(Part 2) 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 products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
21. Property Is Theft!: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Reader
- Gentle enough for color-treated hair and for daily use.
- Salon approved
- 0.5% Pyrithione Zinc
- Available in Shampoo and Conditioner
Features:
Specs:
Height | 9 Inches |
Length | 6 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 2.4691773344 Pounds |
Width | 1 Inches |
22. Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations
Penguin Books
Specs:
Color | Multicolor |
Height | 8.99 Inches |
Length | 6 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | November 2012 |
Weight | 1.8 Pounds |
Width | 1.41 Inches |
23. Nelson's Trafalgar: The Battle That Changed the World
- Used Book in Good Condition
Features:
Specs:
Height | 9.24 Inches |
Length | 6.22 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | August 2005 |
Weight | 1.45 Pounds |
Width | 1.42 Inches |
24. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
Specs:
Release date | August 2011 |
25. Swords Around A Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armée
- Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Features:
Specs:
Height | 1.72 Inches |
Length | 9.2 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | March 1997 |
Weight | 2.35 Pounds |
Width | 5.96 Inches |
26. Charlemagne: A Life From Beginning to End (Biographies of French Royalty Book 1)
Specs:
Release date | December 2016 |
27. Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century
Vintage
Specs:
Color | Multicolor |
Height | 7.96 Inches |
Length | 5.24 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | March 2000 |
Weight | 0.8 Pounds |
Width | 0.91 Inches |
28. The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis
- My casual drinking is your alcohol poisoning funny drinking shirt. Great gift to wear on a party or a pub
- This funny drinking shirt is perfect for beer lovers drinker enthusiast
- Lightweight, Classic fit, Double-needle sleeve and bottom hem
Features:
Specs:
Height | 7.75 Inches |
Length | 5 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 0.67902376696 Pounds |
Width | 1 Inches |
29. The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It
- Used Book in Good Condition
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8.625 Inches |
Length | 5.5625 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | January 2008 |
Weight | 0.9 Pounds |
Width | 1.046 Inches |
30. The Paris Commune 1871 (Turning Points)
Used Book in Good Condition
Specs:
Height | 8.42 Inches |
Length | 5.44 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | June 1999 |
Weight | 0.79807338844 Pounds |
Width | 0.57 Inches |
31. The Hundred Years' War
- Used Book in Good Condition
Features:
Specs:
Height | 9.5098235 Inches |
Length | 6.37 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | November 2002 |
Weight | 0.70988848364 Pounds |
Width | 0.22 Inches |
32. Life in a Medieval Castle (Medieval Life)
- Harper Perennial
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8 Inches |
Length | 5.3 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | October 2015 |
Weight | 0.6 Pounds |
Width | 0.9 Inches |
33. A History of the French Language
- Used Book in Good Condition
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8.5 Inches |
Length | 5.43 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 0.54895103238 pounds |
Width | 0.44 Inches |
34. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977
- Vintage Books
Features:
Specs:
Color | White |
Height | 7.97 Inches |
Length | 5.2 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | November 1980 |
Weight | 0.67461452172 Pounds |
Width | 0.75 Inches |
35. Révolution Consulat Empire (1789-1815): Version compacte (Histoire de France) (French Edition)
Specs:
Height | 7.55904 Inches |
Length | 5.5118 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | October 2014 |
Weight | 1.70196866264 Pounds |
Width | 1.14173 Inches |
36. French Revolution: A History From Beginning to End (One Hour History Revolution Book 1)
Specs:
Release date | January 2016 |
37. Maistre: Considerations on France (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)
- Used Book in Good Condition
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8.5 Inches |
Length | 5.5 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 0.551155655 Pounds |
Width | 0.45 Inches |
38. Storm and Conquest: The Clash of Empires in the Eastern Seas, 1809
- Official product by little buddy/Banpresto
- From the popular series Dragon ball!
- Base stand and figure included
- Cute and collectible
- Limited availability
Features:
Specs:
Height | 9.5 Inches |
Length | 6.5 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | January 2008 |
Weight | 0.48 Pounds |
Width | 1.3 Inches |
39. Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany
- Used Book in Good Condition
Features:
Specs:
Height | 9.21 Inches |
Length | 6.14 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 0.87964442538 Pounds |
Width | 0.65 Inches |
40. Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris; June 6 - Aug. 5, 1944; Revised
- Used Book in Good Condition
Features:
Specs:
Color | Multicolor |
Height | 0.88 Inches |
Length | 7.75 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | June 1994 |
Weight | 0.61 Pounds |
Width | 5.08 Inches |
🎓 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.
> Well yes, I guess I just don't get it...or at least understand the purpose. I made a thread a while ago aimed at not necessarily socialists but anyone who believed in personal property. The question was, what is the purpose of making such a distinction? What are the ramifications (for yourself, for society)?
> I still don't understand that. That is, what the purpose is of making the distinction. I can admit that property ownership is wrong, but then can't accept that personal ownership (derived from use) is any more right.
This in particular is where we usually result to Proudhon who tackles the issue directly in a compendium of different works. The general idea seems to be that private property isn't natural to us, what is, is possessiveness as a human disposition. It isn't that if I have a PC in my house, everyone in my community is entitled to use it, or that nothing that I have is truly mine. Privatizing the means of production, vast amounts of natural resources, arable land, etc, isn't natural to who we are. I'll leave it to any other socialist to wants to expand or add an addendum to that, but that's basically it.
> Regarding your point about ideologues. Ancaps usually split themselves into the categories "deontological" and "consequential" (not mutually exclusive, i would say i'm more deotonlogical). ancaps tend to believe ancap philosophy is more of a conclusion arrived at, rather than a political ideology to promote, that relates most closely to how you should act in situations. being anarchists first, they obviosuly believe the state is irrational or immoral, but that capitalism is what would arise if there is no state. the deontological pathway is the moral question. that is they arrived at ancap by trying to figure out how best to act or think morally and believe ancap philosophy best categorizes this and falls in line with their beliefs (and considering the subject of this thread that is the way i answered). consequentialist ancaps use pragmatics to arrive at the same conclusion. that is, they believe an ancap society would be the best that is most productive, most "free", most respectful, and so on. They're logic is not necessarily amoral, just that they believe that regardless of whether ancap/anarchism/statist ideologies are the most morally sound, ancap philosophy creates the best result for everyone involved.
Thanks for going into it more. Part of what is frustrating in speaking to many ancap's is I rarely hear them explicitly state the value premise of their argument. Some are ancap's on a set of principles that has nothing to do with the results or efficacy of their system in practice. Others are for it because they actually believe it promotes ideals shared by say, Social Democrat's for example (results in greater levels of equality, level's the playing field, etc), and some believe it for a mix of both, and all these reasons get conflated a lot in the heat of the debate, switching back and forth between them as defense of their positions become more difficult.
> you might find that response just as ideologically based as well though, haha
It was insightful to say the least.
I would recommend that you study some Romance linguistics. It will be more work at first, but the pay off in the end will be huge.
Start here [with the basic sound changes] (http://press.georgetown.edu/book/languages/latin-romance-sound-charts)
And then pick a historical grammar for whatever Language you're interested in. This, for example, is not a bad book for French
What you'll realize first of all is that Romance languages don't come from classical Latin, but rather Vulgar Latin, Latin as spoken by most people.
There's all kinds of good work for Vulgar Latin, too, but even this wiki page is decent
Romance linguistics is a very well-studied field, with lots of secondary literature. And once you start seeing patterns, nothing will surprise you in Romance languages! Good luck.
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.
With English history, I would start with the Romans. The "very short introduction" books have shown up in my old reading lists on multiple occasions at university.
I would then move on to the vikings. Again look at "a very short introduction". I would also look at "The Viking World". This is the textbook I used at Uni.
(Now we get to medieval England, my favourite) Look at the history of the medieval church christianity was central to medieval life. Look at the Black Death King Death: The Black Death and its Aftermath in Late-Medieval England, it is one of my favourite books of all time and an absolute pleasure to read. This book is a very good overview of medieval Europe This book is also a very good, but brief, introduction. I would read that one before the other one.
The Hundred Years war is an important part of English and French history. The Hundred Years War is a good brief book.
Now we get to the War of the Roses (if you like game of thrones, this is what it is based on). Hicks, M. A., The war of the Roses (2003). He wrote another longer book in 2010. Both are very good, but the 2003 book is much much smaller.
I never studied the Tudors or Stuarts at uni but I am sure someone else would be able to direct you to good books. When buying books look for "University Press" books. They are written buy lecturers and professors, world leaders in their field.
The Empire Project is a very good book, but not as small as the others I have suggested (well, except for the viking age one).
Don't be disheartened by the amount of books I have suggested, I promise the majority are tiny and pictures do take up a lot of room. If you were to combine them, they probably would be as many words as 2 big books. Wait for the books to become cheap or call up a university second hand book shop to see if they have them in stock. Again I highly recommend the "a very short introduction" books if you want to get to know an area of history without making the commitment of buying larger more expensive books. If you want my old reading lists I can send them too you if you PM me.
A conservative/reactionary reading list:
Jean Bodin - Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576)
Robert Filmer - Patriarcha, or The Natural Power of Kings (1680)
Edmund Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Joseph de Maistre - Considerations on France (1797) and Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions and other Human Institutions (1809)
Thomas Carlyle - The French Revolution: A History (1837) and On Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History (1841)
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and Genealogy of Morals (1887)
Oswald Spengler - Decline of the West (1918)
Ernst Jünger - Storm of Steel (1920)
Jose Ortega y Gassett - Revolt of the Masses (1929)
Julius Evola - Revolt Against the Modern World (1934) and Men Among the Ruins (1953)
Bertrand de Jouvenal - On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth (1949)
Leo Strauss - Natural Right and History (1953)
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn - The Menace of the Herd (1943) and Liberty or Equality (1952)
>The points trotted out seemed hackneyed and formalistic, and the "right answer" was always whatever cast Europeans and/or white males in the worst possible light.
It's funny because if you look at what's getting published in the top journals (American Sociological Review and American Journal of Sociology), it's nothing like that stuff. But that's still what our undergraduates are interested in (even though it's not really what are classes are like). I volunteered to be a discussant for some of the undergraduates' BA thesis and the two that I was assigned was something about Black Feminist epistemology (intersectionality is bad, boo! You should be black and feminist, but nothing more) and something about Foucault and death penalty abolition. They were just so out of the norm of the work done by the faculty and graduate students of the department, I didn't know how to react to them.
Honestly, I'm not surprised at your experience--that's still a big part of the field, especially at the undergraduate level--but I can tell you that, from the perspective of people in my department at least, that stuff legacy of sociology is, in a word, "embarrassing". I'd recommend Shamus Khan's Privilege (it just won our biggest book prize last year, the C. Wright Mills award) as a better example of what's actually being researched right now in sociology. Here's a PDF of the introduction, where he lays out all his arguments and the rest of the book is mostly filling in those theses with data. Rather than saying "hierarchies are evil and it is European/white/male's fault", the very first "lesson" of the book is "hierarchies are natural and they can be treated like ladders, not ceilings" (pg. 15). Historical sociology has always been less interested in that gushy stuff and more interested in developing theories about macro-level changes (why did states form? what causes revolutions? how did the Ottoman state centralize? why is nationalism different in Germany and France? how did the passport come about? where did capitalism come from?), though there's also stuff about how macro-level events affect people and social structures at the micro-level (Charles Tilly's The Vendée comes to mind).
I think this might have been the last question I answered on this sub - I don't come here often - but here's a few;
I'd say as well that as this was before the split in the international it is worth reading what some of the anarchists like Bakunin and Kropotkin wrote, its odd because the communist and anarchist are not necessarily disagreeing about everything. It is debatable to what degree ideology drove Parisians but they had plenty of ideas in them melting pot from the mutualism of Proudhon, to the sense of waiting for Blanqui to return to the city and lead them to the nascent communist and anarchist movements.
Six Frigates by Ian Toll is Phenomenal: https://www.amazon.com/Six-Frigates-Epic-History-Founding/dp/0393058476/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1BYGY83FZD1CE&keywords=six+frigates&qid=1556727829&s=gateway&sprefix=Six+Fri%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-1
The Line Upon the wind covers the Napoleonic war at sea: https://www.amazon.com/Line-Upon-Wind-Great-1793-1815/dp/0393066533/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1556728015&refinements=p_27%3ANoel+Mostert&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Noel+Mostert
Nelson's Trafalgar is also fantastic: https://www.amazon.com/Nelsons-Trafalgar-Battle-Changed-World/dp/0670034487/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Trafalgar&qid=1556728094&s=books&sr=1-2
If by Sea is a good companion piece to Six Frigates: https://www.amazon.com/If-Sea-Forging-American-Revolution/dp/0465016073/ref=pd_sim_14_92?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0465016073&pd_rd_r=84676f5d-6c2d-11e9-94d4-49728df24266&pd_rd_w=pA1k7&pd_rd_wg=XsBKn&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=W77XXV91PDQA2J0S6EE9&psc=1&refRID=W77XXV91PDQA2J0S6EE9
The best of the bunch is definitely Six Frigates.
I found Elting's Swords Around a Throne to be very readable and quite illuminating. The book is not about Napoleon himself but rather his tool for conquest, the Grand Armee; how it was recruited, organized, equipped, cared for medically, and a lengthy chapter describing the marshalls that led it.
Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.ca
amazon.com.au
amazon.in
amazon.com.mx
amazon.de
amazon.it
amazon.es
amazon.com.br
amazon.nl
amazon.co.jp
amazon.fr
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If you want a more militaristic perspective I recommend Swords Around A Throne: Napoleon's Grand Armee by John R. Elting. Just polished off the last chapter last week and it's been an absolutely fantastic read. Also has a lot of pre-Revolutionary context with Louis XIV's, XV's, and XVI's exploits to give context to the revolution from a military standpoint.
Yes, quite many!
-Vichy France continued to operate a French military after their defeat at the hands of the Nazis. This included colonial forces as well as main army forces. Admiral Francois Darlan even offered the Nazis the use of French troops in operations against the allies, but Hitler and his senior military staff distrusted the French too much to use them. That said, Vichy forces were still used in fighting the allies, particularly in Operation Torch, the invasion of Vichy French North Africa. A brief summary of some of their actions can be found here.
-Charles De Gaulle organized the "Free" French Forces, made up of exiled Frenchman who refused to collaborate with the "official" Vichy government. They took part in numerous Allied operations, including on D-Day. They were also allowed to be the first units into Paris when it was liberated. Brief informaiton here.
-The French resistance became a critical part of the allied invasion plans of both Normandy and Southern France. They were particularly helpful in gathering intelligence on German troop movements and fortifications, and, during the invasions, acted to disrupt command and communications of Axis forces. The resistance was made up of a hugely varied number of groups, from disparate bands of communists to the large mountain networkd of the Maquis in the rural mountain regions. After the invasions, these forces were largely formalized into something similar to a National Guard, the so-called French Forces of the Interior. A really good overview of the resistance can be found in Matthew Cobb's The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis.
EDIT: Just for accessability and for easy reading, here are some pertinent wiki links for you:
Free French Forces
Liberation of Paris
[French Forces of the Interior](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Forces_of_the_Interior
French Resistance
The Maquis
Central Bureau of Intelligence and Operations
Vichy French "Army of the Armistice"
Vichy Paramilitary Forces similar to the Resistance
SMALL EDIT: I accidentally listed Darlan as a Marshal. He was in fact an Admiral.
Which reminds me, there is actually a whole chapter dedicated to all the Burgundies in Norman Davies’ Vanished Kingdoms. Of course, while interesting in pointing out how the concept of Burgundy shifted around geographically, it will not really tell you anything on how the Duchy of the Valois Dukes worked. I would not recommend it if you’re specifically looking on insights in how the medieval dukes organised their various and farflung holding from Bruges to Dijon. But it’s otherwise a very interesting book.
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.
Looked at it on [Amazon] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004R1Q296/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1), used the Look Inside feature, and according to the title page it's a detail from Death, One of the Four Riders of the Apocalypse by Pol de Limbourg, from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (see [here] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_Duc_de_Berry)
So u/deynos74 was right about it being French, and pretty close with late C14th, actually very early C15th, 1412-16 is when it was painted.
For British involvement in South Africa, I recommend you go primary, and look up Emily Hobhouse. You can find that one for free online, I think. Check out David Bell's Total War for a good analysis of the Napoleonic wars.
Are you looking for foundational history, meaning just the narrative of events, or are you prepared to start looking at different analyses and interpretations?
Well, since people are reading now and my major is finally relevant, can I recommend Mark Mazower's Dark Continent as a good historical read for the rise of fascism in Europe from WWI through the end of WWII.
Also Alan Moore's V for Vendetta if you prefer you dystopian dictators in comic form.
Some market-friendly anti-capitalism might be good by way of introduction:
Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies is pretty interesting
Il existe une série de bouquins plutôt bien faits et accessibles (des illustrations, des cartes, des schémas etc.) qui brosse l'histoire de France depuis 481. Chaque tome est fait en collaboration entre plusieurs auteurs chacun spécialiste d'une période en particulier.
Bouuuuh oui j'ai mis du amazon, mais peut importe c'est juste pour avoir un visuel sur les livres :)
As a history major who personally specializes in WWII let me just say: damn it.
As for history titles, I can provide plenty, can you be more specific in your interests though? In the past few years I've read over 100 books on my primary field (Europe) and another 100 for a secondary field (military history oriented), aside from my own reading (at the moment my library consists of over 1,000 titles). So, what time period/region interests you most?
A few of the recent books that I've read and found enlightening:
http://www.amazon.com/Battle-That-Shook-Europe-Poltava/dp/1860648479/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289959320&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/First-Total-War-Napoleons-Warfare/dp/0618919813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1289959302&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Stalins-Romeo-Spy-Remarkable-Operative/dp/0810126648/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1289959341&sr=8-1
Pretty sure I saw it in this book, will check
This is a good one. I would also recommend the movie Army of Shadows.
About 15 years before, actually!
Here's a great book about the time period.
Mark Mazower's Dark Continent provides a very unique look at European history, it is a bit dry in places, but overall I found it incredibly stimulating.
How about a source for all these "historical" stuff, instead of just hoping that it's legit because you like how it sounds?
Last three "awesome quotes" were rumors and speculation, second-hand accounts from a single person. At least this one actually came from someone, but it's up to us to find that out.
Robert Surcouf. Source 1 - Source 2
Life in a Medieval Castle is one of the best books you can read for historical flavor.
Yeah Discipline and Punish is good but this might be a better start.
J. & F. Gies wrote many excellent books on castle and medieval life.
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Medieval-Castle-P-S-Paperback/dp/0062414798/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526373593&sr=8-1&keywords=life+in+a+medieval+castle
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Knowledge-Selected-Interviews-1972-1977/dp/039473954X/ref=asc_df_039473954X/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312643571004&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12266966410437327428&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9004345&hvtargid=aud-802037562948:pla-471108386781&psc=1
It’s a pretty consistent theme esp. in his latter books
Storm and Conquest by Stephen Taylor is pretty good, but it specifically talks about the clash of empires on the sea in the early 19th century. http://www.amazon.com/Storm-Conquest-Clash-Empires-Eastern/dp/0393060470
Applying either capitalism or communism to the french revolution is a clear proof of ignorance. It wasn't a popular uprising against inequality nor was it a violent bourgeois coup. In fact the economic situation at the time was extremely different from ours and our political concepts (like Marxism, capitalism, liberalism, etc..) simply don't apply.
Unfortunately, the french revolution is often mistreated by almost everyone on the political spectrum. I would recommend some books like this one but it's not in english so.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There's a book preview on Amazon as well: http://www.amazon.com/Property-Theft-Pierre-Joseph-Proudhon-Reader/dp/1849350248
I asked a similar question of couple of occasions. Below are the books recommended. However, I have not yet read any, unfortunately. I hope to see more and better answers here. Also, does anyone know of a work that deals with how Paris Commune was represented, especially within Marxist thought in 20th century?
Paris - Capital of Modernity
Robert Tombs' The Paris Commune
Again, those were recommender to me but I haven't read them yet and can't say more about them.
For everyone commenting about the state of California now, /u/baseacegoku is referring to the fact that we had almost no military defenses on the West Coast at the time of Pearl Harbor. Those that were there were ill-equipped, undertrained, and very short on supplies. Esteemed Historian John Keegan, writing in his book Six Armies in Normandy, notes this by basically saying the Japanese could have invaded, waited a very brief time to let the military bases use up their small amount of ammo, and then push forward almost without resistance from the military. Private gun ownership was not what /u/baseacegoku was referring to if I understand it correctly.
I highly recommend this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Six-Armies-Normandy-Liberation-Revised/dp/0140235426
I found Barbara Tuchman's 'A Distant Mirror' to be a very engaging book about the late middle ages. It was written in the 70s so I don't know if any of the research has been superseded since then.
If you're in the US, see http://www.amazon.com/Distant-Mirror-Calamitous-Century-ebook/dp/B004R1Q296/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382314669&sr=1-1&keywords=a+distant+mirror
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
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A Brief History of the Spanish Language: (but it's really not brief) https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Spanish-Language-Second/dp/022613394X
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La maravillosa historia del espa?ol https://www.amazon.com/maravillosa-historia-del-espa/dp/8467044276
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A History of the Spanish Language https://www.amazon.com/History-Spanish-Language-Ralph-Penny/dp/0521011841
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The Evolution of Spanish https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Spanish-Linguistic-Thomas-Lathrop/dp/1589770145
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Los 1001 años de la lengua española https://www.amazon.com/lengua-española-ESTUDIOS-LITERARIOS-Spanish/dp/968166678X
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FRENCH
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The Story of French: https://www.amazon.com/Story-French-Jean-Benoit-Nadeau/dp/0312341849
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A History of the French Language https://www.amazon.com/History-French-Language-Peter-Rickard/dp/041510887X
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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
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The French Language: present and past https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0729302083
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What do you mean "future historians"? Historians for decades have been confronting our narratives of what we consider "modern", "civilized" or "barbaric".
Mark Mazower's Dark Continent is a good summary of where historians are at on the 20th century.
https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Continent-Europes-Twentieth-Century/dp/067975704X
there is one called "100 years war"- I had to read it for a history class once. Its non fiction, but it pretty much sums up the war. It's a super good history book if you want to learn more about the war and it has an index (sploosh)
I think this was it, but I'm not sure.
Liberty or Equality: The Challenge of Our Times
Considerations on France
"American" is not a nationality. It is a citizenship, and hence the hyphening - African-America, Asian-American... I identify as Scotch-Irish-American. America is one of the few states in history (sorry for waxing patriotic) that does not make a shared ethnicity a necessary component of citizenship. Compare the formation of Germany. Brubaker wrote a really important book about this. There are technical terms - ius sanguinis and ius civile (right by blood and right by citizenship) - to describe these different sorts of political inclusion. Germany was an example of ius sanguinis and France of ius civile. Rome was very much a ius civile kind of state (again, this is simplistic. Buy my book when I finish it for the full explanation).
US Link.
The First Total War - David A. Bell
The Art of War - Baron Antoine-Henri De Jomini
A Distant Mirror
784 pages of 14th century Europe, non-fiction. Just started last night.
I went hunting for this photo because John Keegan in Six Armies in Normandy, while talking about the secrecy surrounding Enigma, states that there is a photo of Guderian and his typist. Keegan states that the "uninstructed" took the person to be his typist working on his typewriter.
UK Link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01A73QWJ2
Maybe something by Norman Davies. I am not sure about the language level, though.
Click at the Look inside and check out the writing style, if it fits you: http://www.amazon.com/Europe-History-Norman-Davies-ebook/dp/B003ZDO8XE/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1420959075
http://www.amazon.com/Vanished-Kingdoms-Rise-States-Nations/dp/0143122959/ref=sr_1_3/175-7897043-1491535?ie=UTF8&qid=1420959075&sr=8-3&keywords=norman+davies