(Part 2) Best north africa history books according to redditors
We found 235 Reddit comments discussing the best north africa history books. We ranked the 49 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Few months ago, there was a similar question at War College, though related to Uganda, see thread How does the Ugandan Army compare to its neighbors?
I agree with your conclusion that African Wars - like II Congo War - are usually discussed from the geo-political POV, very rarely from military POV. Exceptions are rather rare, regardless if it's about pre- or post-1990s, and so also in the case of such wars like that in Rwanda, or the I and II Congo Wars. For example, while there are dozens of books, and thousands of studies and articles about Rwanda, all I know - without a single exception - are dealing with the genocide of 1994. Until recently (see below) there was not one about military history of the Rwandan Civil War, 1990-1994. Similarly, books like those by Prunier are 'well known', while those discussing military campaigns appear 'non-existing'.
Now, instead of explaining whys and hows, let me come to the point, i.e. offer you a few reading tips. Since you've explicitly requested 'post 1990 Africa', in your place I would start with John W Turner's Continent Ablaze. Yes, about 95% of that book is about pre-1990s, i.e. 'classic African wars', and post-1990s chapters are limited to those about Angola, actually. Furthermore, a lot of Turner's work is based on little else but reporting by BBC's Foreign Monitoring Service and similar 'sources'. But, you'll learn a lot about most of reasons for post-1990s wars. Plus, it's one of less than a handful of books covering African wars one can find in libraries of such places like Sandhurst, so I would describe it as a 'good starter'. If nothing else, it's going to help you find out what wars do you want to follow closely.
Casual search around the internet might bring you to various books by Al J Venter, a veteran South African author of works like War Dog, Gunship Ace, or Barrel of a Gun. These are including a great deal of 'episodes' related to South African mercenaries in places like Congo, Sierra Leone, Angola etc. Al was in all of these places, and is personally befriended to most of crucial actors, and thus simply 'unbeatable' in regards of 'details'. What one might miss in his books though, would be for these stories to be put within their geopolitical and military context, i.e. a slightly better organization of all the data they're presenting. But then, that's simply a matter of taste.
Still, if you follow 'Al's trail', you might stumble into a small South African publisher titled 30 Degrees South - and thus find out this has published a number of titles penned by Eeben Barlow.
Clearly, while Barlow is well-known (or at least 'Executive Outcomes' is going to ring plenty of bells here, so I'm sure), his top military planners and tacticians like Roelf van Heerden and Andrew Hudson remain entirely unknown in the public - although at least the latter has published a number of his own titles, mostly via 30 Deg South (just check their website).
Further search for the latter might bring you to a series of books published in cooperation between 30 Deg South and Helion Publishing (UK) since some 6-7 years and appropriately titled 'Africa@War'. They've released about 25 titles so far. Of course, majority of these went into 'classic' topics from the 1960s-1980s - i.e. those related to South Africa, Rhodesia, Portuguese campaigns in the Guine, Angola, or mercenaries in the Congo etc. But, meanwhile they've brought out quite a number of titles about 'other' African wars out, and especially those about conflicts since 1990s - including such like Somalia, US Intervention, 1992-1994, or the much postponed AMISOM.
Guess, this is the point at which I must beg admins for some more of their understanding (perhaps even some 'sympathy'), then because of my own involvement the following is going to appear as another post full of 'shameless self-advertising'. Namely, I do happen to have researched quite a lot about modern-day African wars (often with help from kind people like Andrew, Al and many others) and so I have joined the gang of Africa@War and published several titles in that series, often in cooperation with my Swiss friend Adrien Fontanelaz. That's how an entire series of books explaining the military history of conflicts related to the II Congo War came into being, including:
I did originally intend to follow-up with a third volume on the DR Congo since 2003, but sad point is: as much as they are praised by all of their readers, the latter remain very limited in numbers. My understanding of the reasons is that these books are neither sensationalist, nor discussing usual topics like mass suffering of civilians, but rather dry military histories of conflicts in question. And since majority of potential readers cannot imagine - just for example - Zimbabweans deploying their adaptation of Rhodesian 'Fire Force tactics' in the centre of the DR Congo of 1998, they never come to the idea that there are any kind of books discussing such topics. Unsurprisingly, I doubt we've sold more than 500 copies of any of these titles, which in turn means they simply do not pay. For similar reasons, I dropped the idea of preparing similar volumes on topics like Sudan or Chad, just for example. Slightly more successful was the Libyan Air Wars mini-series (3 titles); that might eventually 'provoke' me to ready a title (or two) on 'Libya since 2011' (there're certainly enough sources and info, especially thanks to research by Arnaud Delalande). We'll see...
Fans of obscure (indeed: often enough 'weird') air forces and their (frequently: 'colourful') aircraft have found the two-part study African MiGs slightly more interesting (indeed, even the library at Wright Patterson should have a copy of each). Except for discussing acquisitions and operational history of its title, it's also providing - often quite lengthy - summaries of local air forces at wars, so also those since 1990 (just for example, I do not know any other book discussing COIN ops by the Ugandan People's Defence Force/Air Force against Lord's Resistance Army since 2000). 'Bonus', if you like: Volume 2 ends with a big appendix providing a detailed ORBAT of 23 African air forces as of 2010 (with exception of Mozambique and Mali, not much changed ever since).
Pirates of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the Seventeenth-Century Mediterranean by Adrian Tinniswood is a great book that covers this topic.
Pirates were often converted Muslim expats who were formerly members of the English Navy. They worked under the sponsorship of pashas who ruled North African city states under the Ottoman empire. They would (on occasion) raid all the way to Ireland and capture hostages for monetary reward. Failure to deliver payment could result in being sold as a slave. If you were a mariner on a merchant ship, you could also be captured and sold into slavery.
The book is fascinating and is fun to read, as the corsairs really gave hell to European traders in the Mediterranean.
Interesting that Tripoli (modern day Libya, then ruled by a Dey part of the Ottoman Empire) is shaded, as the Ottoman-Italian war was taking place at the time (probably had just ended, but we have no specific date for this map). Shortly afterwards the First Balkan War would erupt (1912-1913) ending Ottoman rule in the Balkans (minus the area around Edirne).
The Ottomans themselves having participated in the "Scramble for Africa", claiming territory to the territory between the Great Lakes and the modern Central African Republic. Needless to say their ambitions were dashed by 1903.
Good (new) book on the topic: Ottoman Scramble for Africa
A preview of the book by the author
That's always the problem in reading into civilizations like the Garamantes; what information we do have is sparse and it doesn't paint them in an objective light. I did however find a quick introduction on Amazon, but it doesn't look particularly deep: https://www.amazon.com/Garamantes-Forgotten-Civilisations-Africa-Book-ebook/dp/B007Q239OE
I think one of the best things you can do is seek out Palestinian perspectives (I say that and then immediately recommend non-Palestinian sources, but they still contain a lot of Palestinian voices). One of the first things that shook my understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict out of the default Zionism common among American liberals was reading a book by an American woman who ended up spending a lot of time in some rural Palestinian towns that have been severely impacted by the fence and later got involved in reformist PA politics and journalism.
TeleSur also has a ton of videos on the subject, but their presentation can be a little overbearing. They're arguably a Venezuelan propaganda network, so they won't necessarily have the most well-balanced perspective or political analysis, but their interviews with people are generally worthwhile.
Eugene Rogan's The Arabs also dedicates a lot of ink to detailing the event leading up to and following the Nakba, though it does so as part of a 500-year history of the Arab world, so it might be hard to find the specific spots that talk about the Sykes-Picot agreement and Balfour Declaration, Zionist lobbying in the UK, and the on-the-ground events that happened in Palestine/Israel. I recommend the entire book - it's a pretty engaging read (and Audible picked a great narrator for it) and the context it provides has helped me to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict better - but I can also look through my copy and give you the relevant page ranges.
Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:
amazon.com
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
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The standard textbook history right now appears to be The Romans: From Village to Empire.
Klaus Bringmann's A History of the Roman Republic also still seems to be the standard introduction to that period (i.e. the time period of Imperator).
If you want to read about the end of the Roman Republic and Caesar/Augustus, it's hard to turn down Caesar: Life of a Colossus which is great for the general reader, alongside his Augustus: First Emperor of Rome.
He also writes pretty solid books on other major Roman figures, such as In the Name of Rome: The Men who won the Roman Empire.
If you want to get a pretty good introduction to Roman History, but more of what life was like for the average citizen, SPQR by Mary Beard is actually a good choice.
Older, but still solid, is Peter Garnsey's The Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture which covers a lot of things Beard doesn't.
For the Roman army, Adrian Goldsworthy's The Complete Roman Army is a solid introduction.
However you'll want to break that down into several books if you want to go deeper:
Roman Military Equipment by MC Bishop and JCN Coulston
The Roman Imperial Army of the First and Second Centuries AD by Graham Webster
A Companion to the Roman Army by Paul Erdkamp
For the collapse of the Western Roman Empire I'd recommend both Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians combined with the more scholarly Guy Halsall's Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West.
For the forgotten half of Roman History, often mistakenly called the "Byzantine Empire," it's hard to cover with just one book, but Warren Treadgold's A History of the Byzantine State and Society has become the standard reading. John Haldon's The Empire that would not Die covers the critical transition during the Islamic conquests thoroughly.
Of course I have to include books on the two IMO most overrated battles in Roman history on this list since that's what people love:
The Battle of the Teutoberg Wald: Rome's Greatest Defeat by Adrian Murdoch
The Battle of Cannae: Cannae: Hannibal's Greatest Victory is sort of the single book to read if you can only pick one. However, The Ghosts of Cannae is also good. But if you actually want to go really in depth, you need Gregory Daly's dry-as-the-Atacama book Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War. When I say dry as the Atacama, I mean it, but it's also extraordinarily detailed.
I'd complement this with Goldsworthy's The Punic Wars.
For other interesting topics:
The Emergence of the Bubonic Plague: Justinian's Flea and Plague and the End of Antiquity.
Hadrian's Wall: Hadrian's Wall by Adrian Goldsworthy
Roman Architecture: Roman Architecture by Frank Sear (definitely a bit more scholarly but you can probably handle it)
I may post more in addendum to this list with further comments but I think I'm reaching the character count.
I would love to do further reading on this campaign, as well as the north African campaign in general. I have been wargaming the topic with games such as OCS Tunisia II, BCS Brazen Chariots, and Dark Sands, but would love reading to accompany the simulation.
I've found/been suggested these books and was wondering if anyone had opinions on what was the best
Rommels Desert War-Martin Kitchen
Battle for North Africa-WGF Jackson
[Crucible of War Trilogy-Barrie Pitt](
https://www.amazon.com/Crucible-War-Wavells-Command-Definitive/dp/0304359505/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=wavells+command+barrie+pitt&qid=1563903146&s=gateway&sr=8-2)
Desert War Then and Now-Pallud
The Desert War Trilogy-Alan Moorehead
This is a really solid history of Libya from its time as an Ottoman periphery state (all hail Sultan Erdogan) to roughly 2013. It does a good job of explaining how Gaddafi ran the country into the ground and essentially made revolution inevitable: https://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Libya-Dirk-Vandewalle/dp/1107615747
This is a book that focuses on the revolution itself. It's a collection of essays by different writers so there's not one clear ideological bent and explains how and why the revolution was such a cluster fuck way better than the sort of flat, anti-imperialist narrative much of the left puts forward: https://www.amazon.com/Libyan-Revolution-its-Aftermath/dp/0190210966
The Marine's involvement in the Barbary Wars is told in the book Pirate Coast. It's a quick read and one of my favorite US war stories. The expedition was led by an American who was essentially a civilian and a spy for the US. The marine contingent was small in size. But they purchased mercenaries whom the marines were able to train and lead.
https://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Coast-Jefferson-Marines-Mission-ebook/dp/B000FCK6DE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491223826&sr=8-1&keywords=pirate+coast
http://www.amazon.com/Carthage-Must-Be-Destroyed-Civilization/dp/0670022667
You're welcome. Very informative book if you are interested. And P.S. we know plenty.
https://www.amazon.com/Suez-Britains-Empire-Middle-East/dp/1848855338
How about 650ish? It's the seminal work on it. If you're a historian or policist and you're writing a book that references the Suez Canal Crisis, this is the book that your footnotes lead to.
Just finished reading Tumbuktu: The Sahara's Fabled City of Gold and yes, salt was a serious source of wealth in North Africa. Gold also came from the south (which is actually why Tumbuktu was invaded a few times - because people thought that the city was the SOURCE of the gold).
So to answer your question, yes.
I mean, it's an interesting notion. But I think the only way it works is if it's presented as a story.
I recently read a book about the Siege of Malta. It's a nonfiction historical account, and it's completely riveting. And it's riveting because it tells a story. There's a seemingly unwinnable fight looming; the Knights of Malta are outnumbered ten to one by the Moors, who are going to beach their armada on Malta toward the goal of razing it and assuming control. There are characters. There are plot twists. If you want to sell a nonfiction book, you still want to work in some plot twists.
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I don't think it would work to simply describe kobold culture in detail. It might be easier if the book was about a seminal moment in their history.
Okay, now suppose your nonfiction kobold book is presented in three or four parts, and each of these parts is a nonfiction essay by a different fictional author. These essays wouldn't need to be structurally equivalent; you could do a mix of more informal extended journal entries and more formal essays. For instance, Professor Forsythe's essay on clan rivalries could be very scholarly and didactic, while cartographer Vinson's journal could be quite loose by comparison, yet still offer solid xenoanthropological value as one of the more well known ethnographies of the time.
You could also include ephemera, including maps, illustrations (normally undesirable in a novel, a handful of quality illustrations could fundamentally affect the impact of this book), even stuff like advertising, ticket stubs, sales receipts, pamphlets, etc. It all lends a feeling of depth, of legitimization. You could make a pretty interesting book if you had an exciting hodgepodge of ephemera.
If you tell a story in 3 or 4 parts, the tone can change as the narrator changes, and you can introduce some new characters, but most characters will stay the same, so you'll have some continuity.
Ideally, there's a problem at stake, some sort of mystery. And at the root of it, all these scholars are trying to get to the heart of that mystery. They are essentially tackling the same problem from different angles, different specializations. Bonus points if the identity and focus of one or more of those scholars involves a plot twist.
So I think for this to work, you'd want to figure out that core mystery.
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There might be other options.
It sounds like essentially, you're good at the imaginative, worldbuilding side of writing, but you don't have confidence in your writing mechanics.
Create a whole world, and let people write stories in it.
A lot of modern video games now require writers, for their worldbuilding skills.
If you want to see your kobolds ever become imbued with life, to see them breathing, watching you, measuring you, then the way I see it you've got to either polish up your own storywriting skills, or find someone to write those stories. The tradeoff is that if you learn the craft and write the stories yourself, you have absolute control. If you collaborate with writers by allowing them to write in your world, or by signing up with a game group, you need to be willing to compromise & relinquish control on stuff.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mediterranean-Air-War-1940-1945-January/dp/1908117079/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
It is a day-by-day account of what happened in the area at that time. NOT a story to become engrossed in, just packed with names, dates and times of air actions.
Just acquired vol.2 though not read yet.