(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best historical study books

>Indeed there is still a coercive element to Syndicalism and Mutualism because, in the former there is the power of the union - it may well be representative or invoke direct democracy but it is still a power structure over which the invidual only has a token input (better than none granted).

You'd do better to talk to a syndicalist to get a proper response on why syndicates aren't coercive, but you've partly answered it yourself above - direct democracy, consensus decision-making, immediately recallable delegates not representatives etc. - added to which membership would be strictly voluntary of course. In essence, unlike under capitalism where the powerful coerce the powerless, with syndicates it's the powerless who hold the reins over those they, for a time and for a limited stated purpose, temporarily grant their collective power. I don't see that you've made any justification for the additional point that mutualism is coercive, so I won't respond to that unless/until you expand.

>We already have mutalist organisations in society, Co-op and John Lewis spring to mind and they perform reasonably well but not as well as less idealogically driven organisations.

I've had this debate before, fairly recently, so I don't want to spit out too much of the same material, but suffice it to say there are examples of mutualist cooperatives functioning fairly well on a large scale in direct competition with corporate capitalist concerns in a corporate capitalist State/world, where they are considerably hampered by those States' interventions on behalf of corporate concerns. The obvious prime example being the Mondragon corporation. If you read to the end of this post, you'll see I draw your attention to another reference which shows the claims of mutualists that their organisations can be as if not more productive than corporate capitalist ones are not just spurious assertions.

Not all coops and worker-owned businesses are created equal though, and - just as with environmentalism, organic produce, fairtrade, healthy-choices etc., many such labels are window-dressing (anarcho-washing?) for what are effectively capitalist concerns.

>the majority of humanity has not been free in the sense that you mean for hundreds if not thousands of years. We have replaced those freedoms with different types of freedom.

Indeed not, and those freedoms which were enjoyed were enjoyed under circumstances the vast majority of us would not wish to see the like of again - nomadism, bare subsistence farming, feudalism... Nonetheless, if you read the writings of contemporary political philosophers, moralists, industrialists and capitalists from the time when the British transitioned from feudalism into capitalism, there is clear, commonly and unashamedly annunciated thread running through it as to how to get the once tied peasants now freed common people to labour for their new capitalist masters in the factories rather than to choose work for themselves as and when they will. The solutions found ranged from throwing them off of their lands (directly through the abolition of copyhold title, or indirectly through taxation and enclosure), to the passing of laws limiting their ability to move around the country, to freely associate, poor laws etc.

>If we were to have a state/societal provided basics e.g. food, shelter then we as a society must pay for it. In our current incarnation of society we do have this in place to a basic degree. If you do not work there are benefits available to ensure that you have the basic necessities for life. Sure it is a struggle some times but the principle is clearly implemented there.

>How would you say that those currently on benefits differ from the principle of self-sufficiency as you understand it?

Obviously, the most important two elements are that the current welfare arrangements are State-provided rather than self-provided, and that, as a consequence, they are (ideally) set precisely at the level gauged to coerce people into an employee relationship. Anarchists would wish to organise things so people have the means to provide for themselves, but at a level that they are not compelled to seek outside employment.

>The reduction of jobs requiring "peculiar dexterity and steadiness of hand" make sense in a logical way as such skills, or more likely just human error mean that problems will be caused. Mechanisation in such cases is desirable for the reduction in error and increase in productivity. Labour for labours sake is unproductive I feel.

I certainly have no time for makework schemes, nor maintaining drudgery simply to keep more people working. Efficiency and productivity through technology are 'goods' which we should pursue aggressively, but then we should share the benefits from them rather than using them to enrich an elite. It's also notable that corporate capitalism is far more interested in maximising profit via technology than maximising efficiency and productivity. The works I obliquely referred to above are both by Noble and are touched on in that piece. He wrote two barnstormers which challenged the claims of the corporate capitalist factory model to be the most productive/efficient and included some case studies on worker-self-managment. These were America by Design and Forces of Production. It has to be said he was something of a Luddite though (e.g. Smash Machines, Not People!; Fighting Management's Myth of Progress and Progress Without People; In Defence of Luddism), unlike myself...

>I can see where Carson is coming from so to speak and I think the idea has merit based on the passage provided, it would be interesting to read more and see some case studies.

Most of Carson's books are available online for free, he also blogs extensively and usually replies pretty comprehensively to sensible and courteous queries regarding how mutualism would operate - though I'm sure he gets pissed off about having to debate the minutae in a way no capitalist would be expected to.

Most governments (for sure in Ontario) have programs to provide information and get you as prepared as you're going to be.

I just sent a detailed email to a friend of mine that is expecting as well and was in the same boat as you. Some of the stuff you probably haven't thought about yet, so take what I say below at face value.

Also, to all in the thread, the obvious disclaimer - these are my opinions. You might not agree with them. Also, my email was based on living in Toronto, but you can change to meet your situation


a) To start, there are a multitude of books available, as well as websites. Not to mention that I'm sure you'll be hearing stuff from friends and family. I've found it best to just filter all of that. I read only one book while my wife was pregnant, and that's because it was a good read - http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Meets-World-Smile-Toddle/dp/0312591349 (it's available at Toronto Library, so no need to buy it).

This book is also a pretty good guide - http://www.amazon.com/Be-Prepared-Gary-Greenberg/dp/0743251547 (again, also at TPL)

Here's what I found with books - Most of them have the same tone when it comes to men - "Dude, no more going out to party, and since you're stupid as hell, here are the basics"

So don't spend too much time reading 1,000,000 different books - it will be repetitive.


b) My wife and I took the prenatal courses at St. Joseph's Hospital. They helped because I learned a lot, and they were great information. Definitely helped put my mind at ease because I really knew nothing about raising a child.


c) Stroller / Car Seat. This is a toughie. Scenarios as follows:

i) Buy a travel system. This is for convenience. It's an infant seat & stroller in one package. You take the infant seat out (with the baby in it) and it locks directly into the stroller. Easy transport, no fuss. Downside - infant seats are only good until they're 6 months old. Then you have to buy another car seat.

ii) Buy the stroller and infant seat separately. Doesn't really make sense to do this, but it's an option.

iii) Buy the stroller and a convertible car seat separately (this is what we did). A convertible car seat covers from 5lb to 70lb, so basically the entire time the child needs a car seat. The downfall with this compared to a travel system is that you have to take your child out of the car seat to bring into the house / put into the stroller / etc. If (s)he's sleeping, there's a chance they'll wake up.

We also bought baby carriers (Ergo Baby, Mobi Wrap) because we live right downtown, so walking around with a baby / taking the TTC with a baby is easier when they're strapped to you.


d) Clothes. Don't spend too much on clothes. There are outfits that cost far too much, and they grow so quick that the item of clothes is only used for 3 - 4 weeks. Plus it's the typical baby shower gift, so expect to get a bunch of clothes.


e) Feeding - know that it will be hard, whatever avenue your wife goes down. Just know that whatever she chooses, you need to support her and remind her to stick through it because whether it's formula or breast, it's hard. (if you don't know, they have milk / formula exclusively until 6 months)

My wife is a big fan of the Boppy pillow. Just one of many items out there. We also got a Pashmama, which is a cover for when my wife wants to feed in public.


f) Sleeping - I made the mistake of buying a crib right away, and I set it up and everything, only to have my wife decide that she wanted a bassinet, and also that she wanted our daughter to co-sleep. You will need a crib, just discuss with your wife what set up you want before you run out and buy one.


g) To elaborate on point F, the same applies for all other baby items. We have a bouncer, a crib, a bassinet, a play pad, and some toys. My appt is suddenly feeling very very small. While my daughter uses most of the items (still doesn't use the crib), I probably didn't have to buy everything at once.


h) Diapers. In our experience, Pampers Swaddlers have been the best. You will have leaks / blowouts / messes, and from there you'll determine what works best for your baby. A good price on diapers is $0.14 - 0.18 / diaper. Amazon.ca now has Amazon Family - http://www.amazon.ca/gp/family/signup/
It's a great service once you find out which diapers work best for you.


The rest of the stuff you'll learn along the way.
You need a diaper bag. Spit rags are essential. If the child's fingers are too small to cut his / her nails, you can file them down. Burp the baby after they eat (note: do this even if they fall asleep). Introduce pacifiers later on in life if breast feeding to avoid "nipple confusion". Etc. Etc.


There are so many things that you can't possibly learn from a book, and every baby is different, so the rest of the stuff you'll learn as you go along.



In the end - congrats and have fun!

The best thing you can do is take care of yourself and your partner. The first year, especially the first 3 or so months, are physically and emotionally draining. Knowing you can rely on each other, solve problems quickly, and resolve arguments easily will make things easier. Babies test the limits of our capabilities. Mutual support helps you be on top of your game.

Your wife is right about you reading some parenting books too early. It's nice to fantasize about how you will impart your words of wisdom, but, that's many years off and you have no idea who your kid is. Two books I liked a lot are Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads and Baby Meets World. Both books discuss what babyhood and development is like. Very tiny things like smiling at people or passing an object from one hand to another are considered major developments. Be Prepared, with it's dated cultural recommendations references and technology advice, is an excellent and funny how to book for the first year of parenting. It gives great well researched recommendations on what activities you can do with your child to help with different stages of development. Baby Meets World gives a more global perspective on what babies are and contrasts current trends in child rearing with approaches from different eras.

The stuff you are worrying about is going to take a lifetime to teach. Your kid will grow and change. So will you. Introduce your child to things you love early in small ways and build on it later. The best thing you can do right now is strengthen yourself and your marriage to provide the best foundation you can for the human you will be welcoming into the world very soon.

Also, subscribe to /r/predaddit. They have a fantastic community.

I recommend cooking! I was always kinda 'meh' in regards to it, but a few months ago my mother needed some help with making dinner and I was there, so I helped her. Since then I started picking up little things and parts of recipes before she decided to actually teach me. It's a pretty cool thing to do, and once you get the hang of it and begin making food for relatives/friends, you get to see their pleased faces. Always makes my day! There are people that say it's girly, but like /u/the_earl_of_grey said, it's a great life skill. Besides, you can make your favorite dishes instead of having to eat that horrible grub in your fridge.

If you're not interested in that, I also recommend reading a book or two. Maybe you can find some videogame-related books, like Ready Player One (I recommend it btw). If you're interested in history, I recommend A History of Knowledge by Charles Van Doren. Starts around 3000 BC, covers the revolutions, it's a great way to study History (especially in my grade) and teaches you interesting facts that your history teacher may have overlooked.

Other things you can do are:

• Learn a language in Duolingo (or at least start learning? :P);
  
• Read random articles in Cracked;
  
• Create pretty images in Silk.
  
  I was going to end this comment with 'We're in the internet, there's so much to do' but then I remembered I also get bored sometimes. Oh well.

This is an opinion piece written by and about Trump supporters.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/08/media_antitrump_frenzy_will_backfire.html

If someone supported Trump because he represented the right to say what you believed in the face of a culture that overwhelmingly labeled those beliefes racist/facist/sexist how would you respond to someone threatening your political win with violence? Coming from that point of view, it would confirm that you made the right choice. That Trump is the freedom candidate and his opposition is worse than you imagined in the past.


I think it's useful to view the anti-political correctness chunk of Trump's support in terms of a counter-culture movement.


https://www.amazon.com/Counterculture-Through-Ages-Abraham-House/dp/0812974751

I want to highlight the description on the back of the book.

"Product Description

As long as there has been culture, there has been counterculture. At times it moves deep below the surface of things, a stealth mode of being all but invisible to the dominant paradigm; at other times it’s in plain sight, challenging the status quo; and at still other times it erupts in a fiery burst of creative–or destructive–energy to change the world forever. 

But until now the countercultural phenomenon has been one of history’s great blind spots. Individual countercultures have been explored, but never before has a book set out to demonstrate the recurring nature of counterculturalism across all times and societies, and to illustrate its dynamic role in the continuous evolution of human values and cultures. 

Countercultural pundit and cyberguru R. U. Sirius brilliantly sets the record straight in this colorful, anecdotal, and wide-ranging study based on ideas developed by the late Timothy Leary with Dan Joy. With a distinctive mix of scholarly erudition and gonzo passion, Sirius and Joy identify the distinguishing characteristics of countercultures, delving into history and myth to establish beyond doubt that, for all their surface differences, countercultures share important underlying principles: individualism, anti-authoritarianism, and a belief in the possibility of personal and social transformation. 

Ranging from the Socratic counterculture of ancient Athens and the outsider movements of Judaism, which left indelible marks on Western culture, to the Taoist, Sufi, and Zen Buddhist countercultures, which were equally influential in the East, to the famous countercultural moments of the last century–Paris in the twenties, Haight-Ashbury in the sixties, Tropicalismo, women’s liberation, punk rock–to the cutting-edge countercultures of the twenty-first century, which combine science, art, music, technology, politics, and religion in astonishing (and sometimes disturbing) new ways, Counterculture Through the Ages is an indispensable guidebook to where we’ve been . . . and where we’re going. "

Counter culture movements feed off the violence used to suppress them. They feel like they are growing, and so do the people that they scare. If that is all true, then Trump is the begging.

I was on mobile before and couldn't answer as thoroughly as I'd have liked.

Basically, I take the approach that my kid hasn't read the books and doesn't know how they're "supposed" to act regarding sleep or potty training or anything else. So I read as many books on as many subjects as I can, figuring that there will be something useful from every expert. So for example I read all the big sleep books out there, from Ferber to Pantley to Sears, and I picked and chose what worked for me. I read about attachment parenting AND Babywise. I read Baby-Led Weaning and Super Baby Food. And it's ALL come in handy - my oldest hasn't fit a single mold perfectly, but having all those tools in my toolkit helped me help her (and myself).

For baby development, one of my favorites is [Baby Meets World] (http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Meets-World-Journey-Through/dp/0312591349) because it talks about what happens in the baby's first year but also gives a really good historical overview of different practices like feeding (from wet nursing to pabulum to the current breast/bottle debate), which helps me stop freaking out about the latest trends - basically, it gave me perspective. Touchpoints is another great development book, and The Language Instinct is a fascinating read on how language and cognition develop.

For blogs, I like Ask Moxie's archives.

comment content: This is an opinion piece written by and about Trump supporters.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/08/media_antitrump_frenzy_will_backfire.html

If someone supported Trump because he represented the right to say what you believed in the face of a culture that overwhelmingly labeled those beliefes racist/facist/sexist how would you respond to someone threatening your political win with violence? Coming from that point of view, it would confirm that you made the right choice. That Trump is the freedom candidate and his opposition is worse than you imagined in the past.


I think it's useful to view the anti-political correctness chunk of Trump's support in terms of a counter-culture movement.


https://www.amazon.com/Counterculture-Through-Ages-Abraham-House/dp/0812974751

I want to highlight the description on the back of the book.

"Product Description

As long as there has been culture, there has been counterculture. At times it moves deep below the surface of things, a stealth mode of being all but invisible to the dominant paradigm; at other times it’s in plain sight, challenging the status quo; and at still other times it erupts in a fiery burst of creative–or destructive–energy to change the world forever. 

But until now the countercultural phenomenon has been one of history’s great blind spots. Individual countercultures have been explored, but never before has a book set out to demonstrate the recurring nature of counterculturalism across all times and societies, and to illustrate its dynamic role in the continuous evolution of human values and cultures. 

Countercultural pundit and cyberguru R. U. Sirius brilliantly sets the record straight in this colorful, anecdotal, and wide-ranging study based on ideas developed by the late Timothy Leary with Dan Joy. With a distinctive mix of scholarly erudition and gonzo passion, Sirius and Joy identify the distinguishing characteristics of countercultures, delving into history and myth to establish beyond doubt that, for all their surface differences, countercultures share important underlying principles: individualism, anti-authoritarianism, and a belief in the possibility of personal and social transformation. 

Ranging from the Socratic counterculture of ancient Athens and the outsider movements of Judaism, which left indelible marks on Western culture, to the Taoist, Sufi, and Zen Buddhist countercultures, which were equally influential in the East, to the famous countercultural moments of the last century–Paris in the twenties, Haight-Ashbury in the sixties, Tropicalismo, women’s liberation, punk rock–to the cutting-edge countercultures of the twenty-first century, which combine science, art, music, technology, politics, and religion in astonishing (and sometimes disturbing) new ways, Counterculture Through the Ages is an indispensable guidebook to where we’ve been . . . and where we’re going. "

Counter culture movements feed off the violence used to suppress them. They feel like they are growing, and so do the people that they scare. If that is all true, then Trump is the begging.


subreddit: NeutralPolitics

submission title: Is civic violence against citizens an effective political tool? What forms are the most or least effective?

redditor: n4ggs

comment permalink: https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/5rwxst/is_civic_violence_against_citizens_an_effective/ddb37go

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.

If you can, I would pick up a few books put out by historian Bernard Lewis. His expertise involves the history of the Near and Middle East, especially in concerns to Islam and its interaction with the West. I would recommend reading through The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. The books especially delves into the politics and economics that have helped to shape the Middle East into what it is in contemporary times. Well worth the read.

For pre-Islamic cultures, I don't have any direct resources since I am not well read up on said periods of time. I could help point you in a good direction perhaps. First, I would consider researching Nestorianism. It was a Christian sect which arose in the Christian world throughout the Asia Minor, and it was one of the major religions of the region prior to the emergence of Islam.

The second time period I would point to would be towards the various kingdoms and civilizations that would emerge Before the Christian Era. One of the most interesting to emerge in my opinion were the early Yemenite kingdoms. Two in particular stand out for me: The Sabaean Kingdom is one, and it arose in the 11th century BCE. The kingdom of Ma'in is another, and it arose in the 6th century BCE. Both kingdoms were involved in heavy spice trades. When you look up the locations of these formal kingdoms, geographically it will become clear why spice trade was so important to both kingdoms. Both also held particularly interesting religious practices and customs. The Sabaeans, as an example, were said to have temples devoted to the seven visible planets of Classical times, and these temples each had separate geometric shapes as well as characteristic colors and images associated with them. It is interesting stuff to read up about.

I hope this helped out a bit.

Edit: I would also highly recommend the /r/AskHistorians Book List. It contains a Middle East and North Africa section with a wide variety of suggested books. Well worth a look.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books

Because the reality is that even if rich people did not want to make money, a military-industrial complex would still exist. Security is the desire of every state, every institution, every person. It is necessary and fundamental to every other interest. Without security, you are assured nothing.

The need for security exists before wealth, because what good is wealth without the ability to secure it? Dollars alone do not equate to security either. Saudi Arabia spends more on its military than Russia. I doubt anyone believes Saudi Arabia could go toe to toe with Russia, and the Saudi track record shows that despite the money, their military is in shambles.

Rich people are attracted to defense industries because it is something that will never decrease in demand. No country can ever be secure completely. You may have superiority on the battlefield, but you may not have superiority in cyberwar. You may have superiority in conventional strength, but not unconventional strength. The ancient Greeks were able to reliably defeat the Achaemenid Persians on the battlefield, but because the Persians were superior in every other capacity, Greece eventually became a tributary region of the Persian Empire. The United States was superior to the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in funds and conventional strength, but its enemy had the upper hand in unconventional strength and in its ability to use time to its advantage.

Security will never be something that is not intensely desired. Weaker states submit to larger ones in exchange for security. This has been the way of the world since time immemorial.

I also want to address your claim in a comment below this.

> Wars are created to profit off of them.

This patently false. Wars form out of an inability of states to make credible commitments. Security is the goal of every state and individual. Because of this, states are heavily incentivized to be murky in how they communicate with others. You want to exaggerate your strengths sufficiently, but not to the point that they lose credibility. You want to downplay your weaknesses as much as possible. The reason for this is that there is an inherent need to never show all your cards. If your enemy wields a stronger hand, it is stupid to tell them you have a weaker one.

Another thing to consider is that states have interests. These interests may be wholly monetary or wholly power based. This is where wealthy individuals find a place to insert themselves into state political security. But is important to remember that most wars are the result of states being unable to rectify their necessity for security with the need of their rivals to be secure as well. Oftentimes, wars begin because there is an asset that two states both require to increase their security. Clearly both can not possess a mountaintop, and you surely cannot trust the other state to operate in good faith, vice versa.

A great real world example of how wars begin via the credible commitment problem is the First World War. There literally a thousand things credited for starting the war, but almost all can be reduced to the credible commitment problem. If the Austrians were able to make credible commitments to the Serbs, then Serb nationalism would likely have been more readily contained. If Russia could have made a credible commitment to Germany that their mobilization efforts were not intended for Germany, but rather solely as a deterrent for excessive Austrian punishment of Serbia, then Germany would have a much easier time deciding to not mobilize its war plans against France and Russia. If Britain and Germany could have made credible commitments regarding their naval buildup, then Anglo-German relations would have been better. If Germany could have made credible commitments to the rest of Europe that it was not seeking to disrupt the other powers in an attempt to attain hegemony, the animosity and distrust would have been lessened.

The point is that regardless of what the rich want, their needs and wants are always secondary to the security of the state. The state is far and away the most important actor in international politics. Even the Iraq War in 2003 had far more geopolitical motives than financial ones. Removing Saddam would enable the US to install a pro-US and anti-Iran regime in a key geopolitical region, the Persian Gulf is incredible important for the global economy, a pro-US Iraq would help contain Iran, isolate Syria, add an ally in the war on terror, and establishing a democracy would potentially help ease tensions among the major Iraqi groups: Sunnis, Shiites, and the ethnic Kurds. Now, the war was a complete failure in all those respects, but the war was never simply a ploy for Cheney to make some money. I am having a hard time sourcing the quote, so I will paraphrase what a British general in WWI said about money and war:

> A country will never let money get in the way of fighting a war.

People do get filthy rich off of war. That is undeniable and it is often times awful. But wars begin largely because people have a really hard time trusting other people over issues of security when they have competing interests regarding their security.

Here is some additional reading:

The Security Dilemma highlights the paradox that as we increase our security, others will be compelled to increase theirs, so we will respond in kind and so on.

Credible commitment regarding Iran this examines the difficulties each nation has with making honest agreements with the other.

The Causes of War by Geoffrey Blainey is a really thorough discussion of why other theories that explain the causes of war fall short and why credible commitment is a common thread in the vast, vast majority of conflicts. He also says that the information problem is also another reason, but the information problem is really a kind of commitment problem in and of itself.

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman is an examination of the early stages of the First World War.

"The Reasons for War" [PDF warning btw] by Matthew Jackson and Massimo Morelli breaks down the different kinds of commitment problems that states run into, and a lot of their talk revolves around a model of bargaining failure that was brought to the fore by a hella smart dude named James Fearon in 1995

This is something that takes a lot of practice, and many schools don't or can't teach it. Fear not, it's easier than it sounds.

First, some background:

http://www.amazon.com/Global-History-Modern-Historiography/dp/0582096065

This will introduce you to most of the historical method used today. It's quite boring, but if you're going to study history, you'll need to get used to reading some pretty dry material.

For a styleguide, use Diana Hacker's:
http://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Style-Manual-Diana-Hacker/dp/0312542542/

It will teach you everything you need to know about citations.

As far as getting better at source analysis, that's something that comes with time in class and practice with primary and secondary source documents. If you're just going into college, it's something you're going to learn naturally.

However, I do have some tips.
-The main goal of a piece of historiography is to bring you to a thesis and then clearly support that argument. All REAL historiography asks a historical question of some sort. I.E. not when and where, but a more contextual why and how.

-Real historiography is produced 99.9% of the time by a university press, NOT A PRIVATE FIRM. If a celebrity wrote it, it's probably not history.

-Most, if not all real historiography is going to spell out the thesis for you almost immediately.

-A lot of historiography is quite formulaic in terms of its layout and how it's put together on paper:

A. Introduction -- thesis statement and main argument followed by a brief review of past historiography on the subject.

B Section 1 of the argument with an a,b, and c point to make in support.

C just like B

D just like B again, but reinforces A a little more

E Conclusion, ties all sections together and fully reinforces A.

Not all works are like this, but almost every piece you will write in college is or should be.

Some history books that do real history (by proper historians) and are easy to find arguments in, just off the top of my head:

http://www.amazon.com/Wages-Whiteness-American-Working-Haymarket/dp/1844671453

http://www.amazon.com/Economists-Guns-Authoritarian-Development-U-S--Indonesian/dp/0804771820/

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Battalions-Crisis-American-Nationality/dp/0805081380

For the primer on social histories, read Howard Zinn:
http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States-Present/dp/0060838655/

What you're going to come across MORE often than books is a series of articles that make different (sometimes conflicting) points about a historical issue: (I can't really link the ones I have because of copyright [they won't load without a password], but check out google scholar until you have access to a university library)

Virtually any subject can be researched, you just have to look in the right place and keep an open mind about your thesis. Just because you've found a source that blows away your thesis doesn't mean it's invalid. If you find a wealth of that kind of stuff, you might want to rethink your position, though.


This isn't comprehensive, but I hope it helps. Get into a methods class AS FAST AS POSSIBLE and your degree program will go much, much smoother for you.

It is very interesting, two guys (Neil Howe and William Strauss) using their research based on generation cycles correctly predicted in 1997 that some kind of event between 2005 and 2008 would happen that would be the catalyst to fundamentally change America. Low and behold, what happened in 2008? We had a economic crash and a financial crisis. Here is a 35 min video of them on CSPAN from 1997 talking about their generational theory and research:

Neil Howe and William Strauss on The Fourth Turning in 1997 CSpan

The Fourth Turning is the first book they wrote detailing their research. (William Strauss passed away in 2007).

Strauss-Howe Generational Theory

To give you some perspective, the Millennial Generation is what they call a "Hero Generation". The most recent example of a "Hero Generation" is the generation that grew up during the Great Depression and fought in WW2 (which that generation is virtually gone now).

>Hero generations are born after an Awakening, during a time of individual pragmatism, self-reliance, and laissez faire (hmm that sounds kind of like our last 30 years). Heroes grow up as increasingly protected post-Awakening children, come of age as team-oriented young optimists during a Crisis, emerge as energetic, overly-confident midlifers, and age into politically powerful elders attacked by another Awakening. Their main societal contributions are in the area of community, affluence, and technology. Their best-known historical leaders include Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John F. Kennedy. These have been vigorous and rational institution builders. In midlife, all have been aggressive advocates of economic prosperity and public optimism, and all have maintained a reputation for civic energy and competence in old age.

If you have any interest in this kind of stuff, I highly recommend reading their book:

The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny(1997)

Neil Howe also published a book in 2000:

Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation

To quote one of the reviews:

>Still, the book is engrossing reading. It was actually recommended to me by a distinguished U.S. Army officer who suggested that the book could give military leaders insights into the wave of young people currently entering the armed services. I believe that many other professionals could also benefit from a critical reading of this book.


The recent research conducted today about the Millennial Generation largely supports Neil Howe and William Strauss generational theory.

Those two guy should be given some kind of recognition for their work.

It sounds comforting to say that Judaism is an immovable rock in the sea of time, and yes we have concrete proof that the text of the Torah is unchanged, but even that has some cracks (namely the case of the Three Scrolls) and the Torah itself is not the core of Jewish practice for anyone but groups like the Karaites. The Talmud, even in its unbroken sequence has proven to be a very organic, living document. That's both by design and necessity. Jews and Jewish practice has absolutely changed and adapted to a changing world. For example, prohibitions against providing aid non-Jews have been relaxed and allowances for things like polygamy and child marriage restricted. We can't pretend pre-digital laws perfectly fit into 2019 any more than we could expect to live as one did in Babylonia or Jerusalem during Talmudic times in the modern day. Judaism has evolved.

That's not to say halacha is flexible. It is absolutely rigid and unbending in a pure exercise of letter-of-the-law legalism. But the halachic process is far more organic than hardliners will admit. Rabbinic decision-making is not one of prophetic revelation or divine decree, it's made by humans in response to changing human conditions. But the core strength of the process does not lie in the verdict, as Loius Ironson points out in Angels in America, but the process of debate and investigation by which we get there that makes Judaism unique among religions. Many books have been written about the extrajudicial decisions made by rabbis over the centuries that deviate from the law based on the reality of a situation, and even some on the efforts to ignore or outright deny these halachic decisions. Herman Wouk talks about this in This Is My God, calling it the 'slow veto' of Judaism, whereby changes to modern living start with the decisions of old, but are adjusted by necessity as communities accept or reject where they must to survive.

I've come to think of the Torah less as 'the bible' and more as the Constitution. It's a framework document, the core of all the myriad of legal decisions and counter-decisions and counter-counter-decisions over the centuries. It in and of itself is not a working document for how to live life, but it's the core of the larger Jewish superstructure. We'll always be hated and viewed as backward by some and called bigots by others, and while the core is unchanging the greater Jewish lifestyle and understanding is able to adjust where it needs as it always has.

>What the Hatham Sofer wrote is straightforward enough. The Haredi velt has a long history of whitewashing history when it inconveniences the contemporarily accepted social narrative.

It is not disparagement, it is an acknowledged sociological fact that has been documented time and over again. For a lengthy study of the phenomenon see Dr. Marc Shapiro's "Changing the Immutable".

If in this specific context, you would like to understand how I believe it constitutes whitewashing, see this excerpt:

>Perhaps the posek most responsible for creating resistance to accepting the Hatam Sofer at face value was the Maharam Schick... There is certainly no one capable of denying the status of the Maharam Schick as a leading posek and communal leader of the second half of the 19th century, and as the Gadol who came closest to inheriting the mantle of leadership of his teacher, the Hatam Sofer. But... The Ḥatam Sofer certainly did not consult Rabbi Schick (who at that time was still engaged in private study in Halitsch) before composing his 1837 reply to another former student ― Rabbi Horowitz, Chief Rabbi of Vienna since 1829. Rabbi Schick certainly did not receive any direct information on this issue from his revered teacher, for if he had, he most certainly would have mentioned
it at some point in the two Responsa that he composed regarding MBP [mesisah b'peh].
.

As for a "rule one warning" - I have not been a "jerk" (though your suggesting I have been seems kind of jerky). If the moderators feel the need to now censor me after years (longer than you've had your account) of demonstrated civil participation on this forum, I will definitely have to reconsider my participation in /r/Judaism.

I can recommend a neat book called Periodic Tales by Hugh Aldersey-Williams. It's a history of the discovery of each element on the periodic table, and so it becomes a brief overview of the state of science and engineering from thousands of years ago to the present day. It sounds incredibly dry, but it's written for lay audiences and it's actually fun to read, full of historical anecdotes and colorful characters.

I'll also point to the /r/askhistorians book list, which has a section on the history of science. These will be a mix of scholarly and popular works, but they're all recommended by the esteemed panel of experts over there, so they're probably good.

So many possibilities. I recommend these books:

What If?

What If? 2

Some personal favorites (both from these books and from other srouces, including my own idle musings):

• What if William lost the Battle of Hastings? It was close; he was nearly killed, whic would most likely have ended the battle in Harold's favor. England would never have become Norman England, and would have remained a part of the Nordic economic sphere instead of becoming part of the Romance economic sphere. THere's a good chance that, instead of beginning to contract with the loss of the English economy, the Nordic economy would have continued to expand westward, leading to broader contact between Europe and North America hundreds of years earlier, and to engagement between Europeans and Americans on less lopsided terms.
  
  
• What if Alexander had not died in his 30s, but had lived long enough to consolidate his empire and realize his dream of a long-lasting Hellenic empire over most of the known world? His cause of death is not known for certain, but descriptions suggest it was due to a fever--a fluke occurrence that could just as easily never have happened. Alexander was not only one of the greatest generals in history, he was a missionary who desired to spread a vision of Hellenic civilization learned from his tutor Aristotle across the world, and made one hell of a good start at it before his untimely death. What might the classical world have looked like if he hadn't died in his 30s, but had lived to a ripe old age?
  
  
• What if John Adams had won the US election of 1800 instead of Thomas Jefferson? The election was extremely close, and the outcome depended on several fairly unlikely circumstances. It could easily have gone either way. If Adams had remained in office a host of important developments would most likely have turned out very differently.
  
  As one example, the Louisiana Purchase might never have happened, meaning that the whole center of the present-day continental US, including Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and more would have remained French (or perhaps even Spanish) territory. New Orleans would have remained a French city. The Purchase was a plan of questionable legality, a constitutional gamble on Jefferson's part that he managed to get away with.
  
  As another example, Adams and Hamilton had been supporters of the rebellion of Toussaint L'Ouverture in Haiti against the French crown. Jefferson was not. Hamilton and Adams saw L'Ouverture's rebellion as squarely in the same spirit as the American Revolution, a rising up of colonials against an oppressive foreign ruler. Moreover, they saw Haiti as a potential ally against the future ambitions of European royalists. Jefferson, on the other hand, as a Southern planter, was acutely aware that L'Ouverture's rebellioon was also a rebellion of African slaves against white masters, and knew very well that, whatever his own philosophical leanings might be, the southern American colonies would never tolerate an alliance with a state founded on a slave rebellion, because of fears that it would ignite a similar rebellion at home. Jefferson took the White House and the friendship between the US and Haiti failed to materialize--but it could have gone the other way.
  
  There are tons more interesting possibilities. The books I linked cover lots of them.
  

> orthodoxy has always had the same beliefs and the same observances. The only changes are in regards to custom, and even then at a glacial pace.

The order in which the blessing vs lighting the candles changed in Hadlakat Nerot specifically because of the Esseans their are others but that is the one that I can think of offhand.

I have on my ever expanding reading list a book about changes in Orthadoxy called Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History by Marc Shapiro that I want to get to. The People's Prayerbook series (Hoffman) goes into some good history as well but they are easier used as a reference (IMO). Their is also a good article on the above book here.

The article points out some other items like the fact that men were not allowed to use mirrors, and one opinion in the Talmud was to allow fowl and milk to be cooked together. Orthodox Judaism does change they just do it in the Talmud, but that also allows for re-writing of things. *Rabbinic Judaism itself was only created after the destruction of the second Temple and takes a lot of it's practices from the Babylonian exile.

I also agree the earth is round. That being said, modern flat earth belief dates back almost 300 years. It is a fascinating history that reminds me of seances and crackpot medicine of the 1800s. There is an excellent book https://www.amazon.com/Flat-Earth-History-Infamous-Idea/dp/0312382081 that goes into detail how the pseudo science of flat earth spread through England and then through the rest of the world. It was presented as both a religious movement, supporting the Bible, and as a fake form of astronomy. Great book. Amazing history.

I do not get all the love for the shoddy history of John Green's 'Crash Course'. Wikipedia provides more balance and nuance than does John Green. Usually in threads like these people jump all over each other in a rush to endorse Dan Carlin's 'Hardcore History' or Mike Duncan's 'History of Rome' podcasts.

For OP's purposes 'Hardcore History' is probably better since he jumps around from period to period with his various series'. Find one you like, listen to it, pay attention to who he lists as his sources and then read them.

If OP wants something a little more macro, Charles van Doren's 'A History of Knowledge' is a good place to get a broad overview of Western Civilisation. Written in a easy-to-read layman's style (the guy spent years as an Encyclopedia Brittanica editor). And for anyone wondering, yes, this is the same Charles van Doren that Ralph Feinnes played in 'Quiz Show' if you ever wondered what happened to him.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Knowledge-Past-Present-Future/dp/0345373162

Antony Beevor's Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945 were superb narrative histories of World War Two in the East. On the American end, the first two volumes of Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy - An Army at Dawn and The Day of Battle are great. I think somebody else mentioned The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. Just the first paragraph of that book is worth the price of the paperback.

If you're not into the whole military thing, The Worst Hard Time by Tim Egan covers the dustbowl era in the southern plains. Reads like an epic novel.

All of these suggestions prioritize craft of writing over intellectual rigor. I studied history, so I have a keen appreciation for the value (and the limits) of academic history. These books are not that sort of history, though I don't think any of them get any facts egregiously wrong. It's just that they're remarkable for being well-written - which should appeal to a fiction enthusiast - not for being pathbreaking academic treatments of their subject matter.

Her Guns of August is wonderful too.

It has one of the most celebrated openings in modern narrative history.


>
“So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and green and blue and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens – four dowager and three regnant – and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.”

WELCOME! For a fantastic introduction to feminism aimed at an audience of men, check out Shira Tarrant's Men in Feminism. It's wonderfully accessible, quick, and easy to read. Here it is at Amazon. Used copies for under $3! http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1580052584/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

I actually think ancaps play this game with capitalism. The good things are the result of the market and capitalism, and the bad things are the result of statism and corporatism. But a closer look, like for instance that done by historians like David F. Noble and economists like Mariana Mazzucato shows that, in fact, the history of innovation -- especially technological innovation -- is basically the story of the state. Which lines up nicely with the history, which shows the state was crucial in creating the conditions (via coercion and mass murder) for capitalism to come to dominate society.

In addition to many of the other books that others have listed (namely Kissinger and Mearsheimer) I have listed a few other books that I would highly recommend reading.

And because you are interested in learning more about the Middle East, be prepared to read. A lot. The Middle East is a far more complex place than most people imagine and understanding the region requires a great deal of knowledge. I have been studying the Middle East for nearly a decade and I still feel like there is so much that I do not know. I would start by reading reputable news sources every day. Places like The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, Financial Times, are the Los Angeles Times are good English language news sources that you should look at. Additionally, I have written up a suggested reading list for learning about the Middle East, though it is a bit more security-related since that's my area of expertise. I hope it helps. And feel free to ask any questions if you have them.

Books - International Relations, Theory and Beyond

• Daniel Drezner - Theories of International Politics and Zombies. A creative and humorous book that seeks to explain the major IR theories in a manner that is easy to understand. Good for establishing a base understanding of international relations.
  
• Bruce Hoffman - Inside Terrorism. Quite possibly the book on terrorism. Written by one of the field's best scholars, this books provides the best introduction and overview on what terrorism is and its history over the past century. Just be sure to purchase the 2006 edition.
  
• Graham Allison - Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. An examination of the different levels of how decisions are made, using the Cuban Missile Crisis as a case study. Another essential book for understanding how different states, agencies within a government, and even individuals, can have major impacts on foreign affairs.
  
• Carl von Clausewitz - On War. One of the most significant books on understanding war in world; its frequently listed alongside Sun Tzu's Art of War. It is essential reading for anyone interested in military affairs and how it plays into politics. Though you only need to read the 1st ,2nd, and maybe 8th chapter, everything else is unnecessary.
  
  

  Books - General History of the Middle East
  

  
  

• Albert Hourani - A History of the Arab Peoples. This is widely considered to be the definitive book on history in the Arab World.
  
• Eugene Rogan - The Arabs: A History. Another essential and critically acclaimed book on Arab history.
  
• Roy Mottahedeh - The Mantle of the Prophet. Role of religion and religious figures in Iran before and during the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
  
• Mark Lynch - The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East. An outline of the causes, reactions, and consequences of the Arab Spring.
  
• Thomas Barfield - Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. Afghanistan is usually not considered a part of the Middle East in academic research, so I am including this one. It's probably one of the best overviews of Afghan History.
  
  

  Books - Middle East Military History
  

  
  

• Kenneth Pollack - Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991. Probably the best book on Arab militaries culture and effectiveness and warfare in the Middle East between 1945-1991. Very extensive and informative.
  
• Steven Ward - Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces. A well-written history of Iran's military, from the Safavid Empire to the 21st century.
  
• Ahron Bregman - Israel's Wars: A History since 1947. A terrific book outlining Israel's strategic decision making for its military operations since its founding as a country.
  
• Bruce Hoffman - Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947. A look at the establishment of Israel and the development of the current Arab-Israeli conflict.
  
  

  Books - Middle East Terrorism and Substate Violence
  

  
  

• Daniel Byman - Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know. A terrific primer on al-Qaida, ISIL, and jihadism.
  
• Lawrence Wright - The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Probably the best book for outlining the history of al-Qaida and why 9/11 happened.
  
• Michael Wiess and Hassan Hassan - ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror. One of several recent books on ISIL, this one provides an overview on the history and organization of ISIL.
  
• Barry Rubin - Revolution Until Victory?: The Politics and History of the PLO. Although a little old (published in 1996), this books does a great job chronicling the history of the PLO and its role in the Palestinian struggle.
  
• Ahmed Rashid - Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. One of the best books on the rise and fall of the Taliban.
  
  

  Books - U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East
  

  
  

• Bob Woodward - Obama's Wars. Outline of the U.S. foreign policy decision making towards Iraq and Afghanistan in the early years of the Obama administration.
  
• Kenneth Pollack - The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America. A good overview of tensions between the United States and Iran.
  
• Michael R. Gordon - The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama. Follows U.S. strategic and political decision making process during the Iraq War and the U.S. occupation.
  
• Peter R. Mansoor - Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War. An extensive outline of the development and outcome of the Surge during the U.S. Occupation of Iraq.
  
• Steve Coll - Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. A widely popular and acclaimed book on U.S. covert operations from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan until 2001.
  
• Mark Mazzetti - The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth. An overview of the CIA's targeted killing program against terrorist organizations.
  
• Michael Morrell - The Great War of Our Time: The CIA's Fight Against Terrorism--From al Qa'ida to ISIS. Written by the former acting director of the CIA, this book examines U.S. counterterrorism successes and failures of the past two decades.

Doesn't change the reality of the situation. Millennials as a group are moralistic and judgmental, with strong aversion to hypocrisy and inauthenticity. We were raised to be that way, and so it's unlikely to ever just go away. We have enormous untapped power. Either use it or lose it.

There's a great study of Millennials that was put out by William Strauss and Neil Howe back in the early '00s that lays out a ton of great evidence and analysis regarding generational values based on how we were raised, educated, and protected by society. You should check it out, lots of useful insights.

All 3 of these recommendations are good overviews. The classic about the start of the war is Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August"
Amazon
It won the Pulitzer prize for a reason. She was a journalist with a love of history and writes in a clear, flowing style that makes you want to grab the generals and statesmen by the lapels and shake the $hit out of them.

I highly recommend Don Carlin's Hardcore History podcast. I'm finishing Part V of the "Blueprint for Armageddon" which covers the war. A great overview that you can flesh out with additional reading.

Princeton is good, but do keep in mind that these are just review books. Took the exam this year with the Princeton review book and it was very helpful. Reading it from the actual textbook is better, because it omitts out the detailed parts and the review books summarize it. That being said, I've heard that from r/APstudents, the Amsco book is really good. Haven't bought it or seen anything in it, but I've heard a lot about in r/APstudents. I would read the text from the textbook they provide you(do reply the textbook), so you could learn more than what this books tell you. Also the curriculum of AP world is now different, so it could vary. There are now 2 AP world courses, which one you are taking?

As a APWH teacher, I tell my students that it's pretty difficult, but it's doable.

They key is to be prepared for how to answer MC questions when the answer isn't obvious (if it's obvious, read it again - it's probably a trap), have a solid overview of history, and know how to earn points on the writing.

Of course, difficulty is relative. What is hard for some people is easy for others and vice versa. Perhaps you're just naturally good at taking tests and won't have any issues. I've seen students that don't put any work in get 5s and I've seen students that work their asses off get 2s.

That being said... the lack of stuying is concerning. I'd recommend getting an APWH Study Book (I like AMSCO or Crash Course World History) and putting in some extra effort over the next month to make sure you've got it down.

Hold up, I think you're completely misreading my point.

>It protects me as a man in a shitton of things.

Of course it does, that doesn't make it an egalitarian movement though.

>The system is based on woman being submissed to men and men following a gender role of authority, competition, being mainly. They are countering that, for equality of relations.

Kind of, I think your summation of gender roles isn't the best, but yeah. I agree with the general point that men have a masculine role they're supposed to play, and women have a feminine role they're supposed to play. In most cases feminism challenges that or at least advocates for the freedom to choose what role you want.

The thing is that they're only kind of countering it. Feminism only counters sexism that negatively affects women. I don't think you're going to see a largely feminist campaign supporting putting more women in prison or giving women harsher sentences. In fact, the "Stop Violence Against Women" campaign was largely feminist supported, even though the vast majority of victims of violence are male, and, more importantly, the sexist standard that feminism initially challenged in the 1800s was advocating exactly the same thing. A lot of people get the idea that sexism was always "women are worse, men are better" when in reality the kinds of sexism that the initial feminist movements meant to challenge were more along the lines of "women are dainty, men are strong" which again, sounds similar, but isn't the same.

>Besides it's called feminism because they were the only ones defending these ideas for a shitton of time. The name was created because men didn't defend the cause until very recently.

It's understandable that you would think that, but it's factually incorrect, very significant quantities of men have supported the feminist movement since the very beginning.

>If a name called feminism offends you, you should rethink your worldview.

That's not at all what I'm saying. I was never against feminism, I'm saying it's not egalitarian, because it isn't.

Check out Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea for a description of this great society. The Canadian version of the society was more like a group from Monty Python. Great read.

The short version: Most people that say the earth is flat are having fun doing so. There has however existed numerous strong believers, for instance Samuel Rowbotham.

The first scholar to put consolidated sleep—today’s standard ‘one straight shot throughout the night’—under the microscope was historian Roger Ekirch. In his fascinating 2001 essay ‘Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber in the British Isles,’ Ekirch revealed that across a wide range of nationalities and social classes in early modern Europe and North America, the standard pattern for nighttime sleep was to do it in two shifts of ‘segmented sleep.’ These two sleeps—sometimes called first and second sleep, sometimes ‘dead sleep’ and ‘morning sleep’—bridged an interval of ‘quiet wakefulness’ that lasted an hour or more. (The interval itself was sometimes called ‘the watching.’) Ekirch’s subsequent work offered evidence that a segmented nighttime pattern persisted well into the twentieth century in many non-Western locales, including among indigenous cultures in Nigeria, Central America, and Brazil. During the period of nighttime wakefulness, Ekirch showed, different cultures elaborated rituals—of prayer, lovemaking, dream interpretation, or security checks—and while the rituals varied, the pattern itself was so pervasive as to suggest an evolutionary basis that somehow became disrupted in the modern West. So why did this mode of sleeping fall by the wayside, in favor of the eight-hour, lie-down-and-die model that has become an unquestioned norm? According to Ekirch, the main culprit was the spread of powerful artificial lighting in the nineteenth century in Europe and North America, and later in other locales.

More info in Ekirch's book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007HXFT2C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

History. I realized maybe a year ago that my knowledge of pretty much anything pre American Revolutionary War was pitiful. I'm currently reading this which is phenomenal but super dry so it's going slow. It's possibly my writer background but I'm really enjoying how much of early Arab/Muslim history is informed by a desire to write stuff down.

The Guns of August is a sometimes boring and tedious read, but answers your question rather well. The popular opinion back then was that The Great War would be this little scuffle for a couple of weeks or months and then everybody would go home. They had a really romanticized notion about the honor and glory of the war, combined with a lot of nationalism and social pressure to not "shirk" and volunteer for combat. Additionally, a lot of the tech and strategy used in the war had never been seen or contemplated before. Machine guns existed, and I believe they were used on some level during the Balkan Wars a few years earlier, but they were nowhere near as ubiquitous. Plus, the amount of artillery shelling, use of mustard gas and chemical warfare, innovations like tanks and airplanes, had never been used in the past and were probably inconceivable to most.

I suppose you could avoid the draft by heading to a neutral country, but most of these men were conscripted whether they wanted to be or not. But, when every boy of fighting age in your neighborhood is either conscripted or volunteering while everyone is cheering them on, it's pretty easy to see how a young man looking for glory would get swept up in the excitement.

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

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

>So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens - four dowager and three regnant - and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.

-Barbara Tuchman

You might want to check the book I mentioned. It's possible she was not relying on empirical evidence either, of course, but it seemed pretty well researched. I can go check her references when I get home.

http://www.amazon.com/Breasts-A-Natural-Unnatural-History/dp/0393063186/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374695892&sr=8-1&keywords=breasts%3A+a+natural+and+unnatural+history

It's entirely possible when she talked about this stuff it was based on the same stuff we've all "heard," of course.

Also, here's a blurb about a study regarding how composition of breastmilk changes over time:

>For the first time, scientists have shown that a complex mixture of HMO and a single HMO component produce patterns of short-chain fatty acids that change as the infant gets older.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120514122836.htm the actual study/journal article is listed at the bottom.

And some random other stuff that may be of interest:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/219681

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/f-sf-bms100109.php

There is counterfactual history. It has a very long tradition; Livy in the first century BCE was already asking what would happen if Alexander had marched west instead of east (Livy concludes Rome would have kicked his ass). This isn't quite what you describe in the sense that it doesn't have to make claims about necessary conditions for alternate outcomes (seems to me you get a get a laundry list. If one were to ask what would be necessary for Hannibal to win, you get answers like "it was necessary for Hannibal to have command of an army; it was necessary for Hannibal to gain access to Italy, it was necessary to mint coins, it was necessary to disrupt Rome's alliance system" all of which happened.)

I don't know how respected this approach is. In one sense counterfactuals are implied in any question that asks why something happened the way it did, and there are books like What If that have some very heavy hitters writing them. On the other hand, there are articles like this.
>But it's time to be sceptical about this trend. We need, in this year especially, to start to try to understand why the first world war happened, not to wish that it hadn't, or argue about whether it was "right" or "wrong". In the effort to understand, counterfactuals aren't any real use at all.

YMMV I guess.

Okay! So I have done some digging. And apparently, it takes a lot more digging than I realized. My local library has almost no progressive feminist books and actually no masculinist works. I was disappointed.

However, I was able to find a few books by snooping online that I believe fit the bill of "remotely not pitting masculinism and feminism against each other." I am not positing that they are things that you would necessarily like if you read; I haven't even read them myself. But they appear to be a step in the right direction.

• Men and Feminism by Shira Tarrant. She also wrote Men Speak Out, which looks like it would be an interesting read.
  
• The Gender Knot: Unraveling our patriarchal legacy by Allan Johnson. I don't know much about this work except from a summary found here:
  
  >A powerful approach to gender inequality that empowers both men and women to be part of the solution instead of just part of the problem. We are all living with an oppressive gender legacy called patriarchy. (...) He explains what it's got to go with each of us and reveals how both men and women can see themselves as part of the process of change toward something better (not matriarchy). (...)
  
  
• Ceasefire! Why women and men must join forces to achieve true equality by Cathy Young.
  
  Hopefully that's enough to answer your question. I'm sorry that I didn't find more; they are hard to find, and I have trouble sifting through things.

/u/yoshi_win, your list and earlier reference posts are excellent; I didn't intend to be hypercritical. Here are further references for your "reliable" category:

• Straus: Thirty Years of Denying the Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence
  
  
• Straus-Steinmetz-Gelles: Book Behind Closed Doors, one of the earliest works finding significant husband battering (>50%)
  
  
• Van Creveld: The Privileged Sex, a professional historian's work showing the privileges (more than compensating for disadvantages) which women have had from the dawn of history
  
  
• Kathleen Parker: Save the Males, a journalist's exposition of the case for helping men
  

Settle down. This TIL is more speculative than objective but that doesn't mean it's worthless. Not to mention respected historians have tackled counter-factual (i.e., What Ifs) scenarios in a similar manner; indeed, there is a two-book series of books called "What If" that tries to tackle how things would have turned out during pivotal moments in history.

Moreover, one doesn't have to be an Anti-Persian xenophobe to contemplate how history would have differed with Athens as a satrapy of Persia. True, it's possible that Greek thought on philosophy, society and politics may have still happened, but it's likely their dissemination would have been impacted without Alexander the Great to spread Hellenism, which itself had an impact on the development of Christianity.

It's a fascinating question and it opens up an "Butterfly Effect" can of worms if you allow yourself to consider it.

> male makes the rules.

I'm afraid not quite so. Marriage, from its initial institution, was in favor of women.

You can find more about it in my book, and if you need a more detailed historical analysis, check out the excellent book by Martin Van Creveld The Privileged Sex.

Relating to/Sympathizing with something is different from positively affirming it as the only truth, and shouldn't be mistaken for a claim. After all, they are only my personal feelings.

If you are seeking answers, I will redirect you to better sources than my feelings
https://www.amazon.com/Millennials-Rising-Next-Great-Generation/dp/0375707190

American Rifle is a good introduction to US military rifles. The Gun is a fantastic introduction to automatic weapons (Chiver's blog is worth a read too). Wolfe Publishing has a deal where you can get PDF copies of their three Magazines for about the price of subscribing to one for physical copies. They are a bit old fashioned but aren't extended ad copy like G&A is. Shooting Times is worth looking at online.

My knowledge of Middle Eastern history is severely deficient and my understanding of the nature of Islamophobia is null since I don't know shit about Islam. Would anyone happen to know of any good articles on Islamophobia or care comment on it? As for Middle Eastern history I've been thinking of picking up the second edition of Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples--I've read some pretty great things about it. All I know is that the region's been plundered by Western powers since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War and I imagine that this is generally why the area is so violent both internally and with the West.

Good books for this sort of meta-history:

Georg Iggers: Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge and A Global History of Modern Historiography.

There's also the short, but excellent, but German book Geschichtswissenschaft im Zeitalter der Extreme: Theorien, Methoden, Tendenzen von 1900 bis zur Gegenwart (Historiography in the Age of Extremes: Theories, Methodology, Tendencies from 1900 untill Today) by Lutz Raphael. He concludes that global history is increasing, i.e. less national history, more foreign professors in history departments, the rise of former third world countries' historiography and their proponents will make history increasingly multi-polar, which, coupled with more and more diverse fields of history (gender history, history of sub-cultures, etc) will increasingly diversify and fracture historiography. I tend to agree.

Addendum: This is, I think, especially eminent in the European Union, as professors' and students' mobility increases, and even school children are introduced into a transnational way of looking at the world and at history. For example, there is a history school book that includes French and German perspectives and can be used in both countries (translated into the appropriate language, but with no changes of content).

At Qwill2's request here is my reading for Spring / Autumn 2013.

Here in the Southern Hemisphere it is Spring and I am working my way through a number of books as pre-reading for one MOOC and post-reading for another.

1. Cantwell Smith's : Islam in Modern History.
   
   
2. Gunaratna's : Inside Al-Qaeda
   
   
3. Enayat's : Modern Islamic Political Thought
   
   
4. Hourani's : A history of the Arab Peoples.
   
   
5. Sidahmed and Ehteshami's : Islamic Fundamentalism.
   
   For a differing point of view:
   
   
6. R.T. Naylor's : Satanic Purses : Money, myth and misinformation.
   
   As well I am looking at Pratchett and Baxter's second volume of their Long Earth series
   
   Plus reading for a MOOC I am doing on 'The Future of Storytelling' through iversity in Germany.
   
   All in all a busy few months but I am enjoying it thoroughly.
   

There is an excellent book titled Forces of Production by David Noble which begins with the story of the Luddites and draws comparisons between their plight and what skilled machinists underwent in the government subsidized development of CNC technology.

http://www.amazon.com/Forces-Production-History-Industrial-Automation/dp/0195040465

http://www.amazon.com/Middle-East-Bernard-Lewis/dp/0684832801

I read this for my History class at TTU called the history of the Modern Middle East, its a book by Bernard Lewis titled "The Middle East" I thought he did a great job of giving the reader an understanding of how the Middle East is the way it is today

I recommend Lies My Teacher Told Me or Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything. If you are looking for something a little more scholarly and drier then I suggest A History of Knowledge by Van Doren. As a world history teacher myself, I loved all of these books.

Happy to answer, yeah. I may have miscommunicated this point. When I can "free run" with little obligations, I will typically sleep something like 7:00AM/9:00AM until 3:00PM/5:00PM. This would be my "natural chronotype" or my genetically hard-wired sleeping schedule. This is the diagnoses "DSPS" itself that runs in my family.

However, in order to get by in life, I need to go to work, school, the grocery store, the DMV, etc. This means I will normally lie awake in bed for hours, starting around 12:00AM, finally falling asleep at 3:00AM or so, only to have to wake up at 7:00AM. Even though I only had 4 hours of sleep, though, I am still incapable of falling sleep at 9:00PM-10:00PM like a "normal person" would. This is due to the overriding power of my "natural circadian rhythm," the earlier described 7AM-5PM schedule.

This constant state of sleep deprivation leads to anxiety, stress, depression, weakened immune system (and thus illness), and all kinds of social consequences, like losing friendships and job opportunities.

And this is the frustrating part - if the DMV were open at 3AM and bosses just accepted that I did my work from home in the middle of the night, there would be nothing "disabling" about my condition. And while I know many people who have found successful living arrangements to accommodate their hard-wired sleep schedule, I know many more who cannot hold down jobs, who are scorned by their family for being "lazy," and who have lost many friends and resources because of their inability to participate in daytime life.

So to answer your question, in a world with minimal stresses, I would likely sleep my "natural rhythm," somewhere between 7AM-5PM. Much like I do now, I would just spend my time on hobbies and my research, and it works out well because I wake up about the time everyone gets off work, so I can still maintain a social life. The bank has the worst business hours ever, though, and my classes start at 9AM, so I still have to strike a balance between my preferred schedule and being constantly sleep deprived. I have been hoping to try our biphasic sleeping, or sleeping in two smaller blocks during the day, but am not in a place in life where I can try this.

Thanks for asking, I rarely get a chance to talk about the finer details of my sleeping disorder. Here are some further book suggestions for you. Let me know what your professor says, I'd love to hear about it. What kind of class is this for?

24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (2013) by Johnathan Crary

Sleep Around the World: Anthropological Perspectives (2013) ed. Glaskin and Chenhall

Sleep and Society: Sociological Ventures into the (Un)Known (2005) by Simon Williams

At Day's Close: Night in Times Past (2006) by Roger Ekirch

I received Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History in a RedditGifts exchange (specifically the simple pleasures one, because there's no simpler pleasure than wearing a great-fitting bra). I haven't read it yet (soooo many books in my queue), but it might be worth checking out.

For pleasure:

• The Disappearing Spoon
  
• Periodic Tales
  
• Stuff Matters
  
• Molecules of Murder
  
• The Elements of Murder
  
• The Elements
  
• Molecules
  
• Molecules that Changed the World
  
• The Chemistry Book
  
  Undergraduate
  
  
• Organic:
  Organic Chemistry as a Second Language, The art of writing reasonable organic reaction mechanisms
  
  
• Inorganic: Inorganic Chemistry, Molecular Symmetry and Group Theory
  
  
• Analytical: Principles of Instrumental Anlsysis, Fundamentals of Analytical Chemistry
  
  Graduate
  
  
• Organic: Advanced Practical Organic Chemistry, March's Advanced Organic Chemistry, Greene's Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis, Purification of Laboratory Chemicals, Strategic Applications of Named Reactions in Organic Synthesis
  
• Inorganic: Advanced Inorganic Chemistry

A book a week is a lot, wouldn't you want to slow down and be able to process the information/arguments better?

Here are some of my favorite books:

Black Liberation/Race

• Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (1983)
  
• Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (1990)
  
• Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (2013)
  
• Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times (2011)
  
• Liberated Territory: Untold Local Perspectives on the Black Panther Party (2009)
  
• Detroit: I Do Mind Dying--A Study in Urban Revolution (1975)
  
  Technology
  
  
• Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming (2016)
  
• Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism (1999)
  
• Cyber-Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex (2015)
  
• Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile (2011)
  
• Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation (1986)
  
  Middle East
  
  
• Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East (2013)
  
• Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (2011)
  
• Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004)
  
• America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier (2006)
  
• Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil (2011)
  

Tuchman's The Guns of August is always a great place to start.

Awesome, I just started reading Guns of August.

Haha damn, I haven't listened to Sabaton in forever! Remembering my high-school days. Thanks for reminding me of this.

But yes, it's a really extraordinary event/time in history, that thankfully is now getting more and more exposure. (e.g. BF1 is probably going to launch a never-ending storm of WWI themed games which I am psyched for! Even if they're not 100% accurate, but what games are?).

Funny you mention Austria-Hungary. They actually were probably the LEAST effective force in the war, despite being one of the primary actors leading up to the outbreak, and got their asses handed to them repeatedly. They lost to the Russians in 1914, which arguably killed off a good chunk of Austria-Hungary's semi-competent officers/soldiers (~400,000 casualtes), and in 1918 lost to the Italians at Vittorio Vento in a crushing defeat which ostensibly helped lead to the end of the war.

One of my favorite quotes comes from General Paul von Hindenburg, who said that Germany's alliance to Austria-Hungary was like "being fettered to a corpse."

If you wanna learn more about WWI, definitely check out Dan Carlin's Blueprint for Armageddon podcast series which you've probably seen bandied about on here. Definitely one of my favorite podcasts, and if you get past his "sports-caster" voice which some people don't like, it's one of the more enlightening and eye opening series online.

The book A World Undone, by GJ Meyer is my favorite overarching histories of the war. In addition, The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman and 1914: The Year the World Ended by Paul Ham, are also excellent books on the conflict.

Edit: Also you mentioning Paradox remind me that HoI4 is out today! Woo!

Edit2: Forgot to also mention that in 1918 there was the largest influenza outbreak (same strain as our modern H1N1 I believe) the world has ever seen, that killed approximately 50-100 million people globally. Total casualty figure of the entire war is something like 17 million soldiers, for the entirety of the 4 years of fighting...

Edit3: As /u/soldaks pointed out, there's actually a fantastic WWI game called Verdun on Steam. The developers constantly work on it and it's just about as close as you can get to trench warfare from any game on the market right now.

If you like non-fiction:

Periodic Tales - Hugh Aldersey-Williams


Dark Money - Jane Mayer


Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Yep, I'm supes liberal. Sorry.

The Pity of War by Niall Ferguson
The Great War by Peter Hart
The First World War by John Keegan
The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

Non-fiction, mostly. I just finished *Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History. pretty good, but not enough pictures. Otherwise, it's fantasy and science fiction all the way.

"A History of the Arab Peoples" by Albert Hourani is also very accessible and informative. Your analysis is excellent by the way

Despite this video's great optimism, the M16 was borderline rejected by troops on the ground for unreliability and the need for constant cleaning. Many troops wouldn't give up their M1s or M14s. A fascinating book on the US service rifle is American Rifle.

Just finished reading American Rifle: A Biography by Alexander Rose. Although it does not touch on 2A (as you are looking for), it is an excellent historical read. The book starts with the Kentucky Rifle and goes all the way up through the M4, covering mostly US standard issue small arms.

I really enjoyed The American Rifle: A Biography which is about American service rifles up until 20087 or so.

I liked American Rifle: A Biography. It was written by the same author as the book that inspired the TV show Turn: Washington's Spies. Compared to most gun books it had a lot more narrative, not just dry technical and historical recitation of fact.

Since this was front-paged I'm gonna hijack the top post and link to the work of Karen Straughan. She posts here occasionally and will hopefully chime in on this thread.

Me a feminist? No way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqEeCCuFFO8

Is Feminism hate? [skip to the 20 min. mark]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDYAVROaIcs

How Feminism conned society

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RozEFVPDxeg

Benevolent sexism?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VupEC0cAWo

The Tyranny of Female Hypoagency

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBgcjtE0xrE

Feminism and the Disposable Male.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp8tToFv-bA

-----

A few good videos by Lindy Beige on female power in history:

Women power in the past

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrgovSZ32Yg

Sex Power: when women were different and men were disposable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSX7iT0n65Q

---------

Nice summary of Issues here: Why we need a men's rights movement

http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2xmm3p/i_cant_believe_people_think_we_dont_need_a_mens/

------

Good reading:

The Myth of Male Power

http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Male-Power-Warren-Farrell-ebook/dp/B00IDHV5EM

The Privileged Sex

http://www.amazon.com/Privileged-Sex-Martin-van-Creveld-ebook/dp/B00EX5PJC2/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1427403378&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=privilged+sex

No More Sex War

http://www.amazon.com/More-Sex-War-Neil-Lyndon/dp/1856191915/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1427403395&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=no+more+sex+war

The Second Sexism

http://www.amazon.com/Second-Sexism-Discrimination-Against-Boys/dp/0470674512/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427403501&sr=1-1&keywords=second+sexism

The War Against Boys

http://www.amazon.com/War-Against-Boys-Misguided-Policies/dp/1451644183/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427403440&sr=1-1&keywords=war+against+boys

The smart people, at least. Most of the mis-information about Colombus came from Washington Irving. Yes, that one

At least according to the dude who coined the term, the first millennials were the high school class of 2000 (hence the name), so people born in 1982. The endpoint is a little fuzzier, but certainly by 2001 we'd moved onto 'Gen Z'.

Barbara Tuchman would like to have a word with you...

The book that my school's curriculum follows isAMSCO's World History AP Edition Book.

I would read that and probably just get Barron's or Princeton's review book to make sure you're learning from two sources. I honestly don't know if I would bother with watching Crash Course because the questions we get on our tests are almost completely stimulus based (and the tests are fucking hard).

​

Really, I'd say do a lot of practice tests and FRQs/LEQs to make sure you're actually learning the correct way for the exam.

This comment may be insufficiently sourced, i won't argue if it gets deleted, but i wholly recommend reading R.U. Sirius' Counter-culture through the ages on this subject.

Their thesis is that the Jewish people at the time of Abraham is the earliest documented counterculture. Some kind of pastoral peaceful revolt fighting the oppression of bureaucratic and militarized Babylon.

11-9-18 4 hour...

The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fusselll

​

The Impossible HL Mencken, HL Mencken

​

The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman

While we're sharing WWI histories, it'd be remiss not to mention The Guns of August, which covers the buildup to and first months of the war, and focuses on the personalities involved in the key moments and is therefore very easy to read. It also is fantastically entertaining, with equal amounts of cynical humor and earnest drama; see this list for example. One example:

> “German soldiers, posted as informers, were found dressed as peasants, even as peasant women. The latter were discovered, presumably in the course of non-military action, by their government issued underwear; but many were probably never caught, it being impossible, General Gourko regretfully admitted, to lift the skirts of every female in East Prussia.”

You should probably re-name this to "Fantasy Medieval City by Night"


I could explain why this has nothing to do with realism but instead, you can educate yourself! I already did the work. You can begin here;


At Day's Close; Night in Times Past

Some things I've gotten from Paperbackswap in recent months:

• A History of Mathematics
  
• Love All the People by Bill Hicks
  
• The Cassini Division by Ken MacLeod
  
• The Guns of August and The March of Folly (in hardcover) by Barbara Tuchman
  
• A large stack of Discworld paperbacks
  
  ...and a hell of a lot of other things. Many of these are things that had been on my wish list, so I got first crack at them when someone listed them. The service is useful beyond what's available at a given moment.
  

Albert Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples Hourani (British-Lebanese) is a Historian of the Middle East and Arabia.

If that's the case, you should really try What If?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002I1XRYU/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

Dunno your price range so....

Idea 1

Idea 2

Idea 3

This + this + this = Socialism and worker autonomy cannot come quickly enough

Try
this

This one is a bit old, but it's considered a classic: http://www.amazon.com/Guns-August-Pulitzer-Prize-Winning-Outbreak/dp/0345476093/

Here's something more recent: http://www.amazon.com/The-Pity-Of-War-Explaining/dp/0465057128

Barbara Tuchman https://www.amazon.com/Guns-August-Pulitzer-Prize-Winning-Outbreak/dp/0345476093/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482216946&sr=8-1&keywords=the+guns+of+august

just throwing this out there (i havent read the book), but the guns of august might be a place to start as it outlines the conditions leading to WWI.

The Guns of August

The Guns of August - By Barbara Tuchman (won the Pultizer Prize for the work). It's a bit dry in my opinion, but she outlines the whole war remarkably well.

Also, Storm of Steel - by Ernst Junger - full book. It is a memoir of his time as a front-line soldier. While it is not all encompassing, it gives a remarkably gruesome account of what the typical front line soldier had to go through in WWI.

Yes, I always thought Kaiser Wilhelm was primarily to blame because Austria would never have been able to start anything without his support. However, his mistakes started twenty years earlier when he dismissed Bismark and gave power to the militarists. Bismark predicted what would happen, including the fact that the the militarists would take control from the Kaiser. Guns of August is a great treatment of the events leading up to the war.

Of course, however I have to warn you that I prefer to have very holistic view thus I want to read the whole context...

• A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time by Howard M. Sachar who is Professor Emeritus of History and International Affairs at George Washington University. I selected his book not only because it is used as university text book, not only because writers academic record, but because writer has personal connection, he is Jewish. His book covers very well not only history of Israel, but also history of Zionism and its roots. I would say that while the book tries to be neutral, I would say it has more critical outlook on Jews and Israelis.
  
• The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk who is renounced journalists with long career as middle-east correspondent for the The Independent. The book covers more or less everything that has happened since Soviet invasion to Afghanistan to present day. While only part of the book covers Israel, and in very critical manner to put it mildly, it in a sense sets so well the mood to madness that is called the middle-east that it is just so good reading. Note, Robert Fisk is not academic, but his book is well sourced and he himself is an eyewitness with long career and experience.
  
• A History of the Arab Peoples: With a New Afterword by Albert Hourani who was renounced British historian of Lebanese christian descent. I am currently reading this book, but already I have had many moments with it. It should be mentioned that he worked before and during the Israeli war of Independence at the Arab Office in Jerusalem and London, where he helped prepare the Arab case for the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.
  
  I would recommend these three books as I believe they give very wide context. I would say that history of Zionism deals the most with the conflict and gives really view, at least from the Jewish side, on what happened and why. I think that after I have completed History of Arab Peoples I would want to read some more from the Arab side, but it is quite hard to find good writers with excellent academic credentials.

No, they really didn't.

No one, not even the Belgians, expected for Germany to lose outright in Belgium...but everyone expected Belgium to either roll over or get curbstomped by the German army, neither of which happened.

Not only did Belgian resistance help polarize the world against the central powers, but the delay caused by Belgian resistance gave the allies sufficient time to prepare for the Marne counteroffensive.

You really should read the Guns of August

It might also be worth reading or watching The Guns of August to learn more about the opening stages of the first world war.

Remember when people were writing about millenials and they meant us? Since we were graduating and turning 18 around the millennium. Those were the days.

Now I see these outraged articles about all these irresponsible millennials on their snaptalk and selfie sprees and I'm like, hmm maybe I'm Gen X? Did I get kicked out and no one told me?

Guns of August and Ghosts of the Ostfront both agree that the lead up to Franz's murder was the straw that broke the camels back, meaning there was an entire bail of hay that had been building up for time.

I know we all like to speculate when the next world war will occur, and I firmly believe another will eventually happen, just not any time soon.

I know this is an old post, but it really saddens me how much people ignore the truth. There was a study done by David Noble that concluded that the vast majority of our advances in technology could not be done in the private sector. Did private industry put a man on the moon? They certainly want to take credit for it now. It would not be possible without the massive collective effort of the WHOLE WORLD.

You don't have to accept anything, faith is belief without evidence. I'll take evidence any day.

Also, if you had the choice between a government you could (theoretically) vote out if it was abusing you or one which could do whatever they wanted with impunity with no recourse for the citizen, which would you choose?

Maybe you never read about the labor struggles of the past; that only the government could tell private industry to not kill people or provide them basic wages and working conditions.
What do they say? Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it?

The Proud Tower or The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman for politics and Military History before and in the beginning of the First World War.

Guns of August, in an indirect way, is one reason the cold war didn't get hot over the Cuban Missile crisis (source)

Any particular theatre/focus? I've got at least 30 on the shelf next to me, though a lot are Ballantine's Histories, so that's kind of cheating. The classic intro narrative has to be Tuchman's Guns of August

Some of the other ones I refer to a lot are

Liddell Hart: The Real War 1914-1918

Richard Holmes: First World War in Photographs

Malcolm Brown: The Imperial War Museum Book of the Western Front

Martin Gilbert: Atlas of World War One

Philip Haythornthwaite: Photohistory of World War One

Rod Paschall: The Defeat of Imperial Germany

I particularly like books that collect diary excerpts/memoirs from all theatres/nationalities.

To say that World War I and World War II are merely continuation of the same conflict is an extremely simplistic view of the events. Also, you are leaving out a major global conflict, the Spanish Civil War, which has far more to do with World War II than World War I does.

To answer your questions, you need to examine who fought in the wars and why. Why did each country go to war? Was it due to a system of alliances or hope for territorial and colonial gain? Was it to avenge the death of a leader? Could it have been for political reasons (for example, fascist vs. communist)? Could it have been in order to fight a proxy war against an enemy in order to drain them of resources in the hopes of conquering them later?

To say that each war is just a continuation of a previous one because one leader mentions losing the last war as a rallying cry leaves out the vast majority of reason why the wars even took place. Would you say that the War of 1812 and the American Revolution are the same war with "halftime" in between? Do you consider the second game in a 7 games series to be a continuation of the first?

To look further into the matter, I would read The Guns of August at minimum. That book is a very good look at the causes and outbreaks of World War I. You can also check out the AskHistorians book list for more reading material.

Hötzendorf was the Chief of general staff of the Austro-Hungarian army. When Ferdinand was murdered by an anarchist teenager in 1914, reasonable people didn't want war. He was a strong proponent of invading Serbia even before the assasination of Archduke Ferdinand and urged the cabinet to go to war.
When A-H decided to invade Serbia (against the recommendations of Germany), it was a disaster. They gained no territory and lost over 200 000 men within a couple of months. The network of alliances was put into place and soon Russia was at war with A-H and Germany. A-H army was incredibly poorly ran due to outdated leadership that relied on outdated tactics so vast numbers of German reinforcements were redirected from the Western front to help out A-H with their failed campaigns. Even so, Germany held its own and finally lost a war of attrition. It's hard to predict what could have been if A-H had competent military leadership instead of Hötzendorf but certainly Germany could have used a decent ally instead of that retard of a little brother that constantly needs helping out until you both meet your inevitable demise. WW1 ended with a humiliating peace treaty for Germany. Sane people knew already then that the peace treay was too harsh and would only incite vengeful thoughts in Germany. Fast forward to a couple of decades and to nobodys surprise, these people were right as Hitler rose to power.
Russia was a monarchist state at the start of WW1. The rulers of England, Germany and Russia all shared a grandmother, Queen Victoria (Kaiser Wilhelm and Nikolai II even called eachother Willy and Nicky) so even if there was squabbling over territories and prestige, nobody wanted millions of people murdering each other. That said, when millions were being killed, nobody wanted to stop. Russia's bad economical situation coupled with a largely unsuccessful war campaign made way for the bolsheviks, led by Lenin to overthrow the monarchy and form a communist state. If there had been no war, the bolsheviks would have been crushed internally (with help of foreign aid as well). Had A-H held its own again Russia, the bolsheviks would have been crushed by the Germans (although it's likely that Germany initially funded the bolsheviks to destabilise Russia- how well did that turn out, huh).
In summary, Hötzendorf urged Austria-Hungary to go to war, then was hopelessly beaten at said war and caused the destruction of its allies as well. The war was blamed on Germany which gave way to the rise of nationalism in Germany and allowed Russia to turn into a terrorist state. By extension, Russia still has never had a chance at real democracy and is still a dictatorship in all but name.

Please note that I am oversimplifying everything and I urge everyone to read up on international relations leading up to WW1 and the war itself. There are so many incredible "what if" moments like the tragic shitshow that was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand for example.
I recommend Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman and youtube channels Epic History channel for a decent 1hr summary of the war to start with and of course the amazing week-by-week summary by Indy Neidell The Great War if you need something to binge on.