History books worth reading

[Cat Stew]

@Ughubughughughughughghlug
I recall, from Chinese history class, something of a Confucian official, high up, saying it is better widows starve to death and keep their honor intact than dishonor themselves going out into the world. Chinese culture is callous and disgusting. (the quote thing is white for some reason)

That quote is very famous and it is even referenced in the book. The Local History even included a list of Honorable and Virtuous Women, dedicated to the widows who chose not to remarry which often involved disfiguring the face or suicide. A law was written that any widow who remarried would have to give up her dowry to the dead husband's family, to incentivize widows not to remarry, but this had the unintended side effect of promoting the dead husband's family to coerce the widow to remarry. The widow, lived with the husband's family, and widows would be seen as a burden, especially if they had not yet produced any sons, but by this law, the family could still profit from the marriage by taking away the widow's dowry.

It just shows the difference in understanding of the imperial court and how its understanding of creating an orderly society breaks apart against the chaos at the local level.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

A little niche, but I really liked White Terror: Cossack Warlords of the Trans-Siberian. It tells the story of Grigory Semyonov, his underlings, and their bloody reign in the Russian Far East during the Russian Civil War. It's full of cruelty, violence, armored train warfare, the Czech Legion's long march east, partisans, Kolchak's doomed efforts at dealing with Semyonov, Ungern-Sternberg's bullshit, and the Allies' dicking around in Siberia not doing anything productive (and an intro chapter on Siberia I liked). Above all, it describes how Semyonov fucked over any chance the Whites had of winning because of his own greed and ego and antagonized everyone in Siberia who could have helped him (minus his Japanese backers). You can find it for free online, and the only complaint I have is the grammar being a little screwy in places (although that might be the file formatting).

Thanks for this! I read The Bloody White Baron years ago and wanted to learn more about Ungern-Sternberg and the Whites in the far east, but material on it seems a little thin (for obvious reasons).

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Are there specific recommendations for books on:
1) The Ku Klux Klan
2) Polar exploration
3) The Jesuits or general Catholic monasticism

 

[Associate Rick]

2) Polar exploration

Two good ones are The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, he was one of the youngest members of the expedition to reach the South Pole that Scott died on.

Endurance by Alfred Lansing is about the failed Shackleton expedition in 1914, their ship was crushed by ice and sank and subsequently Shackleton and five others sailed 650 nautical miles in this modified row boat to get help.

 

[Mista House]

The Fall of the West: Death of the Roman Superpower by Adrian Goldsworthy. Probably my favourite book on the later empire especially taking a long term view at the causes that led up to the fall of the empire. He also frames parts of the book around how a lot of people in the US see their current situation.

 

[Die Dunkle Maus]

Paris in the Terror by Loomis, a great read. Everybody kept private journals then, so you get a rare glimpse of private motivations to compare with their public machinations. One of my favorites.

Arabs at War by Pollack (snort), a breakdown of their military incompetence and possible answers as to why.

The Biggest Secret by Icke, an eye opener about the terrors of schizophrenia with lots of history crammed into it. It's fucking batshit and worth a read, welcome to the rabbit hole. You may just lose your mind.

 

[Cool kitties club]

I read an interesting book called '"History of Education in Antiquity" by HI Marrou. It covered education in Greece from the bronze age to Christian times. Has a bit more of a philsiopshical edge rather then being just dry facts, but it never feels overly polemical.

Here is a quote I liked from the book

The moral ideal was rather complicated. There is first of all the “cunning” type of person, whom we find a little embarrassing, exemplified in the—to us— ambiguous figure of a Levantine adventurer— as Ulysses sometimes appears in the Odyssey. Here, as I have already pointed out, the good manners and savoir-faire of the Homeric hero meet the practical wisdom of the oriental scribe: the result is the art of knowing how to get out of any awkward situation! Our conscience, refined by centuries of Christianity, sometimes feels a slight uneasiness about this— think how complaisant Athena is, for example, when one of her dear Ulysses’ lies turns out to be particularly successful. Fortunately this is not the most important thing. It is not the Ulysses of the Return but the pure and noble figure of Achilles who embodies the moral ideal of the perfect Homeric knight. This ideal can be defined in one phrase: it was an heroic morality of honour. Homer was the source, and in Homer each succeeding generation of antiquity rediscovered the thing that is absolutely fundamental to this whole aristocratic ethic: the love of glory. Its basis is that fundamental Hellenic pessimism which so impressed the young Nietzsche. The sadness of Achilles! (14) The shortness of life, the haunting fear of death, the small hope of consolation in the life beyond the grave! There was still no great belief in the possibility of a special destiny in the Elysian fields. And most people were destined for the shades— the mockery of the vague and uncertain shades. We know how Achilles himself regards them from his famous words from Hades to Ulysses, who has been impressed by the way in which the common shades respectfully make way for the shade of the hero. “Ah, do not try to gild death for me, Ulysses! I would rather be looking after some poor farmer’s oxen than reigning here over the dead— over these wraiths.”

 

[Mr. ShadowCreek]

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara is pretty good. It focuses on the Battle of Gettysburg and the men on both sides who fought in it. Joshua
Chamberlain of the Union and Robert E Lee of the Confederacy get the most focus.

A Night To Remember by Walter Lord is also a nice read that is about the sinking of the Titanic. 63 survivors were interviewed to make it as accurate as possible. It helped ignite reinterest in the sinking of the ship.

 

[Alex Hogendorp]

Most of these books are allied psychological warfare where you would learn more from a hentai doujin then you would this crap. However, if you want good history books. Find those related to supposed conspiracy theories globalists condemn. You won't be able to find these in stores though and are often delisted from marketplaces.

I seriously learned more from this book than any history book I read at school.

But yeah. Not that long ago I read a 20ish page story about the fall of western civilization, I forgot what it's called but It was a very interesting read. Another interesting read is How to change your mind. A book that researches psychedelics and was even adapted to a Netflix show. It's good regardless of where you lie on the political spectrum. The Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe is another interesting look on things regarding American history.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

The best way to figure out if a book is worth reading is to see how many people call the author a retard on Amazon. Time in the asylum is also a mark of quality. Another great technique for finding good books is to look for Youtube videos which have lots of Greek statues in the thumbnails and titles like "Why Civilization Is Falling" and see which works they cite.

 

[Candlelight Desolation]

The best way to figure out if a book is worth reading is to see how many people call the author a retard on Amazon. Time in the asylum is also a mark of quality. Another great technique for finding good books is to look for Youtube videos which have lots of Greek statues in the thumbnails and titles like "Why Civilization Is Falling" and see which works they cite.

I would also read one and two star reviews on Goodreads first before buying a book because those are usually the most honest.

 

[LateNightMuffin]

It's dated and often considered inaccurate at this point, but Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a hell of a read.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

Looking through the non-fiction I read in the last few years:

David Stuttard - Nemesis: Alcibiades and the fall of Athens - Semi-popular history about one of the more notable Athenians in Peloponessian War.

Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom - The Monastic Landscape of Late Antique Egypt: An Archaelogical Reconstruction - Not directly history, but a pretty interesting look at monasticism between late Roman and early Muslim period.

Jedrzej George Frynas - Medieval Coins of Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland - Exactly what the title says.

Joseph Frank - Dostoevsky - Massive, five volume biography that finds room to touch on most of the big intellectual/political issues in 19th century Russia. A credible candidate for the title of best English-language biography written in the 20th century.

Aaron Freundschuh - The Courtesan and the Gigolo: The Murders in Rue Montaigne and the Dark Side of Empire in 19th Century Paris - A detailed look at a notable murder case and how police investigation worked in 19th century France when it involved the colonies.

Mark Meuwese - To the shores of Chile: The Journal and History of the Brouwer Expedition to Valdivia 1643 - A translation of a primary source, but the introduction is a pretty good basic overview of the Eighty Years War and the Dutch Empire at its height. The journal itself is interesting in its own right.

Doris G. Bargen - Suicidal Honor: General Nogi and the Writings of Mori Ogai and Natsume Soseki - Partially literary history, but its main focus is one of the most notable military figures of the first Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars and the effects his suicide had.

John Hellman - The Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage 1940-1945 - Pretty detailed look at École des cadres d'Uriage, a school founded for the purpose of training new leaders for France after defeat by Germans. It only touches a little on the influence this group had in postwar France, which is a shame.

Chad Bryant - Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism - It works as an ok overview of the Nazi Occupation of modern Czechia, but it's most interesting in how it describes how nationality worked in Austria-Hungary and prewar Czechoslovakia (individual decision based on what language a person spoke in public) and how it shifted to administratively assigned nationality imposed by German administration and later used in the post-war period. It has a bunch of "poor Germans" bits, though.

Kristen Ghodsee; Mitchell A. Orenstein - Taking Stock of Shock: Social Consequences of the 1989 Revolutions - A description of how the post-socialist transformation of former communist countries was a complete disaster, unless you look at specific parts of economic data in isolation. At least, that's the obvious conclusion, but the authors can't bring themselves to state it, since they're pretty obviously liberals and said conclusion is what populists and right-wingers say.

Q.K. Philander Doestick - Witches of New York - Not exactly history, but a pretty funny look at various fortune tellers and mediums that worked in New York in the mid-19th century.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

The Iran-Iraq War: A Military and Strategic History by Williamson Murray & Kevin M. Woods

The Iran-Iraq War is one of the largest, yet least documented conflicts in the history of the Middle East. Drawing from an extensive cache of captured Iraqi government records, this book is the first comprehensive military and strategic account of the war through the lens of the Iraqi regime and its senior military commanders. It explores the rationale and decision-making processes that drove the Iraqis as they grappled with challenges that, at times, threatened their existence. Beginning with the bizarre lack of planning by the Iraqis in their invasion of Iran, the authors reveal Saddam's desperate attempts to improve the competence of an officer corps that he had purged to safeguard its loyalty to his tyranny, and then to weather the storm of suicidal attacks by Iranian religious revolutionaries. This is a unique and important contribution to our understanding of the history of war and the contemporary Middle East.

A rather large work (nearly 2000 pages on my phone) about the war through the eyes of the Saddam regime. A rather bleak war, which saw the use of mass human wave assaults' made up of literal boys and the widespread use of chemical weapons against military and civilian targets. If you need anymore reason to oppose idiotic wars, started by brain dead retards, look no further. I found the book useful in laying out the mindset of the Iraqi military and Saddam leading up to the 1991 Gulf war, and the subsequent second invasion in 2003. That land between Arabia and Persia is drenched in blood.

 

[Otoya Yamaguchi]

Ancient history books are zased. like Josephus' history of the jews....you get the feeling that modern history is sort of sometimes bullshit.

 

[Candlelight Desolation]

Ancient history books are zased. like Josephus' history of the jews....you get the feeling that modern history is sort of sometimes bullshit.

ALL history is corrupted to some extent. Like with Antiquity, for example, these are usually your sources:

1. Fragments of primary sources which have survived to the modern day while the majority of the work in question has been lost.
2. Writings of people who have biases and agendas, and so much time has passed you can't prove or disprove anything because of how much has been lost.
3. Rumors started by perverted gossipmongers who are only semi-literate.

Modern history books about Antiquity have a lot of biases and agendas themselves. John Drinkwater's biography on Nero, for example, tries to claim that the Christians were never persecuted and that they started the firing of Rome during Nero's time. Thing is, there are THREE sources from the Roman times (Suetonius, Eusebius, Tacitus) which all talk about it to varying degrees (when there would have been sources talking about it when it would have been in living memory), so the persecution DID happen, although Tacitus in his Annals goes into the most vivid detail, and he outright praises Nero for his cruelties.

 

[Otoya Yamaguchi]

ALL history is corrupted to some extent. Like with Antiquity, for example, these are usually your sources:

1. Fragments of primary sources which have survived to the modern day while the majority of the work in question has been lost.
2. Writings of people who have biases and agendas, and so much time has passed you can't prove or disprove anything because of how much has been lost.
3. Rumors started by perverted gossipmongers who are only semi-literate.

Modern history books about Antiquity have a lot of biases and agendas themselves. John Drinkwater's biography on Nero, for example, tries to claim that the Christians were never persecuted and that they started the firing of Rome during Nero's time. Thing is, there are THREE sources from the Roman times (Suetonius, Eusebius, Tacitus) which all talk about it to varying degrees (when there would have been sources talking about it when it would have been in living memory), so the persecution DID happen, although Tacitus in his Annals goes into the most vivid detail, and he outright praises Nero for his cruelties.

You are not incorrect. But sometimes intend to trust the antiquity historians more than propagandists today...just a gut feeling I suppose

 

[Lukács Werner]

Gladio: NATO's dagger at the heart of europe, by Richard Cottrell. I've seen other books recommended on operation Gladio, but this was the one I could find locally and it was very good.

After WWII the US/UK formed secret stay-behind armies with large weapons caches across western Europe, manufacturing domestic terror attacks under the guise of far left and far right extremism. The stories of the Baader meinhoff gang and the assassination of Italian president Aldo Moro are particularly interesting. For anyone following the glowie infiltration of far right groups and the current domestic terror psyop, I couldn't recommend this book more.

 

[Holy Lord Phoenix LXII]

Abyssal Bulwark​

Thank you!

Would any of you have decent recommendations for broad condenscened histories of countries or wars? Like a decent all-around guide to North American history or anything similar that would go into some detail while also spanning a large chunk of history?

Japan 1941 by Eri Hotta - Japanese point of view on WW2. Mainly the lead-up to Peral Harbor.

The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides - A period account of the The Peloponnesian War written by an Athenian man while the war was happening.

Verdun by John Mosier - Believe it or not, a book about the Battle of Verdun.

 

[LateNightMuffin]

I want to thank all of you for giving so many great suggestions. I'll be listening to as many of these books as I can when I drive.