Reddit mentions: The best french history books

We found 965 Reddit comments discussing the best french history books. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 310 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

1. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

    Features:
  • 14th Century
  • Europe
  • History
  • Medieval
  • Modern World
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
Specs:
ColorMulticolor
Height8.19 Inches
Length5.46 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateJuly 1987
Weight1.27427187436 Pounds
Width1.54 Inches
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2. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

Delacorte Press
A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918
Specs:
ColorMulticolor
Height8.22 Inches
Length5.25 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateMay 2007
Weight1.42418621252 Pounds
Width1.7 Inches
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3. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

PaperbackSimon Schama
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
Specs:
ColorMulticolor
Height9.12 Inches
Length6.31 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateMarch 1990
Weight3.5 Pounds
Width1.64 Inches
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4. Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error

Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error
Specs:
Height9 inches
Length6.1 inches
Number of items1
Release dateOctober 2008
Weight1.21 pounds
Width1.1 inches
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5. The Oxford History of the French Revolution

    Features:
  • Oxford University Press USA
The Oxford History of the French Revolution
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Height9.1 Inches
Length0.6 Inches
Number of items1
Weight0.78925489796 Pounds
Width6 Inches
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6. Europe: A History

Harper Perennial
Europe: A History
Specs:
Height2.33 Inches
Length9.26 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateJanuary 1998
Weight3 Pounds
Width6.22 Inches
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7. The Anatomy of Revolution

    Features:
  • A CUT ABOVE THE REST: World's First Flat Multi Tool that fits in your wallet with credit cards. Compact, agile and ready to face any adventure head-on. Our range of accessories continue to be an icon of utility and smart design.
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  • COMPACT CARRY: Bring this tool with you on your daily adventures without sacrificing space. It makes a great gift for any occasion or stocking stuffer for Christmas. The SwissCard will make you question everything you know about multi-tools.
  • FIT FOR ALL TASKS: Known for their uncompromising style and performance, the Swisscard showcases innovation, dependability and a unique, convenient style that has garnered awards and recognition worldwide.
  • TRUSTED QUALITY: Made in Switzerland; Victorinox provides a lifetime guarantee against defects in the implements and a 2 year warranty on the case. No assembly required, money back guarantee.
  • PRODUCT DETAILS: Height: 0.2 in, Length: 3.2 in., Weight: 0.9 oz., Scale Material: ABS/Cellidor
  • FUNCTIONS: emergency blade (letter opener), scissors, magnifying glass, ,screwdriver 3 mm, screwdriver 5 mm, Phillips screwdriver 00/0, Phillips screwdriver 1/2, tweezers, pressurized ballpoint pen pin, stainless steel, LED, ruler (cm), ruler (inches)
  • New LED mini white light; 18,000 MCD
  • Reddot design award winner 2004 for design quality, innovation in form and function
  • 13 tools include: Letter opener/blade, scissors, rulers, tweezers
  • Special features include magnifying glass, straight pin, pressurized ball point pen and Phillips screwdrivers
  • Precision crafted in Swtizerland; lifetime warranty
The Anatomy of Revolution
Specs:
ColorMulticolor
Height6.8 Inches
Length4.23 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateAugust 1965
Weight0.41226442994 Pounds
Width0.68 Inches
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8. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution (Penguin History)

    Features:
  • Penguin Books
The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution (Penguin History)
Specs:
Height7.76 Inches
Length0.77 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateDecember 1984
Weight0.65 Pounds
Width5.08 Inches
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9. The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848

    Features:
  • Vintage
The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848
Specs:
ColorWhite
Height7.98 Inches
Length5.12 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateNovember 1996
Weight0.59 Pounds
Width0.75 Inches
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10. The Norman Conquest

Pegasus Books
The Norman Conquest
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Height9 Inches
Length6 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateDecember 2014
Weight0.9 pounds
Width1.3 Inches
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11. The Days of the French Revolution

    Features:
  • Used Book in Good Condition
The Days of the French Revolution
Specs:
Height9.25 Inches
Length5.94 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateJune 1999
Weight1.19931470528 Pounds
Width0.96 Inches
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12. The Pursuit of Glory: The Five Revolutions that Made Modern Europe: 1648-1815 (The Penguin History of Europe)

The Pursuit of Glory: The Five Revolutions that Made Modern Europe: 1648-1815 (The Penguin History of Europe)
Specs:
ColorTan
Height8.4 Inches
Length5.5 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateMay 2008
Weight1.55 Pounds
Width1.55 Inches
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14. The Line Upon a Wind: The Great War at Sea, 1793-1815

    Features:
  • Orders are despatched from our UK warehouse next working day.
The Line Upon a Wind: The Great War at Sea, 1793-1815
Specs:
Height9.6 Inches
Length6.5 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateJuly 2008
Weight2.74 Pounds
Width2.1 Inches
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15. The Story of French

Griffin
The Story of French
Specs:
Height8.15 inches
Length5.5 inches
Number of items1
Release dateJanuary 2008
Weight1.05 Pounds
Width1.499997 inches
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17. 14-18: Understanding the Great War

Used Book in Good Condition
14-18: Understanding the Great War
Specs:
Height8.5 Inches
Length5.5 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateAugust 2014
Weight0.62 Pounds
Width0.65 Inches
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18. Life in a Medieval City (Medieval Life)

    Features:
  • HC 360
Life in a Medieval City (Medieval Life)
Specs:
Height8 Inches
Length5.3 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateJanuary 2016
Weight0.4 Pounds
Width0.7 Inches
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19. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

    Features:
  • Penguin Books
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
Specs:
ColorWhite
Height9.06 Inches
Length1.62 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateSeptember 2006
Weight2.12 Pounds
Width6.03 Inches
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20. A Line in the Sand

SIMON & SCHUSTER
A Line in the Sand
Specs:
Height7.8 Inches
Length5.12 Inches
Number of items1
Weight0.8 Pounds
Width1.18 Inches
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🎓 Reddit experts on french history books

The comments and opinions expressed on this page are written exclusively by redditors. To provide you with the most relevant data, we sourced opinions from the most knowledgeable Reddit users based the total number of upvotes and downvotes received across comments on subreddits where french history books are discussed. For your reference and for the sake of transparency, here are the specialists whose opinions mattered the most in our ranking.
Total score: 359
Number of comments: 7
Relevant subreddits: 3
Total score: 68
Number of comments: 6
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 16
Number of comments: 10
Relevant subreddits: 2
Total score: 15
Number of comments: 7
Relevant subreddits: 2
Total score: 15
Number of comments: 6
Relevant subreddits: 4
Total score: 12
Number of comments: 6
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 11
Number of comments: 8
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 8
Number of comments: 6
Relevant subreddits: 2
Total score: 7
Number of comments: 5
Relevant subreddits: 4
Total score: 6
Number of comments: 6
Relevant subreddits: 5

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Top Reddit comments about French History:

u/Robert_Bork · 5 pointsr/AskHistorians

I'm not a historian, but I used to be a history teacher and I think I got a few things right in terms of keeping people interested. A few books I used that are fun and relatively easy:

  • The Cartoon History of the Universe is good for kids and grown-ups, although there might be some sections for which there has been much new research.

  • You may also enjoy Guns, Germs, and Steel which gives an interesting theory of history up to about 1535. A book which tackles the same questions from a much more "cultural" (rather than geographical) angle is The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. They're a fun read together.

  • I know the professional historians might disagree, but starting with the broad sweep of European history and working your way outward can be fun. I liked From Dawn to Decadence which is a bit of a luxuriating read and very detailed. Less detailed but also good popular introductions are Norman Davies' Antiquity and Europe books and Norman Cantor's Civilization of the Middle Ages.

  • For a total timeline (big bang to now), Cosmos (the series or the book) is an awesome way to slot human history and science into the whole universe.

  • Also, novels that cover crazy spans of time are great. One I liked was Bridge over the River Drina which helps you understand both Europe and the Ottoman Empire over the course of 400 years. Others can recommend novels in the super-epic (in terms of timespan) genre as well.
u/Farwater · 2 pointsr/pagan

> I wonder how much you can understand what makes French French by learning Gaulish...

That's a great question! Honestly, not a whole lot just because modern French has evolved so much over time and is fundamentally based on Latin. Don't get me wrong, Gaulish was important to the development of French, as the vulgar Latin spoken throughout the Roman province of Gaul was a mish-mash of different Gaulish dialects mixed with Latin. But I think that French overall is clearly an Italic language, and the Franks probably had just as strong an influence over it as the Gauls did. But despite the fact that only a small fraction of French vocabulary comes from Gaulish, it definitely helped transform French into the language it is today.

What I just wrote above was an extremely abridged, superficial version of the Gaulish history of French. It's a complicated subject, and you would probably have to chase down an expensive textbook to get a proper history of it.

There is a good pop-history book about the French language called The Story of French. It's 500 pages, but I found it fun to read. It barely even touches on the French language's history with Gaulish, though. There's just that much more to write about French development in Medieval to modern times.

But I would say that the few words that do come from Gaulish are surprisingly important words and they help shape the character of the language. It seems like almost anything rustic, nature-based, or agrarian comes from Gaulish (alouette, lark; cabane, cabin; cheval, horse; mouton, sheep; etc., the list is very long)

There are also a small number of key words that aren't rustic which come from Gaulish, such as aller (to go), chemin (path/route), cloche (bell), craindre (to fear), crème (cream), drapeau (flag), manteau (coat), petit (small), and pièce (piece).

I'm sure you can see that some of these words even worked their way into English via Norman. Wikipedia has a good list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_words_of_Gaulish_origin

I feel like I rambled a lot and still couldn't do the subject justice, but I hope that answered your general question and gave you some more insight.

u/MayorMcCheese59 · 28 pointsr/Destiny

Ok, so your best bet is to read a comprehensive set of books on the matter. For the sake of a quick introduction into the matter, your best bet is from the ''a very short introduction'' series. It gets your feet wet at the very least. Now the best and most comprehensive single book on the matter is by a man called Ian Black see here for the book. It is widely acknowledged as being one of the deepest guides on the conflict that goes beyond the current conflict and back to the British Mandate. He was a guardian lead on the conflict for a number of years and now currently works at the LSE. The book itself has a slight pro-Palestinian bias but then it is up to you to judge if that is warranted or not. Other good books on the matter are as follows; On Palestine by Chomsky (obviously very left leaning), A line in the sand By Barr (A historical understanding of how the conflict as it is today can be grounded in past imperialism), and, Belonging the story of Jews by Schama (A history of Jews, one that I can't give too much info on atm because I am reading it myself).

​

Other recommendations that I can give are to subscribe to notifications from the Israelis newspapers etc to get there perspectives on matters. As well as following or subscribing to certain joint peace based groups within the area- my favourites are ''Roots'', ''Combatants for Peace'', and the ''Bereaved families forum''. I've met with all three organisations in the past and I'd say that the second is for sure the most interesting- combining ex-IDF and ex-Hamas forces together to seek a peaceful solution.

​

Also just another thing to add when looking at the region specific to Palestine- make sure to differentiate between the west bank and Gaza- they have very different politics and Palestine- like Israelis are not a monolithic group- as seen by the rise of certain countermovements in both Palestine and Israel that are seeking to challenge the hegemony of Abbas and Bibi respectively.

​

Any other questions please feel free to ask.

u/omaca · 2 pointsr/books

If you like history, try the following.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. Utterly fascinating and extremely well written. It reads almost like a novel.

Peter the Great and Dreadnought by Robert Massie. Both excellent.

Citizens is a jaw-dropping revisionist history of the French Revolution by Simon Schama.

Night Soldiers is a superb "historical spy" novel set in Europe before and during WWII. This novel by Furst is credited with reinventing and reinvigorating the espionage genre. Think Graham Greene crossed with John le Carré.

If you like science fiction, try Hyperion by Dan Simmons. A mind-bending book that, at its core and rather incongruously, is a retelling of Canterbury Tales.

Sticking with science fiction, try anything by Iain M Banks; especially his Culture novels. You could start with Consider Phlebas, or Use of Weapons.


I have many many more suggestions if you want.


You may also like LibraryThing, a great social networking site for those who love books and like to catalogue and discuss their personal libraries. Look me up if you want. I'm "omaca" there too.

u/sloam1234 · 4 pointsr/TheGrittyPast

Fantastic recommendation, I got to read Junger's memoir last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. Absolutely horrifying and enlightening.

One of my favorite WWI books is A World Undone, by G. J. Meyer. Which is ironic since I don't think I've ever posted a single anecdote from it (an error I need to severely correct).

It's super dense, but probably one of the best overviews of the war, encapsulating a deep amount of academic research, primary sources from soldiers, civilians, leaders- all the while providing important historical context and background for the many many actors/nations involved, their motives, and goals.

I recommend this book to ANYONE interested in WWI besides a passing understanding. At 816 pages it can be daunting to most readers, but if you have the interest, absolutely check out this book.

Another great book is Max Hastings's Inferno, which is one of the best "social histories" of the war IMO. The wide-range of intimate, tragic, surprising, and sometimes funny testimonies collected in the book, along with Hastings's excellent prose, is one of the most "human" retellings of WWII, I've ever read and is a must for anyone who is interested in the war beyond just the military and political aspects.

Edit: I also want to include Hastings's Retribution which covers the Pacific campaign (1944-45) in equally masterful prose and heartwrenching testimony. Learned not only a lot about the Japanese perspective but also of people's lives under Japanese occupation.

Also Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy, which is a fantastic (American POV) of the war and incredibly well written.

u/plusroyaliste · 18 pointsr/AskHistorians

The diggers didn't call themselves diggers, they called themselves the True Levellers, which helps us quite a bit in understanding their relationship with other ideas and groups of the late 1640s/early 1650s.

Levellers were a large and powerful faction within Parliament's army, they were associated with people of low birth and radical Protestant beliefs (e.g. Baptists, Independents, Anabaptists.) The Levellers organized soldiers to advocate for an end to political and religious hierarchies (especially against tithes) and demand manhood suffrage. Their basic idea was that since Parliament had asked the people to support it during the war, and the people had won the war for Parliament, that Lords and gentry could not go back to tyrannizing the common people. By this time the soldiers of the army thought of themselves as serving a higher purpose than their immediate orders.

From The Case of the Army Truly Stated

> that the Army took up arms in judgment and conscience for the people’s just rights and liberties, and not as mercenary soldiers, hired to serve an arbitrary power of the state, and that in the same manner it continued in arms at that time. And . . . it was declared that they proceeded upon the principles of right and freedom, and upon the law of nature and nations. But the strength of the endeavours of many hath been and are now spent to persuade the soldiers and Agitators that they stand as soldiers only to serve the state, and may not as free Commons claim their right and freedom as due to them, as those ends for which they have hazarded their lives, and that the ground of their refusing to disband was only the want of arrears and indemnity

So in this atmosphere of revolution there is a smaller movement, led by Gerard Winstanley, that takes it further still. Their religious beliefs are extremely radical-- indeed their theology is protomaterialist-- but they're on the spectrum of radical Protestant thought. The Diggers aim to bring waste and common lands under cultivation and end private landholding, they don't aim to do this by armed force but by example; they are one of many groups who see God's hand in England's recent events and expect God's kingdom to be shortly established on Earth. Diggers, like many other religious radicals, believe in equality and personal independence, that God speaks to all people, very similar to the contemporary Quaker concepts of 'Inner Light.' From The True Levellers Standard Advanced:

> And the Reason is this, Every single man, Male and Female, is a perfect Creature of himself; and the same Spirit that made the Globe, dwels in man to govern the Globe; so that the flesh of man being subject to Reason, his Maker, hath him to be his Teacher and Ruler within himself, therefore needs not run abroad after any Teacher and Ruler without him, for he needs not that any man should teach him, for the same Anoynting that ruled in the Son of man, teacheth him all things.




As for texts, if you want a good primary source to start with you can read Gerard Winstanley's justification and call to action. For secondary sources I recommend Christopher Hill's book

u/halfback910 · 5 pointsr/Anarcho_Capitalism

>the people they live among consider them outsiders and don't really let them do more "honorable" professions, and the people around them are heavily discouraged from doing those same professions.

That's actually not entirely accurate. Jews did normal stuff too. They tended to cluster in population centers for a number of reasons:

1: Strength in numbers.

2: It's where banking was in most demand.

3: Cities were run somewhat more meritocratically than areas run by nobility. Cities typically had councils/mayors that were at least somewhat representative of the leading citizens of the town. These folks tended to be a bit smarter, on average, than those who just won the birth lottery. This led to cities having far more sensible rules regarding Jews and citizens in general.

In large cities Jews could frequently expect:

1: The right to have their own synagogue.

2: Equal protection under the law of the city.

3: Slight protection from the more capricious and arbitrary rules of the Princes. Jews who lived in large cities were often spared the worst of royal decrees confiscating their property and/or banishing them. The city government would frequently run interference on a Prince banishing/robbing Jews by some combination of obfuscating their Jewish heritage, fabricating Christian family-members, or even making up a christening record for the Jew, insisting that the Jew had left, and have the Jew continue to exist in the town and own his property under his fake name until the heat died down. They had an incentive to do this for multiple reasons:

A: If the Jews had their property taken, it was usually not the city who got it. It was the King/Duke/whomever. So the city was really getting the raw end of the deal.

B: Business was a messy thing in the medieval era and a large scale transaction may involve three or four parties. If a Jew was part of your business agreement and was banished, he obviously can't uphold his part of the contract and it all falls apart.

C: Jews actually helped Christians observe their religious holidays and vice versa. Jews could labor on the majority of Christian holidays.

D: Because separation of church and state were not a thing and many city services/funds went towards religious causes, Jews were taxed equally but did not use city services/funds equally. Modern day equivalent would be people who pay school taxes but don't have kids.

Jews were perfectly able to go into whatever profession they wanted provided it was not towards a religious end (like doing stuff for a Church/Cathedral). But they were drawn disproportionately to lending simply because they had such an advantage there. There were also clever work-arounds so that Jews could borrow money from Jews and Christians could loan money to Jews without either violating their beliefs.

If a Jew needed money, he would involve a Christian to accomplish it:

1: Jew A gives Jew B 100 ducats. Let's say the "interest" is 1.1% per year.

2: When it comes time for interest of 1 ducat to be paid, Christian A pays Jew A 1 ducat then and there in exchange for a short-term debt (usually forty-five days) owed him by Jew B for 1.1 ducats.

3: Jew B pays Christian 1.1 ducats and pays principal back to Jew A normally.

In this way:

-Jew A has profited.

-Christian A has profited.

-Jew A has not charged Jew B interest.

-Christian A has not charged anyone interest at all.

Whether or not it actually followed the spirit of the two religions' laws was much discussed by both religions' clerics, but nevertheless it did happen. And, to be fair, there were also Christians who simply ignored the religious code and loaned money for interest or found other work-arounds. I'm sure some Jews did similarly.

Highly recommended reading on the subject:

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Medieval-City-Frances-Gies/dp/0062415182

u/dozmataz_buckshank · 2 pointsr/AskHistorians

I just finished reading "The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England by Marc Morris. I highly enjoyed it, he does a good job of looking at all the available sources and interpolating what most likely happened from all of them. I haven't read any books specifically about the Domesday Boom, but Morris' book has a pretty good chapter on it, although it's mostly about the change in property values and figuring out where armies moved based on value changes rather than on the writing of the book itself.

If you want a copy of the Domesday book though, I have this edition and like it a lot. It's almost completely the Book however, the introduction is just a page so it's not a lot of info on Domesday itself.

Hope that's helpful!

u/PrimusPilus · 9 pointsr/AskHistorians

It's hard to make an argument for any modern naval commanders (i.e., those from the Second World War), because the contests were rigged, both in the Atlantic and the Pacific, due to Allied intelligence having cracked the German and Japanese codes. Add to that the overwhelming Allied material superiority, and it is hard to derive a clear picture of individual naval command quality.

My vote would be for Horatio Nelson--he improved upon the tactics of his day, was a dogged and indefatigable foe, was an independent thinker with superb strategic instincts, and did more than any other single person to ensure Great Britain's naval superiority & security during the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic period. Few naval commanders are fortunate to participate in even one decisive engagement; Nelson won three: the Nile (1798), Copenhagen (1801), and Trafalgar (1805), the last of which has a claim to being perhaps the most decisive naval battle in history (rivaled in importance only by Salamis, Actium, and Lepanto).

Moreover, in terms of influence upon future generations of naval commanders, Nelson is unmatched--as Napoleon inspired posterity to seek the Holy Grail of the decisive battle of annihilation on land, so it was for Nelson's heirs at sea.

SOURCES:

Adkins, Roy. Nelson's Trafalgar: The Battle That Changed The World. Viking Adult, 2005.

Mostert, Noel. The Line Upon The Wind: The Great War at Sea, 1793-1815. W.W. Norton & Co, 2008.

u/jmaistre · 5 pointsr/history

I'd suggest reading Anatomy of a Revolution. The author goes a bit too far with his model, but in general, he makes a convincing case that revolutions do not happen when people are really oppressed, but rather, they happen when a group as acquired latent power that is not yet formally recognized.

So in general, I think the causal chain goes the other way. People see an opportunity to gain an advantage -- Virginians wanted access to Western lands, Boston merchants wanted a continuation of low taxes and loose enforcement of the Navigation Acts -- and then they craft a narrative about how terribly oppressed they are.

Since the revolutionaries won the war, and many loyalists were driven underground or to Canada, they got to write the history books. The narrative thus was far more anti-Britain and anti-monarchist than was really warranted based on the facts of what happened.

> Also, how did the colonials expect taxation (which was low anyway) with representation to work?

From what I've gathered, they never expected representation in British Parliament to happen, that was never a serious claim and both sides knew it. What they wanted was no taxation.

> Long story short, they weren't being denied any rights that extended to anyone other than the wealthy. So why?

Some of the populist support for the revolution came because the very wealthy were allied with the British government. So for instance, in Virginia, the poorer, back-country folk were inspired by Patrick Henry's calls for democracy, and saw both the wealthy eastern elite and the British government as standing in their way.

Also, don't underestimate the ability of twenty-year old men with guns to be spoiling for a fight, and ready to listen to any silver tongued orator who inspires them go fight against a great oppressor.

I also highly recommend Albert Beveridge's The Life of John Marshall. It's a very human and three-dimensional look at the early years of the republic. He describes the early call to arms:

> Thomas Marshall's minister, Mr. Thompson, preached militant preparation; Parliament had deprived the colonists of "their just and legal rights" by acts which were "destructive of their liberties," thundered the parson; it had "overawed the inhabitants by British troops," loaded "great hardships" upon the people, and "reduced the poor to great want." The preacher exhorted his flock "as men and Christians" to help "supply the country with arms and ammunition,"
>
> When news of Concord and Lexington finally trickled through to upper Virginia, it found the men of her hills and mountains in grim readiness; and when, soon after, Henry's flaming words came to them, they were ready and eager to make those words good with their lives.






u/blue-jaypeg · 2 pointsr/MapPorn

The book Monatillou has a chapter on Time and Space-- which discusses how the peasants, clergy, shepherds and craftspeople measured their day, year, life and history--

SMITHSONIAN:
>Montaillou is a tiny quiet village in the roughest and most inaccessible part of the backward out-of-the-way Ariège department in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The village has existed since at least the time of Charlemagne, but it has never played any part in history, never been on any beaten track, never had a famous son, and its contribution to the national economy has always been close to zero. "The end of the earth," one of its older inhabitants calls it, with a certain affection....

>a source of pure joy to modern historians and readers....For they come as near as anything can to satisfying the curiosity at the heart of our interest in history: what was life really like in the old days? What did people do all their livelong days, what did they talk about, what did they think about?... The track led back and forth through the whole physical, economic, emotional, spiritual life of Montaillou.

u/itsallfolklore · 63 pointsr/AskHistorians

Marxism is obviously a cornerstone, but not for the reason normally considered - that is, economic determinism. While "ED" is important, I feel that the dialectic is much more important and valuable. I was profoundly impressed and influenced by the work of Eric Hobsbawm and his multi-volume history of the modern world because of his elegant use of the dialectic. He demonstrates an aspect of what a period of the past was like and then proceeds to prove its opposite. I used this approach in my first major book, and I cite Hobsbawm as the first person named in my acknowledgements. Economic determinism is extremely important, but if I had to pick between the two, I would teach Hegel and the dialectic.

I was trained in the French Annales School which in a way is the antithesis of Marxism because it is based on the idea of structuralism with its kinship shared by Talcot Parsons - while a Marists sees the seeds of change planted in the soil from which a plant emerges, Parsons sees change as occurring only when an existing structure can no longer serve. And much of the Annales historians attempt to demonstrate how fundamental shifts in the mentality of a period represent these structural shifts (consider Marc Bloch's famous Feudal Society). Although it contradicts the dialectic, the idea of shifting mentalities is extremely useful, and I regard it as yet another cornerstone of good history.

u/Containedmultitudes · 3 pointsr/DestructiveReaders

I'm only a recently active poster, but I hope to remain so. I just moved and I'm between jobs so I started writing a novel (stave off madness from the job boards) and was looking for some strong critiques. I really like the premise of a semi-enforced give to get critical community, because it helps build the skills of everybody involved.

I was an English major, but also always an avid reader, so my favorite books have a bit of a range (representative not comprehensive):

  • Gatsby, Ulysses, The Sound and the Fury
  • Song of Ice and Fire, His Dark Materials
  • Harry Potter
  • Moby Dick
  • Paradise Lost, The Odyssey
  • Citizens, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Last Lion Churchill series, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

    I'm predisposed to find things I like in almost any piece, but because I can find really great gems I try to be rough on the rough spots. I'm most drawn to anything that is true to life, even in the most fantastical situations.
u/TheFightingFishy · 2 pointsr/battlefield_one

Hey folks. I used to be a big war history book buff back when I was a kid, but got out of it in later years. However playing some BF1 and realizing that my WWI knowledge was pretty spotty got me looking for a book to brush up. I recently finished this guy and wanted to say that I really recommend it.

https://www.amazon.com/World-Undone-Story-Great-1914/dp/0553382403/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1503508652&sr=8-5&keywords=WWI+history

Trying to do a comprehensive war overview book is always fraught with peril. There is so much to cover and you need to do justice to all the major events while not turning into just a continual series of dates and casualty numbers. This book does a great job of balancing covering the action on the battlefields along with the homefronts and other political topics. I also liked how it helped to connect you to some of the major characters and empires by giving small side-chapters to fill in the background on them (The Romanovs, Ludendorff, The Ottoman Empire). Way less dry than John Keegan's "The First World War." Probably the best full war history book that I've read, it's pretty amazing how much it crams in without being too much of a doorstop.

u/mavriksfan11 · 1 pointr/books

If you're a history buff, you should read The Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert. It reads like a novel but it's packed with facts. It makes you feel as if you were there during the French Revolution, infatuated with blood, revenge, and freedom from tyranny. We read about the French Revolution and we feel so ashamed that they went from such great ideals to being the very tyrants they feared, but this book shows you first-hand how loyalty to the idea of freedom sometimes gets you so caught up in everything that you yourself are the obstacle to the freedom of others.

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/history

The Oxford histories tend to be pretty good. I haven't read this one but Oxford is a reliable publisher. Schama gave this one a good review which means it should be clear and readable as well as comprehensive. If you'd like some insight into the cultural issues that may have led to the French Revolution, I highly recommend the work of Robert Darnton. His collection of essays in The Great Cat Massacre paints an amazing picture of 18th century French culture. The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Prerevolutionary France tackles head-on the problem of to what degree the high Enlightenment (1750-) informed and influenced the revolution.

u/themaskedproducer · 0 pointsr/AskHistorians

I don't think I'd be able to really stay updated, I never do with that sort of stuff. But, I have a reading list that you should add- that is if you are doing payed books:

For full on historians looking for depth in medieval subjects:

-Asbridge's The Crusades is a far better Crusades history that goes into good depth than any other I've read

-Morris' The Norman Conquest oncemore just a great book for depth and detail

-Jones' The Plantagenets this one I would avoid if you hate sensationalism in history, Dan Jones is a real historian and he writes it as a real historian but he's on the edge of being more entertainer level than educator level

-Moore's 2008 edition of The Formation of a Persecuting Society is definitely the best analysis of medieval heresy I've read

(+ for more details into his actual thought process and the full counter argument to his critics that came out against him later on )

For casual historians looking for analysis and shorter reads:

-Phillip's Holy Warriors is probably an overall better analysis than Asbridge but far less deep, if you like battles go for Asbridge but this is a far shorter read

-Asbridge's The Greatest Knight good book on the Plantagenets through the eyes of the knights

-Golding's Conquest and Colonisation a slightly more boring read, maybe go with the "A short introduction to" book isntead

-Pegg's A Most Holy War for lighter reading on medieval heresy

u/golden_canary · 1 pointr/TrollXChromosomes

For a more comprehensive look at Europe in the 20th century, touching on WW1, WW2, and The Cold War I suggest Out of Ashes by Konrad H. Jarausch. You can find reviews online and everyone is jizzing their pants over it, but I'm halfway through and I really like it. He's a great writer. For WW1 specifically, I'd suggest [A World Undone by G.J. Meyer] (http://www.amazon.com/World-Undone-Story-Great-1914/dp/0553382403/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449775167&sr=1-10&keywords=ww1). I didn't read it personally, but my bff is a huge military historian and she liked that it gave a larger global viewpoint than other more European-centric ones. I haven't read it yet (but she keeps bugging me to lol).

u/IamaRead · 2 pointsr/berlinsocialclub

The Iron Kingdom by Christopher Clarke is a great book if you are interested in Brandenburg/Prussia/Germany and Berlin.

Postwar by Tony Judt is a good book for the later periods, however since both are thick I recommend to start with the first if you only got 4 weeks to read.

If you write a bit more about what specifics interest you I could motivate a friend of mine to join you.

u/teirhan · 1 pointr/100yearsago

Yes, it's quoted on the page for The Merry Wives of Windsor as well, though both articles cite different sources (and neither are sources I'm familiar with). I first encountered it in college during a class I took on the origins of the Great War, I just don't remember which book I first read it in.

I highly recommend checking out both Rites of Spring by Modris Eksteins and 14-18: Understanding The Great War by Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau & Annette Becker, in any case. Both are fantastic books, easy to get into - and 14-18 was reissued in 2014 in a new edition for the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War.

u/WeirdlyTallGnome · 3 pointsr/worldbuilding

I'm assuming by medieval/renaissance you mean the traditional European inspired fantasy. Here's a brain dump:

Feudalism:
I feel like I see a lot of fantasy where heroes turn up at some village and get asked to fight someone or other because the villagers have nowhere else to turn to. What I don't often see is the local knight living in the manor across the field whose responsibility it is to be a warrior and protect his fief and who probably doesn't appreciate strangers turning up and undermining his authority by doing his job for him.

There would probably also be a lot of small wars going on at any given time between knights and barons and earls that provide lots of work for dangerous people but have nothing to do with the greater battle battle between good and evil.

Knighthood:
Speaking of knights a knight isn't "someone who fights with plate armour and a sword," that's what they were IRL because that was the most effective way to fight and you needed a certain amount of wealth and status to afford the huge investment in training and equipment. If you have a fantasy world where with enough training and expensive equipment people can learn to shoot fire and call down lightning that will break a cavalry charge then that world's knights will almost certainly all be wizards. And very few other people will be allowed to be.

Era-appropriate firearms:

  • https://www.pinterest.nz/pin/538672805409922868
  • https://www.pinterest.nz/pin/511721576383944160

    That aesthetic of people in plate armour with cannons is something you almost never see depicted.

    Renaissance fashion:
  • https://i-h1.pinimg.com/564x/67/7c/4d/677c4de51094fe521abab26318dc5f19.jpg
  • http://blog.sunandswords.com/post/143679221560/some-awesome-photos-taken-last-week-of-my-kit
  • https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ae/56/85/ae5685d3f34f0a1a777ca2a587d8cf54.jpg

    Speaks for itself.

    Medieval medicine and science:
    A physician diagnosing you by cross referencing your symptoms with the alignment of the stars to decide how to properly balance your humors isn't something I've seen a lot of in fantasy. That element of earnestly applying the scientific method to things you don't understand based on what seem to us like completely ridiculous variables and assumptions. Also more folk medicine like plants that only had medicinal properties if you found them by accident or sympathetic magic like curing a rabid dog bite using the literal hair of the dog that bit you.

    On a similar note you don't see a lot of importance put on folk superstition like hanging horseshoes above doors to keep out evil spirits/the devil/elves trying to steal your children. I feel like basing a fantasy world's idea of magic around the small everyday things might make a change from the usual Big Magic stuff.


    The equator:
    Not really something that will affect the day-to-day feel of a world but I read once that some people believed that the equator was hotter because it was closer to the sun and that right on the equator it would be too hot for anything to survive or cross. So they thought the entire southern hemisphere was inaccessible due to this deadly heat barrier. Not sure what you could do with it but I thought it was a neat idea. Maybe the discovery or creation of a tunnel under the equator would be an interesting way to introducing a "new world" to explore that developed totally independently.

    The devil:
    You know where medieval people got magic powers? By serving the devil. You know how they became werewolves? Made a deal with the devil. You know how women learned arithmetic? You better believe that's the devil. A lot of fantasy treats the monsters and magic and whatnot as just the natural flora and fauna of the world but these days I don't feel like I've seen much that filters the world through that lens of everything comes from one or two sources that have strong moral stances associated with them and, therefore, everything that comes from them does too.

    Pilgrimages:
    I don't know, you just never see them in fantasy but in the middle ages they were quite the thing from the noble woman who spends ten years of her life travelling constantly between holy sites to the common folk for whom the trip to visit the bones of St Whoever is basically the closest they ever have to a holiday.

    Ships:
    Don't have your medieval knights cross the sea on what amounts to a 17th century galleon like I feel like I keep seeing. Not when there are cool medieval and renaissance ships you could use:
  • Byzantine Dromon: https://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/tag/dromon/
  • Venetian Galleass: https://www.deviantart.com/radojavor/art/Battle-Of-Lepanto-41693977
  • Look, we built towers on it and now it's a war ship: http://users.trytel.com/tristan/towns/florilegium/images2/def14b.jpg

    Level of material wealth/standard of living:
    When you turn up in a sleepy little farming village there probably won't be a big inn with a roaring fire, a dinner menu and a dozen rentable rooms. There will be a family that'll let you sleep on the floor of their one-room cottage for a few coins and might even share some of their latest batch of beer with you. Even the lord of the castle may very well sleep in the same room as their whole family and several servants. When you try to sell your stack of looted swords to the local blacksmith they aren't going to have cash sitting around to pay you. But they could offer you a box of nails and some of the loaves of bread the baker owes them.

    Little things:
    I feel like a lot of the reason "medieval" fantasy tends to feel stale is that it's mostly made up of just all the bits and pieces of history that people are familiar with smooshed together. Good for acccessibility, bad for originality. Often just adding little details or taking away familiar things can make a difference. Look up the things they had in place of anything resembling modern law enforcement like Tithings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithing) and the Hue and Cry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hue_and_cry) or people bringing their own mugs to taverns because the taverns couldn't just buy bulk mugs off the shelf or the fact that it could take members of ten different guilds to make a suit of armour and anyone trying to do the bits that are covered by another guild will find themselves out of work pretty quick. Maybe read something like https://www.amazon.com/Distant-Mirror-Calamitous-14th-Century/dp/0345349571. Look up medieval bestiaries to learn how lions are born dead and brought to life by their mothers or how vultures can see the future.
u/spagheli · 4 pointsr/APStudents

Got a 5 on the AP, here’s what I did

  1. Hopefully, y’all have a good textbook. My teacher gave us a few but the best one was Spielvogel
  2. outline everything you can, outlining is really just your interpretation of the info in the textbook
  3. the day before the ap, I sat down with my textbook and wrote down all the page numbers of stuff I didn’t know and read through those

    If you don’t have a good textbook (looking at you Kagan) get one of these two they’re both solid review books. I personally like birdsall more

    Ap Achiever Exam Prep Guide European History 2017 (Ap European History) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0078976421/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_k2NOAb1W9VHJ9

    Modern European History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0070674531/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_V2NOAbN4J3224
u/handlegoeshere · 3 pointsr/asoiaf

It seems to me that the two strengths of the series are world-building and character depth. If this is your favorite series, you probably like it for one or both of those things.

If you like it for the world building, I recommend history books such as the History of the Peloponnesian War or A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.

If you like complex characters, then the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. Another strength of asoiaf is that it isn't too heavy handed regarding magic in the story, and this is a strength of the Mistborn series too.

u/dropkickpuppy · 3 pointsr/AskHistorians

Postwar, by Tony Judt, is the definitive guide to Europe after 1945. It's over 900 pages, but he has a wonderfully readable and sometimes entertaining style. I can't recommend it enough... even if you don't read every page, it will definitely keep you interested in history.

u/BloodyGretaGarbo · 1 pointr/books

If it's mediaeval Europe you're after, and first-person in particular, the Paston Letters might be a good place to start. That particular edition uses modern spelling and has explanatory notes, but you can also play on hard mode for free here.

Montaillou is third person, but rich in detail - an amazing book about an inquisition into heresy in fourteenth-century France. I can't recommend it enough.

u/AGVann · 2 pointsr/natureismetal

Norman Davies is basically the better version of Jared Diamond. He's an actual historian, and does a good job of balancing depth with accessibility.

I really recommend both Europe: A History and The Isles: A History. They are both quite dense tomes, but Davies does a really great job of creating a narrative of the entirety of European/British history (from prehistory to modern times) while challenging our biases and subconscious notions. Instead of a tedious listing of events over 10000 years, he uses narratives and environmental/geographical analysis, interspersed with 'windows' where he goes into several key events in detail.

u/TechJesus · 3 pointsr/changemyview

I read A Line in the Sand not too long ago, which covers everything from World War One onwards, and my impression was not that the Israeli's were the good guys, but that the region would probably be more stable had the British not caved in to Zionism.

Of course, we cannot now evict the Israeli's from the region, or at least there is not the will to do so, plus we have a strategic interest in holding them there, some would argue. But they basically lucked out, because many in the West felt it would be a good idea to have a Jewish state. They certainly have less legitimacy over the area than the French have over France.

u/IvankaTrump2020 · 1 pointr/CapitalismVSocialism

Enlightenment:

Broadly speaking, the Enlightenment is the ideology that asserts all people should be set free, and so all progressive, humanist, and libertarian ideologies are implicitly Enlightenment ideologies. It's a good thing. In practice, the Enlightenment was the radical ideology espoused by the rising bourgeois as they toppled feudal regimes across Europe from 1789-1848. Socialism has its roots in the most radical forms of Enlightenment thought.

French Revolution:

The political revolution that united the French bourgeois with the starving peasantry against the Feudal aristocracy that had become obscenely slothful and decadent. It was a good thing. Many modern political ideologies, both left and right, can trace their roots back to the various factions vying for power during the turbulent years following the fall of the Bastille (speaking of which--happy belated Bastille day everyone).

Rise of capitalism:

It was a good thing for the rising middle class, a bad thing for the feudal aristocracy and the mass of peasantry. It was good for European nation-states, bad for most everyone else. In terms of historical significance, I agree with Communist historian Eric Hobsbawm--that the rise of capitalism is probably the most important event in human history, at least since the invention of agriculture and the establishment of the first cities (link):

> Some time in the 1780s, and for the first time in human history, the shackles were taken off the productive power of human societies, which henceforth became capable of the constant, rapid, and up to the present limitless multiplication of men, goods and services. This is now technically known to the economists as the 'take-off into self-sustained growth' ... for it was then that, so far as we can tell, all the relevant statistical indices took that sudden, sharp, almost vertical turn upwards. ... The economy became, as it were, airborne.

u/RageoftheMonkey · 3 pointsr/socialism

If you want to learn more about the Diggers, I'd really really recommend checking out The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill, it's pretty incredible.

And also the great song The World Turned Upside Down by Billy Bragg, which was inspired by the book.

u/LiversAreCool · 2 pointsr/Norse

I haven't read any of these personally, but I googled "books on the viking influence in Britain" so here are some books on amazon. These are ordered from most similar to your request to less similar.

https://www.amazon.com/Vikings-Britain-Henry-Loyn/dp/0631187111

https://www.amazon.com/Vikings-Britain-Ireland-Jayne-Carroll/dp/0714128317

https://www.amazon.com/Norman-Conquest-Hastings-Anglo-Saxon-England/dp/1605986518/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Good luck! I think I speak for all of us when I say that we would like to read your finished product!

u/gec_ · 25 pointsr/TheMotte

I do think you're romanticizing and overestimating the extent to which other countries have a coherent 'natural' ingrained ethnic/national identity by so rashly describing
> Nowhere else in the world is your identity conferred through bureaucracy

I mean, read a book like The Discovery of France that talks about the mapping of France and construction of the French national identity by the government. Up to WWI, the majority of the population wasn't even fluent in French, all the little villages had their own dialects. Spain still has smoldering independence movements and unique languages besides Spanish, from in Catalonia to the Basque region. Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson is another great book that talks more broadly about the beginnings of the concept of nationhood, tying it in Europe to the rise of the printing press which enabled a national language for the first time.

And you mention India, which probably wouldn't even be a unified country if it weren't for the conquest under the British empire and subsequent independence. India is culturally and ethnically divided in the extreme, up to and including their caste system.


Not to mention the great success and relative stability of very divided multi-ethnic societies in countries such as Switzerland or Singapore in the first world. Many of these peoples have a longer shared history than the ethnic groups in the United States do, but I don't see why that makes a huge difference in terms of the strength of identity. In either case, the memory of that shared history has to be constructed anew for each generation. Our shared history up to this point is more than enough to serve as a basis to construct national identity on; these days few Italians or Irish descendants of immigrants have any other primary identity than 'American'. Imagining a shared national community such that it is a primary identity isn't easy but the American government has played a large part with mandatory public schools and other measures. Bureaucracy is a large part of forging national identity, no doubt, your mistake is thinking that this is isolated to America.


So your description of America as

> not a serious country

on these grounds says more about your unique antagonism to it than anything else. If America is particularly notable on these grounds it is that as a relatively young nation compared to many of these older countries, our national identity ambiguities and contradictions stand out more. You're doing a negative version of American exceptionalism, which I think is just as incorrect.

u/Hobbesian_Monarchist · 2 pointsr/MilitaryPorn

Dan Carlin is so fun to listen to. If you enjoyed Blueprint for Armageddon make sure to pick up "Wrath of the Khans," about the rise and zenith of the Mongol Empire. You can listen to it 4 times through and still hear new things on every listen... trust me haha.

Also, if you're interested in WW1 literature, this is required reading: https://www.amazon.com/World-Undone-Story-Great-1914/dp/0553382403

u/ProfShea · 2 pointsr/HistoryPorn

Correct, I don't have the numbers for you. However, I have given you a wonderful lead on finding something that you seem interested in. The book, Postwar, is a rich and in depth book about Europe prior to and post war. Reviewers noted the book's wonderful ability to dissect more modern history. If you're willing to write something like this:

>Yeah I'm sure a banking system lasting hundreds of years is nothing in the face of the holdings of 200 Jews in the 30s. The entire country is founded on that, definitely

Then, I'm certain you're willing to do some research beyond what you've already accomplished. You didn't seem to reference much in that quote, but I'm interested in where you've found your information.

u/Bamboozle_ · 2 pointsr/books

Barbra Tuchman's The Guns of August is a personal favorite of mine. Her A Distant Mirror is also supposed to be very good, though I haven't managed to get to it yet.

Carl Sagan is also a great choice if you are interested in space.

u/gimmebackmyfamily · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

Thank you for this answer! This is exactly the kind of information I was looking for!

Yesterday, while still mulling it over, I actually was able dig up the name of a French historian named Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie who has written about Middle Age French peasants from surviving records. In the index of his books "The Peasants of Languedoc" and "Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error", the peasants almost all seem to have fixed family names. The first book covers the period of 1500 to 1750 and the second book covers 1294 to 1324, which reaches the same conclusion you did, i.e. that French peasants were using fixed last names by the end of the 13th Century.

As for some of the peasants having two different last names, the Wikipedia page on the name of Joan of Arc sheds some light. So even as late as the 15th Century, surnames in France weren't strictly hereditary, but it seems that many if not most such surnames had certainly begun to "stick" with the lower classes sometime between the 13th and 15th centuries.

Thanks again for your help!

u/kjhatch · 5 pointsr/gameofthrones

It's just you. Hobb's Elderlings series was first published in 1995. GRRM's ASOIAF was started in 1991, and there are many accounts/interviews that document GRRM's inspirations and overall vision he planned from the beginning.

GRRM's website FAQ also lists a number of book titles he used for research. I've read some of them, and the specific influences are not hard to pick up on. For example, A Distant Mirror describes a family that grew to importance because they built up their main keep at a major river crossing and controlled all traffic through it, just like House Frey.

Additionally, themes of mental connections with fantasy animals, people riding dragons they are connected to, etc. are all old tropes. An easy example is McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series that was first published in 1967.

EDIT: Also you may want to fix the references to "worgs" in your article; you have them down as "wogs."

u/LordTwatpurse · 3 pointsr/books

My favorite remains 'Europe: A History' by Norman Davies, although it's a bit of a brick. It's well written and comprehensible.

It's pretty beefy, but that's because it starts very early in European history. Specifically reading the periods you're interested in would certainly make it look a little less daunting.

Here's a link to the page on Amazon, so you can see what other folks are saying.

http://www.amazon.com/Europe-History-Norman-Davies/dp/0060974680/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318179129&sr=1-1

u/Tofufighter · 1 pointr/CombatFootage

I really enjoyed my reading of "A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918" https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553382403/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Eh21AbS0PCY5A
Covers all aspects and "fronts" in a very interesting way. I highly recommend it. I was in the same place you were now and this was my first book in my journey (I've since read about a dozen books on the war, and I keep wanting more!) Hope you find your book of choice and enjoy the topic as much as I have!

u/ThatGus · 1 pointr/college

Have you taken any practice tests for the SAT/ACT yet? I wouldn't worry about them now but those tests are very important for college admission.

What AP exams are you thinking of studying? I am rather "old" but in my time crash courses are fantastic book for AP self-studying--I am only 21, am I old :?

This is also a great book that I used for the AP European History exam (score 4, shy of 5 >:(

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-European-History-Birdsall-Viault/dp/0070674531/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419553771&sr=1-12&keywords=ap+european+history

Whoops, link wasn't posted :(

u/Matador09 · 4 pointsr/eu4

I recommend Europe: a History by Norman Davies

He really breaks down the European history in a refreshing manner. Instead of just addressing the great powers, like France, UK, Germany, Spain, etc, he goes in to depth on the lesser known, or at least less written about parts of Europe. Of course, there's plenty of discussion on those powers as well, but it's all put together in a unified tract which in a way makes sense of the calamity that is Europe's shared histories.

u/huxtiblejones · 2 pointsr/history

History of the Medieval World by Susan Wise Bauer. I'm reading this now and I've really enjoyed it, very clear writing and introductory overviews to cultures all over the world - Europe, North Africa, China, Korea, India, you name it.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman. This one was highly recommended on /r/medievalhistory

u/AliasHandler · 1 pointr/history

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0688169783

The Days Of The French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert was a great narrative of the revolution that was quite easy to read.

I followed that up with Napoleon by Vincent Cronin which was a fantastic bio of Napoleon and shows how post-revolutionary france so easily fell into monarchy with Napoleon as emperor.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0006375219/ref=mp_s_a_14?qid=1335725819&sr=8-14

u/soapdealer · 13 pointsr/AskHistorians

Sometimes, an in-depth case study of a specific person/event can reveal larger truths about the period being studied.

Probably my favorite history book ever, A Distant Mirror, is framed as a biography of a relatively unimportant French noble from the period for precisely this reason.

In other cases, historians are forced to take this approach because the surviving writing from a period is mostly about the smaller subject. The reason so many studies of Norman England are about land ownership isn't because it's necessarily the best way to understand the time period, it's because we happen to know way more about land ownership from the time period than we do about anything else. I'm not sure this is true of, say, Dutch local political parties from the interwar period, but it wouldn't surprise me if whoever wrote that paper had an exceptionally good group of documents on them. The fact that a paper might attract a small or specialized readership shouldn't diminish its scholarly importance.

EDIT: bad grammar corrected

u/PrivateMajor · 8 pointsr/CrusaderKings

Enguerrand I, Lord of Coucy

I have been reading "A Distant Mirror" an amazing book about medieval history, and decided to play as , the first royal ancestor of the main character in the book.

To play him the start date has to be January 1, 1077, and choose the County of Amiens in the Kingdom of France.

Me and my friend have had a back and forth succession game as his line and it has been a blast. You are constantly caught in the middle of France exploding into revolutions, the English, Flemish, and HRE, among others, all trying to encroach on your position. It is a constant defensive battle, but very rewarding when you manage to snag an extra county or two.

u/lochlainn · 1 pointr/history

A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman

Words don't do it justice. One of the reviews was "real life Game of Thrones" and while it's somewhat trite, it's also true. The subject is an example of the best of the medieval era, and his life touched on many events that shaped western history.

One warning, it's probably going to be a tough nut for a 15 year old to crack. It's accessible as a narrative, but you should expect to have to wiki things, look at maps, and use supporting material to explain the basics.

For a less intense look, one of the "Life in" books by Joseph Gies and Frances Gies (Life in a Medieval City, LIA Medieval Castle, LIA Medieval Village), is a look at the everyday in that time. Medieval Village is the best one to start with. Rather than the names and dates of "big history", they are the traditions, customs, and anecdotes of everyday life, based on specific examples in specific time periods.

I don't see a 15 year old having trouble going through them. They are written plainly and attempt to explain the backdrop of history that those places are in. Additional material will be minimal beyond wikipedia.

I'm not homeschooling, but I'm certainly going to expose my children to these books when they're old enough.

u/spoonsprite · 1 pointr/FantasyWorldbuilding

I'm looking into how cities work and urban planning. How they decide what goes where and when and how big. I love the idea of how my city works, within its walls and everything, but I need to plan out its inner workings and its streets and neighborhoods to make the peoples fit into it. So I read a lot of things like Life in a Medieval City and I look at maps a lot.

u/TheDataAngel · 8 pointsr/Overwatch

A book called The Anatomy of Revolution (Wiki, Amazon) - which examines how revolutions throughout history have played out - almost perfectly describes what is happening to the feminist and broader "social justice" movements.

Spoilers: It probably doesn't end well.

u/teachhikelearn · 1 pointr/history

do yourself a favor and read "A World Undone"

this book is an amazing look at ww1 and the individuals that drove the war... I studied WW1 in college (history major) and this book stands out as one of my all time favorites.

u/Darragh555 · 1 pointr/Showerthoughts

Thanks for clarification about Academie Francaise. We might also mention guys like Malherbe who did a lot of work to try to make French as standard as possible. There's a great book called The Story of French that goes into a lot of depth about his work and the work of the Academie, and the work of the Alliance Francaise to bring French to the globe.

French has changed a lot! Just not as much. The change English underwent is phenomenal. I wonder how both French and English compare to other languages (like Italian!) because I'm only really familiar with those two. If I had more of an idea of that I think I could form a more broad-based comparison in my head, but atm it's a bit like comparing two kinds of apples without knowing how different other kinds of fruit might be.

And, this is an old thread, maybe I'll post a question about all this somewhere else.../r/askhistorians perhaps...

u/noxylophone · 3 pointsr/politics

That analysis is straight of Crane Brinton's The Anatomy of Revolution, which is a comparative analysis of the English, American, French, and Russian revolutions. It's considered one of the seminal works in looking at the macro structure of revolutionary politics, and does a great job of distilling the commonalities that feature in most popular revolutions (as opposed to military coups, etc.)

But really, when was the crown massacring people during the French Revolution? The Day of the Tiles barely counts, and after the calling of the Estates General the crown never really exercised much in the way of corporal power again (though various royalist groups did occasionally perpetrate violence.)

u/Hezekiah_the_Judean · 6 pointsr/history

The literature that has been written on the French Revolution is so vast that it's difficult to know where to start. I took a class on it my junior year of college, and here are just a couple of recommendations:

"The Oxford History of the French Revolution", by William Doyle, is a pretty good general overview, and helped me keep track of all the events (and boy are there a lot of them). Here is a link to it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Oxford-History-French-Revolution/dp/019925298X

Wikipedia actually has a surprisingly well-written article on the historiography of the Revolution. It is a helpful place to start, because it lists many of the most important authors and their positions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_French_Revolution#Contemporary_and_19th-century_historians

Timothy Tackett's book "When The King Took Flight" is a good book about the Legislative Assembly during 1791 to 1792, and King Louis XVI's attempted flight from Paris to escape across the border. This focuses on a specific incident in the Revolution.

As for when the Revolution was over, and its legacy? As Zhou Enlai said, "It is too early to say." :P But there are several conflicting dates--such as in 1794 when the Jacobins were overthrown and replaced with moderate leaders, when Napoleon seized power in 1799, or when he was defeated in 1815 and imprisoned on St. Helena. And the Revolution had a massive impact on Europe and the world--it shook aristocrats and monarchs, and after it was over things would never be the same.

Hope this helps!

u/dmanww · 2 pointsr/PropagandaPosters

Check out this book. It's quite long, but has pretty interesting stuff.

Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 - by Tony Judt

u/x_TC_x · 10 pointsr/syriancivilwar

Depends on how much in-depth you want them to be, and if you're more into 'general politics', or into 'military-related affairs'.

For really good understanding of how Syria came into being, and what events and processes shaped it early on, you might want to read:

  • A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East, and

  • The Great Syrian Revolt: And the Rise of Arab Nationalism

  • Syria: A Recent History

    Given your German flag, you might add

  • Damaskus: Oase zwischen Haß und Hoffnung for a 'general overview'. This small volume is covering general Syrian history since ancient times until early 1990s. Similarly good (i.e. 'for general orientation'), is

  • Die Araber

    Now, since much of recent Syrian history is dominated by the Syrian military, you might need some read in this regards. Ideally, there would be an English translation for the best - most detailled, most in-depth - book on history of Syrian armed forces, Pesach Malovany's big volume tittled something like 'Out of the North an Evil shall break Forth' (sorry, all the links I used to have to its publisher are down) - published (like, sigh, so many really good Israeli books on Arab-Israeli wars) in Hebrew only. But there is none. Word is that this might get translated to English by the University of Kentucky, sometimes next or the year after.

    Some might suggest you Arabs at War. Regardless how comprehensive, when it comes to Syria I find it hopelessly obsolete, onesided and largely based on 'battlefield heritage' (see: hear-say). Indeed, although anything than 'Syria-related', I found Egyptian Strategy for the Yom Kippour War much more useful for studying the Syrian military during the October 1973 War (and even after!).

    Namely, that one is largely based on Egyptian documentation captured during the October 1973 War, and cross-examination of related Egyptian and Syrian military literature.

    A 'short-cut' of sort (i.e. avoiding collecting all of these books) would be to go for the Arab MiGs books... though this is in turn an own series of six volumes, covering the history of Arab air forces at war with Israel in period 1955-1973.

    Good thing about these books is that they're based on hundreds of interviews, authentic publications (including several by top Syrian military commanders), and whatever documentation the authors managed to get. They're providing really unique insights: far from merely counting aircraft, describing their markings, or discussing claims, they're descibing political backgrounds, arms deals, training (including outright fist-fights between top Syrian pilots and Soviets supposed to instruct them), organization, tactics, weaponry, foreign influences (in the case of Syrians, this was foremost Czechoslovak and not 'Soviet' by nature, and in this regards these books are well-supported by - between others - loads of original documentation from Czech National Archives) etc.

    Finally, re. causes of the SCW: there is meanwhile a small myrad of related titles - with best example probably being a quite massive volume titled The Syrian Jihad: al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency. Where that title 'excells' is in showing 'local influence and flair' of the entire affair: in turn, that is often making it hard to follow. Right now, I wouldn't know a 'simplier', 'easier to follow' volume describing this affair, though (any recommendations are most welcome).
u/otterarch · 1 pointr/books

The best book I've ever read about medieval Europe is Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror. It's a bit dense but you don't have to be a history scholar to enjoy it by any means. It really seemed to cover the whole breadth of medieval society and the political powers and figures at work. It was engaging enough that I wanted to start over at the beginning once I reached the end! Can't say that about any other nonfiction book I've read.

If you'd like to read a well-researched, balanced, and truly terrifying combo of journalism and epidemiology, you could do worse than The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett.

u/Hipster-Stalin · 2 pointsr/Battlefield

I finally have time to upload a bunch of pictures from Paris's Musee d'armee.

For some reason, the camera took terrible pictures indoors. Suffice to say, I got a new camera after this trip.

I studied history in college and found this book to be the best resource on WW1.. A World Undone by GJ Meyer. Easy to read and isn't dull like some history books can be.

u/ZacharyHaggard · 2 pointsr/APStudents

Not gonna lie your Euro class sounds kinda aids. That being said, I believe in you! Reading is obviously going to be extremely beneficial and if you havent already gotten a review book, been reading the textbook, or been reading some supplemental book I would suggest doing that. One of the books I found most helpful last year was Viault's Modern European History. Its kind of a no bullshit approach to everything. Only what you need to know.



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0070674531?keywords=viault%20modern%20european%20history&qid=1449366444&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1



Not sure how much help this was but good luck!

u/Satoyama_Will · 6 pointsr/history

"The World Turned Upside Down" by Christopher Hill is a fantastic Marxist analysis of the English revolution.

https://www.amazon.com/World-Turned-Upside-Down-Revolution/dp/0140137327

Tell me you don't think Winstanley is awesome after reading this book.

u/madecker · 1 pointr/books

Along with "The Guns of August" and Keegan's "The First World War," I'd recommend "A World Undone," by G. J. Meyer. It's quite a bit of book, but a great overview.

u/satchiii · 5 pointsr/AskHistorians

Has anyone read this? Is it a good book? 14-18: Understanding the Great War by Stephane Audoin-Rouzeau

u/Gewehr43 · 2 pointsr/history

A World Undone ( http://www.amazon.com/World-Undone-Story-Great-1914/dp/0553382403/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325016559&sr=8-1 ) is a phenomenal one-volume account of WWI. Just enough details to be really interesting, but not so high-level as to be dry. It's well written and very readable. Plus, it includes small, side chapters that help explain the history and historical context of events of the main chapters. It's really a phenomenal read.

u/spoffy · 2 pointsr/eu4

I'll give you two that I've enjoyed lately:

Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations talks about some states that you see in Eu4 like Aragon, Burgundy and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century takes you into the life of a French nobleman during the Hundred Years War. I'd check out pretty much anything else by Tuchman while you're at it.

u/romanov99 · 1 pointr/books

Citizens by Simon Schama gives you an in depth view of the entire revolution. Best read after you've mastered the basics of chronology and character though, it's too detailed to be a good intro.

u/gentlemantroglodyte · 1 pointr/Jokes

I liked this, but it took me a little longer to get because of the reversed order in the middle.

The first sentence has "Jesuits...Dominicans", the last sentence has "Jesuits...Dominicans", so the middle one should be "the Jesuits to fight the Protestants, and the Dominicans to fight the Albigensians."

Side note: A really interesting book I read about the common Cathars in France was Montaillou. Definitely check it out if you're interested in that period.

u/brightcarvings · 2 pointsr/writing

I that case you might be interested in the following books:

u/randomfemale · 3 pointsr/MedievalHistory

For anyone interested in this area in the previous century, this book is just great.

u/satanic_hamster · 4 pointsr/CapitalismVSocialism

Socialism/Communism

A People's History of the World

Main Currents of Marxism

The Socialist System

The Age of... (1, 2, 3, 4)

Marx for our Times

Essential Works of Socialism

Soviet Century

Self-Governing Socialism (Vols 1-2)

The Meaning of Marxism

The "S" Word (not that good in my opinion)

Of the People, by the People

Why Not Socialism

Socialism Betrayed

Democracy at Work

Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (again didn't like it very much)

The Socialist Party of America (absolute must read)

The American Socialist Movement

Socialism: Past and Future (very good book)

It Didn't Happen Here

Eugene V. Debs

The Enigma of Capital

Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism

A Companion to Marx's Capital (great book)

After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action

Capitalism

The Conservative Nanny State

The United States Since 1980

The End of Loser Liberalism

Capitalism and it's Economics (must read)

Economics: A New Introduction (must read)

U.S. Capitalist Development Since 1776 (must read)

Kicking Away the Ladder

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Traders, Guns and Money

Corporation Nation

Debunking Economics

How Rich Countries Got Rich

Super Imperialism

The Bubble and Beyond

Finance Capitalism and it's Discontents

Trade, Development and Foreign Debt

America's Protectionist Takeoff

How the Economy was Lost

Labor and Monopoly Capital

We Are Better Than This

Ancap/Libertarian

Spontaneous Order (disagree with it but found it interesting)

Man, State and Economy

The Machinery of Freedom

Currently Reading

This is the Zodiac Speaking (highly recommend)

u/JordanTWIlson · 4 pointsr/eu4

The Pursuit of Glory:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Pursuit-Glory-Revolutions-1648-1815/dp/0143113895

It's a huge book, but interesting reading, and begins by outlining tons of minute social, political, and economic changes leading up to the Napoleonic era. I found it one of the most climactic reads, as after a lot of minutia, then the end actually just walks you through historical events, all of which suddenly make tons of sense given the environment!

u/swampsparrow · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

Citizens is a really good account and a really good read. It's not a novel but I still highly recommend it

u/CheesyLala · 1 pointr/todayilearned

First witnessed in 1374 - good article here. I remember reading about this years ago, the main suggestion being that it was in the years following the black death which led to an upsurge in religious fervour - also lots of examples of self-flagellation - basically people doing anything they thought would mean God spared them from the plague.

Read it in A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman which is a fantastic read if you're interested in this sort of thing.

u/blizzsucks · 2 pointsr/ancienthistory

I've had Davies since high school and he's never failed me as a jumping off point into different periods and civilizations.



Also, Hansen is quite good at describing Hoplite warfare with an uncanny knack for the soldeir's perspective.

Everitt is great for looking at the fall of the Roman republic from Cicero's perspective. He also has a good book on Pompey but I have yet to read it.

These are the first 3 books I pulled off my shelf next to my desk, there are more but Ancient history is pretty broad (and two of my books arguably are classical rather than ancient), I'm not going to make an exhaustive list though, because well, that would be exhausting.

u/Mycd · 3 pointsr/history

A fantastic book, A Distant Mirror is a detailed glimpse of medieval 1300's French and English life, from royalty to peasantry.

There are some sections in the book that describe mercenary groups, including some interesting bits about groups that don't get paid, and essentially leaderless bands that pillaged 'friendly' countrysides just to survive. Some were as big as standing armies, but without a war to fight, bank to fund them, or often even a purpose just hardend soldiers - and how they roamed pilliaging summer seasons and forcefully occupied random towns for winters .



u/runsinheels · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918 by G.J. Meyer is a really thorough and enjoyable read that definitely covers 'the big picture' in an accessible way.

u/ovoutland · 19 pointsr/AskHistorians

I agree. I think even the blandest tweets, in context, can say something about the day they're written - what will people think of the plethora of "thoughts and prayers" in the future, for instance. If Syrian refugees are dying and the majority of tweets that day are about a celebrity's butt, that can be illuminating too... I just read Tim Blanning's The Pursuit of Glory and this stuck out at me:

>[Even if Louis XIV never said ‘L’etat, c’est moi,’], the heightened sense of excitement induced by the royal arrival from the chase was authentic. More securely documented is the obverse of this episode, the entry made by Louis’ great-great-great-grandson (but only next-but-one successor) in his diary for Tuesday, 14 July 1789: ‘nothing’. Even Louis XVI must have been aware that the fall of the Bastille was of some importance. What he meant by ‘nothing’ was that he had not gone hunting that day. To rephrase the Roman Emperor Titus, Louis counted a day without hunting a day lost. The following extract provides a good idea of his priorities: ‘July 1789 - Wednesday, 1st, nothing. Deputation from the Estates [General] ... Thursday 9th, nothing. Deputation from the Estates. Friday, 10th, nothing. Reply to the Deputation from the Estates. Saturday 11th, nothing. Resignation of M. Necker ... Tuesday, 14th, nothing ... October, Monday 5th, shooting party at the Chatillon Gate; killed eighty-one items of game. Interrupted by events. Left and returned on horseback.’ The ‘events’ were the ‘October Days’, when the Queen was nearly lynched by a mob of Parisians and the entire royal family was, in effect, taken prisoner and escorted back to Paris.

u/mancake · 3 pointsr/history

Two books I enjoyed:
Germany 1945, which is obviously very specific, and Postwar, which is much more wide-ranging and comprehensive.

u/jdac · 6 pointsr/IAmA

Yes, this. The Protestant Work Ethic: idle hands, etc.

Of course the puritans weren't the inventors of such notions. In the Middle Ages, usury (making money out of money, or charging "excessive" interest for loans) was a sin, technology which allowed one person to do more work than another were forbidden. The word curfew ("cover fires") comes from the extinguishing of all lights so that no-one could work after dark to increase productivity. (For most of this I use Barbara W. Tuchman's A Distant Mirror as reference)

Human beings do seem to have an innate distaste for unfairness. We're social creatures, after all. Perhaps the drive that motivates the above, as well as the denigration of work that seems "too easy" is simple jealousy, maybe combined with the fear of being used.

ETA Link to A Distant Mirror on Amazon. It's a great book; y'all history buffs should read it, or some of her other works. A history prof I know regards Tuchman very highly.

u/vimandvinegar · 2 pointsr/history

Christianity: I've heard that Christianity by Diarmaid MacCulloch is fantastic. I haven't read it. It's called "Christianity", not "Catholicism", but it might work for you given that Catholicism pretty much was Christianity until (relatively) recently.

French Revolution: Citizens by Simon Schama.

Can't help you with Zoroastrianism.

u/Braves3333 · 1 pointr/history

https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Magic-Ancient-Egypt-Rosalie/dp/0140262520 This book i found to be very interesting when talking about old egyptian history. It gives a look into early society and how they went from scattered communities to a kingdom, but it focuses on the religious aspect.

I would think a book on Napolean would be a good start, and also a book on the French Revolution.
https://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Life-Andrew-Roberts/dp/0143127853

https://www.amazon.com/Citizens-Chronicle-Revolution-Simon-Schama/dp/0679726101/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=TS49J5H345TC8T3XXSS5

u/ryth · 8 pointsr/AskHistorians

Very much enjoyed Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama . Very readable. Was my first foray into reading about the French Rev. so I don't have a lot to compare it to, but it was quite informative and engaging.

u/toomuchcream · 2 pointsr/books

Probably about as in-depth as you'd need for assassins creed. Also the further reading at the bottom.

But I'm going to go ahead and recommend Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama. His works are very accessible for people who want a good, non-fiction narrative history that also isn't incredibly academic.

u/Dokky · 2 pointsr/ireland

I just finished this, you may want to read it:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Line-Sand-Britain-France-struggle/dp/1847394574

Certainly more complicated than I thought (and I thought I had a good idea).

Sykes-Picot is almost a footnote in what actually happened.

u/slcrook · 1 pointr/wwi

I think by far, the most comprehensive and accessible one volume history on the war is "A World Undone" by GJ Meyer.

Brigadier Sir Richard Holmes' "The Western Front" is a very quick read and very enlightening on aspects of, well, the Western Front. It's focus allows for detail on the main theatre of the conflict, but that focus does take away form the "World' aspect of World War One.

A wonderful, visual account of the war and the aspects surrounding it is found in Stephen Patricia's "And the World Went Dark" which is both informative and a fantastic illustrated history. (Full disclosure, I contributed written copy to this book.)

And I can't resist a little plug for my own work, a novel set on the Western Front in 1917, which, while a work of fiction has a painstaking approach to realism and I've used points in the narrative to take an educational tone so that readers unfamiliar with certain points of the conflict can become immersed in the story. It's only available as an ebook at the moment, "Killing is a Sin"

u/whogivesashirtdotca · 7 pointsr/ArtPorn

I've been re-listening to my Citizens audiobook. A good summary of the French Revolution and the Terror, of which Marat was a guiding hand.

I like this take on the painting because it slyly copies David's Death of Marat from a different angle!

u/wrc-wolf · 1 pointr/paradoxplaza

Earlier this week I just finished up Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution & McLynn's Napoleon: A Biography, both of which I highly recommend if you're at all interested in the French Revolution.

u/PrexUnagi · 6 pointsr/AskHistorians

Start with something like William Doyle's textbook The Oxford History of the French Revolution.

Then use the bibliography to guide further reading in subjects you're interested in.

u/joelitobarski · 4 pointsr/history

Norman Davies' Europe: A History is the best general introduction to European History I've ever read. But "short" it ain't.

u/schueaj · 17 pointsr/history

Oxford History of the French Revolution by William Doyle

Khan Academy has a bunch of great video lectures about the French Revolution and Napoleon

http://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/history


u/meekles94 · 2 pointsr/booksuggestions

Old, but a good general place to start for understanding revolutions. https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Revolution-Crane-Brinton/dp/0394700449

Widely acclaimed scholar Theda Skocpol. Considered a must read for scholars of revolutions.
https://www.amazon.com/States-Social-Revolutions-Comparative-Analysis/dp/1107569842

u/Quickstick4 · 40 pointsr/todayilearned

Allot of slightly incorrect information in here already.

Britain DID betray the Arabs and Lawrence did know about it - but not when he began the campaign. There is allot more to it (and trying to simplify this is really difficult); but simply(and skipping over a lot of details):

  • At the start of the campaign it was vaugh British policy to give the Arabs their own state, it then became a solid policy and then the Brits went back on it.

  • The French did not believe that Britain would do such a thing (they believed an ulterior motive was in place) and actively pushed to ensure that France would retain sections of the Middle East

  • This led to Britain turning to a 'so called middle eastern expert' Sykes. He negotiated with France a deal that gave France Syria and split the promised Arab kingdom in Half (literally drew a line across the desert). N.B. He ignored allot of negotiations made by the Cairo office

  • when this was questioned by others in Britain - the worry was that France would become so pissed off they would leave the war against Germany - something Britain could NOT afford/allow to happen.

  • Then add in the Zionist views. These were strong in the UK at the time and the land division proposed by Pico-Sykes would allow Britain to give the Jews a homeland (which we did - just not quick enough in many peoples opinion and hence a whole other mess the US got involved in)

  • Several resignations happened in protest of how the Arabs were being treated and betrayed

    In summary Britain Pandered to the French - allowed people in London rather than on the field make decisions and messed the whole thing up because Germany was their focus

    Further Reading
    Fantastic book that explains it all: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Line-Sand-Britain-France-Struggle/dp/1847394574/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425926695&sr=8-1&keywords=A+line+in+the+sand

    Quote Summarises quite well: Source Wikipedia
    > In May 1917, W. Ormsby-Gore wrote "French intentions in Syria are surely incompatible with the war aims of the Allies as defined to the Russian Government. If the self-determination of nationalities is to be the principle, the interference of France in the selection of advisers by the Arab Government and the suggestion by France of the Emirs to be selected by the Arabs in Mosul, Aleppo, and Damascus would seem utterly incompatible with our ideas of liberating the Arab nation and of establishing a free and independent Arab State. The British Government, in authorising the letters despatched to King Hussein [Sharif of Mecca] before the outbreak of the revolt by Sir Henry McMahon, would seem to raise a doubt as to whether our pledges to King Hussein as head of the Arab nation are consistent with French intentions to make not only Syria but Upper Mesopotamia another Tunis. If our support of King Hussein and the other Arabian leaders of less distinguished origin and prestige means anything it means that we are prepared to recognise the full sovereign independence of the Arabs of Arabia and Syria. It would seem time to acquaint the French Government with our detailed pledges to King Hussein, and to make it clear to the latter whether he or someone else is to be the ruler of Damascus, which is the one possible capital for an Arab State, which could command the obedience of the other Arabian Emirs."

    *N.B. Islamic State are now fighting to restore the Borders that Britain once promised
u/ENRICOs · 1 pointr/todayilearned

If this topic has resonance then you'd do well to read a book like A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. She covers the black death and several other issues of great import from that time.

u/fuckin442m8 · 12 pointsr/unitedkingdom

Yes; Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, & Israel (don't get me started on that one) were created or given independence post WW2 by Britain & France (who previously controlled many of them)

There's a good book about this and the years preceding .

u/mildjeffers · 6 pointsr/AskHistorians

I'm a big fan of Barbara Tuchman. Her book A Distant Mirror is about the Fourteenth Century. It is specifically focused on Europe (mostly France and England). It has an excellent chapter on the black death.

http://www.amazon.com/Distant-Mirror-Calamitous-14th-Century/dp/0345349571

u/NonsensicalRambling · 1 pointr/history

Hi, "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II" deals with this very subject and talks about the five years immediately following the surrender. It is a fascinating book and won the Pulitzer. I read it in conjunction with "Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945" that deals a bit more expansively with the same subject in Europe and also won the Pulitzer. I cannot recommend either enough.

u/Fortspucking · 2 pointsr/history

This is a classic that I remember enjoying greatly. https://www.amazon.com/Distant-Mirror-Calamitous-14th-Century/dp/0345349571

u/riverblue9011 · 26 pointsr/travel

Absolutely, it was just a case of opening my mouth before engaging my brain.

If anyone wants some more information on it though I've recently finished a book called A Line in The Sand by James Barr that's based on the most recent documents that have surfaced. If that's a little dry for you there's a Podcast called Martyr Made that does a really good job of explaining the Israeli Palestinian conflict and why it's still going on.

u/greenkarmic · 29 pointsr/todayilearned

People don't realize how much the English and French languages are connected. I suggest this book, it's really good: The Story of French

u/yiliu · 2 pointsr/AskHistorians

Fair enough. I understand that avoiding offensive terms and preferring accuracy makes conversation a lot more straightforward.

I responded partly because I've been reading The Discovery of France. The author talks about Catholicism in the French countryside (circa 1750 - 1850 or so), and how much it differed from (at least) what I would have expected. For example, he suggests that in many parts of France, the average Catholic probably wouldn't have identified either Christ or God as particularly important to their religion, and might instead have highlighted Mary or a favorite local Saint as central. If that were the case, how could one justify the distinction between 'veneration' and 'worship'?

u/Caz1982 · 1 pointr/todayilearned

Interested in Cathars? You should read this.

It has some of the oldest primary source material on the lives of normal Europeans known to exist.

u/Kamakazi010654 · 1 pointr/history

Well, if you enjoy the naval side of things I would suggest The Line Upon a Wind http://www.amazon.com/The-Line-Upon-Wind-1793-1815/dp/0393066533

I thought it was a great read, it covers the last golden age of the sailing ship including all the "high points" like Nelson's adventures. It isn't strictly British focused, but any naval history around the Napoleonic Wars is pretty heavy on those pesky Brits.

u/Herxheim · 1 pointr/kingdomcome

> Pillars of the Earth

that looks good. have you read a distant mirror?

u/lee1026 · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

The answer also changes depending on the year - a horse and rider moved a lot faster in 1815 compared to 1648 thanks to the quality of the roads.

Source: The Pursuit of Glory

u/Asks_For_Milkshakes · 1 pointr/arabs

The book was published in 2012. You mean the agreement's text? Nah. Everyone knew where the Palestine region was but there was no definite border so they had to agree to one. Nothing about immigration so far.

u/ham_rain · 2 pointsr/books

What is a good book to "understand" World War II? It could be from a political, technological, military or social perspective. As an example, I found G J Meyer's "A World Undone" to be a fascinating read on the political and military aspects of WWI.

u/DoctorTalosMD · 2 pointsr/tuesday

This one's really good, though not sure if there's an audiobook.

u/SonOfShem · 3 pointsr/mattcolville

I've been doing some world-building myself, and these are the links that I've found that help me the most:

- medieval demographics, based on data found in this book

- magical medieval society, a 3e reference book

- travel speed discussion

u/CynicallyIronic · 4 pointsr/history
u/QuiteAffable · 1 pointr/todayilearned

I also recommend "A Distant Mirror", by Barbara Tuchman

u/MiaVisatan · 2 pointsr/languagelearning

Here are the ones I have and that I recommend:

​

SPANISH

​

The Story of Spanish: https://www.amazon.com/Story-Spanish-Jean-Benoit-Nadeau/dp/1250049040

​

The History of Spanish: A Student's Introduction: https://www.amazon.com/History-Spanish-Students-Introduction/dp/1316507947 (available now from: https://www.bookdepository.com/History-Spanish-Diana-L-Ranson/9781316507940)

​

A History of the Spanish Language through Texts: https://www.amazon.com/History-Spanish-Language-through-Texts/dp/0415707129

​

A Brief History of the Spanish Language: (but it's really not brief) https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Spanish-Language-Second/dp/022613394X

​

La maravillosa historia del espa?ol https://www.amazon.com/maravillosa-historia-del-espa/dp/8467044276

​

A History of the Spanish Language https://www.amazon.com/History-Spanish-Language-Ralph-Penny/dp/0521011841

​

The Evolution of Spanish https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Spanish-Linguistic-Thomas-Lathrop/dp/1589770145

​

Los 1001 años de la lengua española https://www.amazon.com/lengua-española-ESTUDIOS-LITERARIOS-Spanish/dp/968166678X

​

FRENCH

​

The Story of French: https://www.amazon.com/Story-French-Jean-Benoit-Nadeau/dp/0312341849

​

A History of the French Language https://www.amazon.com/History-French-Language-Peter-Rickard/dp/041510887X

​

French Inside Out: The Worldwide Development of the French Language in the Past, the Present and the Future https://www.amazon.com/French-Inside-Out-Worldwide-Development/dp/0415076706

​

The French Language: present and past https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0729302083

​

u/AnsweredHistoryBot · 1 pointr/AFH_meta

swummit replies:

> I'm currently reading Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt. The information I'm giving is me paraphrasing from...

u/TheHellion · 3 pointsr/Libri

Storia antica:

  • Robin Lane Fox - Alessandro Magno
  • Tom Holland - Rubicone
  • Peter Heather - La caduta dell'impero romano
  • Peter Heather - L'impero e i barbari

    Scienza: Qualunque libro di Paul Davies, Simon Singh, John Gribbin, Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, Steven Pinker.

    -----

    Ti consiglierei anche questo e questo ma non credo ne esista una versione in italiano.



u/tenent808 · 3 pointsr/AskHistorians

Check out Eric Hobsbawm's trilogy of books: The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848, The Age of Capital: 1848-1875, and The Age of Empire: 1875-1914 where he makes the argument for the "long 19th century" spanning the years from 1789-1914. Hobsbawm is very much a Marxist historian, so keep that in mind reading his work, but he is a gifted writer and historian and lays out his arguments very convincingly and rigorously. As far as I'm aware, Hobsbawm is the scholar most credited with formatting the theory of the "long 19th century".

u/Vakz · 29 pointsr/CrusaderKings

> how much would you have to spend to keep a dirt road serviceable?

You're kind of underthinking it. Keeping a road serviceable for regular traffic, especially when taking into accounts vehicles like wagons, is a lot of work. Some decent rain will turn that road into mud when there's heavy traffic, and suddenly you barely have a road anymore.

If you have nothing better to do with your time, I could actually recommend The Pursuit of Glory, which points out proper road maintenance as one of the core pillars of Europe entering the modern age.

u/firstroundko108 · 3 pointsr/booksuggestions

Well, this book covers much of the 14th century, but it’s not as recent as the Thirty Years War. Nevertheless, it’s regularly mentioned in this sub as one of the best historical books altogether.

u/saddertadder · 2 pointsr/badhistory

Got hooked into A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 and about a hundred pages in it. Has anyone else read it? what do you think?

u/Cdn_Nick · 1 pointr/history

Tony Judt's book: 'Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945' is worth reading. Although not specifically focused on Germany alone, it does provide the reader with a good general coverage of post 1945 events, and provides context for Germany's post war growth.
https://www.amazon.com/Postwar-History-Europe-Since-1945/dp/0143037757

u/ObdurateSloth · 7 pointsr/europe

Not from my country, but relevant to this sub - Postwar by Tony Judt.

u/torithebutcher · 1 pointr/AskWomen

Life in a Medieval City this book covers every thing i've ever wondered about the renaissance era. next up is the calamitous 14th century.

u/mywifeisthings · 1 pointr/history

Give "Postwar" by Tony Judt a read. It's incredibly detailed and goes over the history of Europe from 1945.

u/criticalnegation · 2 pointsr/HistoryofIdeas

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman

absolutely enthralling. i've never read something so informative and entertaining...she teleports you to a different world: ours, 700 years ago.

next on the list is Immanuel Wallerstein's 4 volume World Systems Series. it's been on my bucket list since i took a course in undergrad on the subject.


then, marx's capital.

u/Marseille14 · 1 pointr/battlefield_one

A World Undone by G.J. Meyer; I'm not a big history reader but I could not put this book down
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553382403/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

u/spike · 2 pointsr/books

A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman

u/HilariousMax · 3 pointsr/todayilearned

Possibly this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Distant-Mirror-Calamitous-14th-Century/dp/0345349571/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404330328&sr=1-2

Without having read it, it doesn't look like what I would call "summer reading" but YMMV

u/karma_morghulis · 3 pointsr/TrueReddit

Humans, as a species, are predisposed towards authoritarians. Even in idealized, pastoral tribal societies, which often did have high degrees of egalitarianism, there was invariably a strong social order generally associated with a group of elders or single elder depending on the size of the group, somewhat counter-intuitively larger groups tended to have single executives whereas smaller ones can remain effective with larger authority councils.

One of the most "free" people in a historically large society were the Iroquois, who had a much stronger influence on the democratic drive in North America than in generally recognized in common histories. Even they had multiple levels of government, with an interesting gender-split authority structure and weren't strictly democratic.

I think a lot of people conflate the ideas of egalitarianism (fairness and equity) with democracy. Historically democracy was one of the concessions to equability, but they are not the same thing. People want fairness. Democracy got them some of that. But much of the modern fairness we have in the Western world was engendered from two centuries of violent struggle by various populist, socialist, and nationalist elements against the colonial and imperial power structures that emerged during Europe's post-renaissance period.

This was not voted for in so much as from about 1740 up until the WW1-WW2 period, people were literally murdering members of the feudal and imperial power structures, and in some cases overthrowing governments. The notion of modern democracy was a concession by the various imperial systems to that quest for more equality (liberté, égalité, fraternité ... not démocratie) and not some natural progression of governance. Even the American Revolution was significantly driven by a desire for "leveling" that is left out of most histories, the colonies wanted a bigger share of the pie more than they specifically wanted to vote for which guy in a wig was head cheese.

tl;dr not suprising, our notional of preference for democracy is debatably propaganda and fairly ahistorical. A large fraction of the population would likely prefer an authoritarian system as long as they thought the result was fair ... to them at least

Interesting Reading: Eric Hobsbawm's Age of Revolution. amazon link

u/LRE · 31 pointsr/languagelearning

French. It's a serious panty dropper here in the US. Plus it has an enthralling history.

u/notreallyhereforthis · 16 pointsr/Christianity

> before the Church plunged Europe into the Dark Ages

If by the "Church" you mean the "collapse of the Western Roman Empire partly due to invasion and raiding" and by "plunged" you mean "precipitated the slow decline of the infrastructure of the society" and by the "Dark Ages" you mean the "Early Middle Ages" then there are plenty of history books, a good overview one is Europe: A History or for a wider view History: From the Dawn of Civilization to the Present Day.

u/Aidinthel · 2 pointsr/TrueAtheism

>I think it important to also note that in the past it has been considerably more difficult to actually be an atheist--not simply because of persecution-- but also because former generations didn't have the benefit of knowledge regarding scientific explanations of the diversity of life or origins of the cosmos.
Modern science offered the first real alternative to religion.


I don't buy it. The Gods of the Gaps argument isn't any more rational just because the gaps are bigger, and there were plenty of people who challenged the religious orthodoxy. Just this quarter I read a book about a small village in southern France during the early 1300s and there were plenty of people in that tiny, rural community who didn't believe in the Christian God or any other, saying things like "the soul is nothing but blood".

u/topherino · 1 pointr/unitedkingdom

If you want to learn more about this, I recommend this book:

A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the struggle that shaped the Middle East

u/desGrieux · 75 pointsr/AskHistorians

I'll take a stab at answering this, but it's kind of hard to focus on one aspect. I'm a linguist, not strictly speaking a historian. But I've done work in historical linguistics.

This of course is very dependent on the region, but in general yes.

The most complicated issues with answering the question is how your define what constitutes a language versus a dialect, which is primarily a political and cultural issue. Comprehensibility would be the logical division of languages, but that exists in degrees, not in absolute terms, so those lines are arbitrary.

Most languages existed in what we call a dialect continuum where your neighbors sounded different, but you could understand them. But you couldn't necessarily understand your neighbor's neighbor, even though your neighbor could.

For one, the idea of "nations" didn't really exist yet, so there was A LOT of linguistic diversity. For example, when Napoleon started doing censuses, French (at the time, the language of Paris) was spoken natively by less than a quarter of the population (Check out The Story of French) and was understood by less than half of the people in modern day France. Most people spoke regional languages such as Basque, Breton, dialects of German, Italian, les Langues d'oc, and other dialects of langue d'oïl (of which the modern French language, a descendant of the Parisian dialect, is a member).

England was similar. English itself had many dialects and celtic languages were still very prevalent in their regions. In addition, as an island nation, many people people involved in seafaring had at least basic knowledge of French. Anyone involved with the upper classes would have basic knowledge of French.

Spain had Basque, Galician, Portuguese, Mozarabic, Castilian, Catalan, Aragonese, etc.

German and Italian only came to have a sense of a "national language" long after Goethe and Dante practically invented them. Before that it was a hugely diverse region of non-mutually comprehensible dialects.

The point of mentioning all these is that traveling or doing commerce across even very short distances often required a different language if not at least different vocabulary.

Upper classes were very often multilingual, especially women. Women were often from other regions for the purposes of alliances and the like, and so they often didn't share a language/dialect with their husband. This is partially the reason for the term "mother tongue" as it used to be distinguished from the language of the community (since the mother was often from elsewhere). This was especially true of royalty, who often imported princess from very different kingdoms across Europe. There are exceptions to this of course, but this was the general trend.

Merchants would very frequently have basic knowledge of other languages because of the nature of their job. We have lots of records of small phrasebooks and things of that nature. When lots of merchants were involved, they often created their own "language" such as lingua franca. In fact, so many people were familiar with this language in its day that it became the name for any neutral language two non-native speakers used.

Another key aspect of this was Latin. Anyone with even basic literacy (while extremely limited) would have knowledge of latin. And even if you weren't literate, you certainly went to mass so even the poorest of poor had exposure to Latin.

Peasants who didn't have the opportunity to leave their towns were the least likely to know another language. But they still got exposure, hence why English today has more French vocabulary than Anglo-Saxon vocabulary.

Also the language landscape changed frequently, so it seems that languages in general were easily learned. Gaul become Latinized very quickly so it doesn't seem that celtic speakers had much difficulty acquiring Latin (Romans even commented on how similar Gaulish was to Latin, so that probably helped). Etruscan was easily replaced by Latin, Basque and other (with a big question mark) languages of Iberia were quickly replaced as well. English uprooted Celtic, only to be subsequently imposed upon by Latin's daughter French. This would not be possible at that scale and frequency if language learning and bilingualism were not common.

u/radiumdial · 1 pointr/history

Citizens by Simon Schama well written and a compelling read, though with a somewhat anti-Jacobin slant
a good but less thorough book is Paris in the Terror by Stanley Loomis

u/AhiroSuzu · 2 pointsr/APStudents

Those all suck. Get this

u/Stellar_Duck · 1 pointr/unitedkingdom

Fucking hell. Go read a book about this instead of just blabbing about.

Tony Judts Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 is a fine starting point, though admittedly just gives an overview. It has a great bibliography though, so yea, good starting point.

Nobody said the EU was responsible for peace from before that particular union was created but it's a result of and a continuation of, thoughts and ideas from the immediate post war period and the treaties and communities founded at that time. Sheesh.

u/Triseult · 11 pointsr/books

There are no knights in shining armor in the books any more than on the show. Knights in ASoIaF are of the Gregor Clegane variety: they use their title and power to rape and pillage.

There's a fantastic book on the Middle Ages called A Distant Mirror, and it explains how even in Medieval times, the idea of the "knight in shining armor" was an outdated myth that didn't reflect reality. One of the reasons I took to A Game of Thrones when I read it is that it was the first "accurate" portrayal of historical knights that I could think of.

A Song of Ice and Fire is by no means faeries and fair maidens... The show extrapolates the tone of the books.

u/GunboatDiplomats · 2 pointsr/printSF

I'd suggest the 14th Century. Black plague, 100-years war, massive social unrest. See A Distant Mirror and more info here.

u/twethythree · 1 pointr/politics

Yeah, we'd all be so much better off with an angry mob "in charge." Read Citizens. Seriously, if you're going to run around advocating mob rule, at least first read a scholarly work that describes the results of such rule. I suspect you might change your mind.

u/ronin1066 · 1 pointr/atheism

True, but also bored. Knights and other nobles without much fighting to do literally became brigands and also started attacking each other. I just read "A Distant Mirror" by Tuchman and she talks all about it.

u/Super_Jay · 2 pointsr/battlefield_one

BOOKS:

  • If nothing else, I encourage everyone with even a modicum of interest in WWI to read All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Marie Remarque, a German veteran of the Great War. It's a harrowing, brutal, and eye-opening look at the conditions that soldiers on all sides had to endure, and the terrible toll that the war extracted from the troops that served.

  • For nonfiction, I highly recommend A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918. by G.J. Meyer. It's a comprehensive, accessible, informative single-volume history that helps tie together all of the many theaters, nations, and other factors that made up the world-changing conflict that we now know as WWI.
u/jetpacksforall · 3 pointsr/history

I see. I lost track of the thread. I'm currently reading Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. Amazing read. Quick thumbnail: the Black Death wasn't the only, and may not have even been the worst thing that happened during what sounds like an unusually crappy time to have been alive (in Europe at least). War, famine, rape, pillage, robbery, bandits, a stark contrast between the ideals of courtesy and the actual behavior of mounted knights. Seemingly small value placed on life at all levels of society, but of course especially for the regular people.

u/theKalash · 4 pointsr/germany

It's a very complicated topic. I can't tell you what it's really about. I recently read this book, which was quite interessting and gives a lot of insight towards many of the fundamental roots of the tensions in the region.

But I don't think there is one conclusive answer to why there is currently war there.

> I expect the average American idiot to buy into this nonsense, but Europeans? On average, you're far more informed than the typical American and I was hoping you guys could take the global leadership role since America is being governed by an incompetent orange ape. You can have these dog and pony shows and pat yourselves on the back like you're making a difference but they won't do anything.

maybe. But large scale social change is a slow process and this is a step in the right direction. What do you expect? We magically summon a german army that can slap it's dick on the table and end this shitshow. The US could. But this is at least a small alternative to the military option, even if it's effects are currently minor.

u/belizehouse · 4 pointsr/worldnews

This book explains the degree to which we reconstructed Europe, the alternate plan, and some political reasons why we decided to save half your continent from totalitarianism.

This book, p 340-460, details how Christian realists and statesmen like Herbert Hoover turned away from the Morgenthau plan, for moral and spiritual reasons, and instead fed the world and made it fit for living in.

This book destroys your typical European conception of nazi occupation outside the typical France/Ukraine dichotomy and shows how Germans starved Greek families and created orphans so they could have Christmas feasts.

This book is a magisterial account of the European contribution to reconstruction and shows that I'm not some halfwit barbarian that thinks everything in the world comes from my country. It just wouldn't have been possible without the help of my country.

This book documents the degree to which the nazi war machine violated the Hague Conventions of the 1890s and looted all countries under their control. They imposed inflation on France (RKK certificate to civilian -> civilian to bank -> bank to central bank -> central bank to trash can ; print franc), used their soldiers as mules, how they 'purchased' goods in the East etc. Very useful for debunking the 1950s Soviet disinformation that was based on the idea that American administration was bumbling. Did you know we sent them ground corn instead of baguettes, sausage, and free shoes? How incompetent! And if a German lost their home we didn't give them a fully furnished one. How mean-spirited! lol

Read those books or at least four on the reconstruction of Europe and ask me that question again.

u/PerNihilAdNihil · 28 pointsr/todayilearned

>In village games, players with hands tied behind them competed to kill a cat nailed to a post by battering it to death with their heads, at the risk of cheeks ripped open or eyes scratched out by the frantic animal’s claws.

>Barbara Tuchman, "A Distant Mirror: life in the calamitous 14th century"

u/CaptainMeap · 4 pointsr/history

Pretty much, yeah. His intent was basically to have minesweepers clear the straight, battleships bombard the coastal guns and enter into the harbor of Istanbul with enough firepower to force a surrender (it almost certainly would have).

The problem was that - after clearing the forts and the Ottoman guns almost entirely running out of ammo, supplies, and communications - a single Ottoman mine layer got through some pretty lax night time patrols. It layed some mines and scampered off; those mines sunk a couple of battleships and damaged others.

These ships were specifically chosen because they were old and expendable. Iirc Churchill thought along the lines that if every single ship under the admiral's command had been lost but Constantinople were captured it would have been a great victory.

Unfortunately, due to having been at peace for so long, the naval commanders were terrified of losing ships. In peacetime it meant demotion and disgrace, but in war it was neccessary, and that's something that didn't translate well after literally lifetimes of no naval warfare. As soon as the battleships retreated due to relatively light losses at a point in the battle in which the Turks later admitted they literally could not have stopped another push, the naval campaign ended. To add to this debacle out of Churchill's hands, the naval commander had a nervous breakdown when Churchill pressed him to continue attacking.

Once the sea battle ended another began: there was an internal fight over where a prepared expeditionary force in the Mediterranean (which included the only pre-war combat troops not decimated by the Western Front) would be used to try and force Gallipoli by land or attack another, French-supported location.

Gallipoli won out, there were weeks and weeks of delays, a German military attaché completely reworked the Dardanelles' defenses, Churchill got less troops than he asked for, the commander was a bit of a dolt, the landings were completely botched in both location and execution, and so Gallipoli became as much a trench-filled disaster as everywhere else. Some months later, the Allies pulled out.

If you like the era, check out G. J. Meyer's A World Undone. It's a fantastic and total account of World War I and Gallipoli gets at least a chapter devoted to it. It reads like an actual book rather than a dusty old historian's textbook and is truly fantastic, and I cannot recommend it enough.

u/Brickus · 1 pointr/chomsky

The formation of the Israeli state and the reaction of the natives and the Arab states has to be seen within the context of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Essentially, after WW1, the British and the French divided up the Ottoman Empire according to which the French got everything to the north and the British everything to the south of a line in the shape of a tick/correction mark.

See here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/MPK1-426_Sykes_Picot_Agreement_Map_signed_8_May_1916.jpg

Part of that process was the Mandate system in which the two powers would oversee the transition into democratically governed states in the region who would eventually become self-governing. They encouraged Arab nationalism. The problem was that the British and French were both vying for power and resources in the region (oil was only beginning to become a major economic and strategic interest) and used their various Mandates against each other. The issue of Palestine was somewhat left off the table due to its religious importance and was eventually to be placed under international supervision, at least that was the plan. The British felt they had been forced into the agreement and in order to counter the French, they began to support the Zionists, some of whom were already in Palestine, and other Zionists in Europe. From that springs the Balfour Declaration. Their thinking was that if the Zionists were aligned with the British, then the British would have a more legitimate claim to Palestine than the French.

Of course, this went against the idea of Arab nationalism which had been promoted by the powers. So, there was a building tension as a result of this, and the result of increasing levels of Jewish immigration to the region. We must remember with regard to the latter that the Jewish/Zionist settlers were publicly backed by the British, and given the actions of the British in the region vis-a-vis blocking Arab nationalism, the natives were not happy. You also then had the rise of Revisionist Zionism, i.e., only a militarily superior Zionist enterprise would be able to take the land that they needed, the land being Palestine.

Here's a quote from a report by The Executive Committee of the Palestine Arab Congress that was sent to the British in 1924:

“The Palestine Administration, in pursuances of this rule, put into force (1921) a Turkish law that has never been enforced before, whereby a proprietor who fails to cultivate his land or a part thereof during three consecutive years will lose his title to it. The war-weakened farmer found it impossible for himself in the present crisis of financial stringency, costly labour and cheap product prices, to cultivate all his lands within three years. He, therefore, foresaw a part of his dear land cut off by virtue of that law, and thus frightened, he came down to the market to sell it to Jews at a low price....

The economic policy of the Palestine Administration pursues two lines of action, the one pertaining to Arabs and the other to Jews. The latter is progressive but the former is retrogressive. The overwhelming majority of the population in Palestine is composed of Arab farmers, of towns and villages, who are the sole producing element. Meanwhile, they are the poorest in the country. It is obviously essential that a good willing Government should, from the outset, give the first hand of assistance to them who give most and suffer most....

The Arab demand many be summed up in the following words: The establishment in Palestine of a National Constitutional Government in which the two Communities, Arab and Jewish, will be represented in proportion to their numbers as they existed before the application of the Zionist Policy” .

So you can see there was a lot of tension as a result of the British and their behaviour in the region. Later the Zionists got tired with the British due to the latter placing immigration restrictions on Palestine (see the two White Papers) so they turned to the French for support instead. During WW2 there was essentially a full scale rebellion in Palestine by the natives against the British but also against the Jewish paramilitary groups that had sprang up. The latter were funded and armed by the French government. It's an interesting irony of history that while the British were fighting to liberate France, the French government was arming and financing Jewish terrorists who were targeting British soldiers and civil servants in Palestine.

As for 1948, the Arab armies attacking was a result, in my view, of the broken promises by the British, Jewish terrorism that had been taking place for years, and of course the ethnic cleansing that began in late 1947.

This is just a general overview and not as detailed as I'd like. I could copy and past from my thesis but as it's a work in progress I'd rather not.

If you want more information on the background then I'd recommend James Barr's book, A Line in the Sand. It's fantastically written and there's a lot of information in it that's not widely known, such as the Stern Gang, a Jewish paramilitary group, offering assistance to the Nazi government in 1940 in return for the establishment of Jewish State in Palestine.

u/empleadoEstatalBot · 1 pointr/notArgentina
	


	


	


> # Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing To Fight A War For Their Country
>
>
>
> [Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing To Fight A War For Their Country](http://brilliantmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/fight-for-Europe.png)
>
> _Map created by reddit user Spartharios_The map above shows the percentage of residents in various European countries who are willing to fight and go to war for their country.
>
> Full results below:
>
> From high to low, these are the percentages by country:
>
> - 74% – Finland
> - 73% – Turkey
> - 62% – Ukraine
> - 59% – Russia
> - 58% – Kosovo
> - 55% – Bosnia and Herzegovina
> - 55% – Sweden
> - 54% – Greece
> - 47% – Poland
> - 46% – Serbia
> - 41% – Latvia
> - 39% – Switzerland
> - 38% – Ireland
> - 38% – Macedonia
> - 38% – Romania
> - 37% – Denmark
> - 29% – France
> - 28% – Portugal
> - 27% – United Kingdom
> - 26% – Iceland
> - 25% – Bulgaria
> - 23% – Czech Republic
> - 21% – Austria
> - 21% – Spain
> - 20% – Italy
> - 19% – Belgium
> - 18% – Germany
> - 15% – The Netherlands
>
> The results are from a 2015 WIN/Gallup International global survey. The sample size and methodology was as follows:
>
> > A total of 62,398 persons were interviewed globally. In each country a representative sample of around 1000 men and women was interviewed either face to face (30 countries; n=32258), via telephone (12 countries; n=9784) or online (22 countries; n=20356). Details are attached. The field work was conducted during September 2014 – December 2014. The margin of error for the survey is between 2.14 and 4.45 +3-5% at 95% confidence level.
>
> Europe is the continent with the fewest people willing to fight a war for their country. Globally, an average of 61% of respondents in 64 countries said they would. Morocco (94%), Fiji (94%), Pakistan (89%), Vietnam (89%) and Bangladesh (86%) had the highest percentage willing to fight.
>
> The country with the fewest people willing to go to war was Japan, with just 11% of respondents saying they would fight.
>
> Since World War Two, Europe has been relatively peaceful with major exceptions of the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s and various political suppressions during the Cold War. However, the 19th century was also a relatively peaceful time for Europe that ended with the start of World War I.
>
> For more on European wars and conflict have a look at the following books:
>
> - War in European History
> - The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914
> - Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
> - Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II
> - Europe: A History
>
> Find this map interesting? Please help by sharing it: