive resource but this one has the benefit of being online and free.
Fiction
The classic novel of WWI experiences
Loosely based on his own experiences, this novel helps bring the war "up close & personal".
LOL. Read this: Jim Corbett - Man-Eaters of Kumaon
The dude was a government-contracted hunter of man-eaters in colonial India. Despite the fact that he is killing a regal creature, he is doing what is necessary.
Tigers are so much more dangerous than most folks imagine. Even a professional hunter like this guy, who has spent years in the field and has a high-powered safari rifle and a team of guides, has serious difficulty with them. I cannot imagine how the heck people killed them before firearms were invented. This guy had a few close calls where it was literally nothing but luck that allowed him to survive. It's a very thrilling read.
https://www.amazon.com/Wojtek-Bear-Polish-War-Hero/dp/1843410656/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3/145-9167715-9753257?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1843410656&pd_rd_r=1d597819-3346-4aed-80c7-6b197c288c17&pd_rd_w=QfBEi&pd_rd_wg=LESH8&pf_rd_p=09627863-9889-4290-b90a-5e9f86682449&pf_rd_r=5K921AT333QE436YV9BY&psc=1&refRID=5K921AT333QE436YV9BY there is apparently a biographical book about Wojtek, an honorary soldier (and bear) in the Polish Army during WWII.
People are going to suggest "Bear" by Marian Engel. Do not listen to them, trust me.
Fiore is a great way to start. I'd recommend checking out https://duello.tv/ if you'd like really great instruction on it and are unable to find any local club near you. Devon Boorman runs Academie Duello and his interpretation is very good. His interpretation fills in blanks by adding in concepts from later Italian manuscripts written by Achille Marozzo, Ridolfo Capoferro, Salvator Fabris, Nicolleto Giganti, and Camillo Agrippa. So you'll probably find it easiest to pick up.
Guy Windsor also has several excellent books as well and he has some free video tutorials on his Youtube channel but they aren't as indepth as Duello.tv
Of course you should also purchase a translated copy of the original source, but if you're going to self instruct then gaining the insight from Guy and Devon will help you make a lot of good progress on deciphering what is meant. As with all of the source manuscripts there is a lot of information missing which has needed to be figured out through experimentation.
I would recommend this translation of the Ludwig / Getty as a source for Fiore https://www.amazon.com/Flower-Battle-MS-Ludwig-XV13/dp/0984771689/
Calcio if you're interested in Italian football.
A season with Verona about an Englishman who lives in Verona and talks about his adventures following them.
Football, Fascism and Fandom: The UltraS of Italian Football
if you're interested in the darker side of the Ultras in Italian football (and mainly Rome).
Dimicator on facebook is one place for pretty great info on sword and buckler.
As for books... You could go with the pretty outdated Sword and Buckler book from Chivalry Bookshelf. Found here on Amazon.
Then there is new book (BTW thanks for having me look this up, I didn't even know this existed)
Next in line would be Manciolino.
You could also try looking at Lignitzer through Wiktenauer.com. That is going to more updated than David Lindholm's books (two links btw), or Christian Tobler's. But, it is nice to have physical copies.
The Cheese and the Worms. Story about Domenico Scandella, an Italian man from the sixteenth century who came to the belief that the creation of the universe was like 'worms in cheese'. He spoke of these beliefs and the Inquisition conducted a heresy trial. Refusing to renounce, the Pope ultimately ordered his execution and he was burnt at the stake. The book examines sixteenth century religious order through translations of the trial proceedings, a microhistory of a singular event to extrapolate a macrocosm of religious values at that time.
Also: Cheese and Worms. The Universe. Too fucking weird.
Thanks!
For US people: http://www.amazon.com/History-Venice-John-Julius-Norwich/dp/0679721975
If you want to, there's a bunch of resources out there to learna little more. DnD and Fencing was where I started. /r/wma is a great place for all European Martial Arts, and there's a small pocket of rapier fighters. Martin Fabian's videos on youtube are a great resource, though I use a different master than he does. I study under Giganti's treatises, which you can find on amazon.
Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought:
https://www.amazon.com/Mussolinis-Intellectuals-Fascist-Political-Thought/dp/0691127905
With regard to history generally, no -- I was already interested in that. But with regard to particular histories, absolutely.
For example, Civilization V sparked in me an obsession about Venice and its history. Since 2014:
I could go on, but that that should suffice to illustrate how big an impact the Serenissima's inclusion in V has had on my historical interests.
Italy was one of our most useful allies!
In all seriousness though, you should also check out the Italian Front during WWI as well. Things were brutal (trench warfare in the mountains) and the army was horribly mismanaged. People always forget about it on account of the Western Front being the main focus.
http://www.amazon.com/The-White-War-Italian-1915-1919/dp/0465020372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377056930&sr=8-1&keywords=the+Italian+front
This book is a great start. They even practiced decimation. A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway is also a great book about it, although it is fiction and it's generally accepted that he grossly exaggerated his war experiences.
lol nice. This book is a good readable account of it: https://www.amazon.com/Norman-Conquest-Southern-Italy-Sicily/dp/0786414723
this book can get dry at times, but it’s still a great read. Has a big section on Superga. I’d recommend it to anyone looking to learn a bit more about Serie A, some real interesting stories in there.
Holy crap, I know what I'm reading next week! http://www.amazon.com/Norman-Conquest-Southern-Italy-Sicily/dp/0786414723
You seem to be interested in "microhistory". Believe it or not, since the 1970's, some academics have been asking big questions out of small places, and this has progressed into "New Historicism" and the history of ideologies.
For microhistory, see:
For New Historicism:
EDIT: hhawks12, great post! I like your thinking!
Well, for Bonetti, there isn't much to speak of.
For Capoferro, there's Guy Windsor's book, which is very good, and there's a new translation that's due sometime in December by Tom Leoni at Freelance Academy Press
There's a Thibault translation floating around for kind of a lot of money, and with a horrible typeface choice for the body text.
For Agrippa, there's Ken Mondeschein's translation, which also comes with a very academic treatment of the work, in the form of the introduction.
May I also recommend Tom Leoni's translation of Nicoletto Giganti's treatise. It's (IMO) the best period manual for the modern-day fencer. It's laid out like a lesson plan, and is short and to the point. It still assumes some contextual knowledge, but, hey, that's what this class is for, right?
Also, did you get my UReddit email?
Just to comment on the book, Man-eaters of Kumaon is a fascinating read. I have read it dozens of times and as I grow older, I find different parts of his story that fascinate me. Check it out if you can. Good adventure reading.
Mark Thompson's The White War is an excellent study of this front.
Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:
amazon.co.uk
amazon.ca
amazon.com.au
amazon.in
amazon.com.mx
amazon.de
amazon.it
amazon.es
amazon.com.br
amazon.nl
amazon.co.jp
amazon.fr
Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
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My first recommendation would be to come down to Phoenix to learn first hand from Richard Marsden, otherwise, you can check: https://www.hemaalliance.com/ for close HEMA club affiliates.
You can also get a hardback, english translated treatise for $40 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Flower-Battle-MS-Ludwig-XV13/dp/0984771689/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523987594&sr=8-1&keywords=flower+of+battle
Aside from that, I'm not sure if there are any YouTubers for it but I really like Fiore's system.
The White War. Covers the fighting in the Alps...a often overlooked part of the war.
It also covers the Italian politics and the incompetence that resulted in the actions taken in the war. Good read.
https://www.amazon.com/White-War-Death-Italian-1915-1919/dp/0465020372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486621408&sr=8-1&keywords=The+white+war
If you want to listen to the audible version, go to amazon and get the kindle version first. It is free. and then because you have the kindle version the audible version drops down to something like $1. Its the joys of their 'if you buy both you get stuff cheap' thing.
http://www.amazon.com/History-Decline-Roman-Empire-ebook/dp/B0082ZJA9M
Quote is from Machiavelli if I'm not mistaken.
Just finished this book last night. Fantastic read on how to navigate a totalitarian rule in a state, that perceived itself as a democracy at the time.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one about Venice.
While watching the Showtime series 'The Borgias' I got an interest in this period of Italian history. Pope Alexander and his brood, Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Machiavelli, the Medici. I knew enough that i could not trust any of what was being dramatized in that series (or in "Borgia" the later European series shown on Netflix that I watched later) as being historically accurate but I didn't know what I couldn't trust. Very frustrating.
So I read "The Borgias And Their Enemies" (more or less orthodox history), "The Borgias: The Hidden History" (very revisionist history, more or less endorsing the very sympathetic portrayals in the TV series), "The House of Medici: Its Rise And Fall" and I torrented a PDF copy of 'A Journey Into Michelangelo's Rome." As someone with just a casual interest in that time and place and no previous academic background in either, I would recommend all of them.
I suggest Mussolini's Intellectuals by A. James Gregor if you want to read up on Italian fascism.
There's a good few books about medieval Italy on the AskHistorians book list. Of particular interest are probably:
> Madden, Thomas. Venice: A New History.
>
> Steven Epstein. Genoa and the Genoese, 958-1528.
>
> Najemy, John M. A History of Florence 1250-1575.
>
> Abulafia, David. The Two Italies: economic relations between the Norman kingdom of Sicily and the northern communes.
Now, I haven't actually read any of the above myself so I can't provide a personal recommendation, but there are descriptions of them written by flaired users from AskHistorians included in the book list, so definitely check that out.
We have The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall, or, if you are interested in only a single member of the family, Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de' Medici is good as well.
If you want to learn more about rennisaiance swordsman ship, check this book out.
It has an excellent introduction about the basics of Bolognese style fencing and some history. Then goes into a translation of Manciolino who was a fencing master from Italy. It's excellent and is one of the sources I use for teaching HEMA.
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Renaissance-Swordsman-Antonio-Manciolinos/dp/0982591136/ref=asc_df_0982591136/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312029778645&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=108549007198241022&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9002001&hvtargid=aud-801381245258:pla-493580792297&psc=1
I loved People's History, Salt, The Cheese and the Worms, the Edmond Morris series on TR, Common Women, and Gender and Jim Crow.
I have a couple of books about big game hunters on my list, but I have not read either of these yet:
As for explorers, the best non-fiction I've read about explorers are The Lost City of Z by David Grann, about Percy Fawcett's attempts to find Eldorado in the jungles of South America, and Endurance by Alfred Lansing, about Shackleton's survival after his doomed polar expedition.
It occurs to me that none of these are set in Africa. Hope that's not a deal-breaker.
I'll also recommend my favorite memoir of all time, Papa Hemingway by A.E. Hotchner. It's about his time spent traveling with Ernest Hemingway, who was something of a hunter and adventurer, and recounts a lot of very exciting trips to exotic locales in which manly deeds were done.
Sorry it took so long to reply, it wasn't for lack of trying just lack of time.
Three books that really stuck out to me were The Cheese and The Worms, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath and Bread of Dreams. What facinated me about the picture they presented was how little influence The Christian Church had in rural Europe (which was most of Europe). Most people in Europe not only knew little to nothing about Christianity, but many rural priests were just as confused. As a result, a very interesting cosmology existed in a time where I assumed most people were Catholic.
In summary: Most people in medieval Europe were not Christian.
One of my all-time favorite stories is about the trial of a guy named Menocchio, a laborer in Italy during the 16th century.
the TL;DR version is: Menocchio had some, shall we say, unorthodox views about the nature of man and god. After all, he had read 12 books. According to him, "I have said that, in my opinion, all was chaos, that is, earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together; and out of that bulk a mass formed – just as cheese is made out of milk – and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels."
The Catholic Church at the time wasn't thrilled about this, and so they brought him up on charges of heresy. But during the trial, they realized that his view of the world was quite a bit more substantial (and a bit more zany) than the prosecutors realized, and so sent him away with a warning not to say anything more about his beliefs. Well, guess what, Mennochio didn't listen and actually started spreading the good news about this new understanding of the world of cheese and worms. Which landed him in a second and a third heresy trial.
At the second, he confessed that he might have been influenced by the devil to say such things, and was let off the hook again. But at the third, which was to be his last, Mennochio admitted that he had, big surprise, actually made it all up. That the universe was not, in fact, cheese.
He was burned at the stake for refusing to admit that blasphemy was actually a sin, for, in the words of the historian Carlo Ginzburg, who wrote a really really great book about the episode, he had not realised that he had "a tendency to reduce religion to morality."
You can get the book here for less than a buck: http://www.amazon.com/The-Cheese-Worms-Cosmos-Sixteenth-Century/dp/0801843871
Currently reading:
My Rise And Fall by Benito Mussolini
I Am the Messenger
Thinking of buying:
Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought
Courting Greta - Not sure about this one.
Off the top of my head, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Also,
How the Irish Saved Civilization is a great read, though not about Rome.
If you're into church history, The Early Church by Chadwick and The Reformation by Macchulloch are well-written and interesting
Reminds me of this classic that read when I was younger: https://www.amazon.com/Man-Eaters-Kumaon-Oxford-India-Paperbacks/dp/0195622553/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496909025&sr=8-1&keywords=maneaters+of+kumaon
Awesome book of stories about one man's experiences with these magnificent, intelligent and vengeful creatures.
You're going to be in for a tough time! Finding good sources that are non-academic on witch trials and Sabbats is like finding Bigfoot. Part of it is because of the high amount of folklorists who believe they were real witches and treat it with a nonhistorical tint. Often they add facts that are blatantly false. The rest are academics who do good microhistories on witch trials.
My number one suggestion would be to either try out this book (mostly primary sources, but in good English and readable) or read some Carlo Ginzburg. He's the authoritarian on Sabbats and one of the best historians in history. His Night Battles and Ecstasies are both on Sabbats and are the premier work on them.
Sorry I can't be of more help there! If you do stumble upon something better let me know, because it's a problem I'm encountering as well.
https://www.amazon.com/Mussolinis-Intellectuals-Fascist-Political-Thought/dp/0691127905
Look into this book, Spirito is mentioned in one chapter, and there is aslo further reading part for more information.
>I think gentrification is a byproduct of people foreclosing mortgages after an economy crashes
Not sure that that's really a robust enough explanation, given that gentrification is currently happening in even the richest cities in the United States today. Also, I'm not sure that the areas where gentrification is occurring are areas where there are many homeowners in the first place.
>But a capitalist doesnt run the State because in a free market society
Yes, actually, the state operates in the interests of the dominant class. This has always been the case. You and I don't matter.
Lobbying is perhaps the most visible example, but it runs much deeper than that. Our institutions, our laws, our political system... All of it is, either directly or indirectly, controlled and shaped by the desires of the ruling class. For the best source on how the capitalist state functions, I'd suggest the Prison Notebooks by Antonio Gramsci
> If the Bank fails then it needs to fail because capitalism doesnt socialize risk.
What do you mean by this? This actually happens all the time, it happened in 2009 with American banks and a similar thing shall happen with Italian banks here soon as well. When we talk about capitalism on this forum, we're not using the "free market wonderland" definition.
>I think the burden of proof is on you on this one, no offense.
And I linked you to a resource with a wealth of sources. Not sure what else you want.
>I would prefer if you explain to me in your own words instead of linking me to a wikipedia article.
I think that's because you want me to get caught in an argument that's beyond my current knowledge, which I'm not going to do. I gave you the best repository for information on the web, feel free to investigate it for yourself.
https://www.amazon.com/White-War-Death-Italian-1915-1919/dp/0465020372
Some have already pointed out the inconsistency of fascist doctrine across different nations. This is mostly due to the nature of right-wing movements - they’re rooted in culture and tradition, the idea of “peoplehood”, and so the way it manifests is going to vary from culture to culture by definition. This is why even though German National Socialism and Italian Fascism are both (reasonably) lumped in the same category, it’s pretty much universally recognized that they were also in some sense distinct. As was Franco’s Spain, as were the various right-wing groups of South America, etc. This is why it’s hard to pin down a precise definition of “fascism” (one reason, anyway).
If you’re talking about Fascism proper (capital ‘F’), i.e. the political doctrine of Mussolini, there’s a good book that examines the philosophical foundations of Italian Fascism, Gregor’s Mussolini’s Intellectuals. It’s far and away the most thorough and neutral book I’ve found on the topic. He outlines the evolution of Fascist doctrine over the course of the late 1910s till the end of WWII. That can at the very least help you understand Fascism as a historical phenomenon.
If you’re trying to understand “fascism” as a kind of blanket term for the general ethos animating right-wing groups, /u/t644sf12’s answer pretty much hits the nail on the head.
The Prison Diaries - Antonio Gramski
The wretched of the earth - Frantz Fanon
No Place to Go: Stories of Hope and Despair from India's Ailing Health Sector - Subhadra Menon
when i was doing it in class, there was a lot of emphasis on vico
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vico/
and Carlo Ginzburg
http://www.amazon.com/The-Cheese-Worms-Cosmos-Sixteenth-Century/dp/0801843871?tag=duckduckgo-d-20
I found them both to be interesting reads.
Notice I said "de Gaulle" in my post, not "the French people". I got my information from actual books (maybe you've heard of them? Hey, if you can be condescending, so can I...) like An Army at Dawn and The Day of Battle for instance. And no, it did not just become popular after 2001; see "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" (1995).
I appreciate that the people of France have virtually always been friendly to Americans, but the same is decidedly not true of the French government.
Well, Veneto as part of the Republic of Venice has a much longer history of independence than Scotland or Catalunya.
I understand you are a foresto (ehm) but if you are interested, I suggest a book I bought from Amazon that according to the guys at /r/history was probably the best on the subject: Venice, a Maritime Republic.
this is one of the best books on the topic.
http://www.amazon.com/Mussolinis-Intellectuals-Fascist-Political-Thought/dp/0691127905
it was truly was a new ideology in the 1920s.
the nazis added some populism to it when they brought it to germany.
Rhom added some workers sentiment but was killed in the night of the long knives.
Hitler added the extermination of jews at the end.
But he had become a dictator just 18 months into his appointment to riechchancelor at the beginning he just started by kicking them out and stealing their property, like all the other jewish pogroms that were the sad state of normality Europe for 1,000 years. the UK kicked out all the jews at one point. look up the dreyfus affair for an idea about how deep antisemitism was ingrained in even the heart of paris in the early 20th century. the dreyfus affair, not incidentally, created one original Zionism's most powerful politcal advocates.
you aren't ignorant because there is so much shit on the internet that purports to be well informed, but there is information out there that is readily obtainable. we should attempt to maintain the meanings of some words in a historical context. everyone calls everyone a fascist. it ceases to be useful, is rendered meaningless for those that do know what the word still means.
in all events. these guys weren't right nor left. they were, as always utopianists. they felt the state needed to subordinate the competing classes that were tearing their nations apart, to harness the will towards the greater good. they saw evil in both right and left. hitler railed against american capitalism all the damn time. you can see why both the elite on the right who might be terrified of Bolshevism, and the progressives on the left that desired a firm hand from the state to push people toward their better angels, as it were, saw something promising in this. these people were lionized, by spectrums of the left and the right in the early 1930s.
*why would you fucking downvote this? what kind of fucking totalitarian ideologue could you be? I'm a god damn anarchist. I read these theories because I hate your shit. I can see this clearly, and I bet I know who downvoted this, the cunts on the left that have gained so much by pinning this atrocity on the right. fuck you. read about it and rebut the facts. go to school. do anything. something. god damn. you dispoiler. makes me sick coming here sometimes. you get a vote for I'm an idiot, this guy would like to educate generally. I'm about ready to pull my authority. j/k.
If being top 4 means buying titles/referees, then yes.
Source: https://www.amazon.com/Calcio-History-Football-John-Foot/dp/0007175752/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468754206&sr=1-2&keywords=calcio+italian+football