Reddit mentions: The best historical biographies

Note: I am not an engineer, but I do have some suggestions of things you may like.

Books:

• Failure Is Not An Option by Gene Krantz: Great book about the beginnings of the NASA program, Gemini, Mercury, Apollo, and later. Gene Krantz was a flight director and worked as a test pilot for a long time, and his stories are gripping. Beyond engineering and space, it's a pretty insightful book on leadership in high-stress team situations.
  
  
• Kelly: More Than My Share by Clarence "Kelly" Johnson: This is on my shelf but I haven't read it yet. Kelly Johnson was a pioneer in the world of flight, leading the design and construction of some of the most advanced planes ever built, like the U2 and the SR-71. Kelly's impact on the business of aerospace and project management is immense, definitely a good guy to learn about. Plus he designed the P38 Lightning, without a doubt the most beautiful plane ever built ;)
  
  
• Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of my Years at Lockheed by Ben Rich: A fantastic look at the inside of Lockheed Martin's advanced projects division, the Skunk Works. Ben Rich succeeded Kelly Johnson at Lockheed, so this one is going to overlap with the book above quite a bit. I loved the pace of this one, and it covered a lot more than just the F-117, as the cover would suggest - cool info on the SR-71, U2, F104, the D21 supersonic drone, and stealth technology in general. Beyond that, it provides an inside look at the intricacies of DoD contract negotiation, security/clearance issues, and advanced projects. Awesome book, highly recommend.
  
  
• Elon Musk's Bio by Ashley Vance: A detailed history of all things Musk, I recommend it for the details about SpaceX and the goal to make humans a multi-planetary species. Musk and his (now massive) team are doing it: thinking big, getting their hands dirty, and building/launching/occasionally blowing up cool stuff.
  
  Videos/Games/Blogs/Podcasts:
  
  
• Selenian Boondocks: general space blog, lots of robotics and some space policy
  
  
• Gravity Loss: another space blog, lots about future launch systems
  
  
• The Age of Aerospace: Boeing made a cool series of videos last year for their 100th birthday. Great look at the history of an aerospace mainstay, though it seems a bit self-aggrandizing at times.
  
  
• If you want to kill a ton of time on the computer while mastering the basics of orbital mechanics by launching small green men into space, Kerbal Space Program is for you. Check out /r/kerbalspaceprogram if your interested.
  
  
• Subreddits like /r/spacex, /r/blueorigin, and /r/ula are worth following for space news.
  

There are far too many to describe one as "the best", but here are some of my favourites.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes is a well deserved winner of the Pulitzer Prize. A combination of history, science and biography and so very well written.

A few of my favourite biographies include the magisterial, and also Pulitzer Prize winning, Peter the Great by Robert Massie. He also wrote the wonderful Dreadnaught on the naval arms race between Britain and Germany just prior to WWI (a lot more interesting than it sounds!). Christopher Hibbert was one of the UK's much loved historians and biographers and amongst his many works his biography Queen Victoria - A Personal History is one of his best. Finally, perhaps my favourite biography of all is Everitt's Cicero - The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician. This man was at the centre of the Fall of the Roman Republic; and indeed fell along with it.

Speaking of which, Rubicon - The Last Years of the Roman Republic is a recent and deserved best-seller on this fascinating period. Holland writes well and gives a great overview of the events, men (and women!) and unavoidable wars that accompanied the fall of the Republic, or the rise of the Empire (depending upon your perspective). :) Holland's Persian Fire on the Greco-Persian Wars (think Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes! Think of the Movie 300, if you must) is equally gripping.

Perhaps my favourite history book, or series, of all is Shelby Foote's magisterial trilogy on the American Civil War The Civil War - A Narrative. Quite simply one of the best books I've ever read.

If, like me, you're interested in teh history of Africa, start at the very beginning with The Wisdom of the Bones by Alan Walker and Pat Shipman (both famous paleoanthropologists). Whilst not the very latest in recent studies (nothing on Homo floresiensis for example), it is still perhaps the best introduction to human evolution available. Certainly the best I've come across. Then check out Africa - Biography of a Continent. Finish with the two masterpieces The Scramble for Africa on how European colonialism planted the seeds of the "dark continents" woes ever since, and The Washing of the Spears, a gripping history of the Anglo-Zulu wars of the 1870's. If you ever saw the movie Rorke's Drift or Zulu!, you will love this book.

Hopkirk's The Great Game - The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia teaches us that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I should imagine that's enough to keep you going for the moment. I have plenty more suggestions if you want. :)

So my guess is that it's less of a physical appearance matter and more of a personality/attitude thing. Such as the beach for example, instead of asking who wants to go to the beach, make it more definite. You're going to the beach, who wants to come along? You need to give off the air that while you would like everyone's company, you don't need it. THEY'RE the ones who should feel privileged to be around you, not the other way around. As for the getting things example, I assume you always go up and get it? It's one thing to be the helpful guy people appreciate, another to be the carpet they walk on. If they ask you to get something, give them a little crap for asking, then another time ask them to make it up to you. Perhaps "Alright fine I'll get the beer, but you owe me pizza later" And actually get them to get the pizza.

As for the body, it sounds like you lack some confidence due to being skinny. While skinny men can be Alpha and imposing, perhaps you should work out more so YOU feel imposing.

But basically what it boils down to is that it feels like you don't have the most confidence and get dejected when people don't go with you to the point of being a bit submissive. Fake it till you've got it, just pretend that you're confident and things should be the way they are, and eventually it'll actually work out that way. Read some of the links on here, plus I highly recommend looking at The Art of Manliness for more ideas. Most important is to just go out and try things out, reading can only take you so far, and failing is not failure, it's a learning experience.

Also here's some advice I gave earlier which might help:

>For your hair post in /r/malehairadvice for a style that fits you, they're going to want full body pics with outfit. As for fashion, post in /r/malefashionadvice for some help based on your figure and body stature. If you truly want a progression to give you some guidance, consdier The Art of Manliness' 30 Days to a Better Man (also just a damn good manly blog.

>If you want to change how you look physically, hit the gym, use /r/Fitness to help develop a routine. With a diet and regular exercise within a year you'll look completely different.

>Now we've hit the physical attributes of being more manly, for the more mental ones that's harder. They will develop as you come to appreciate your body more, but it's a mindset more than anything. If you pretend confidence long enough you have it eventually. When someone tells you you're like an annoying little brother, ask why, figure out what personality traits these are and change them. I highly recommend finding some inspirational figure to model your life on, for me personally it's Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris's biographical trilogy is FANTASTIC. At least read the first book, Roosevelt had to overcome much greater hurdles than you, you can do the same. Don't be afraid to ask questions and figure out why people think you are the way you are, just be sure to change it. If you need motivation, /r/GetMotivated is there for you. Further let this move into other areas of your life, work hard and play hard.

>I'm going to strongly encourage you to read some articles on Art of Manliness, it's not 100% perfect, but a great site for men.

>Edit: Oh and I know it's too late for you to do this now, but one of the most attractive qualities I've been told by women is that I'm an Eagle Scout. Reasoning behind this is that it says that I embody certain aspects, namely the Scout Law and Scout Oath (as well as the Slogan and Motto). You can still live up to these ideals without being an Eagle Scout, just start now, they really are very manly.

Because he was the perfect blend of the idealist and the realist. He never compromised when he knew he was right, but he always acted in a way that would actually have a positive end effect. He had a way of understanding the whole of the situation, and doing what was best in the moment to achieve his goals. He was a great leader and one of the most underrated writers of all time. He treated everyone with an incredible amount of respect and patience.

When one of his generals decided to turn back after winning a massive battle, (a massive mistake considering had they kept attacking the confederates while they were retreating the Union could have conceivably ended the war years earlier than it eventually did end,) he wrote that general an incredibly vicious letter. He tore into him. After contemplating the letter for a while, he decided not to send it. It would only shatter moral.

He was a great speaker, he had a talent for explaining complex issues in incredibly clear and even funny ways. When asked why he didn't immediately fire the aforementioned general he responded "It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river." That's a small example, but Lincoln was full of chestnuts like that. I aspire to be as clear, direct and interesting of a communicator as he was.

The Gettysburgh address is his most famous speech, and rightfully so, but I've always found his conclusion to his first inaugural address to be his most satisfying piece of writing.

> I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

To summarize:
1.) Had moral and stuck to them
2.) Acted in ways that would realistically accomplish his goals. A political genius.
3.) An everflowing fountain of respect and human decency.
4.) A masterful writer and a severely underrated communicator and comedian.

>Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.

Team of Rivals is a wonderful book about the man, and I highly recommend that everyone and their dog should read it.

Oh, and by the way, he was an INTP.

> Is it also not possible that the guy that has lived relatively frugally

It is possible, but he has objectively not done this, unless you're talking relative to other billionaires, even then there are far more frugal billionaires with 1/100th the public image he sells to
try to distance himself & his fund from the typical fund image (John Cauldwell, Azim Premji, a lot of the european dynastic old money as a few examples. For first generation, look at almost any of the Danish/Skandi billionaires)

If you have multiple private jets for the exclusive use of you & your family and own multiple properties, each worth millions of dollars - you're not frugal.

> is donating 99.9% of his fortune to charity when he dies

Is donating the massively tax deferred portion of his net worth to a privately run organisation that his family will be involved in running for decades to come, after already having set up all of his direct descendants as billionaires.

> calls out tax laws that are b.s. but personally benefit him is just that simple guy?

"don't hate the player, hate the game" with regard to tax law when you're the 3rd richest person on the planet, best mates with the 2nd richest person on the planet & literally have the money & power to CHANGE the game is not a valid argument. He talks a big game about tax reform, but does not work to actually do anything about it. Hell, his donations swing heavily toward republicans who are AGAINST tax reform. He's done very well thanks to them too:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/24/17048378/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-tax-cuts


A big chunk of Berkshire Hathaway's success is built on not paying tax, they've got $86,000,000,000+ in deferred taxes thanks to exploiting a loop hole where they don't have to pay tax while working on acquiring a company... So they just make sure they are always acquiring.

Imagine if you could defer paying tax forever with the argument that you're still busy buying shares or ETFs.. Given what subreddit we're on, it would be pretty appealing.

Then as previously mentioned in that linked article, the party you donate to comes along & cuts the tax rate, so now you owe billions less than you previously did - woohoo!

> His image may marginally help him

Buffett is selling what is essentially the antithesis of this subreddit. High fee managed funds that exploit tax rules for massive profitability to become personally one of the richest people on the planet. He's the anti-Bogle, yet this subreddit & a lot of FI/RE types love him, because of that image & brand.

Buffett is Berkshire, the reason why so many people & institutional funds are happy to pour money into Berkshire stock is because of the image. It hasn't helped him a little bit, it's helped him immensely.

> To me he seems to genuinely want what's best for the country/world.

To me he seems like another John D. Rockerfeller. A titan of industry who wants to be the richest so he can control where the money ends up. Win the game, then give most of it away. If you haven't read it yet, grab yourself a copy of https://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr/dp/1400077303

The similarities are incredible.

This book by Marcus Aurelius has transformed my life from one crippled by generalized anxiety into one that is still troubled, but with a definite method to press on. It is easily the most important book I've ever read. (Make sure you check out the Hays translation, the others are quite stiff. This is normally $10 so it's on sale on Amazon.)

What you are talking about is more properly called mindfulness, which was the first tool I tried. I had some success, in particular with Full Catastrophe Living, and if you find mindfulness effective then I would recommend simple mindfulness meditation (just sitting and letting thoughts pass through you--noticing that you have them and not responding to them or labeling them as good or bad, just resting in the moment and accepting that you have certain thoughts or feelings but also watching them pass by).

However, stoicism takes these ideas further and embues an element of self-trust that was much more effective for me. While mindfulness emphasizes the importance of the present and minimizing your immedate negative emotional responses, stoicism includes these elements but also says: there is nothing that can harm you. All I can do is act best I can, and not worry about the rest. Control what you can, but accept what you can't control. External events are uncontrollable and with practice you can remain completly resilent to them--metnally and emotionally accepting that you are in a certain situation but retaining the ability to deal with it in the best way you can.

It is difficult at first, but your everyday difficulties with anxiety are a perfect opportunity to practice. When you face situations and get through them, you hold the realization in your mind that that situation did not harm you--while it may have been unpleasant, you survived and moved straight through it. The unpleasantness was bearable, and you are no worse a person for dealing with it, in fact you are much the better. You can trust in this realization as you look forward toward future events. These little successes can accumulate in a big way if you take the first big step to accept your current limitations and trust in your current ability.

A fantastic example of the will's ability to persevere in impossible situations is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Frankl faces this daily horrors without anxiety because of his complete trust in his ability to face it squarely and overcome it.

So a stoic isn't someone who is passive or emotionless, but someone who is resilent and extremely proactive in response to difficulty. In terms of specific negative emotions like anxiety, anger, or fear, it's important to remember that you are not trying to ignore or not feel these things. That is a misconception about stoicism. These feeling are natural and in fact necessary for life. However, you want to domesticate these negative emotions and remain in control in spite of them, as much as you can. Everyone is overcome by anxiety at times, but the Stoic bounces back that much quicker.

tl;dr I have recommended a lot of books but everything I wrote is firmly based on the many times I have read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. It is truly worth your time.

Your friend is not wrong, but he's only half right. He's also framing how one deals with the negative aspects of life poorly. One should do their best to minimize the bad in life, or at least its effects. And, when possible, turn allegedly negative things to one's advantage. One should also do their best to maximize the positive aspects. A lot of it has to do with your perspective and what you focus on.

Everyone has to support themselves somehow. If the only available work is something unpleasant or undesirable, focus on what it affords you and put effort toward getting into a line of work you appreciate more. You can't prevent yourself from ever getting sick, but you can do everything in your power to stay healthy. Healthy eating, an active lifestyle, and getting regular medical checkups all have their benefits. If someone assaults you and you are permanently injured, you're going to have to cope with that, yes. But I'm sure any school worth attending will make accommodations for a student who was assaulted presuming they were made aware of the circumstances.

So, yes, you will have to learn how to cope with the bad things. But you also need to learn how to maximize the positive. Work towards a career you enjoy. Build friendships. Chase your dreams. All that. People tend to write off encouragement and positive thinking, and focus on the negative. But life is what you focus on.

If you struggle with this, I have a few recommended reads for you.

• Victor Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning". He was a holocaust survivor, and he writes about how even if you take everything else away from a person, they still have the freedom to choose how they react to their circumstances. If prisoners in a concentration camp can find ways to be generous and kind to one another and bring joy and love to each other, so can you.
  
  
• Dr. David M. Burns' "Feeling Good". One of the first books written on Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), it's written in such a way that the reader can apply these therapeutic techniques to their own life. The premise is that our thoughts direct our feelings, and by learning to recognize cognitive distortions and correct our thinking, we can make large headway in dealing with depression. CBT subreddits and posts
  
  
• Seneca "Letters from a Stoic", Epictetus "The Art of Living", Marcus Aurelius "Meditations". Three books by Stoic philosophers. Stoicism was to these ancient Greek and Roman philosophers what CBT is to modern psychologists. These three books contain some of the very best summaries of this school of philosophy. This isn't esoteric, inaccessible philosophy. This is wisdom directly applicable to the very sort of problem you and your friend are dealing with. /r/Stoicism
  
  I know this was an overly long response to your question, but I hope it helps. Learning how to cope well with life is one of the most important things a person can learn. I wish you, and your friend, well.
  
  

The term "addiction" is kind of loaded. Clearly the brain centers involved in addictions to heroin or cocaine are also involved in normal life. On a purely physiological basis, love is an addiction. So I'm with Seinfeld when he says, there's no such thing as sex addiction. We are all sex addicts, which generally bodes well for the survival of the species.

To take the 30,000 foot view, consider the possibility that addiction and depression share a common antecedent: that both are caused by a defect in the brain's reward system that manifests in adolescence. Causing the patient to have a blunted response to pleasurable things, to the point where it's even hard to imagine being happy. Depression is more complicated than addiction -- in depression you can have a disorder of energy regulation, and a disorder of cognition. But in both cases, the patient is incentivized to stimulate the reward center of the brain directly with drugs. Life itself isn't enough.

Unfortunately, antidepressants don't strike right at the heart of the matter. Typically they improve thinking, they don't directly affect the reward center. Any drug that does will eventually turn you into a rat pressing a bar; eventually the drug is enough; you choose to engage with the drug rather than life.

Well, it's enough until it isn't, which is another facet of addiction. Which is, that the brain resists the drug, does everything it can to resist its action. So in the case of opioids, which stimulate the reward center in the brain, and sedate the anxiety center, over time the reward center becomes even more numb and the anxiety center becomes even more over-activated. You wind up more depressed and anxious than you were to begin with, and plus you're hooked. Meaning, removing the drug at that point makes things unbearably bad.

This is true for cocaine, which stimulates the reward center directly, cutting out the middle-man so to speak. Also true for Xanax, which like heroin gets into both the reward center and the anxiety center, moreso the latter.

Emperor's New Drugs More about antidepressants than addiction but good discussion of the parallels between addiction and depression, and touches on spiritual issues like hope

Mad in America This guy is making hay discussing oppositional tolerance, and lambastes the pharmaceutical industry for putting profits first. The website is an iconoclast's dream.

I've approached the question in a bit of an unconventional manner, partially because addition, like depression, is multifactorial. The bio-psycho-social approach has merit. Clearly there are biological factors having to do with the brain's reward center, what's wrong with it to begin with, and what happens after prolonged drug exposure. I imagine most responses will take this tack. There's a psychology to addiction (which people don't talk about much these days). And there's a social component as well, note the parallel between the burgeoning number of people who have "given up" looking for work, and the addiction epidemic. I would submit that model, while valid up to a point, is incomplete. Both addiction and depression have a spiritual dimension, and we will never wrap our head around those things until we take that into account.

With that in mind, I'll say that Man's Search for Meaning is, by a wide margin, the most helpful book on mental health I've ever read.

ETA

That said, given an individual who is susceptible, what makes a chemical addictive is

- how much the drug stimulates the reward centers, and suppresses the anxiety centers

- how quickly it does so

- whether it induces tolerance

- how it induces tolerance (oppositional tolerance is worse than just not working anymore)

- whether the drug activates satiety centers, directly or indirectly (because of side effects).

So, cigarettes are more addictive than chewing tobacco, because one hits a lot faster than the other. Heroin more addictive than codeine, ditto. Prozac is less addictive than MDMA (what's usually in "ecstasy" or "molly") because antidepressants don't whack the reward center like MDMA does. MDMA is less addictive than amphetamine, because MDMA is more likely to just stop working, whereas amphetamines are more likely to induce oppositional tolerance. Alcohol is less addictive than Xanax, because most people get tired of all the puking. Buprenorphine less addictive than oxycodone; while both stimulate the reward center, the former directly stimulates satiety centers as well (leading to speculation that buprenorphine might turn out to be a great antidepressant)

Thought questions.

​

1. Given this conceptual framework, is cannabis addictive? Don't give me a counter-example, like, "I had a buddy who was a total pot-head." I had one patient who was addicted to water, to the point where he had to be hospitalized, several times. What effect does cannabis have on the reward center over time? Do people become tolerant to cannabis over time? If so, to what effects? Do people "fiend" for it usually? Is it more addictive than cocaine or meth? (The DEA thinks so...)
   
2. Are video games addictive? What about Facebook? The CTO of Facebook says it is addictive, intentionally so. How?
   
3. Is porn addictive? Casual sex? Is love truly an addiction, as we have defined it? If not, why not? (Is sex always just a matter of just pressing the bar? Is it ever?)
   
   ​

This is quite the under-taking, so I'll just list the presidents from which I am familiar with the historical literature. In order to guarantee that you get an analytically thorough understanding of each president, I'll avoid "pop" histories (thus, nothing by David McCullough) in favor of more analytically driven, yet still well written, histories. I will still incorporate some books from non-academic publishers, however. First off, the best place to start would probably be the University of Kansas's American Presidency Series (note that this is different from the American Presidents Series, which is done from NY Times books. Always be sure to check the publisher). This series is great for getting a good understanding of what historians in general have written about each respective president; however, the series only focuses on the presidency, which is more constrained than what you're looking for. I'll just go in sequential order based on when the individual was president.

• George Washington
  
  Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow. (Do not buy this book off the internet. I've seen the hardcover version of this book in the overstock sections of Barnes and Nobles, Wal Marts, and even Albertsons for $6. Don't become reticent about it because it's in the cheapy bin at Wal Mart. Chernow is one of the best biographers of early American history and the book won a Pulitzer.
  
  His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis
  
  
• John Adams
  
  John Adams: A Life by John Ferling
  
  
• Thomas Jefferson
  
  Thomas Jefferson by R.B. Bernstein
  
  Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham
  
  
• James Madison
  
  James Madison: A Biography by Ralph Ketcham
  
  The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the American Republic by Lance Banning
  
  
• James Monroe
  
  James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity by Harry Ammon
  
  
• John Quincy Adams
  
  Paul Nagel's John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life
  
  For an in depth look at his time as Secretary of State, check out John Quincy Adams: Policymaker for the Union by James E. Lewis, Jr.
  
  
• Andrew Jackson
  
  Robert Remini's 3-volume biography is still the most comprehensive on Andrew Jackson. Vol. I is Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767-1821; Vol. II is Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822-1833; Vol. III is Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845.
  
  Old Hickory's War: Andrew Jackson and the Quest for Empire by David and Jeanne Heidler is also worth reading.
  
  
• Theodore Roosevelt
  
  Edmund Morris's 3-volume biography. Vol. I, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt; Vol. II, Theodore Rex;, Vol. III, Colonel Roosevelt
  
  
• Harry Truman
  
  Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman by Alonzo Hamby
  
  
• John F. Kennedy
  
  The aforementioned American Presidency Series book, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy, revised edition by James Giglio.
  
  An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 by Robert Dallek
  
  
• Lyndon Johnson
  
  Robert Caro's multi-volume biography (still unfinished). Vol. I, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power; Vol. II, Means of Ascent; Vol. III, Master of the Senate; Vol. IV, The Passage of Power; Vol. V is yet to be published.
  
  For a one volume account, LBJ: Architect of Ambition by Randall Woods is also good.
  
  
• Richard Nixon
  
  Strangely, there still isn't a definitive book on Nixon's presidency. For a good understanding of his presidency, you need to get into more specific areas, like Nixon and foreign affairs, Nixon and the civil rights movement, or even biographies of Nixon's closest advisers within his administration. The best account of Nixon himself would by the American Presidency Series's entry by Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon. Equally important when attempting to understand Nixon's presidency is the life and thought of Henry Kissinger. The single best biography of Kissinger is Jeremi Suri's Henry Kissinger and the American Century.
  
  
• Gerald Ford
  
  Really the only substantive book on Gerald Ford comes from the American Presidency Series. It's The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford, revised ed by John Greene.
  
  
• Jimmy Carter
  
  The more substantive books on Carter are going to be too dry reading than what you're asking for. A readable, and analytically thorough, biography of Carter's presidency is The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr., revised and updated edition by Burton Ira Kaufman. For Carter's (much more effective) time post-presidency, check out Douglas Brinkley's The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Quest for Global Peace. For the Carter presidency's foreign policy, still the best account is Morality, Reason, and Power: American Diplomacy in the Carter Years by Gaddis Smith.
  
  
• Ronald Reagan
  
  It's hard to find a good, unbiased biography of Reagan. By far the best biography comes from the journalist Lou Cannon in his book, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime.
  
  Sean Wilentz's The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 is also good, but the author becomes more clearly biased as the history gets closer to the present. Still, despite the author's biases it is a great book that is analytically sharp and incredibly well written.
  
  Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s by Gil Troy offers a solid, more positive assessment of Reagan than most historians provide.
  
  
• George H.W. Bush
  
  The American Presidency Series's entry by John Greene, The Presidency of George Bush
  
  
• Bill Clinton
  
  Historians are just now starting to dig into the Clinton presidency. The best account of the Clinton presidency, like Reagan's presidency, comes from a journalist: John Harris's The Survior: Bill Clinton in the White House
  
  There are also a ton of books on the George W. Bush presidency, many of them good, many of them bad. While I'm not a big fan of this sub-reddit's 20 years prior rule, I will respect it. If you want some suggestions on George W. Bush, just PM me.
  
  Edit: I realized I completely left out John Quincy Adams so I added him in.
  Edit #2: I also linked my suggestions to their respective Amazon page.

It sounds like you're off to a good start. You sound pretty close to the right height/weight ratio, so it'll probably be pretty hard to see any big weight changes even with a lot of effort. I had a lot of good luck on a bicycle, largely because running would tear my body up, so good luck to you.

There's some good (and conflicting) advice in this thread already, but working out with friends can help you stay at it. In a similar vein, I started playing pick-up basketball at a park a couple nights a week, made some friends there, and my team of 5 would expect me to be out there so we'd have a full team on those nights. That way I'd be sure to be out there since I knew if I wasn't they'd be upset. It really helped on nights where I could have easily packed it in and stayed home, any almost never did I regret actually going. Another thing you can do is train for an event with someone; maybe a mini-triathlon, half-marathon, century bicycle race.

But I actually came to answer your audiobook question. I had some good luck with This American Life (you can get all of the MP3s for free) for awhile but burned out on it a bit. Then I made myself a musical bike helmet and I'm in freakin' heaven with that thing; it's the perfect amount of split attentions for me. I like fitness cycling to adventure/survival non-fiction, I could manage to push myself since the characters had it so much worse. How can you refuse to go balls out for another 3 minute interval when you're listening to a story where someone's starving to death?

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing was my favorite of that genre, had a brilliant reader.

I also liked Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.

And out of that genre, I've recently listened to Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain and Moneyball by Michael Lewis and I can't stop talking about either of them.

Good luck and keep at it. I got a lot of silver-bullet advice from a lot of well-meaning friends, but what really helped was finding stuff that worked for me and then ignoring them. I'm down about 50lbs over the 16 months or so.

> I don't see God as a person or personality but rather as infinite intelligence which we are connected to

What do you mean by infinite intelligence? Where does it come from and what is it based on? How do you view the world in light of this infinite intelligence? Was it created by this intelligence or did the intelligence pre-exist or is the infinite intelligence part and parcel of the universe? And if it's the latter, then how did the world come about, i.e. do you believe in a creator?

And if you don't mind, what do you base your view on? What I mean is that there is usually some basis for one's belief, some scriptural source which is believed to be divinely revealed or inspired, some reason based argument, etc. How do you come to this particular belief? Is it just one that appeals to you?


In Islam God is the creator and sustainer. He is distinct from creation. When we pray to God, we are declaring that we are slaves in submission to Allah and such a status is the highest and best a creation could possibly be. Praying for something (ex. a job) is recognition that we have no power and all power and provision lies with God and it is only through Him that we may obtain something we want.

Angels and Jinn are creations just like us. Angels are made from light and Jinn from fire, so in a sense, I suppose you could consider them as made from energy though not in the new-age energy kind of view.


>I find it hard that there's a person who listens and is then like "Yes/No" and decides everything.

Why do you find it hard to believe that there's an infinite One entity that decides everything? The God of Islam is not a man in the sky with limited time and resources. He is eternal and knows everything, decides everything, and does everything. You wouldn't even be typing this reddit post without His willing to do so. He encompasses everything and is closer to you than your jugular vein, yet is distinct from his creation.

And though He has infinite intelligence, to say that this is all He is would be to limit Him. Have a look at the 99 names of Allah, each a characteristic of His.

My recommendation would be, if you haven't already done so, to read a biography of the prophet Muhammad (sawa). And the Qur'an.

>Inshallah I want to read about the life of the prophet Muhammad (pbuh), but it's hard to trust random online sites from Muslims, who will naturally praise him, and sites from Christians/atheists who only want to slander him. I honestly don't know what to believe.

Karen Armstrong is not a Muslim and has written a biography of the Prophet ﷺ, see: Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time. We do not need her to praise the Prophet ﷺ in order for it to be the case however.

>Was he truly the final prophet of God? This question has been bothering so much that I can't sleep a night. The past few night I've been up till the sun came up researching.

Rest assured, the Prophet ﷺ was the final prophet. Here is a helpful video on the matter: The Prophetic Truth: Proving Prophet Muhammad's ﷺ Prophethood.

>I've briefly read about the supposed miracles he did, but how do we know these are true? Please help me!

The miracles took place in the past, so we can't see them happen in front of us right now, we can trust the sources which tell us he did do them, however. But the miracle which is still here today is the Quran: God’s Testimony: The Divine Authorship of the Quran.

A complete defense of the character of the Prophet is a bit of a tall order for a reddit comment, and I'm much too underqualified to provide it given that I myself am a recent convert still learning the seerah.

If you'd like, you could bring up specific claims and I could do my best to point you to answers, but frankly, though I know relatively little about the life of the Prophet, his family, and his companions, what I do know about him couldn't be further from the barbaric, power-hungry sexual deviant that people might try to portray him as.

In 1928, Mohandas Gandhi is recorded as saying the following of the Prophet in Young India:

>I wanted to know the best of the life of one who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind. I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet and the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the second volume (of the Prophet's biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of that great life.

As far as I can tell, this is the best English language resource on his life. I think all serious thinking people owe it to themselves to honestly investigate why this man is held dear by almost two billion people. Instead of dismissing his followers as poor souls misled by malevolent forces, he should be approached without the biases of a religious agenda.

Salaam Sbadiglio. Thanks, but the important thing to remember is that there are other Muslims just like me all around the world, and I'm not even that good. I'm not a shiek/imam, and I do sin, whether I know it or not. However, I do ask Allah for forgiveness for the sin I do. Alhamduallah Allah knows best.

Are there sins so great that could get someone beyond redemption? The most dangerous sin is shirk, that is idolatry or polytheism. It is important to emphasize that in Islam, there is no God but Allah. Can shirk/murder/fornication/etc be forgiven? It is up to Allah. However, it is important for Muslims to quickly recognize that if they are sinning to quickly stop doing the sin and ask forgiveness and to prevent themselves from sinning again. Intention is also important; what is in your heart is the true intention.

are you free to read it and take "lessons" from it by yourself or is there only one way for everyone? A couple of things: 1) Translated versions of the Quran are not the Quran. The Quran is only the Quran if it is in Arabic. In addition, the Quran is an -immensely- complex and logical book. True scholars in Islam do not just read the Quran, they read the hadiths (stories of the Prophet Muhammed peace and blessings to him) associated with the sura (chapter), they study for years and years the scholars before themselves, they spend incredible amount of time, wisdom, and energy deriving lessons from the Quran. But you might ask yourself, if the book is so complex, then how is it supposed to be a manual for humanity? Well, at the same time, the Quran lays out simple laws for the common man to obey. Do not cheat on your wife, do no injustice to your fellow man, do not oppress, eat halal and spend your money on charity, pray 5 times a day, fast during Ramadan. These are simple laws that everyone can follow. So, in essence, yes you can read the Quran, but -understanding- it is a different thing. To understand the Quran, I highly recommend going to a mosque, watching Islamic videos (the good, authentic ones with sources), taking classes, talking to fellow Muslims, reading Islamic books and really diving into the history of Islam. I really recommend you read this book. It is about the Prophet Muhammed, peace and blessings upon him. It's a good first step.

do you think that muslim face discrimination in the world nowdays? No doubt about it. Somewhere around the world, there are people being discriminated for their race, belief, ideas, religion, etc. One of the worst sins is oppression. Oppressing others/not treating them fairly is very bad. We must be mindful and proactive about stopping this discrimination/oppression. If you see a child treating another child unfairly, we must teach them the right way to treat one another.

Yes, well media is media, they have their own agenda and their own intention. But alhamduallah there is no greater force than Allah, and I would rather be a bum who is a devout Muslim than the King of the finite world
who is not Muslim. It is this inner serenity, this peace that Islam has that cannot be brought or challenged.

Salaam friend!

To add:

• Childhood(1858-1869) Being a terrible asthmatic and having 'nervous cholera' didn't stop this moose calf. He decided that the aliments of his body would have to kill him to stop him. He also started "Roosevelt's Museum of Natural History" as a child after buying a dead seal's head at a market on Manhattan. His zoological studies continued into adulthood too. Also, when on trips in Africa and the Middle East he brought his own embalming, taxidermy, and mercury supplies to add to his museum.
  
  
• Thesis (1880-1883) "The Naval War of 1812" was published after Teddy left Harvard and is considered the precursor to the modern doctoral thesis. Yes, he invented the doctoral thesis, christ, what a jerk!
  
  
• Dueling (1886) The de facto leader of Medora was Marquis de Mores. Seeing as T.R. was in his town ranching, he invited him on over. One thing lead to another and blammo, duel time. Now the Marquis was a dead shot and had killed many men. T.R. wisely apologized and went back to his cabin. Yes, it's not the most badass, but the man knew when he was beat. And that takes balls too.
  
  
• Treaty of Portsmouth (1904 -1905) Teddy manages to get a peace treaty signed between the Russians and the Japanese. This sort-of ushers in the Japanese as a world power akin to Great Britain, Germany and France. T.R. gets a Nobel Peace Prize for this.
  
  
• Bull Moose Party(1912) He splits the GOP and form his own party. Yes, he is so badass, no amount of political bitching will stop the guy. The party machinery is broken and corrupt? Screw it, lets make a new one in 7 weeks and have a convention in the exact same spot.
  
  
• WWI (1917) Roosevelt volunteers to lead an infantry division into the trenches at 59 years old. Wilson turns him down.
  
  
• Scouting (1918) Scout Julian Salomon once said, "The two things that gave Scouting great impetus and made it very popular were the uniform and Teddy Roosevelt's jingoism." Thats right you Eagle redditors, you got the Bull Moose to thank.
  
  Want more?
  YOU SHOULD ALL READ THIS: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. It's like 3 bucks used right now. Better yet, got to your Library and check it out. I am not kidding when I say it made me love biographies. Morris makes his early life read like a fiction novel. You also learn a LOT about publishing, party politics, and post civil war America. It is one of the best book I have ever read. Heck, PM me and I can help you get a book.
  

Let me start with the basic. We love all of our Prophet's like you love Jesus Christ, but we do have a special place in our heart for Muhammad. He was a man who was deeply worried about peoples soul. He told people to avoid the temptation of Satan and to worship the god of Abraham. No one can be a Muslim and reject Jesus Christ at the same time. So when Jews become a Muslim they accepted Jesus. He was very compassionate and caring

I had a Funny conversation with a christian once. He came up to me and we talked about religion. He then concluded that I didn't worship his God. I replied thank goodness.. Because I worship the lord who created the heaven and the earth and everything in between and then I asked him who he worshiped ( BTW the conversation ended with him telling me who I worship, because he refused to let me worship ' The one true God, God ' )?




Start with lectures to actually see what Muslims lecturer teach their general population (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLVPT3bB9nk).

http://www.amazon.com/Muhammad-Life-Based-Earliest-Sources/dp/1594771537/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449867261&sr=8-1&keywords=prophet+muhammad

For fiction, I recently finished A Gentleman in Moscow and while some would consider the story slow going, I found the language used to tell it enjoyable enough to see it all the way through.

If you're into biographies, I'm just now finishing Washington: A Life, by Ron Chernow, the guy whose Hamilton Bio inspired the play. Sometimes I think he tries to undersell Washington's involvement with slavery, but that's just my bias and I think on the whole he does a fair job of it. Edmund Morris' three book set on Teddy Roosevelt was what got me reading biographies to begin with, and ironically enough I found it from a reddit comment years ago, haha.

For a lighter read on a really interesting true story, I'd recommend "Stranger in the Woods," by Michael Finkel--especially if you're an outdoorsy type.

Oh! And if you're into productivity definitely pick up Deep Work by Cal Newport. Changed the way I structure my time, and since I started changing my schedule my efficiency has skyrocketed.

I don't know if you're the sci-fi/fantasy type, but anything by Steven Brust, especially To Reign in Hell is both snappy, smart, and fun to read.

And if you want dry, but grammatically sound textbooks on psychology and personality theory, let me know 'cause I've been required to read tons as of late, lol.

Sorry for the delay in the response, if you give me a genre or area of interest I could probably be more help. I love to read, and I read a bunch of different things, but this is what I've most recently finished.

I taught high school English for five years, and had my fill of the classics. I find I can't really get into that stuff anymore, although it certainly helps when I watch Jeopardy! I remain a big Hemingway and Steinbeck fan....

I've found as I grow older I am more drawn to non-fiction, with Bruce Springsteen's [Born to Run] (https://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Bruce-Springsteen/dp/1501141511) and a great Teddy Roosevelt [biography] (https://www.amazon.com/Theodore-Rex-Edmund-Morris/dp/0812966007/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1497020483&sr=1-1&keywords=theodore+rex) by Edmund Morris being the last two books I've read. As far as fiction is concerned lately - dunno, but I'm always a sucker for whatever John Grisham is cooking.

I was a big Shannara series geek when I was a kid; my singular, lone experience with the fantasy genre. [The Sword of Shannara] (https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shannara-Terry-Brooks/dp/0345314255/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1497020523&sr=1-2&keywords=Sword+of+shannara) was the very first "big" book I ever read, back in 7th grade. About fifteen years ago I got to meet the author, Terry Brooks, and had the distinct pleasure to say to him "The Sword of Shannara was the first book I ever read." Wow. What a nice moment that was. (He graciously thanked me and told me that he hears that a lot.)

Specific, timely recommendation - if you haven't read recently-deceased sportswriter Frank Deford's ["Alex: The Life of a Child,"] (https://www.amazon.com/Alex-Life-Child-Frank-Deford/dp/1558535527) please consider moving it up your list. It's his account of his young daughter's well-fought, yet losing battle with Cystic Fibrosis. I was so moved by this book that I taught it for a few years to my students. Gripping and moving and very readable, it was always a highlight of the school year. DeFord's recent passing brought the book back to me, and I enjoyed reading multiple articles/columns by writers and colleagues discussing the impact that little book had on them as well. It's nice to think that DeFord is now finally reunited with his daughter.

Last thing: Need a great go-to resource for book choices? For many years I've relied on [NPR's must-read list] (http://www.npr.org/books/), and it's always been a home run for me. My wife knows that if she wants to buy me a book, all she has to do is go to that website and pick from the top. I like it better than the NYTimes list, as the summaries are often accompanied by the radio reviews played on NPR.

Random selection of some of my favorites to help you expand your horizons:

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan is a great introduction to scientific skepticism.

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris is a succinct refutation of Christianity as it's generally practiced in the US employing crystal-clear logic.

Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt is the best biography of one of the most interesting men in history, in my personal opinion.

Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski is a jaw-dropping book on history, journalism, travel, contemporary events, philosophy.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is a great tome about... everything. Physics, history, biology, art... Plus he's funny as hell. (Check out his In a Sunburned Country for a side-splitting account of his trip to Australia).

The Annotated Mona Lisa by Carol Strickland is a thorough primer on art history. Get it before going to any major museum (Met, Louvre, Tate Modern, Prado, etc).

Not the Impossible Faith by Richard Carrier is a detailed refutation of the whole 'Christianity could not have survived the early years if it weren't for god's providence' argument.

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman are six of the easier chapters from his '63 Lectures on Physics delivered at CalTech. If you like it and really want to be mind-fucked with science, his QED is a great book on quantum electrodynamics direct from the master.

Lucy's Legacy by Donald Johanson will give you a really great understanding of our family history (homo, australopithecus, ardipithecus, etc). Equally good are Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade and Mapping Human History by Steve Olson, though I personally enjoyed Before the Dawn slightly more.

Memory and the Mediterranean by Fernand Braudel gives you context for all the Bible stories by detailing contemporaneous events from the Levant, Italy, Greece, Egypt, etc.

After the Prophet by Lesley Hazleton is an awesome read if you don't know much about Islam and its early history.

Happy reading!

edit: Also, check out the Reasonable Doubts podcast.

Ok, two different categories of recs that arent exactly what you asked for but you might want to put on the radar:

​

1. Superbly enjoyable stories of bad-assery: I love Alistair MacLean's (historical fiction) books. These two are my favorite. They are the alpha male equivalent of romance beach novels. They are excellent:
   South by Java Head: https://www.amazon.com/South-Java-Head-Alistair-MacLean/dp/0006172482
   The Guns of Navarone: https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Navarone-Alistair-MacLean/dp/0006172474
   
   
2. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is the single book I would take with me to an island. It reads like a conversation with a friend. Not archaic, not heavy or overwrought, and yet gets to the essence of what it means to be a good man and live a good life. General Mattis used to carry this in combat. I suggest reading it bits at a time, in 20-30 minute sessions. https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Thrift-Editions-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/048629823X
   
   ​
   
   Some quotes from #2 to give you a sense. Crazy this was just a roman emperor's diary 2000 years ago:
   
   ​
   
   “When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...”
   
   “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
   
   “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
   
   “Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”
   
   “The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”
   “Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.”

My non-fiction pick -

1. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York - Robert A. Caro
   
   
2. 9/10
   
   
3. Biography, History of New York, Political Intrigue
   
   
4. This is one of the best biographies I've ever read. Full Stop. Caro is a master writer, and an incredibly detailed researcher who must have spent a good portion of his life putting together a picture of one of the most influential men in the history of New York City. The book is huge, at almost 1400 pages and it will take you a while to get through it, but it is absolutely worth it. It's the tale of a man who, with no conventional source of power (personal wealth, elected office, corporate sponsorship, etc.) was able to run roughshod over not only the citizens of New York, but also Presidents, Governors, Mayors, Bankers, and Industrialists. This is the closest you'll get to a real life House of Cards. The Power Broker is a master class in the use of power, and the political realities facing American democratic institutions.
   
   
5. Amazon
   
   
6. If you like this, you might check out Caro's sprawling books on LBJ.
   
   My Fiction Pick. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to give two different recommendations, but tough titties, because this novel is one of the best I've ever read.
   
   
7. The Big Rock Candy Mountain - Wallace Stegner
   
8. 10/10
   
9. 20th Century American Fiction, The Great American Novel, Seriously Read IT!
   
10. I had no idea who Wallace Stegner was when I started this book. I thought my days of discovering 'the greats' were long over. I spent 2 years in a graduate english lit program and never heard his name mentioned once. I was never assigned this book in high school. And I can't for the life of me figure out how this guy has been so overlooked.
    The novel follows the Mason family as they travel the country trying to find their particular place in the world. I won't say more than that. If you liked The Grapes of Wrath, or East of Eden, you should check this book out.
    It is absolutely the best book I've read in the last year, and immediately threw my "top ten list" into question.
    
11. Amazon
    
12. If you like this one you might check out Richard Russo's Empire Falls.

This might be a strange recommendation, but I'd recommend he read Biographies. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt is a great book which chronicles the life of this amazing figure. The sheer amount of mental strength and determination this guy had was crazy. There is also the book "Be My Guest" written by Conrad Hilton. You get to read about how this man started with nothing in a dead town and was able to create the largest hotel chain in the world. I love self help books, but at the end of the day they give you a tool without an application. That's why personally I enjoy reading Biographies since you get to see how the application of the tools makes all the difference. So tell him to pick out one of his idols. Doesn't matter if he loves sports, politics, movies, have him pick out one idol and read the biography of what it took to get that person to the top.

I really like history books that don't at first seem to be history books, but are explorations of societies sometimes seen through the lens of a single important concept or product. For instance, Mark Kurlansky has several books such as Salt; A World History, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, The Basque History of the World, Nonviolence: 25 Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea that teach more history, and more important history than is usually taught in US public schools.

History need not be rote memorization of dates and figures. It can, and should be a fun exploration of ideas and how those ideas shaped civilizations. It can also be an exploration of what did not make it into the history books as Bart Ehrman's Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament or his Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why and Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels attest.

I don't wish to come across as too glib about this, but I feel like the average person might well retain more useful knowledge reading a book like A History of the World in 6 Glasses than if they sat through a semester of freshman history as taught by most boring, lame generic high schools. I feel like often the best way to understand history is to come at it tangentially. Want to understand the US Constitution? Study the Iroquois confederacy. Want to understand the French? Study cuisine and wine. Want to understand China? Study international trade. And so it goes. Sometimes the best history lessons come about from just following another interest such as astronomy or math or cooking. Follow the path until curiosity is sated. Knowledge will accumulate that way. ;-)

So, with Pirates, I would start with a good introductory book like:

Under the Black Flag. It's a good general overview book that allows you to separate some of the myths from the reality of pirates. It's a good easy read and very factual. A great beach holiday book.

After that, I would suggest moving up a step to:

The Republic of Pirates, which is a fantastic book that reads like an adventure novel about the late "Golden Age" of pirates, including Blackbeard. This book is fun, full of facts, and reads like a modern reporter for Slate, Salon, or Rolling Stone would tell it (because it is written by a reporter).

Then finally, to get into the nuts a bolts, the why and how of Pirates I recommend anything by Benerson Little. He conducted an AMA earlier this year and blew it out of the water.

For his books The Searovers Practice is bar none one of the finest books I've read. Buccaneers Realm is great when talking about the very specific group of pirates known as Buccaneers.

Where does toll money go after being collected by various bridge and tunnel ''Authorities''?
The MTA is not a .gov, but one of those Federal Reserve style quasi private agencies. http://web.mta.info/mta/investor/ .... EDIT--> This one is very very juicy as regards the clear separation of state and MTA: http://web.mta.info/mta/investor/pdf/stateservice.pdf
They are separate entities for sure.
In revealing how Moses did it--how he developed his public authorities into a political machine that was virtually a fourth branch of government, one that could bring to their knees Governors and Mayors (from La Guardia to Lindsay) by mobilizing banks, contractors, labor unions, insurance firms, even the press and the Church, into an irresistible economic force--Robert Caro reveals how power works in all the cities of the United States. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He personally conceived and completed public works costing 27 billion dollars--the greatest builder America (and probably the world) has ever known. Without ever having been elected to office, he dominated the men who were--even his most bitter enemy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, could not control him--until he finally encountered, in Nelson Rockefeller, the only man whose power (and ruthlessness in wielding it) equalled his own.
The editorial reviews on that link should be noted.
"Surely the greatest book ever written about a city." --David Halberstam
"Caro has written one of the finest, best-researched and most analytically informative descriptions of our political and governmental processes to appear in a generation." --Nicholas Von Hoffman, The Washington Post
"Caro's achievement is staggering. The most unlikely subjects--banking, ward politics, construction, traffic management, state financing, insurance companies, labor unions, bridge building--become alive and contemporary. It is cheap at the price and too short by half. A milestone in literary and publishing history." --Donald R. Morris, Houston Post

"The most absorbing, detailed, instructive, provocative book ever published about the making and raping of modern New York City and environs and the man who did it, about the hidden plumbing of New York City and State politics over the last half-century, ... A monumental work, a political biography and political history of the first magnitude." --Eliot Fremont-Smith, New York
"One of the most exciting, un-put-downable books I have ever read. This is definitive biography, urban history, and investigative journalism. This is a study of the corruption which power exerts on those who wield it ..." --Daniel Berger, Baltimore Evening Sun
"In the future, the scholar who writes the history of American cities in the twentieth century will doubtless begin with this extraordinary effort." --Richard C. Wade, The New York Times Book Review
One of the most acclaimed books of our time, winner of both the Pulitzer and the Francis Parkman prizes.
Where exactly does the money go?
Anyone with a short and casual answer is deeply deeply deluded.
What is the MTA?

Nerves of steel come from confidence and being above fear. Confidence comes from practice and competition. Being above fear comes from a lifestyle of conquering fears.

If you want to be more comfortable on the street, figure out exactly what you're afraid of and get better at it. Are you afraid he's going to hit you? Learn boxing or muay thai or bjj. Are you afraid he's going to yell at you? Learn debate skills.

My dad was a firefighter for a decade. His dad trained WW2 bomber pilots. I asked my dad how he kept calm on intense calls. He said he would rely on his training and took every problem as it came. You have no idea what the scene is going to look like on your way there, but you can trust that you're the best prepared one there, so everyone's depending on you to take charge and lead. Planning ahead is very important, but more important is staying in the moment.

Meditation works out that muscle. Staying in the moment is a muscle in your brain that you have to work out. What fear and anxiety is is you living outside of the moment. Fear is you trying to bring the past into the present. Anxiety is you trying to predict the future. Live in the moment and take shit as it comes. The more you can do that, the more you can relax into chaotic situations with confidence. Just do your best and know that that's all anyone can do in life. We can only do our best.

Another thing is your mindset for life. Always do your best. Always give your fullest. Figure out your core values and live to them every day of your life. If you can say every day that you did your fucking best, then you are going to be able to say "I am ready to die today" and you won't walk around terrified of death. Death is the root fear of all the fears. If you can conquer the fear of death, you will be very strong.

.

There's a lot more to this, I'm just kind of rambling off what comes to mind before I go to work. But this will get you started. I wish you all the best and I hope I've helped some.

Some good resources are Shambhala, The Art of Learning, On Becoming a Leader, Better Under Pressure, Leading at the Edge, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and then this interview with Rickson Gracie (one of the greatest fighters to ever walk the Earth).

First and foremost, 48 Laws of Power. It will show you 100+ ways other people have tried and where they failed and succeeded. It's a great introduction. Get this first.

A lot for these are free on gutenberg.org

Meditations - On being ethical and virtuous in a position of power.


33 strategies of war - A great companion to the 48 laws.

Art of war - Ancient Chinese text on war and power. All but covered in 48 laws.

Hagakure - Japanese text on war and power. All but covered in 48 laws.

On war - Military strategy from Napoleonic era. All but covered in 48 laws.

Rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Amazing book.

Seeking Wisdom from Darwin to Munger - Abstract thought models and logic patterns of highly successful people.

The Obstacle is the Way - Not labeled a book on power, more like thriving during struggle, which is important to a leader.

Machiavelli: The Prince - Pretty much the opposite of meditations. All but covered in 48 laws.


Also, here's a good TED talk on why power/civics is important to study: http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_liu_why_ordinary_people_need_to_understand_power?language=en


If you've gone over these and want something more specialized, I can probably help.

Are you planning on taking us over with force or charm?

Seems like the body is great, but if you think your mind is lacking, you have to train that too! Mens sana in corpore sano, you know. I will like to support the idea of meditation; guided meditation is great, and it really helps you put things in perspective and create the self-awareness that you need to know where you stand. Also, I'll recommend you read Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. Seriously a good read, and it's cheap (or free online)

Everyone else can help you figure out how to move jobs/locations etc, but maybe you need some advice on how to deal with the situation now?

Find purpose. Just like people have basic physical needs, like to sleep and eat and drink, we also have basic psychological needs and the need for meaning and purpose is the deepest driver of wellbeing there is. If you find meaning in what you do, you'll be happier. I highly recommend reading the book 'Man's Search for Meaning' - it will completely change your mindset and help you get through every day right now - you don't need to wait or change your job for happiness. It changed my life.

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

It's short and easy to ready so give it go - read the reviews here too - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807014273/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

That's not wholly fair--several of us have provided good information, not faux scholarship or atheist reactionary rants!

I do want to throw in a few extra points to go with yours. I agree that pre-Islamic Arabia was not as barbarous as is sometimes assumed, however the reforms that Muhammad ushered in were often welcome and needed--giving women rights for example, and forbidding female infanticide.

It is true that we have no proof of Muhammad's illiteracy. Indeed, the first word of the first Qur'anic verse (in terms of chronology), 'iqra (أقرا) can be translated either 'read' or 'recite' so it sheds little light on that (source--Dr. Jamal Badawi's writings and classes).

The Qur'an was written down and compiled under the aegis of Uthman ibn Affan, as we've discussed elsewhere in this thread.

I also agree that many joined the early ummah out of a desire to improve their lot. This wasn't limited to Arabia; when Islam began to spread out from there it was originally meant to be an Arab religion and conversion was discouraged, however many converted in order to enjoy the same benefits as the Muslims did.

A lot of this is made very clear in the best seerah (bio of Muhammad) available in English, which is Martin Lings' Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. A caveat on this book: Lings was a faithful Muslim and wrote from a faith-based position, so it does lose some scholarly objectivity. However its a great read and its easy to maintain your own objectivity as you read it.

Also, Ira Lapidus' A History of Islamic Societies has a good section on pre-Islamic Arabia, as does Albert Hourani's History of the Arab Peoples IIRC.

I recommend all three books to anyone wanting to pursue this subject further.

First is Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. It's a big book, but the way he frames the historical setting and the motives and characterization of Hamilton and those around him make the book hard to put down. He shows Hamilton to be both brilliant and overly passionate, capable of love of country and family political ruthless and egoist that led to his downfall. Though I had a leaning before towards Hamilton from his position as the US' first Sect. of the Treasury, Chernow's book solidified him as my favorite Founding Father/Constitutional Framer (before it was cool).

Second is The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. Morris' writing is good, but what really makes the book awesome is Roosevelt himself as he overcomes his early childhood weakness to make himself a physical and political force of nature as a young man. Whether it's his two week adventure to capture boat thieves through icy rivers and snow storms, his incredible knowledge that crafted a Navy guide that would be used by the US Navy for decades, to his philosophy on masculinity, Morris' book on Roosevelt's life is a manifesto of not accepting what life gives you, but getting what you want out of it.

TR was an amazing man. Other factoids:

• A true polymath, he was a solider, author, historian, hunter and naturalist. Even during his presidency, the Smithonian would sent samples of flora to him for identification.
  
• Believed to have a photographic memory.
  
• Runner-up Harvard boxing champion
  
• Could read a book & dictate two letters (using two secretaries) at the same time.
  
• Skinny-dipped in the Potomac... in winter.
  
• In real life, Nelson Mandel didn't give Pienaar Invictus for inspiration. Rather he gave him TR's "The Man in the Arena." (A truly great speech, IMHO.)
  
• First American to win a Nobel.
  
• Saw to the competition of the Panama Canal.
  
  In other words, he was a lot like Chuck Norris. Only for reals.
  
  If you can set yourself for long reads, the Edmund Morris TR trilogy is well worth it:
  
  
• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
  
• Theodore Rex
  
• Colonel Roosevelt
  
  Here he is on The Daily Show (the author, not TR):
  
  http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-december-9-2010/edmund-morris
  

What is your particular interest? I can offer you some general suggestions, but if you are interested in a certain era or neighborhood or person I can point you in that direction too.

For a succinct history going up until the 2000s, look to The Restless City. If you are more interested in power politics of the 20th Century, The Power Broker is the definitive source (boo Robert Moses). Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning is a great look at the city in 1977, a tumultuous time both politically and socially.

Much of the history of the city after the mid-19th Century centers around the development of railroads, elevated trains and the subway system. 722 Miles and A Century of Subways are both excellent books about the growth and evolution of the transit network. I picked up Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America for the 100th Anniversary of the Terminal, and it was an informative and lively read.

In that case I have two books that explain this issue pretty well and give multiple answers to your question. Both of these books are pretty simple and you can probably find a lot of other ones that discuss the topic but these are the two I've found explain in simplistic terms.

The Universe Next Door --- This books gives a great look at a large range of different world views. It answers your question for each of those world views and pretty much leaves it up to the reader to think what they want.

Man's Search for Meaning --- This book is a specific account of a guy who spent time in the concentration camps during WWII. The first half is his account of that and the second half is his explanation on why he kept on living. Very interesting read.

This question you ask is a huge philosophical topic and it's hard to give a simple answer. Good luck.

Great list! I have read all the above and totally agree that their value is worthwhile to anyone seeking to improve their life -- regardless of financial status, relationships, profession, etc. A couple others that I've found useful along the road:

6. The Six Pillars of Self Esteem by N. Branden. During the reawakening stage and after a particularly painful breakup, I found this book helpful. Learning the concept of "alone-ness" versus "loneliness" continues to drive many motivations.

7. Games People Play by Eric Berne. Want to understand why your plate/gf/wife went batshit insane over the stupidest thing, and how to counteract it in the future? Read this book. Want to understand why your coworker was making those strange comments to your boss? Read this book - a must for anyone wanting to learn more about game theory and its application to everyday life. (Next on my list is The Art of Strategy ).

8. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. In many ways this is an antithesis to Freudian thought -- whereas Freud argued man is happy when seeking and obtaining pleasure, Frankl postulates that finding meaning and understanding is what makes us happy. In the context of TRP theory, meditating on, if not fully understanding, these concepts is absolutely necessary.

9. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. The seminal work on the concept and application of persuasion. From negotiations to dating/relationships to job performance, I would rank this book at the top of many lists.

A few other authors/books I've seen mentioned elsewhere that are worth checking out: anything by Kurt Vonnegut, The Art of War by Sun Tzu (which goes hand in hand with The Prince for a great East/West study), and Rollo Tomassi. I've also found some of Oscar Wilde's writing to be both amusing and insightful.

[edit: formatting.]

I infer that you are looking for a secular handle on a normative ethical theory.

Right Conduct: Theories and Application by Bayles and Henley provides a basic outline of essential philosophical thinking from an academic perspective.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, while authored by a Mormon, doesn't have any religious content that I recall and outlines some very useful heuristics for living a moral life. It's targeted at a general audience.


Meditations by Marcus Aurelius does contain some religious content (though here he's not referring to YHWH), but still has a lot of useful ideas with secular application.

You may also be interested in The School of Life and The Greater Good Science Center.

Good luck.

So, how would you know if Quran is authentic without even reading it or without Knowing about Muhammad(pbuh)? You have already negated the Historical evidence i posted in my 2nd post.

Why would you think that Muhammad (pbuh) himself wrote Quran and then attributed to Allah?, Because if he was really that devious then he would have taken all the money, power and comfort offered from Quraish when they asked him to stop preaching.

Quran is regarded as highest work of arabic, so if a person was to write it, why would he give this credit away.

If wordly gains was Muhammad's (pbuh) desire then he was doing a poor job at it, leaving a comfortable noble life with a rich wife.

Now when i try to prove it to you with historical context, you state that the historians plagiarized the events and can't be trusted, when you have overwhelming evidence of Muhammad's(pbuh) life in great detail, from various accounts. I think you have already made up your mind to not believe anything about islamic history written by muslims.

Perhaps you would trust a non-muslims, islamic view?

I can refer to you some books:

1. The 100 by Michael H.Hart
   
   
2. On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History, by Thomas Carlyle
   
   
3. Islam Her Moral and Spiritual Value, by Major Arthur Glyn Leonard
   
   
4. Muhammad by Karen Armstrong
   
   
5. Islam by Alfred Guillaume
   
   
6. The life of Muhammad by William Muir
   
   All these are studies of non muslims about prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and Islam.
   

The standard textbook history right now appears to be The Romans: From Village to Empire.

Klaus Bringmann's A History of the Roman Republic also still seems to be the standard introduction to that period (i.e. the time period of Imperator).

If you want to read about the end of the Roman Republic and Caesar/Augustus, it's hard to turn down Caesar: Life of a Colossus which is great for the general reader, alongside his Augustus: First Emperor of Rome.

He also writes pretty solid books on other major Roman figures, such as In the Name of Rome: The Men who won the Roman Empire.

If you want to get a pretty good introduction to Roman History, but more of what life was like for the average citizen, SPQR by Mary Beard is actually a good choice.

Older, but still solid, is Peter Garnsey's The Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture which covers a lot of things Beard doesn't.

For the Roman army, Adrian Goldsworthy's The Complete Roman Army is a solid introduction.

However you'll want to break that down into several books if you want to go deeper:

Roman Military Equipment by MC Bishop and JCN Coulston

The Roman Imperial Army of the First and Second Centuries AD by Graham Webster

A Companion to the Roman Army by Paul Erdkamp

For the collapse of the Western Roman Empire I'd recommend both Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians combined with the more scholarly Guy Halsall's Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West.

For the forgotten half of Roman History, often mistakenly called the "Byzantine Empire," it's hard to cover with just one book, but Warren Treadgold's A History of the Byzantine State and Society has become the standard reading. John Haldon's The Empire that would not Die covers the critical transition during the Islamic conquests thoroughly.

Of course I have to include books on the two IMO most overrated battles in Roman history on this list since that's what people love:

The Battle of the Teutoberg Wald: Rome's Greatest Defeat by Adrian Murdoch

The Battle of Cannae: Cannae: Hannibal's Greatest Victory is sort of the single book to read if you can only pick one. However, The Ghosts of Cannae is also good. But if you actually want to go really in depth, you need Gregory Daly's dry-as-the-Atacama book Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War. When I say dry as the Atacama, I mean it, but it's also extraordinarily detailed.

I'd complement this with Goldsworthy's The Punic Wars.

For other interesting topics:

The Emergence of the Bubonic Plague: Justinian's Flea and Plague and the End of Antiquity.

Hadrian's Wall: Hadrian's Wall by Adrian Goldsworthy

Roman Architecture: Roman Architecture by Frank Sear (definitely a bit more scholarly but you can probably handle it)

I may post more in addendum to this list with further comments but I think I'm reaching the character count.

I'm reading Elon Musk's biography right now and think it might be helpful if you're talking about career success. The dude seems like a jerk but has an incredible work ethic and drive to succeed.

You can say pretty much the same exact thing about Augustus' biography.

Outliers really helped me a lot, because it made me realize talent wasn't nearly important as skill/effort. You put in the time and effort and you will develop your skills.

If you're an introvert like me these books helped me "fake it till I make it" or just want to be more socially capable: Charisma Myth, anything by Leil Lowndes, Make People Like You in 90 Seconds. Not a book but the Ted Talk about body language by Amy Cuddy

A book on leadership I always hear good things about but haven't read yet is Start With Why.

Sup homie,

Now firstly before I get into the actual books I am going to recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast - He's effectively doing audiobooks via podcast these days (I'm actually re-listening to "Prophets of Doom" at the moment, it's about 4 hours 30 minutes of excellent storytelling of historical events) - Really, really recommend that. (you can also buy all the old episodes).


Now onto the History Nonfiction books themselves:



Michael Pollan - The Botany of Desire - While somewhat more of an analysis of how plants have become and evolved according to human cultivation the book does an excellent job of historically breaking down each major event and process involved.



John H. Mayer - Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws' Bloody Reign - Title says it all. Pirates. Open seas. History. Strong recommend.



Alfred Lansing - Endurance - Shackleton's Incredible Voyage - If you love an amazing story of stoicism, heroism, and amazing leadership then anything about Shackleton should be on your list. This epic tale follows Sir Ernest Shackleton's voyage on the Endurance with the aim to cross the Antarctic - which failed. What happened next throughout the following months is an monument to the incredible spirit of a man, his crew, and the desire to get everyone home.

If you need more try looking into the below:

Niall Ferguson - The War of the World

William L. Shirer The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich A History of Nazi Germany

Andrew Roberts - The Storm of War

Jared Diamond - Guns, Germs, and Steel

Marcus Aurelius - Meditations

Well, I totally get the different lenses you are looking through. I would say that you may be mixing up the terms "happiness" and "meaning." They overlap, but they are different. Some people think they really want happiness - physical pleasure, material wealth, etc. But what they really want is meaning. Your friend has happiness available to him. But on the other hand he probably lacks meaning or purpose. He is disconnected. Just a thought.

The Power of Meaning is a good read that touches on why there is a lot of depression in 1st world countries and not too much in developing ones. Man's Search for Meaning is of course the classic in general.

Barbara Tuchman was brilliant writer of history.

Albert Camus was a brilliant absurdist philosopher and novelist.

Jared Diamond has written some brilliant books at the intersection of anthropology and ecology. Another good book in this genre is Clive Ponting's A New Green History of the World.

Gwynne Dyer is an acclaimed military historian turned journalist on international affairs who has written a number of very engaging books on warfare and politics. His most recent book Climate Wars is the ONE book I would recommend to someone, if so limited, on the subject as it embodies both a wonderful synopsis of the science juxtaposed against the harsh realpolitiks and potential fates of humankind that may unfold unless we can manage to tackle the matter seriously, soon. Another great book on climate change is Bill McKibben's Deep Economy.

For social activists interested in ending world hunger and abject poverty, I can recommend: Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom; Nobel Prize winning micro-financier Muhammad Yunus' Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism; UN MDG famed economist Jeffrey Sach's End Of Poverty; and Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea

For anyone of Scottish heritage, I heartily recommend Arthur Hermann's How The Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It

For naval history buffs: Robert K. Massie's Dreadnought.

Last, but not least: Robert Pirsig's classic Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Enjoy!

• "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" (Jack Weatherford) is my all-time and all-categories favourite. Temudjin is a turbo ENTJ, the books reads like a thrilling novel and provide great insights at every page, and there is wisdom in every episode of the Khan's life and even after his life (the chapters of how and why the Mongol empires collapses are a serious lesson to be considered at all times). This book just has everything in it: a catching history, a great writing, emotions, lessons for life, insights of a great man who happens to have been "like us" and even if it's quite long, you dread for the end to happen every page you turn, and that is a feeling I rarely had.

• "How to Make Millions Without a Degree" (Simon Dolan) is the best fuel for my confirmation biases. Basically an anthem to self-made people and believing in yourself. Dolan is a funny guy and his motorsport career is more than acknowledgeable. Another proof that when there is a will, there is a way, inspiring guy and inspiring book. Only book so far I bought twice (physically and on Kindle).

• "To Hell and Back" (Niki Lauda) is my model for being bold and having balls, which I cruelly lack work toward developping. Lauda is the definition of boldness. The guy is crazy and the book relates a very unique story of a career. If you enjoy everything with an engine, it's a must-read. For all others, it's a lesson on boldness.

• "The Power of Habits" (Charles Duhigg) made a lasting impact on my life. I believe it's the best "neurosciences for everybody" book ever. It crunches a ton of important concepts and informations about our brains into the "simple" idea of habits.

• "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think" (Brian Wansink) is actually a scam. Wansink was dismissed from his university for falsifying researchs and his "food psychology" thing was recently debunked for having little or no academic basis. This book is full of these made up stuff, most information it contains are probably wrong or manipulated. But... it works. It worked for me. It triggered little changes in my relationship to food (mostly about quantity and not tricking myself into eating stuff I'll regret later) and I can see my fat diminishing from these newly formed habits. So I don't know, this scam book was the one that made me end up bad habits with food when some more academic works didn't help a lot. I'll let that to your own judgement.

Read The Way of the Superior Man or other similar material.

You are a total beta Brad. Your wife doesn't respect you, you don't respect yourself. You have to pull yourself together whether you get divorced or whether you stay together. So start now.

Prioritize doing what you need to do to achieve your potential starting now. If she leaves along the way, so be it. But there is no reason for you to wait to become the man you can become.

Exercise daily. For an hour. No matter what. Lift. Run. Both. Really.

Meditate, go talk to a therapist/counselor. Both. Really. This is a really great starting place. [So is this.] (http://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl-ebook/dp/B009U9S6FI/ref=zg_bs_12621_25).

What is the meaning of life? The universe doesn't give a shit. So go make your own meaning. Really. Make your own meaning--create something you can lay on your death bed and be proud of which made the world a better place for others.

Be the man. Make this your mantra. Be the man. Be the man. Get off your arse and go make the life of your dreams come true. Good luck.

Your marriage will succeed or it will fail, either outcome might be good or it might be bad--and will most certainly be both in some respects. But stop with the fear and uncertainty and go create your best reality. The rest will take care of itself.

In the Heart of the Sea tells the true story that inspired Moby Dick, and is a great read.

If you like non-fiction, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage and The Perfect Storm are also very good.

Sapiens is a general history book about humanity, not so much traditional countries' history. It explores things like how did agriculture and warfare start, why is homo sapiens the only surviving human species etc.

For fun reading about history, I recommend anything written by Robert K. Massie. This is not general history; he wrote mostly about Tsarist Russia, but Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War is a good starter for pre-WW1 European history.
I say "a good starter" because Massie's approach is very biographical - he mostly tells the story through the lives and actions of the decision makers, with less "modern" emphasis on economic factors etc. But he's a really good writer and it's the kind of history book you can read on a beach.

During that period it was a balancing act of a few primary factors: speed, guns, and armor. The amount of armor and guns directly impacted both the size and the weight of the vessel, and this in turn effected the speed.

At the time, the pinnacle of tactics during Naval Battles was what is known as "Crossing the T". Essentially, one line of ships would cut-off the other, and in doing so were able to bring all their guns to bear on their opponent. Likewise, their opponent could not bring all of their guns to bear to retaliate. This diagram shows what it would have generally looked like.

For a tactic like that to succeed you needed, as a battleship, a good combination of guns, speed, and armor. A classic example of this would be Admiral Count Heihachiro Togo and his victory over the Russians at Tsuhima in 1904. Both sides had guns that could fire at about the same range (and the bigger the gun, the bigger the range and the more destructive power). William Pakenham, who was a Royal Navy observer on-board Admiral Togo's ship, stated "when 12 inch guns are fired, shots from 10 inch guns pass unnoticed, while, for all the respect they instill, 8 inch or 6 inch might as well be pea shooters". Basically, the goal was to have the biggest guns possible on-board. This provides maximum firepower and range.

Admiral Togo had one more advantage over the Russians: Speed. He had about six or seven knots advantage over the Russians. If you have greater speed and range, then you can determine where and when the fight actually happens - by engaging the enemy from a longer distance and even moving away to keep that advantage. So if you can control those factors you can control the battle.

"Armor is speed" is something Jacky Fisher (important British admiral, key in the conception and design of HMS Dreadnought) is reported as having once said. This is because the more steel you put on the boat, the slower it is going to go. Unless of course you have new and more powerful methods of propulsion/power, which would allow you to attain a higher speed with more weight. Armor of course is important, as your ships need to be able to withstand hits. HMS Warsprite at Jutland for example, sustained 11 hits. While she was severely damage (and ordered home to Roysoth) she survived those hits and lived to see another day (a lot of days to be precise, she was engaged in WWII as well).

As u/Vonadler notes as well, money is a key issue. HMS Dreadnought cost approximately £1,784,000 in 1905. As an upgrade over other ship designs, she only cost £181,000 more. However, you have to multiply that by the amount of ships you want to build and then the number only gets more astronomical. In August 1914, the Royal Navy had 22 Battleships in commission (with 40 Pre-Dreadnoughts which are the older battleship designs that came before the Dreadnought in 1905) with another 13 under construction. And the price had only gone up since 1905. The Germans for example only had 15 built with 5 under construction. However I disagree that Vanguard was about 10 million GBP more to construct. Vanguard was built in the 1940s, 40 years after Dreadnought. Using [this inflation calculator] (http://inflation.stephenmorley.org/) I compared £11,530,503 in 1941 (the year that Vanguard was laid down) to 1905 (the year Dreadnought was laid down). In 1905, Vanguard would have cost about £5,291,677.27 pounds. A substantial increase to be sure, but only of about 297% compared to 546%. The overall point stands however, that bigger Battleships with more armor and whatnot do cost significantly more than their smaller counterparts.

And with ships you do not just have the cost of building. maintenance, crew (in the case of the German Battleships 1000+ crew members), fuel, etc... Those costs add up quickly. u/thefourthmaninaboat is also correct that the infrastructure was also a factor in Battleship design. On the other hand, cruise ships didn't really have to contend with all of this. They had their own design challenges to be sure, but armor for example wasn't really a factor.

This is my first "real" reply on this sub, so I hope it's been helpful and informative!

----------------
Sources

• Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War by Robert K. Massie
  
  
• From Imperial Splendor to Internment: The Imperial German Navy in the First World War by Nicolas Wolz
  
  
• Warships and Sea Battles of World War One published by Beekman House
  
  
• Inflation Calculator

Slightly outside your request but Titan, the Life of John D. Rockefeller is excellent. It's a fascinating rags to riches epic that also tells the story of the industrial revolution and how it changed the US economy. Wonderful book.

Try the ice cube trick if the anxiety ever hits and you have a drink handy. I just hold an ice cube in my left hand until it melts. Can still shake hands and everything but the ice cube seems to force my heart to slow down a bit. My best guess is that it triggers the Mammalian Diving Reflex and turns off whatever is derailing.

That trick came from a Viet Nam Vet, has been a huge help as time has gone on.

As for things sticking around, now that I'm well into my 40's the flashbacks and nightmares seem to have slowed to almost nothing - though they can still get triggered by trauma anniversary and other surprises. I have one trauma around a car accident so anytime the brakes squeal behind me I get to have a fun day.

Totally agree that basic Meditation is necessary to get through, can't see it ever being accepted in the public school system here in the US though - hell some places refuse to teach Evolution.

I also think that Philosophy has helped me cope some - Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius have been incredibly helpful reading to sort of adjust the way I see the world these days. I highly recommend the two following books:

http://www.amazon.com/Enchiridion-Dover-Thrift-Editions-Epictetus/dp/0486433595
http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Thrift-Editions-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/048629823X

> Tesla was not a poor overlooked genius in his life.

And yet for many people (myself included) it may literally be the band Tesla, or something like the Oatmeal comic that may introduce them to the topic.

And I had numerous classes in science and engineering that certainly should have touched on his work but didn't. In fact the other week I took a tour of a museum where I needed to fill in much needed information that was otherwise a one-sided Edison homage.

But I would encourage, like you, for other people to go out and read what they can on the topic. Books like:

• Man out of Time
  
• The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla
  
• Empires of Light
  
  And while you bring up Wozniak, you grossly exaggerate what The Oatmeal did to the point of being comical, but you know I'd almost like to read a treatment of him by The Oatmeal because Jobs will far outshadow him and I'm willing to bet he'll probably suffer the same fate in a few decades. Just the story of Breakout reminds me of a similar Edison/Tesla dichotomy
  
  And that perhaps is the reason people may tip the pendulum a little too far in the other direction. It just so happens that sometimes Cracked or The Oatmeal may actually introduce people to things that neither conventional media nor our "Texas approved" school books may cover adequately.
  
  Don't knock The Oatmeal for making a reasonable attempt to shed some light in a comical way on a topic that deserves attention. Unless you are willing to give it a rebuttal point for point and then have the author respond to it as he did Forbes as cited below.
  
  For those interested in a follow up by The Oatmeal, here it is:
  
  http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_response
  
  I agree with you in spirit, but I think your line of thinking still helps perpetuate the original problem. We need to actually stop turning people like Edison, Jobs and Gates into deities in the first place and then perhaps the folklore about others who make substantial contributions that many people have little knowledge of wouldn't have to fight so hard to rise to the surface.

Sure! I'm really glad you asked, I don't get enough people asking :D

Much of what I wrote was from Adrian Goldsworthy's Caesar: Life of a Colossus, seeing as that's the only source I have on hand (and on my kindle, which is on my phone <.<) at the moment. However, I DO (obviously) have the Internet as well, which is WONDERFUL for grabbing stuff from Plutarch (Search for p481 for the quote I used from him!), and even the excerpt that I snagged from Caesar's Gallic Wars is there :D

Hope that helps!

You asked for everything really, but here is a selection I personally like that is more focused on the biography of Muhammad.

For Muslim books on the biography of the Prophet, I highly recommend:

A Biography of the Prophet of Islam: In the Light of the Original Sources, an Analytical Study

In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad

Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources

On the more academic side of his life and following centuries, I recommend:

Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction

Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World

In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire

The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad's Life and the Beginnings of Islam

For the four best primary sources of his biography translated into English:

The Life of Muhammad: Al-Waqidi's Kitab al-Maghazi

The Life of the Prophet Muhammad: Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya

The Life of Muhammad

The Expeditions: An Early Biography of Muhammad

I'm personally getting a lot of great recommendations who cares if Grey's assistant likes them.

[TLC: High middle ages]
(https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/high-middle-ages.html)
Really interesting professor does a very broad overview of the changes happening in Europe during this time period.

[Unfamiliar Fishes]
(https://www.amazon.com/Unfamiliar-Fishes-Sarah-Vowell/dp/159448564X) Actually most Sarah Vowell books are pretty interesting and entertaining. This one covers the time period of Hawaii from when it was a kingdom to a state, when it's soul is being fought over by missionaries, fruit companies and shipping.


[What I talk about when I talk about Running](
https://www.amazon.com/What-Talk-About-When-Running/dp/0307389839) I'm not a runner, neither is Grey, still a really interesting reflective book.


[Cod: The biography of the fish that changed the world](
https://www.amazon.com/Cod-Biography-Fish-Changed-World/dp/0140275010/ref=sr_1_1?
keywords=cod&qid=1566160678&s=books&sr=1-1)
You need to read this just for the charming cod wars Iceland engages in, also a ton of history and geography.

[Stephen King: On Writing](
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft/dp/1439156816) Very nuts and bolts book about the physical act of writing and a lot of inside baseball about the state of mind King was in while writing some of his most famous books,

Neat question. The two obvious big names from Urban Planning are Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs. They epitomize Modernist planning and Post-Modern planning, respectively.

Robert Moses was one of the most important non-elected officials in the 20th Century, with the most popular account being Robert Caro's massive biography, The Power Broker. He was a fantastically smart legal wiz who came to power in the 1920s in New York and was the standard-bearer for sweeping top-down government approaches to development. He used his knowledge and authority to gain more and more power, creating some of the first modern highways in bridges all over New York City and state that helped influence the Interstate Highway Act and the urban car-centric model.

He can be viewed as quite a villain these days (think the unbridled power of Mr. Burns on the Simpsons), especially as academic planners now generally recognize the huge negative impacts that Modernist American planning had. There was massive economic and social displacement where things like the Cross Bronx Expressway ripped working-class immigrant neighborhoods in half, allowing commerce to escape urban centers and help create mid-century ghettoization. In short, the modernist approach can be seen as paternalistic at best and willfully concentrating power at the expense of the masses at worst. That said, depression-Era New York had huge problems (dilapidated housing and political corruption, to name two) that Moses' public works projects helped alleviate, and he was one of the country's most powerful advocates for public parks even in the face of massive growth and sprawl.

Moses sat on countless commissions and authorities for decades, his power only finally waning in the 1960s as the top-down modernist approach of (Post) World War II America faced its loudest criticisms with the related Civil Rights, Hippie, Environmentalist, Anti-Vietnam movements: Americans were finally scrutinizing the "Build Build Build Cars Cars Cars Roads Roads Roads" model that had driven cities for decades, which brings us to Jane Jacobs.

Jacobs (who got herself a Google Doodle last week for her 100th birthday), was a Greenwich Village liberal and fierce critic of the Moses-type technocratic planning. She was a community organizer who helped stop Moses as he tried to push through plans for highways in Midtown and Lower Manhattan. For those unfamiliar, these are two of the economic and social cores of New York City - she argued that roads are supposed to serve us, not destroy our important urban spaces.

If you ask a city planner what sole city planning book to read (myself included), the overwhelming favorite will be Jacobs' 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the most important critique of modernist planning to date. Instead of sprawling highways and engineering projects, Jacobs saw the healthiest urban spaces as walkable, intimate, friendly and inviting and on a human-scale. She advocated for small city blocks, much wider sidewalks and mixed-use spaces instead of the classic Sim City "Residential/Commercial/Industrial" segregated zoning.

While there has since been plenty of critique of Jacobs' post-modern model, today's planning leans much closer to Jacobs' vision (at least in academic settings): Planners are more focused than ever on the post-modern walkability, mixed-use, high-density, equal-access, participatory planning model. Although this seems like a healthier place for planning than the Moses model of old, the academic ideals clash with the huge legacy of the Modernist planning approach (We can't just up and rebuild cities every time a theory changes, after all), along with the neoliberal financialization and privatization of so many of our spaces over the last few decades, so it's still as muddy as ever.

Anyway, that's a slight oversimplification of some of the history, but Moses and Jacobs were certainly the biggest avatars of the Modernist and Post-Modernist planning movements and have been as influential in the field of planning as anybody.

Well, regarding your question about why more men didn't die, Cavalry is the arm of the Army that would pursue and actually inflict the majority of casualties on a retreating Army. Caesar's Cavalry was totally blown out and tired, so they couldn't actually chase very far. When an Army is totally defeated, they tend to scatter. Especially in this case, because Pompeius literally left the battlefield when he saw his army start to falter, gathered some things up, and fled. Caesar ordered his men to continue to push until they seized the camp of the Pompeians by night, which meant that the retreating army had nowhere to hide and regroup. This wasn't always the case, and it all totally depends on circumstances. For instance, at Canae, the entire Roman forces save some people that were able to escape, were massacred in the Carthaginian double envelopment. It was the perfect battle, the one every commander dreams of, because trapping the entire enemy army on the inside of your own for a slaughter is incredibly difficult and rare. In the case of Pharsalus, the Pompeian Army had plenty of time to retreat before Caesar could cut them off, therefore they just ran and ran.


The only thing Caesar could do was to take the camp. You can't pursue thousands of stragglers or you will throw your own army into disarray when it comes to command and control. He didn't know Pompey had fled yet, and his troops needed to eat. Badly. Basically, once Caesar did that, Pompey's Army practically disintegrated or joined him. Politics plays a huge part in this, because Caesar wanted to shed as little Roman blood as possible, so he spared every last troop that he could, and spared every Roman senator he defeated the first time. So minimizing casualties was actually a political tool in that entire war, as well as in that battle. Even if the Cavalry could chase the retreating Pompeians down, I don't think Caesar would have let the dogs loose, unless it was for the purpose of capture. Propaganda was a tool that Caesar used daily, and what better way to sell yourself as the good guy in the conflict than to end it as bloodlessly as possible and spare everybody you defeated? He had to convince people that he was not going to be the next Sulla, or Marius.



As for reading, there are a ton of books. You can get some basic ones for general tactics, but if you want in-depth study, you basically need specialized books.



http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Medieval-Warfare-Military-History/dp/0895292629
This is one of the first that I bought. It goes over the basic timeline, and outlines the battles. It also has maps of the battles that will help piece it together with the text.


For Caesar, Goldsworthy's book is the best I've read. http://www.amazon.com/Caesar-Life-Colossus-Adrian-Goldsworthy/dp/0300126891/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427748435&sr=1-3&keywords=adrian+goldsworthy



I would honestly recommend just rolling over to Half Price Books and finding the Military History section. Or Ancient History. Look for books that are a bit more specialized, unless you just want a basic introduction to it all from a book that spans a long timeline. I would recommend more, but all my books are in storage at the moment because I'm in a bit of a weird living situation after moving states. If you find some good stuff, and burn through them, feel free to message me again a few months down the road and I should be able to access my books easily at that point and give you some recommendations.

I would recommend two books, and highly recommend to look for a few more.

This book has changed my life and several friends, all with varying disorders. Saved my best friend from bulimia, helped my husband greatly with BDP, and my brother come out of meth addiction.
Man's Search for Meaning https://www.amazon.com/dp/0807014273/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_RcS3CbEF3R10K

This is to work through BPD and I know it’ll help you define if that’s what’s going on:
Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder https://www.amazon.com/dp/0898620341/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_pbS3Cb2EDVHH8

You should definitely seek out a therapist. Be empowered to call places locally. It’s so great to figure out what’s going on, especially early.

• David Christian’s A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia is a good general overview
  
  
• René Grousset’s The Empire of the Steppes is a bit outdated, but perhaps more readable—more in the style of Gibbon
  
  
• John E. Hill’s Through the Jade Gate to Rome is a fantastic translation and analysis of late Han Dynasty reports on ancient Central Asia
  
  
• Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World is a great history of the early Mongol Empire
  
  
• Hans-Joachim Klimkeit’s Gnosis on the Silk Road is a fascinating collection of Persian, Sogdian, and Uighur Manichaean sources
  
  
• The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Central Asia is disappointingly sparse, and a bit odd in its coverage and terminology, but it’s still the best I’ve been able to find in the style of Colin McEvedy’s Western Civ atlases

Love it, great quick summary. I would always recommend Republic of Pirates for anyone interested in an awesome book on pirate history. It is non-fiction that reads like fiction..excellent author.

Hi there, I am not a professional naval historian (my master's was in American history, post civil war) but I have read quite a bit on the topic. Several books come to mind:

• I second the Massie recommendations. Here are Amazon links:
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Dreadnought-Robert-K-Massie/dp/0345375564/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370960465&sr=1-1&keywords=dreadnought+massie
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Castles-Steel-Britain-Germany-Winning/dp/0345408780/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370960472&sr=1-6
  
  
• The British historian N.A.M. Rodger has written two naval histories of Britain, which are very accessible. Rodger does a good job of balancing strategy and tactics with the political and bureaucratic matters that make a navy efficient.
  
  The Safeguard of the Sea:
  http://www.amazon.com/Safeguard-Sea-History-Britain-660-1649/dp/0393319601/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370960428&sr=1-3
  
  The Command of the Ocean:
  http://www.amazon.com/The-Command-Ocean-History-1649%C2%AD-1815/dp/0393060500
  
  
• John Keegan wrote a short book, The Price of Admiralty, focusing on the naval battles of Trafalgar, Jutland, Midway, and the Battle of the Atlantic in WWII.
  
  http://www.amazon.com/dp/0140096507
  
  
• There are any number of books on Midway, but one that I enjoyed is Shattered Sword, by Parshall and Tully. They delved deeply into Japanese archives and reconstructed details of flight operations and naval SOP to illuminate the battle in a way that I had not seen before:
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Sword-Untold-Battle-Midway/dp/1574889249
  
  And, of course, if you want fiction, both the Horatio Hornblower and the Aubrey-Maturin series are good reads. A-M is a bit more modern lit; Hornblower is entertaining but starts to read a bit older.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Hornblower
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey–Maturin_series
  
  I hope this helps. When I get home I'll take a look at my shelves and see what else comes to mind.

Thank you so much! I am pretty envious that you get to take an entire course on this period. I just get so excited learning about it.

There is the parish library right across the street from my house, but I never use it for some reason. I have three short books I want to read, and then I am going to read all of the books you listed. I can't wait to read about Theodore Roosevelt. Regardless of if you agree with his politics, he is just a fascinating guy.

I had never heard of settlement houses during the era, but I will definitely be researching that.

Here are the links to the Theodore Roosevelt biographical trilogy, just so everyone can find them easily:

Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3

This may be a little more specific of a book question, but are there any books that explain the Progressive Era's impact on the rest of the world? Can youalso give me the definitive beginning and end of the Progressive Era (according to your course)? I seem to get a lot of differing years. There may not be an exact beginning and end but I might as well ask; it is AskHistorians anyway. Does it include or exclude WWI?

Please read more from the sources that MUSLIMS claim to be authentic. Read Muhammad by Martin Lings.

Get to know him and his family and companions. This is the most rigorously and authentically documented and biographized life of a human being in history. We know how he drank, ate, dressed, we know how many white hairs he had by the end of his life. We know how he recited the Qur'an to the level of how he moved his tongue...

We know he preferred to sit when he drinks, and when he'd drink he'd do it with his right hand, on 3 separate phases, not all at once, so as not to shock the body. We know he entered (what is the equivalent of bathroom at the time) with his right foot and exited with his left. We know how he cleaned his teeth and how he flossed, how he cleaned himself to the very detail. How he moved his index finger in prayer, where he placed his eyes. What he said when he saw the moon, in its different stages.

We know what he did when it rained. He'd go outside, expose his shoulders to it, welcoming "A most recent companion of its Lord".

I can go on forever ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

--------------

Let me know if you have any questions or sources :) ʾinshāʾAllāh I can help!

Thank you for giving me opportunity to write this. I benefitted from it a lot!

Salām

This is an excellent, but pretty long source, by Yasir Qadhi. You can use it to look up whatever controversy, or topic (for example, muslim wars), to see their context in detail.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAEA99D24CA2F9A8F

This is a well praised book, yet I didn't read it to be honest:
https://www.amazon.com/Muhammad-Life-Based-Earliest-Sources/dp/1594771537/ref=zg_bs_12532_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=1E7EFS62ZE6WF9E67CPR

If she likes politics, a good presidential biography, such as Truman by McCullough, Team of Rivals by Goodwin, The General by Fenby or Edmund Morris' the Rise of Theodore Roosevelt are classic choices. Biographies are good choices, as they're like novels and are easy to read, whilst being intellectually stimulating.

Probably the most influential urban planning book ever was written as a response to trends in 1960s development: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. Along the same lines, the Pulitizer Prize winning The Power Broker by Robert Caro is the definitive biography of Jacobs-nemesis Robert Moses who was super important in the planning decisions made in New York City in the 50s and 60s.

Witold Rybczynski's Makeshift Metropolis includes a pretty good summary of urban planning throughout the 20th century in America, which is helpful for putting trends from the 1960s into context.

I don't have a specific book to recommend here, but also look into the design of Brasilia, since it was by far the biggest and most complete project designed on the sort of modernist principles that dominated the 50s and 60s urban planning scene. It's obviously not an American city, but many of the planners and architects who worked on it worked on American projects as well, and the ideas that influenced it were very important in American thinking on urban design also.

These are all sort of general interest recommendations, though. Sorry if you were looking for something more technical.

Clearly we don’t see eye to eye.

Here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743270754/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519088748&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=a+team+of+rivals+book&dpPl=1&dpID=51bpOR8qigL&ref=plSrch

One of my favorite books about him. It’s excellently sourced at the end of the book. It’s not whitewash, it’s factually accurate. He was an amazing guy. I’m pretty sure it will change your tune about his motivations and beliefs.

• The intellectual atheist who attempts to use scientific arguments to disprove God: The Last Superstition by Ed Feser
  
  
• The agnostic who is open to God, but simply doesn't know where to start: Aquinas by Ed Feser, or above
  
  
• The weekly Mass-attending Catholic who does not intimately know Catholic doctrine or practice, and seems to pick and choose what to follow based on cultural influence (The "cafeteria Catholic"): The Glories of Mary or Heretics and Orthodoxy
  
  
• The ex-Catholic Evangelical: No Price Too High
  
  
• The open and curious Protestant, having been raised with only a Protestant background: Rome Sweet Home or above
  
  
• A Jewish friend: Man's Search for Meaning followed by Maximilian Kolbe: Saint of Auschwitz
  
  
• A Muslim friend: The Public Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ: An Interpretation
  
  Some are probably less good than others, but that's what I'd throw out there. A direct assault is not always the best way.

Martin Lings' Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources is popular for good reason.

But the best history book I've seen is the work of Dr. Ali M. Sallabi.

It's two volumes and like 2000 pages but it's fascinating read.

I have it on PDF if you want it.


**


For understanding context, Dr. Jonathan Brown is an excellent resource. He's got several books, including his most recent Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy (he's already working on 2nd edition lol...)

>What should I read?

If you are interested in learning about our faith, I would start by reading a translation of the Quran. www.quran.com is an excellent online resource. If you want help obtaining a physical copy of the Quran let me know. Also, I would recommend reading a biography of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). I recommend this one.

>Do I need a circumcision?

No.

>Do I have to grow a beard?

It's highly recommended.

>How often do I pray?

5 times a day.

>When, why, how and what do I say when I do?

This link can help you with those questions.

>I have bad knees, do I have to kneel down?

No, you can use a chair when you pray.

I suggest finding out about the Prophet Muhammad because he is the best living example of Islam.

Karen Armstrong's biography is a very engaging read: https://www.amazon.com/Muhammad-Prophet-Time-Karen-Armstrong/dp/0061155772

In terms of visiting a mosque, its best to go to the biggest one in your area because they'll have the most resources to welcome you and answer any questions you have. You can just turn up, but there might not be anyone available to meet you. If you call ahead most mosques will make sure someone is there to greet you, make you feel comfortable and answer any questions you might have.

Any book by Mary Roach- her books are hilarious, random, and informative. I like Jon Krakauer's, Sarah Vowell's, and Bill Bryson's books as well.

Some of my favorites that I can think of offhand (as another poster mentioned, I loved Devil in the White City)

No Picnic on Mount Kenya

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Collapse

The Closing of the Western Mind

What is the What

A Long Way Gone

Alliance of Enemies

The Lucifer Effect

The World Without Us

What the Dog Saw

The God Delusion (you'd probably enjoy Richard Dawkins' other books as well if you like science)

One Down, One Dead

Lust for Life

Lost in Shangri-La

Endurance

True Story

Havana Nocturne

If you're solely interested in the Presidential History, Theodore Rex is an excellent biography on Theodore Roosevelt's Presidential years. I would strongly encourage reading The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Colonel Roosevelt, his before and after years respectively, as they are equally excellent.

I think In the end-the beginning by Jurgen Moltmann was one of the most important books I read when I was going through a difficult time. I generally suggest anything by Moltmann, but if you're not very familiar with systematic theology another book that is pretty easy to read is Jesus Christ for Today's World. Man's Search for Meaning is another great book that I think might be good for your situation. Death and Life: An American Theology by Arthur McGil and The Slavery of Death by Richard Beck are also worthwhile reads, and most people I've recommended them to end up reading everything else by Beck and McGil they can get their hands on.

I see a lot of great books already listed. I'll offer a few lesser-known books that haven't been mentioned yet.

Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe series is brilliant for general readers of almost any age.

I see William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich has been mentioned, but I find his book on France - The Collapse of the Third Republic - equally compelling.

For those who love Barb Tuchmann's Guns of August,
Dreadnought by Robert Massie and The Lions of July by William Jannen are excellent additions in covering the lead up to WWI.

For Roman History, I'd recommend Adrian Goldsworthy's Caesar: Life of a Colossus and Anthony Everitt's Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

Correct. He also made it a point to donate at least 10% of every dollar he made from youth and made good on it. He is one of the fathers of modern philanthropy.

He was a ruthless businessman, BUT prior to taking out/absorbing a competitor he would meet with them, offer them fair value for their business or stock in Standard Oil, and would go as far as to simply open his company's book for them so they can see the futility of competition. Very interesting life. If anyone wants to learn more about him, they should really read Chernow's "Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller" Excellent book.

https://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr/dp/1400077303

I typically don't like non-fiction but one of my actual FAVORITE books is Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky
It is wonderful and an excellent, quick read.

Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources by Martin Ling |
PDF
| Audiobook Part 1

The Sealed Nectar by Safi-ur-Rhaman Al-Mubarakpuri

Lings book reads like a story, and it's pretty good.

The Sealed Nectar won 1st place in an international competition held by the Muslim World League in 1979 for best biography of the Prophet pbuh.

Food is a universal motivator. What if you had students research historical cooking? And after a week or two, you have each student bring in a recipe they've prepared from historical period/culture of their choice? And also give a presentation or write a short paper about how the food came about, or how it influence history and culture.

I've recently been trying recipes from this blog about recreating ancient Roman cuisine. Not exactly an academic source, but does cite the passages from Roman writings that inspire his exploits.

The book Salt: A World History would also be a great source, and is very easy-to-read and IMHO quite interesting. Many parts of it would make good excerpts for reading in class and introducing ideas. The same author has similar books on Cod and Oysters.

I'm no expert, I'm just stealing this idea because it's an assignment that I was given in High School, and was one of the most memorable and fun.

I like this biography of Genghis Khan. It's maybe not exactly what you were looking for, but I thought it was pretty cool to read about the truly breathtaking extent of he and his sons' conquests and the complete obscurity from which he and the Mongols emerged.

I'm tired of all the Tesla worship memes that are devoid of any critical thinking. Oooh, Edison stole everything Tesla ever did, blah blah blah. The full story is a bit more complex than that, as was his life. He was a complicated guy. He was brilliant, no doubt. But he was also a crackpot and made a lot of crackpot claims he couldn't back up. He was very generous when George Westinghouse had financial troubles. His OCD compelled him to calculate the volume of his soup before he could eat it. His best friend was a pigeon.

To appreciate the man fully in all his complexity, you have to accept all of those truths.

I highly recommend Tesla: Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney. It's a good read.

It's this one. To be honest, it's not that great of a book. It's not very well-written, and its explanations of the actual space and engineering aspects go beyond ELI5 into like ELI3 territory. It's a great book for the jokes and anecdotes about the astronauts' lives, not so much for the actual history.

I'd instead recommend Failure is not an Option by flight director Gene Kranz. Amazing book, that.

A Man on the Moon by Andy Chaiken is considered THE text on the Apollo program. If formed the basis of the mini series From the Earth to the Moon

Failure is not an Option by Gene Kranz is a wonderful first hand account of life in the trenches from Mercury thru Apollo.

And my personal favorite space book - Roving Mars which was turned into a great IMAX movie as well.

Congratulations! I know what a big step that is, as I've been in the same boat. Books are the best way to become informed. Check out books by:

• Christopher Hitchens - God Is Not Great & The Portable Atheist
  
  
• Stephen Hawking - The Grand Design & A Briefer History of Time
  
  
• Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show on Earth
  
  
• Carl Sagan - The Demon Haunted World
  
  
• Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape & The End of Faith
  
  
• Richard Panek - The 4 Percent Universe
  
  
• Robert Ingersoll - Some Mistakes of Moses
  
  
• Viktor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning
  
  
• Sean Caroll - The Making of the Fittest
  
  
• Spencer Wells - Deep Ancestry
  
  
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Infidel
  
  
• Alan Watts - The Way of Zen
  
  Also check out the video series Why I am no longer a creationist.
  
  The more you know, the more confident you will be.

I love reading biographies, I find them more inspiring and enjoyable to read than self-help books. Currently I'm reading Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. I highly recommend this book to anyone, prior to this book I only knew what they taught us in History class, this explores so many more aspect of his life, some of which we can all relate to (like his constant drive to improve himself).

[Meditations by Marcus Aurelius] (http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Thrift-Editions-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/048629823X) is another great book I just finished. Written by a former Roman emperor who ruled during the time of frequent war, disease, and natural disasters, it's about how he dealt with it all as a leader by following the stoic philosophy. Amazing book and helped changed my outlook on the world.

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. This is one of those books that isn't geared to self-improvement, but to updating your view of the world. In it Taleb talks about how highly improbably events happen all the time, but we only see them as probable in hindsight. I think it's a great read since we tend to think in cause-and-effect ways, when in fact the world works more in a probabilistic way.

I am Catholic and learned most of what I know about Islam though university classes and independent research. I can give you a list of books I have read about Islam that will get you started.

Oxford English Koran
Obviously the primary text is important to have and the book is pretty small. Much smaller compared to the bible.



Hadith of Bukhari: Volumes I, II, III & IV


Half of Islamic law is derived from the Koran and the other half from the Hadith. The Hadith is the collection of events, and quotes by Mohammad and his followers. This book is huge and you shouldn't try to read the whole since it is just list quotes and who they are by. But it is a good reference source and something to page through.

Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources
Biography of Mohammad using historical sources. Good reference.



Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes



Brief 350 page run of Islamic history until now as told by a Muslim. I felt the book was a bit preachy and accusatory towards the end but I read it 6 years ago so my memory might be hazy. Still a good read if you want to try to understand how mainstream moderate Muslim scholars see things. It has a good bibliography too.




There are probably a bunch of other ones I am forgetting. Take a look through Amazon and see what else they have. I would only buy books from university presses or published by academics though. They can be dense and difficult but they are peer reviewed which is important since there is so much anti-Islam, pro-Islam publishing out there.

100% agree. Read https://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr/dp/1400077303 and then tell me you wouldn't want that lifestyle...

The guy semi-retired in his early 50's to play golf and live a life of luxury in his various manor homes. He lived until 97, money seems to have done a great job of keeping him alive.


Medicine is bad? Chicago university wouldn't exist without him and his huge bankroll, His money was almost singlehandedly responsible for curing ringworm in destitute southerners (and curing other illnesses and maladies) too. A huuuuge amount of modern medicine is thanks to John D & his willingness to fund medical research.

I mean sure he couldn't play angry birds... But the guy was rich enough to have stables built in Manhattan so he could race the worlds finest horses with his brother through central park. Toward his later years he was able to afford the worlds best cars in the world and professional drivers to take him for drives. Sure, they weren't as quick as a modern sports car, but i doubt he really cared.. Reliability? He could buy 100 of them, no problem.

The impact John D and even his son, John D Jr had on areas such as medicine and the arts is mind boggling. The New York MoMA nor the Cloisters would exist without them. (Jr and his wife co-founded the MoMA, donated the land & an incredible amount of art work to it. HE DIDN'T EVEN LIKE MODERN ART, HE HATED IT.) John D Jr gave more money to medical research and charity than he gave to his own damn family.

The amount of charitable giving they did (most of it anonymous) is insane. They bought entire forests to save them, donated huge chunks of land to be national parks, etc.

The United Nations? The land the headquarters is built on in Manhattan - Jr donated that.

Versailles in France? Jr was posthumously awarded France's highest honor, the Grand-Croix de la Legion d'honneur for contributing huge sums of money (with no requirement for any recognition, public attention, etc.. If anything he worked incredibly hard to HIDE his involvement) to the repair efforts because he thought it was an important building for the French people.

These are people who on multiple occasions would pay double or triple the asking price of famous art works to the ire of their friends and colleagues who wanted to acquire them, because while others in their social circle wanted to horde them in their private collections, they wanted to buy them so they could be donated and on show for all of the public, not just the rich elite.

If I could have my life today, or be transferred to John D or John D Jr's era and have 1/10th the impact on humanity that they had, its a total no brainer. Yes, John D committed some unsavoury (monopolistic) business practices... So did everyone else in that era. He was a devout baptist who practiced philosophy and frugality (he was far, far less spendy than anyone remotely comparable) from his youth as a broke assistant bookkeeper to his dying days as a titan of industry.

I will always be an FDR fanatic but I agree that Teddy was a walking tall tale. If you like Teddy Roosevelt I strongly suggest that you read Theodore Rex. A great look into his presidential achievements. (https://www.amazon.com/Theodore-Rex-Edmund-Morris/dp/0812966007).

• A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics - As concise as it promises & super accessible, I can't imagine a better primer to macro. this is required reading at HBS (where the author teaches)
  
  
• The Productivity Project - I'm working thru this now in audio book form. The guy took a year off after college to experiment w/ diff't productivity systems. it's a nice overview of lots of different productivity gurus/techniques
  
  
• Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller - the perfect read for the aspiring tycoon about the greatest CEO of them all, the man for whom anti-trust laws were first written.
  
  
• House of Morgan - or for the financially inclined, the original rainmaker, James Pierpont Morgan. My favorite part of this one is that it's actually a pretty thorough history of investment banking from 1900 - ~1990.
  
  But really, I think 'just relax' is best here, so:
  
  
• Diversify your interests
  
• Read some books you've always wanted to that have no obvious connections to self-improvement
  
• learn to code, build something dope, then start a company (okay, not 'relaxing,' but still great)
  
• whittle something (maybe also start a company with that, somehow)
  
• date someone out of your league
  
• volunteer somewhere unglamorous doing something hard & thankless
  
  etc etc etc
  

justcs: ^^original ^^reddit ^^link

The first step would be realizing that you are not alone. This book is written by an educate Jewish Doctor that survived Auschwitz. I recommend it to you. I hope I will never have to go through what those people went through, but this guy picked up and moved on, leaving wisdom on a disparate situation. If you cannot afford books check your library or pm me and I'll see what I can do. Cheer up!

As a Muslim I sincerely believe the same God had sent the New Testamentm but it was distorted throughout time. 'Klansmen' could misinterpret the testament in a wrong way similar to ISIS guys. Interpretation is an important issue. I suggest you not to drown yourself in ISIS interpretation of Quran, but to learn from the verily source.

https://www.amazon.com/Muhammad-Life-Based-Earliest-Sources/dp/1594771537/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488215469&sr=8-1&keywords=martin+lings+muhammad

But it is just a suggestion. I am not a preacher, not a great debater, or something like that. I am just a regular muslim, who wants to live peacefully, and wants others to live in peace.

Thank you for your kind answers.

Some of the good Rome books I've read over the years:

In the Name of Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy

Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy

The Complete Roman Army by Adrian Goldsworthy

Rubicon: the Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland

A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome by Alberto Angela

Now, as someone lucky enough to have lived 6 weeks in Rome, the best prep is to somehow get yourself to La Città Eterna and visit where it all went down. The Palatine Hill and the Appian Way are places with less tourists and allow you to contemplate the power and splendor of Rome.

In any redditors want some fresh inspiration I definitely recommend reading "Failure Is Not an Option" by Gene Kranz to see probably the greatest engineering perspective of the start of the US space program.

The first step would be realizing that you are not alone. This book is written by an educate Jewish Doctor that survived Auschwitz. I recommend it to you. I hope I will never have to go through what those people went through, but this guy picked up and moved on, leaving wisdom on a disparate situation. If you cannot afford books check your library or pm me and I'll see what I can do. Cheer up!

> But the way he talks about how Monopolies come and go is sort of the proof that they aren't really problems.

From the video, Standard Oil, American Tobacco, and Microsoft are all examples of competition and innovation stifling companies that resulted in government anti-trust action. Since the 1980s, US anti-trust law has loosened to mean only companies that destroy consumer surplus via artificially high prices. One of the interesting debates of the past couple years has been whether zero-cost monopolies Facebook and Google are stifling innovation. The EU has produced court rulings within that past year that indicate they believe the answer is yes. See this most recent stratechery post for some analysis.

If you're interested in the formation of the modern corporation, and the evolution of the railroad/commodity collusion and legislative bribery that allowed oil and steel magnates to become the world's richest people, I'd recommend Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr..

hmmmm... well, not much that Ive read fall under that price range. Do you like in the USA, can you use Amazon?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0786884517/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1495585796&sr=8-6&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=pirate+biography&dpPl=1&dpID=51-foWCviEL&ref=plSrch

That one is 9-10 dollars, the story of Captain Kidd. If you dont mind used editions some of the stuff by Robert K Massie is under 5 dollars for print.

Dreadnought is about Britain and Germany gearing up do WW1

Peter the Great was one of the most famous Tsars of Russia

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/ol/0345298063/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

Ghenghis Khan and The Making of The Modern world was fascinating

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/ol/0609809644/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

The republic of Pirates was pretty interesting too

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/ol/015603462X/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

i linked to used books, so be aware of that - i buy almost all of my books used in "good" or "great" condition and have no complaints so far.

Genghis practiced a meritocracy form of government which means that Genghis chose those to be in positions of power based on merit not blood or obligation. The main body of this government was the Kurultai a council of Mongol chiefs headed by Genghis himself. All people within the Empire had to adhere the Yasa which were the laws of the Mongols that Genghis had modified and enforced in the Empire. The citizens of the Mongol Empire were free to practice any religion that they pleased, which helped people accept his rule more rapidly. The infrastructure of the Empire was amazing, it was an infrastructure that may have inadvertently triggered the Italian Renaissance because of the spread of knowledge and technology throughout Asia and Europe. Word traveled quickly thanks to the Yam, genghis' horse driven messenger. Traders of the Silk Road were protected and allowed to travel easily from country to country (though the golden age of the Silk Road would not come to pass until the rule of Kublai Khan). Genghis had an almost laissez faire approach to ruling he knew that if he tried to change too much in the lands that he conquered he would have constantly had to keep ruled lands in check. There's was no need for this of course, genghis launched many of his territories forward economically and even those whose economy was crippled because of them, i.e. Baghdad, were still pacified completely thanks to the military genius of Genghis Khan.

Edit for clarification: The Yasa was not created by Genghis only modified. I was referring to Genghis' war with the Caliph not Hulagu Khan's sacking of Baghdad, should have made that more clear. And I know it's only a theory but in my opinion the spread of technology because of the expansion of the Mongol Empire was one of the causes of the Italians Renaissance due to the combination of Asian and European influence that helped start the Renaissance.

For more information please refer to this book.

I don't really know what you mean by "jingoistic emancipation circlejerk" and I have to be honest that the particular phrasing you chose for that sort of sets me on edge (it's like asking for an FDR bio without the "jingoistic Pearl Harbor circlejerk", in that it was a crucial and formative moment of his presidency), but nonetheless, my two favorite Lincoln books are Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years and Team of Rivals. The former is much more of a straight up bio, but the latter provides a lot of fascinating context and also includes a good retelling of my favorite Lincoln story, about the barn fire and his son's horse.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Goodwin.

Interpreting a part of Lincoln's greatness as being the ability to understand and mediate cooperation amongst different-minded people, the books is pretty relevant to today's partisan politics.

Plus, Doris Goodwin is the funny sweet lady Jon Stewart often has on his show for things related to American history. She's also a fantastic historian to boot.

http://www.amazon.com/Team-Rivals-Political-Abraham-Lincoln/dp/0743270754/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291129846&sr=8-1

I read two history books this year that were excellently written and very-well researched. One is "Augustus: The life of Rome's First Emperor" by Anthony Everitt and The First Crusade: A New History: The Roots of Conflict between Christianity and Islam. Both great books and they'll keep you engaged the whole time. I truly recommend them.

Yes, I do!

The 3 best ones that I have ever seen are:

The Sealed Nectar

Muhammad: His Life Based On The Earliest Sources

In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad

The last one is by Tariq Ramadan. It would probably be the easiest one to digest/read for someone not too familiar with Islam or Muhammad peace be upon him.

Biographies are super interesting in general. I've read Steve Jobs and Elon Musk's, currently in the process of reading Rockefeller.

Speaking of, that would be my recommendation : [Titan: The Life of John D. Rockfeller.](https://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr/dp/1400077303/ref=sr_1_1? ie=UTF8&qid=1527576392&sr=8-1&keywords=titan&dpID=51puoryvTiL&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200QL70&dpSrc=srch) What better way to learn about empires than to read about the richest man since the invention of capitalism that had a monopoly on the oil industry, which would put him at a 400 billion dollar USD net worth today.

Uhm... Where have you read that? Strictly speaking, Caesar was a war criminal in more than one aspect, but I can't recall ever reading about him doing that. Crassus did, however.

Caesar is remembered today in large parts because of Shakespeare, who took a liking to him. But more to the point, because he was an outstanding general, a decent politician and a major figure in the turbulent years of 1st century BCE Rome. I wouldn't say that he's one of the only rulers who is remembered either, but he's without doubt one of the most well-known.

If you're interested in learning more about the man I'd suggest you pick up Adrian Goldsworthy's Caesar: Life of a Colossus, as well as a have a read through of Caesar's own De Bello Gallico, available online.

My personal favorite non-fiction books that sound incredibly boring, but are actually really interesting:

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky It's a book about salt! The history of salt, the cultural significance of salt, salt production through the ages, all about salt. It's amazing.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky It's the history of Cod! The author spends a good portion of the book talking about how Cod is both incredibly bland and tasteless, but also how western culture loves that bland fish and all of the interesting political movements for Cod.

And for a more serious topic: Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich. This is multiple personal accounts of the Chernobyl disaster, all deeply interesting, and deeply sad. I'm only an episode into the Chernobyl HBO series, but I'm pretty sure that show is following some of characters from this book. It's a high quality book that I think is worth everyone's time, it doesn't go super in depth with the technology, just the human aspect.

Marine Sniper Charles Henderson (bio of Carlos Hathcock)- http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Sniper-93-Confirmed-Kills/dp/0425103552

Hathcock's story of his time as a sniper in Vietnam is legendary. Best part of the story is when the NVA send their best sniper to 1v1 Hathcock in the jungle, both snipers had awesome names (the Cobra v the white feather).

Seconding the Theodore Roosevelt Trilogy by Edmund Morris. I know they're long but I promise you if you pick it up you'll fly through them. He had a fascinating life and Morris is such a good writer it never really gets dull.

I have a couple of books about big game hunters on my list, but I have not read either of these yet:

• Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett, memoirs of a big game hunter in India in the early 20th century.
  
  
• The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant, about hunting a killer tiger in remote Russia.
  
  As for explorers, the best non-fiction I've read about explorers are The Lost City of Z by David Grann, about Percy Fawcett's attempts to find Eldorado in the jungles of South America, and Endurance by Alfred Lansing, about Shackleton's survival after his doomed polar expedition.
  
  It occurs to me that none of these are set in Africa. Hope that's not a deal-breaker.
  
  I'll also recommend my favorite memoir of all time, Papa Hemingway by A.E. Hotchner. It's about his time spent traveling with Ernest Hemingway, who was something of a hunter and adventurer, and recounts a lot of very exciting trips to exotic locales in which manly deeds were done.

Many monk mode books are available as audiobooks on YouTube, or PDF files through torrents.

It's actually great that you're on a low budget for monk mode. Living frugally is a great activity for building a sense of self-efficacy.

Absolute essentials may be:

A notebook to plan, journal, record exercise, etc.

One or two books that you refer back to often enough, or work through slowly (Meditations by Marcus Aurelius comes to mind: http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Thrift-Editions-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/048629823X)

Maybe some camping gear or other stuff that gets you into nature more often. Tent/sleeping bag/lantern/firemaking supplies.

Outside of that, you don't need anything, and tbh, it's monk mode.. monks don't need anything and that's part of the experience. Good luck man!

P.S. second u/Dr_D1amond on supplements

As others have mentioned, a prophetic biography is one of the best places to start. I prefer Karen Armstrong's book on the prophet Muhammed as the starting point for pretty much everyone, but especially those from a nonMuslim perspective.

I unfortunately don't have good reading recommendations about daily routines and their association with belief. If you feel comfortable doing so, that may be something you can get from your local mosque. They tend to be well-equipped, at least where I have lived in the US, to be able to deal with people who have questions about Islam.

The one thing I'll note here is that I think a lot of people are surprised by the level of diversity within the religion and the way that practice changes from one culture to the next. While there are many core shared elements, Islam definitely means different things to different people when you look across the totality of belief and practice across the whole world.

This question gets asked all the time on this sub. I did a search for the term books and compiled this list from the dozens of previous answers:

How to Read the Solar System: A Guide to the Stars and Planets by Christ North and Paul Abel.


A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.


A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.


Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan.


Foundations of Astrophysics by Barbara Ryden and Bradley Peterson.


Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program by Pat Duggins.


An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by Chris Hadfield.


You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station by Chris Hadfield.


Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the Space Transportation System by Dennis Jenkins.


Wings in Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle, 1971-2010 by Chapline, Hale, Lane, and Lula.


No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time by Claus Jensen.


Voices from the Moon: Apollo Astronauts Describe Their Lunar Experiences by Andrew Chaikin.


A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin.


Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight before NASA by Amy Teitel.


Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module by Thomas Kelly.


The Scientific Exploration of Venus by Fredric Taylor.


The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.


Into the Black: The Extraordinary Untold Story of the First Flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the Astronauts Who Flew Her by Rowland White and Richard Truly.


An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Bradley Carroll and Dale Ostlie.


Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space by Willy Ley.


Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Clark.


A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.


Russia in Space by Anatoly Zak.


Rain Of Iron And Ice: The Very Real Threat Of Comet And Asteroid Bombardment by John Lewis.


Mining the Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets by John Lewis.


Asteroid Mining: Wealth for the New Space Economy by John Lewis.


Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris.


The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe Report by Timothy Ferris.


Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandries by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson.


The Martian by Andy Weir.


Packing for Mars:The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach.


The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution by Frank White.


Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.


The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne.


Entering Space: An Astronaut’s Oddyssey by Joseph Allen.


International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems by Hopkins, Hopkins, and Isakowitz.


The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene.


How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space by Janna Levin.


This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age by William Burrows.


The Last Man on the Moon by Eugene Cernan.


Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz.


Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.


The end

PS - /u/DDE93 this list has all the links.

Another source along the same lines:

"Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford is a wonderful history book for light and fun reading. It has tons of great reviews and is available for audio book as well.

Amazon link

A potpourri of questions.

• What are your favorite books or reading material for getting your mind right? FWIW these are three of my favorites:
  
  • Man's Search for Meaning
    
  • Endurance
    
  • Unbroken
    
• What did you learn during the big events you wished you knew beforehand?
  
• What's your favorite little hack or trick?
  
• If selection is a 10. How would you rate HCL? Heavy?
  
• My favorite question: Why do you do it?
  
  

Hmmm... fiction? Non-fiction? First-person meaning told through a first-person narrative style, or just generally following a single person fighting for survival?

Fiction-wise, I'm a fan of To The White Sea by James Dickey. I've also always heard universally good things about the young adult novel Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, but have yet to read it myself.

In the realm of non-fiction, Touching The Void is a pretty incredible story, and was made into a stellar documentary film. Also, anything about the Shackleton expedition to Antarctica is worth checking out, so there you've got Endurance by Alfred Lansing, as well as Shackleton's own account, South: The Endurance Expedition.

It might not be so much a book on conspiracies but if you wanna know how true power functions behind the scenes I can think of no better book than

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

greatest biography ever written imo

Not OP but you should totally read Robert Caro's The Power Broker. It's a ~1,500 page tome but it's a fantastic breakdown of the history of Moses specifically, and Jacobs as well.

Then follow it up with Jacobs' Death and Life of Great American Cities for the counter argument. After that you can decide if you want to get into City Planning as a career. Lots of politics unfortunately...

Clearly this right-wing libertarian dude doesn't have to commute through Penn Station.

He's just wrong. Honestly, if there was a reasonable argument against historical preservation, it is not present in this blog post. Does he really think that Grand Central would still be standing if it didn't have landmark status? GCT was bought for a measly $80 million in 2006 because it's worth nothing to real estate developers as a train station (contrast that with the tiny footprint of 432 Park Ave. which has >$1B in value), but it has an incalculable benefit to New Yorkers.
He doesn't even make the case that landmarks increase rent prices (which could be worth discussing). He just wants to build things faster and without obstruction. Which is EXACTLY how they built things between the 1920's and the 1960's.

Yep. Btw these are two great books that talk about how the physical structure of cities, a.k.a. urban planning, has brought about the changes that we see in OP's picture, and that we can pretty much blame one person for making cities super car-centric: Robert Moses.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394720245/

The Death and Life of Great American Cities https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HWKSBDI/

Augustus by Anthony Everrit is a great place to start for the life of Augustus.

Tom Holland's Dynasty is amazing as well and covers all of the Julio Claudian dynasty.

For original source material, Plutarch's Lives and The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius.

It's already been mentioned here, but I'll mention it again: The History of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan is an easy way to digest this stuff. The production quality in the beginning is very poor, but that gets so much better as it goes on.

He published a book last year called The Storm Before The Storm, which is about how the Republic got to the point where men like Julius Caesar were able to come onto the stage and do what they did. There are some really disturbing parallels to our own times. While it's always a bit silly to compare America to Rome, the similarities are fairly stark. The paper back comes out later this month.

Duncan is also currently producing a podcast called Revolutions, in which he does narrative histories of the English, American, French, Haitian, South American, and Mexican revolutions, as well as the French Revolution of 1830, the pan-European revolutions of 1848, and the Paris Commune. I know this is off topic, but Duncan really is amazing and I never miss a chance to plug his work.

Edit: here are the two episodes of The History of Rome that deal with Augustus's style of rule. Caesar Augustus and Reigning Supreme.

I recommend these books:

• Jeffery Lang (3) books: Struggling to Surrender, Even Angels Ask and Losing My Religion.
  
  
• Jonathan Brown Hadith- Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World
  
  
• Muhammad Asad The Road to Mecca
  
  
• Tariq Ramadan In the Footsteps of the Prophet
  
  
• Karen Armstrong (2) books: Islam: A Short History
  and Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time
  
  
• Martin Lings Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources
  
  
• John L. Esposito Who Speaks For Islam?
  
  
• Nathan Lean The Islamophobia Industry
  
  
• Malcolm X The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Ossie Davis (Afterword), Alex Haley (As Told to)
  
  
• Sherman Jackson Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection
  
  
• Dr. Ejaz Naqvi The Quran: with or Against the Bible?
  
  
• Hamza Yusuf Purification of the Heart
  
  
• Imam Zaid Shakir's translation, commentary and notes on Imam al-Harith al-Muhasibi's Risala al-Mustarshidin Treatise For The Seekers Of Guidance
  
  
• Al-Nawawi Nawawi Forty Hadiths
  
  Side note on Quran translation:
  
  Stay away from
  
  
• The Penguin Koran (The Koran -Penguin Classics- by Anonymous and N. J. Dawood). Its been written by non-Muslim who also changed the order of the Suras. In fact, Dawood's translation might as well been written by Robert Spencer!
  
  Try:
  
  
• The Gracious Quran: A Modern-Phrased Interpretation in English
  
  
• Mona Siddiqui How to Read The Qur'an
  
  
• Bayyinah Podcast for a comprehensive tafseer with Nouman Ali Khan (The iTunes Podcast URL)
  
  
• Muhammad Asad The Message of The Quran
  
  
• Muhammad Abdel Haleem Understanding the Qur'an: Themes and Style
  
  Misc:
  
  
• Terry Alford Prince among Slaves: The True Story of an African Prince Sold Into Slavery in the American South
  
  
• Omar Ibn Said A Muslim American Slave
  
  
• João José Reis Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia
  
  
• Ahmad Dallal Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History
  
  
• Use this link to download Misc resources.
  
  
• Use this link to download copy of Quran translation by Muhammad Asad on on scribd.
  
  
• Use this link to download copy of Quran translation by MAS Abdul Haleem OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
  
  
• Use this link to download copy of Quran translation by Saheeh International (PDF)
  
  
• The Purpose of Life - Jeffrey Lang
  
  Movie:
  
  
• Journey to Mecca

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro

A bit more recent than the other suggestions already posted, but a riveting read (especially if you're a New Yorker).


One of the most acclaimed books of our time, winner of both the Pulitzer and the Francis Parkman prizes, The Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York (city and state) and makes public what few have known: that Robert Moses was, for almost half a century, the single most powerful man of our time in New York, the shaper not only of the city's politics but of its physical structure and the problems of urban decline that plague us today.

Yeah, I was just making a stupid joke.

As for the Islamic view of Genghis Khan, it depends on perspective. Genghis Khan was tolerant of Muslims and even sought after their intellectuals. But he also destroyed their populations. A lot of the estimates of the deaths caused by Genghis Khan's conquest are exaggerated, but that doesn't really affect the perception in much of the Muslim world. There are also a lot of dubious claims as to Genghis Khan's brutality.

It's true, from any perspective, that the Mongol conquest put an end to a long period of Muslim prosperity. Since the days of Mohammed, they had seen very few serious military losses. The common belief among Muslims prior to Genghis Khan was that their prosperity and military success was undeniable proof of the validity of their beliefs. They felt that Allah had blessed them with the ability to win battles and spread their religion. So Genghis Khan turned their world upside down.

All of my understanding of Genghis Khan and Muslim history come from Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World and Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, both of which I highly recommend.

I am really enjoying the trilogy by Edmund Morris. The first one is The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. The author has a wonderful voice and really strong use of primary sources.

Books regarding how to build your online business / extract value out of an email list come from people who collected their online offerings.

For example: Ryan Levesque "Ask" on how to build products through email lists are a compilation of user stories from what he's done online.

With that said if you're looking for general entrepreneurship books here are a few I would check out:

• My Startup Life by Ben Casnocha. Ben started a company in his teens. Recently he wrote a book with Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) called The Startup of You
  
  
• Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuck
  
  
• The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
  
  The best books to read to get through the thick and thin however are not business books. For example, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is excellent

Four random books from my nearest shelf: Underground Bases and Tunnels, Man's Search for Meaning, The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, Amberville.

Can't say I have read the five books you listed, but based on what I've heard about them... Amberville would probably be something you'd enjoy. :)

Edit: Have to throw this in: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. ;)

In that case, I suggest you watch this and pay attention to the dichotomy of striving for more vs being happy in the now, read this and see if you can relate to the feelings within you of pain attacks and the forces that seem to cause them within you, this and how meaning in what we do is more impactful than any other reason, and this where the drives of being content and wanting excitement are given the particular cases of domesticity and eroticism.

 

I also invite you to explore the creation of your own psyche through the influences of the time. Early in Mating in Captivity, Esther talks about a book detailing how sex used to be just a biological fact of reproduction, and over time has been turned into what it is today, a status of your own meaning. The things we hold important in the now are completely a construct of how we were raised, insomuch as the entirety of who and what you are, what you eat, how you vote, what you consider normal in society, relationships, all of that, is simply one of many ways your psyche can be built. And there are infinite ways it can be built.

Culture shock is a real thing. And it comes up when you understand and see that others take things you never thought to question, and do them differently because their psyches were constructed in that way. Ultimately, you will be happy when you truly allow all facets of your life to align with what you want to be, rather than what you think they should be.

Huh, interesting. Have you read many other nonfiction books about soccer? I've been thinking about picking up The Ball is Round. Looks like some interesting books.

I started Cod today and it's very good.

First I gotta say John McCain, he was actually the first political rally I ever attended in 2000 (during his early Republican Primary bid). However there was a few items that sorta pushed me to Barack Obama in the 2008 election, such as his vote against elevating MLK Day to a state holiday in Arizona (https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/apr/08/moveon/mccain-changed-position-on-mlk-day/) and the appointment of Sarah Palin as his running mate in that election cycle.

​

Additionally, I've always been a big fan of Ike Eisenhower; I think he really pushed America to continue investing in its infrastructure, and not rest on the successes America achieved in WWII.

​

And of course Lincoln is an interesting figure, sometime (sooner rather than later) I want to read the Doris Kearns Goodwin book, Team of Rivals, which was about Lincoln's cabinet. (https://www.amazon.com/Team-Rivals-Political-Abraham-Lincoln/dp/0743270754)

Thank you!

My favorite book is probably the most boring book to alot of people: The Power Broker by Robert Caro. It's all about how one man basically created the New York that we know today, and was the most powerful man in the State even though he was never elected to any position.

My favorite movie is probably Caddyshack. Because... it's Caddyshack!

Genghis Khan. He came from nothing, was kidnapped multiple times as a kid and promoted free religion and science. This is an EXCELLENT book.
http://www.amazon.com/Genghis-Khan-Making-Modern-World/dp/0609809644/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292968337&sr=8-1


He's often demonized because he's really the only person to push into the west from the unknown East

>What does this have to do with their content? Nothing.

On the contrary, I established that your primary source is a blog post which holds as much stature as the cartoon it and you criticize.

>There are mountains of material about this topic?

Yes there are several notable biographies on Tesla, and literally hundreds of books written about Edison, GE, the electrification war.


>Forbes dismisses 15% of the Oatmeal's piece? Really? Did you measure that number? Are you sure it wasn't 17%? Maybe 80%?

Yes, I did estimate that number. I wrote 14+15 (character/invention) claims on a discarded bank envelope that I use as a coaster. I felt the Forbes article focused on 3 invention claims, 2 character claims about Edison and 1 character claim about Tesla. I discounted the Edison claims because I'm well-read and I disagree, yielding 13.7% or if you would like to quibble 20.6%. In either case the magnitude is unimportant, because the Forbes piece does not address 17 out of 29 claims. It accepted 6 claims, the same contested. I'd love to see your estimates.

Nevertheless, I was being fairly generous in assuming the Forbes piece was correct in the statements it contested. I strongly disagree, specifically relating to the attempt to diminish Telsa's role in the development of AC.

>Don't insult me personally and pretend you're making an argument.

Given the beginnings of this thread, I'm amused by your posturing.

EDIT: I found this http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_response after revisiting your article.

As for legitimate reading, start here:

http://www.amazon.com/Edison-A-Biography-Matthew-Josephson/dp/0471548065


and I very much like this one, http://www.amazon.com/Tesla-Man-Time-Margaret-Cheney/dp/0743215362

I suspect this to be true, but I want to ask anyway... did you learn the history of snipers/marksmen, etc. during your sniper training and have you heard of Carlos Hathcock - White Feather and have you read any of the books about him, such as Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills I found his story to be truly fascinating.

Try something like this for potential answers related to Meaning of Life:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009U9S6FI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Try this for joy & happiness https://www.amazon.com/Book-Joy-Lasting-Happiness-Changing-ebook/dp/B01CZCW34Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1505429551&sr=1-1&keywords=dalai+joy

I highy highly highly recommend the last book.

I've got 27 years with chronic pain & disability but I don't like to talk to much of my experience as pain is so intensely personal

When those dark dark days and thoughts come to consume you, lay in a darkened room on a bed or as comfortable as you can make it, and try some mindfulness meditation, to help with the acceptance of those thoughts, if only from a moment by moment perspective..

Because really, that is all that matters

You're mistaking catch size for fish size; average cod catch in Iceland has hovered a bit over 1kg (average size for a 5 year old fish). A fish that size is just as likely to be caught off the Grand Banks it's just nobody really fishes that hard for 'em there anymore; adults are way migratory.

Despite all their management their spawning biomass has plummeted since 1950 (from more than a million tons to about 150,000) and their mostly just living off the protected spawning areas there and a shift in those fishes' maturation and growth rates observed over the past 50 years or so. This is a fishery that happily and regularly pushed a fishing mortality > .8 in the years following the exclusion zone imposition. IMHO their "management" skill is likely the luck of having a yet-to-be decimated set of spawning grounds more than anything. A sort of musical chairs of collapsing stocks; they had and fought to keep theirs. It was too late for the rest of the Atlantic. Am sure Icelandic fisheries folks would disagree, though!

But Mark Kurlansky does do a wonderful job writing up all that insanity.

off the top of my head:

Meditations, with The Inner Citadel as a reader

Letters from a Stoic

A Guide to the Good Life by Irvine

Do The Work by Pressfield as well as The War of Art by Pressfield

Managing Oneself by Ducker

Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl

What Predicts Divorce by Gottman

Nicomachean Ethics

Models by Manson seems to be popular on reddit

So Good They Can't Ignore You by Newport, as well

I'm currently reading Triumphs of Experience by Vaillant and find it insightful.

Marine Sniper. This is a classic book about Carlos Hathcock, a Marine who served in Vietnam and for many years (1967 to 2002) held the world record longest confirmed sniper kill. There are several famous encounters, including a multi-day stalk through exposed terrain to kill a Vietnamese general, the time he and his spotter pinned down an entire NVA battalion, the time he was being hunted by a counter-sniper and shot the guy through his scope (probably inspiring the similar scene in Saving Private Ryan), and the record-breaking long range shot itself with a .50 cal M2 machine gun modified for single shot and using a scope mounting system of his own design.

For a more modern take, I recently read Sniper One and thought it was pretty good. It's by British Army Sgt Dan Mills, about his tour in Iraq in 2004. I thought it was interesting to see the perspective of a modern sniper in a completely different environment.

And for what I think is the best fictional book I've read about sniping, check out Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter. Don't confuse it with the movie "Shooter" staring Marky Mark; the book is actually quite good. The descriptions of long range shooting are excellent, and have matched up well to my own (admittedly limited, strictly at the shooting range) experiences.

If you're interested in Genghis Khan, you should read Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. It paints him in a different light than we are used to seeing him in. When I read this book for a college course, it was the first time I realized how amazing learning about history can be. The author even came to give a talk at my school.

Now to get my history fix, I listen to Dan Carlin - he has a Hardcore History podcast on Genghis Khan that gets mentioned on reddit when he is brought up.

And if you still can't get enough on Genghis Khan, there's a good movie available on youtube worth watching

I'd recommend, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

If you feel this is a bit too gory and you are unable to relate to the story- I'd recommend you pick up a bunch of P G Wodehouse novels, where the lives are frivolous, there is no pain and everybody is just happy. They are like musicals without the music!

Good luck and remember, like everything else in life- this too shall pass.

So what you're saying is the book hasn't helped you as much as you hoped? :P

I don't know any books about that specifically, but I think Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and Marcus Aurelius's Meditations have a lot of really good stuff in them. Kierkegaard's book is about the abstract life of faith, while Marcus Aurelius's is a more down-to-earth practical guide for day-to-day life-- if I didn't know he was a pagan I could almost swear he was a Christian (I think a lot of the Stoics became Christians in the first couple centuries).

I encourage everyone to read Endurance, about his amazing trip to the Antarctic. The man was a badass like no other.