Reddit mentions: The best historiography books

>The noise, industrial, and esoteric circles are filled with people who have pretensions of knowing things about history, sociology, religion, philosophy, etc. But all they know is tiny smattering of fringe trivia. Robust knowledge on any of the topics they claim interest in is rare, and they have a stripped down cartoon view of history shorn of any and all context. It can be useful and enlightening to examine the fringes and the extremes and learn things about society from those, but a lot of people seem to ONLY be interested in the fringes and the extremes. To the point that they have no idea how it interacts with the larger social conversation or its place in this historical dialectic.

I would definitely agree here. The problem I think is not just that focus on the extremes; you can make good art out of the extremities of human experience, it's more the lack of depth, of any sort of intellectually serious engagement. I mean, there's two types of people interested in the occult and it's history; there's people who read books like this and this, and there's people who read books like this and this. The same with any 'dark' topic; murder, sexual fetishism, war and genocide, and so on and so on; the lurid and extreme attracts lurid and extreme writing, often penned by Garth Marenghi like characters who've 'written more books than they've read'. You need to be able to hack through the bullshit, and a lot of that comes, as you say, from having a knowledge of the broader history. I mean, I say this as someone who has made art books about true crime and the occult, for full disclosure.

> (and one single in particular, and you might know which one I mean) have REALLY put me on edge.

As you're American, I'm going to guess Klan Kountry, which I haven't heard actually. I only have a couple of their albums; unfortunately not only are they obviously either fascists or tasteless, they're not actually very good. Anenzephalia is a little better. Actually, looking at the details of that release, I can definitely see why you'd steer clear. In fact, most of the stuff on Tesco Organisation is kind of second rate, and I've heard bad things about the label generally. As for Deutsch Nepal, I'm really not sure; I've never read much about them, but the name seems to be a possible nod to Nazi mysticism, plus there's the use of swastika-like imagery on the covers of A Silent Siege and Erotikon. It's not that much, compared to some of the others, but enough perhaps.

> He would probably find it even more strange that he's so admired by a person like me who does My Little Pony fanart.

Now that, I'm sure s/he'd get completely; GPO knows the ins and outs of fannish obsession with h/er Brian Jones thing. Read the liner notes to Godstar: Thee Director's Cut sometime if you get a chance.

>I so agree. Coil...I used to be obsessed with them, and from 1999-2001 tried to gather up as much of their discography as I could. I think most of it is in my closet right now since our apartment doesn't have a lot of places to store cd's. One of my goals is to eventually go back and get as much of their complete discography as I can. I've been fascinated with them ever since I was in high school and read an interview in Trent Reznor in which he discussed how much they influenced his music. Something about what he said intrigued me, and when I finally heard them I was entranced.

My obsession goes back a similiar way for me, though I'm a touch younger than you I think...I started listening to Coil just in time for Jhon's death, but not that I could actually get to see them, which I will probably always regret. The footage of those late gigs... and of course the recordings...can you imagine having been there in the audience during the recording of ...And The Ambulance Died in His Arms? Just thinking about it gives me chills. I think they were just a perfect musical duo; Christopherson had a very sophisticated and innovative approach to electronic music, and Balance just had that...intensity. I think that's something that so many of the pale imitators in industrial and related things miss. It's one thing that has always made the best Current 93 stuff stand out to me as well; especially listening to some of the best live recordings, it's clear that, whatever else you might think about Dave Tibet (nutter, crypto-fascist, can't sing, too Christian, not Christian enough) he's really not phoning it in. His performance is so utterly demented and broken at times (Black Ships Ate The Sky is a great example) that personally I can't help but be compelled. Maybe that's a bit of a trick, but I don't think so.

>these guys actually knew a lot about art and music history, and understood a lot about modern art and why it was important. Even a guy as abrasive and intentionally silly and lo-fi as Monte Cazazza, I'm pretty sure, actually went to art school.

Yeah, Cazazza definitely went to art school; such an overlooked hero of early industrial for me. I love how damned entertaining he makes his cartoon misanthropy; If Thoughts Could Kill is a great song to listen to on the bus on a rainy morning. And of course, GPO and Cosey Fanni Tutti had been doing gallery shows and performance art as COUM Transmissions for years before TG was even a thing.

Here are a couple sites you might find interesting, even if not directly pertinent. Let me know what you think or PM me if you want more information?
The Maciejowski Bible ...This is the cheesiest website ever, but it has excellent scans of the Maciejowski Bible, which is a heavily illustrated (and very beautiful) middle ages bible.
Medieval Writing An introduction to medieval writing and paleography.

If you're looking for books, you should really check out Basbane's A Gentle Madness which is quite excellent and really just a fun book to read (I have no idea why Amazon doesn't have it; check ABE Books). I recommend An Introduction to Manuscript Studies which is basically indisposable for anyone with interest in medieval/manuscript studies. The ABCs of Book Collecting comes up constantly in most courses I take and is basically just a guide of different terminology. (Also available here ).

Gaskell's A New Introduction to Bibliography and Steinberg's 500 Years of Printing got me through my first year of grad school, too - they're chock-full of fantastic information and background, but are drier than a week-old brioche.



Lately I've been reading a lot on illustration in manuscripts, so I've been working on Sealed in Parchment: Rereadings of Knighthood in the Illuminated Manuscripts of Chretien de Troyes and The Blackwell Companion to Medieval Art

Also, just for coolness/interesting-ness, check out The Voynich Manuscript and the Gigas Codex (just google them). Fascinating stuff, but way more "wiz-bang" than the average book history person gets to play with.

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot the MOTHER of all book history books, Elizabeth Eisenstein's The Printing Press as an Agent of Change ...this is like, the de-facto standard of book history studies.

I just want to plug one of my favorite professors here. Dr. Bruce McComiskey has published on the DSS, and his new book (with amazing contributions), Microhistories of Composition, just came out, so you should check it out!

> edit: from Amazon,

> "Writing studies has been dominated throughout its history by grand narratives of the discipline, but in this volume Bruce McComiskey begins to explore microhistory as a way to understand, enrich, and complicate how the field relates to its past. Microhistory investigates the dialectical interaction of social history and cultural history, enabling historians to examine uncommon sites, objects, and agents of historical significance overlooked by social history and restricted to local effects by cultural history. This approach to historical scholarship is ideally suited for exploring the complexities of a discipline like composition.
>
> Through an introduction and eleven chapters, McComiskey and his contributors—including major figures in the historical research of writing studies, such as Louise Wetherbee Phelps, Kelly Ritter, and Neal Lerner—develop focused narratives of particular significant moments or themes in disciplinary history. They introduce microhistorical methodologies and illustrate their application and value for composition historians, contributing to the complexity and adding momentum to the emerging trend within writing studies toward a richer reading of the field’s past and future. Scholars and historians of both composition and rhetoric will appreciate the fresh perspectives on institutional and disciplinary histories and larger issues of rhetorical agency and engagement enacted in writing classrooms that are found in Microhistories of Composition."

This varies, but in general, I think historians deal with bias by accepting it and understanding what a point of view brings to or detracts from a historian's work. Every historian brings a bias to the archive and the keyboard. Heck, even the selection of a research topic is indicative of some sort of bias -- why would someone devote 5-10 years of their life to a project in which they had no interest?

You will likely never find any academic work that doesn't give at least some short shrift to the side(s) with which they disagree. I don't know if it's a Quixotic quest to find one that's perfectly even, but I do think it's pointless. Embrace diverse opinions and read many works on the same subject. This will help you not only understand something closer to an agreed-upon-truth, but it will also help you develop critical thinking skills.

If you'd like to read a book that does a much better job of explaining this than I do, Find a copy of Peter Novick's That Noble Dream. It's a little old and there's been quite a bit of ink spilled praising and reviling the book, but I think Novick does a good job of probing the question.

some things are best to be clued into and let one discover for oneself. i've read a bunch of books & authors (still am reading) from tool's recommended reading material, like Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell and Bob Frissell You Are a Spiritual Being Having a Human Experience. I even admit to owning a Drunvalo Melchizedek book on the Flower of Life which reads like a New Age Bullshit Hippy Dippy Textbook on advanced circle drawing with a compass. I like the idea on the Flower of Life but Melchizedek is waayy out there. Maynard talked about that briefly in his book. I finally got around to John Crowley's Aegypt recently, which is actually a series of 4 novels, very good and I highly recommend it. Crowley is such a great writer and there's times you can clearly see influence in mjk's lyrics. There's a book called The Secret History of the World that covers these subjects through human history, if you are curious it's a great resource.

Fellow history major here and I know you aren't soliciting for advice, but since I'm a couple years ahead of you I'm giving it to you anyway.

If you really love working with and reading primary sources, you may want to look into Public History. I strongly suggest this if you aren't really turned on by academic work or if you enjoy researching more than you like writing the papers. My university had a class covering public history and paired the class work with an internship. (Many universities also offer Public History as a masters degree.)

If your department doesn't offer a public history class then I'd suggest checking out this book. Of course public history is about reaching out to general public about your passion so you have to have some people skills.

I'm going into a Library Science masters program. I'm hoping to get into archival work, digital preservation, and data management.

Idealism and Materialism are differing stances on Mind and Matter. Materialism is actually not respected among philosopher, mainly because it does not make rational sense(there is a very strong argument for idealism and no argument for Materialism, pure logic suggests that there is a world where concepts in our world are real) Most every modern institution ascribes to materialism, because for example science does not believe in a spiritual dimension and imagination is not an organ of perception but a funcion of chemical processes in the brain. Spiritual means you believe in spirits and Spirit. Spiritualists are almost unilaterally idealistic which means that they believe that God exists and also there is a spirit world and a hierarchy of spiritual dimensions and beings from God to Earth. This is a good book to read if you want an idea of an idealistic worldview. You are using a hegelian corruption of the pure Philosophical concepts. Most religions are opposed to Materialism. For example the Satan of christianity is modified from a former God of Materialism and Time also called Kronos. I can't explain this all in a reddit comment but Satanism for example confirms this idea. Satanists worship the physical world, dont believe in ethics, are generally hedonistic and speak about the relativity of truth. The sophists too, believed in the relativity of truth, a markedly materialistic concept.

Oh boy, haha. Way to open Pandora's box here.

My own work is primarily on British riots, but I have a broader interest in mass movements in general. I'll recommend the book I mentioned in my comment - Eric Hoffer's The True Believer and Bill Ayers' Fugitive Days to start. Ayers is somewhat controversial because Ayers, but that book is incredibly thought-provoking and valuable.

Less controversial but no less thought-provoking (and currently relevant considering our depressing state of climate-change denial) is Keith Thomas' Man and the Natural World - it's a book about our changing perceptions of the world around us.

Finally, before I give you an 80-page list, I'm going to recommend this one. Peter Novick's That Noble Dream - I don't expect anyone but nerds like me to read this, but if more people understood the study of history itself as a constantly changing profession and philosophy (as well as science) I think the general population would see the value in it more. History isn't a static thing, and the way we approach it has changed dramatically in 150 years.

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 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.

No worries! Not sure if you're still looking for leads, but if you can get your hands on this book, there's an essay in it entitled Bible, Translation, and Culture: From the KJV to the Christian Resurgence in Africa that made me think of your question here. All of the essays in this book are worth a look; for my money, the writers are the best of the best when it comes to history of religions. Happy reading!

As others have noted, you could want to focus on historiography, which is the study of history as a scientific discipline. Because while there have been various approaches to historical research, there have never been any major changes in its main goal since the modern discipline was founded in the 19th century. So all the methodological trends that have emerged have all sought to find better ways to interpret historical sources, and new ways to approach history (women's history is an example of the latter).

Philosophy of history is separate from historical methodology and historiography (although many historians have changed their methodology to fit more or less philosophical convictions), and is rather difficult to pin down exactly. I suggest you find an introductory book that deals with the various approaches. It's useless to jump right into Hegel or Nietzsche without knowing their broader contexts.

After looking through the contents, this book looks like a good starting point if you want to get into historiography: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0582096065/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link.

When it comes to philosophy of history, this seems like a good starting point: http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-History-M-C-Lemon/dp/041516205X. It covers the pre-Hegel thinkers, Hegel, Marx, the analytics, the postmodernists, Fukuyama, as well as some general questions related to philosophy of history.

If you really want to find a way to combine history and philosophy in a meaningful way, you might want to focus on the more general topic of hermeneutics. It relates to history in an indirect way, and my experience is that many historians and archaeologists are familiar with it. There are both "analytic" and "continental" approaches to hermeneutics, and as far as I know it's a relatively active field. You can read about it here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/

Another approach entirely is to use your philosophy major to focus on the history of ideas / history of philosophy, rather than the philosophy of history. I think this is a better idea if you are already historically inclined.

Finally, there's no real reason to try to combine your two majors unless you have a particular interest in philosophy of history. It probably won't make you a better historian. On the other hand, having a firm grasp on the history of ideas would probably make you a better historian.

I can only relate to you what I've experienced and realized and only hope that it can offer something to your journey. What I tell you is very subjective.

When I said a universalist approach towards religion and spirituality, I mean that doctrine and creed do not hold me back from the quest for knowledge (Truth is after all an endless pursuit of higher knowledge and realization). If I read a book on philosophy or spirituality, credibility, authority, and citation are not as important as the message the author is trying to convey. After all, the former three are principles of the material sciences which is only a limited lens into which we can peer into spiritual reality. Science cannot measure or describe a soul or what happens to you after you die (maybe how your body decays but that assumes that you are only your body and not a soul or a spirit).

Even though I lament on how overly scientific modern religion is, I also go on to say that I treat religion and beliefs like education. I constantly seek knowledge or experiences that will challenge and expand my beliefs and faith in a way similar to studying and passing class examinations in order to move to the next stage of learning. Nothing is lost in what I learned, it is only expanded upon (we can learn from our mistakes or wrong beliefs). I rely on logic and reasoning (just like the scientific method) to guide myself through all things spiritual and religious just like all things scientific and all things of immediate concern (like budgeting, relationships, pros and cons of something...). I'm being consistent is what I'm saying.

I highly recommend The Secret History of the World by Mark Booth as a good read to really change your perspective on the world and life. It opened my eyes to a whole other way of seeing reality.

If you really want something intellectually challenging yet spiritually captivating, the Urantia Book has it all and more.

If you look at university academics sure. They work for tenure, give little to charity on average, and primarily focus on enriching their own lives. If you want to talk about guys like Jonas Salk whom invented vaccines then just gave the concept away rather than profiting off of it or say the majority of Nobel prize laureates. You'd be talking about Christians.

"65.4% of Nobel Prize Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference (423 prizes). Overall, Christians have won a total of 78.3% of all the Nobel Prizes in Peace, 72.5% in Chemistry, 65.3% in Physics, 62% in Medicine, 54% in Economics and 49.5% of all Literature awards."

That's not including other religions, about 10% of Nobel winner's are atheists.

https://www.amazon.com/Years-Nobel-Prizes-Baruch-Shalev/dp/0935047379

So I guess you are right, all of the worst scientists appear to be atheists.

The answer, as everyone else has pointed out, is YES. The best example of this actually comes from the colloquialism 'Whiggish history' meaning history that is written in a teleological mode with an excessively celebratory tone about the current institutions in power.

If you are really interested in this, standard reading in many history masters and PHD programs is a great book by historian Peter Novice called That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession

> 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.

Thanks for doing this legwork. I appreciate it.

The Wikipedia page on this guy alone is a big read. I've skimmed some of it, and here are the sections that I found alarming:

> Carr argued that within the context of the Soviet Union, Stalin was a force for the good.

also,

> In Carr's opinion, if a historical event such as the collectivisation of Soviet agriculture in the early 1930s led to the growth of the Soviet heavy industry and the achievement of the goals of the First Five Year Plan, then the collectivisation must be considered a progressive development in history, and hence all of the sufferings and millions of deaths caused by collectivisation, the "dekulakisation" campaign and the Holodomor were justified by the growth of Soviet heavy industry.

and

> Labedz noted it only after 17 years after the first volume of the History of Soviet Russia series was published did Carr criticize Stalin in volume 8 of the series, albeit only once and in a veiled form.

also

> In A History of Soviet Russia, Carr paid more attention to relations between the Soviet Union and Outer Mongolia than to the Kronstadt mutiny, which Carr gave only a few lines to under the grounds that it was unimportant

I'm having trouble finding it, but I may be able to slip into a local college library and have better luck. Also his book "What is History?" sounds like an interesting read. I guessing that's where the predominance of people describing good as "progressive" and bad as "reactionary" comes from. I'm interested in understanding Marxism better, and that looks like a good place to start.

I've done some research, and this statement

> Labedz went on to argue that Carr's decision to end the History of Soviet Russia series at 1929 reflected not the lack of documentary material as Carr claimed, but rather an inability and unwillingness to confront the horrors of Stalin's Soviet Union.

Suggests the reason I can't find the volume that deals with the Holodomor (1932–1933) was because he didn't write one. He did write The Twilight of the Comintern, 1930-1935 - is that what you were thinking of? It looks like I can get it used for less than five bucks with shipping. I'm still going to be disappointed though if it doesn't give the Holodomor more than a few sentences.

Okay, this is freaky. I was just about to start a post about writing a series of What-If counterfactuals for ASOIAF when I decided I'd take a look at the 'new' section of the subreddit. Wow. So I'll submit this to you guys in this thread - would there by any interest in doing a series of posts, maybe once a week or so, looking at certain events and writing an analysis of them in a counterfactual way? I'm somewhat inspired by my re-read of the series and this and this, both of which I finished recently.

Yikes, the cult paradigm. For some history, I was involved with the whole David Icke movement when an extremely close and dear friend of mine got involved with it and it takes an absolute deluge (hah, ancient astronaut pun for those who get it) of scientific information and instruction on logical thought to pull people out of that mindset.

There's a couple things I'd like you to look into:

The book Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History by David Aaronovitch. It's a great book that explains why people believe in conspiracy theories and it also does a passable job debunking some of the less and more common conspiracies (moon landing hoax, Kennedy assassination, death of Princess Diana, 9/11, etc.).

This book applies greatly to the Raelian/Annuna/Sumerian gods as ancient astronaut theories and should give you some insight into the why behind your father's beliefs.

I'd also like to give you some advice on this plane: You cannot debunk the ancient astronaut theory to these people. Despite evolution being the obvious answer supported by mountains of nigh indisputable scientific evidence, the ancient astronaut theory is still more likely than virtually any religion when it comes to the questions of the origins of life (be it cellular or intelligent) on Earth. It is pointless to argue this point beyond the fact that there is no credible scientific evidence to support this viewpoint. What makes things worse is that the whole ancient astronaut community is usually tightly intertwined with the more extreme elements of the New Age Movement which, as I'm sure you know, bases nothing on fact but instead pseudoscience and nonsensical mystical gibberish bastardized from Indo-Chinese mystical traditions (and on occasion mystical traditions from the Abrahamic faiths such as Kabbalah).

I know you didn't come here for options (and obviously there are many more) but I would like to make two suggestions for how to proceed from here:

1. Let your dad believe his crazy beliefs and just move on with your life.
   
   
2. Read up on exit counseling (the non-violent version of cult deprogramming).
   
   If you're interested in exit counseling then I suggest you start with this Wikipedia article and from there you should be able to find good books on the subject with advice on how to find counselors that could be of help to you.
   
   I hope everything goes well with you and your dad, whatever decisions you decide to make.

What if we aren't white or east-asian, but still support your cause and understand the threat to western civilization, the finest on earth which has given us the most progress humanitarian and technological progress, from a human biodiversity perspective?

Even Hitler had honorary Aryan's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_Aryan

There's a series of books related to this subject, which has, unsurprisingly, been largely ignored, titled "Black Nazis!": https://www.amazon.com/Black-Nazis-Veronica-Clark/dp/1934703516

Being a strong hereditarian, HBD proponent, and anti-natalist; I would never spread my diseased genes. I'm even planning on altering my facial appearance so as not to offend your eyes.

If I absolutely had to recommend a single book to familiarize someone with what historians do and the study of history itself, I'd probably go with John Arnold's History: A Very Short Introduction. It's commonly assigned in undergraduate history programs for that purpose.

It's definitely not ideal to restrict yourself to a single book, but you've got to start somewhere and Arnold's book is a good place to begin. Beyond that, the /r/AskHistorians book list is a great resource.

You should look into the [Very Short Introduction] (http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/series/VeryShortIntroductions/ series) series. About 342 books that are all in the range of 100 to 200 pages. They cover anything from [History] (http://www.amazon.com/History-Introduction-John-H-Arnold/dp/019285352X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346605671&sr=1-2&keywords=a+very+short+introduction) to [Mathematics] (http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Short-Introduction-Timothy-Gowers/dp/0192853619/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346605671&sr=1-4&keywords=a+very+short+introduction) and even really specific topics like [Relativity] (http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Short-Introduction-Russell-Stannard/dp/0199236224/ref=sr_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346605803&sr=1-15&keywords=a+very+short+introduction). It's a gold mine of information and the best part is that all of the books are usually under $10.00's. They're perfect for what you're looking for.

John Dee comes up a lot in this: https://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-World-Mark-Booth/dp/1590201620


I don't know about 'magic', but the practice of alchemy is that of self-improvement and freedom from controlling dogma and the current limits of humanity. There's no doubting that newton was brilliant, as was John Dee. I would say a safer bet is to study math over magic.

> https://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-World-Mark-Booth/dp/1590201620

Have you read that? How is it.

> I would say a safer bet is to study math over magic.

You're probably right, but the image of Newton doing rituals to get in touch with multi-dimensional beings to gain knowledge is pretty seductive to me. A sicnece man, or THE Science Man, practicing magic is an alluring image.

Thanks! I really appreciate your reply. I'm just a couple chapters away from finishing Secret History of the World and I most definitely will dive into Illuminatus Trilogy as soon as I'm done!

From the little I just read on Discordianism, I'm pretty fascinated. You may have just converted me :) Seems like a religion based on paradox, which really interests me. I may be understanding it completely wrong, but that gives me an excuse to check out Principia Discordia!

Read these two books.

Firstly one of the most important and well regarded book on the Holocaust.

Secondly the best deconstruction of the claims of Holocaust denial, which the IHR most certainly are.

Consider Barbara W. Tuchman's Practicing History - a marvelous collection of essays on the art of writing history from one of the leading American popular historians of the later 20th century. Everything in there is interesting, lucid, and compelling.

That Noble Dream
Peter Novick

It is a history of 20th century American professional historians and a real eye opener. One highlight: Charles Beard was the most respected historian in the country in 1940. His books were the best. His research was the tightest. People near-unanimously described him as one of the nicest people they ever met.

He became a pariah overnight because he had misgivings about the World War II project. The wikipedia article alludes to this, but if you read Novick's presentation your head will spin. And not just his telling of the Charles Beard story. The entire book is like that.

To quote Thomas Haskell, "objectivity is not neutrality." I think one can be an objective, professional historian but still engage with one's research subjects as moral beings. I certainly don't check that sentiment at the door. Whether one has moral feelings about a subject is not what is going to account for whether one is biased about it or not. I believe that one can objectively come to strong ethical or moral conclusions about a given subject.

That being said, one wants to avoid being obviously anachronistic, or incredibly stupid about doing such a thing. One wants to avoid flip judgments that rely entirely on the benefit of hindsight. One wants to avoid being overly presentist in one's approach to the past. And so on.

My general approach is to try and phrase the hard moral issues as broad questions. For example, when talking about the morality of the bombing of Hiroshima, I like to pose my thoughts as a question rather than an answer: under what conditions do we find it morally acceptable, if any, to deliberately set large civilian populations on fire? To me this dodges that standard moral approaches, and instead frames it as a general problem (personal and societal) to be solved, rather than trying to pass specific judgment on the people at the time.

That being said, that's not the primary goal of writing history. But it's hard not to meditate about such things if one is working in areas where people are (as they often are) doing quite unpleasant things to one another.

Required reading for anyone doing any kind of serious study in history is Peter Novick's _That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession_. Worth checking out if you are interested in how historians have approach this and many other questions over the last few centuries, at least in the USA. Short version: it's complicated and contested.

I was pretty impressed with the Very Short Introduction series' History, but that may not really qualify as "academic". The author of that book, John Arnold, also wrote a solid book called What is Medieval History, if you're interested in a more specific look.

the 101st has already floated my favorite nonfiction book. So I'm going to go out on a limb and give you something, uh... unofficial. Whether it is true or not is so far beyond what I can answer even the internet could not exaggerate it enough. BUT, it's fascinating.

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-World-Mark-Booth/dp/1590201620

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).

I wonder how many people know that Hitler had dozens of Jewish Generals in his army, many were close friends with him.


Also --

Black Nazis! A Study of Racial Ambivalence in Nazi Germany's Military Establishment: Non-German Ethnic Minority and Foreign Volunteers, Conscripts, Laborers and POWs, 1940-1945

http://www.amazon.com/Racial-Ambivalence-Germanys-Military-Establishment/dp/1934703516

From the reviews.


>Ms. Clark also provides far more than enough written evidence for the fact that German racial attitudes were far more enlightened than anything in the US or British military at that time. Blacks in the German military were not merely truck drivers or ammunition handlers as in the US generally; they were highly trained for combat and for intelligence gathering, especially in North Africa.

> This my friends, is not the first reset done by the elites. I take it that they wait for a certain breaking point in society.

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-World-Mark-Booth/dp/1590201620

The above book describes the timeframe they operate on; although basically it's astrological. They believe that only the periods of time which correspond with certain astrological signs should be permitted to have continuous memory of each other, while there needs to be some sort of cataclysm seperating others, where the memory of the preceding time is wiped out.

They are also very strong evolutionists, and they don't tolerate stragglers. This is part of the reason why they generally do not tolerate the existence of indigenous groups, because they think that the whole of humanity should keep up with whatever they think its' current technological/cultural scenario should be, and they usually kill anyone who they consider regressive. They don't believe in dynamic equilibrium or homeostasis. They think that everything is continually moving forward, and that nothing should be permitted to ever remain the same, even if genuine stability is found.

Judaism is a major exception to this rule; it is an Aries age religion, which has operated continually for three astrological ages, and is now entering a fourth, Aquarius. Presumably the exception is tolerated due to the power held by some of its' adherents, although it probably also had something to do with the motivation behind the Holocaust as well.

This is also why I do not condone evolution as an idea, because I know who it comes from, and what its' social consequences are.

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Nazis-Veronica-Clark/dp/1934703516

Veronica Clark (also known as V. K. Clark) earned her bachelor's degree with High Honors in Liberal Studies w/Global Political Science in 2005; her master's degree with Honors in Military History in 2009; and she completed a year of PsyD courses with a 4.00 GPA in 2010.

What you're describing is the esoteric history of the world. Check out this book (link below) it's worth a read. It basically says the same story you wrote above. It's pretty cool and give an alternative perspective on our concept of religion.

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-World-Mark-Booth/dp/1590201620

Even better- Michael Shermer actually did a book called Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? about holocaust denial specifically and covers a lot of the claims that Holocaust deniers make.

I read it and it is pretty good. It should help explain about why these people are full of shit.

Here are two books I haven't read but I think are relevant. I hope to get to them soon. The second might have some interesting lessons for futurists.

1. What Should We Be Worried About?: Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up at Night
   
   
2. Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought

Rebuttal?

sigh you know you're in for a good book when there are comments like...

>"Truth Alert!" The reiteration of the same "facts" and "true events" that have been verbosely over-saturated on every form of "journalism" and news media outlet for the last 65 years are not to be found in this book.

>https://www.amazon.com/Black-Nazis-Veronica-Clark/dp/1934703516

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Arabian_Legion

>In the armed forces
A number of blacks served in the Wehrmacht. The number of German blacks was low, but there were some instances where blacks were enlisted within Nazi organizations such as the Hitler Youth and later the Wehrmacht.[20] In addition, there was an influx of foreign volunteers during the African campaign, which led to the existence of a number of blacks in the Wehrmacht in such units as the Free Arabian Legion.

From wiki.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Ghetto_Police

has anybody read this book ?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-History-World-Jonathan-Black/dp/0857380974

i read it last year it was quite interesting.

Are we the illuminati ? at times I dont feel very illuminated and my ideas and thoughts on the world seem to be at odds with many people i meet.

i often get asked where Im from and my reply of Earth seems to annoy/offend many...

my fav

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-World-Mark-Booth/dp/1590201620

Not only were there blackand Jewish Nazis, there were also Polish Nazis and an American Nazi Party. Said Nazis also offered Aryan status to the Native Americans if they would spy on the US Government, thats real history. For an example of a good Nazi, educate yourself about Oskar Schindler.

You mean like this?
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Nazis-Veronica-Clark/dp/1934703516

You might be intersted in this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-History-World-Jonathan-Black/dp/0857380974

I found it a ball ache of a read but sounds like it might be right up your street

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Well, according to Veronica Clark, they became Nazis.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Nazis-Veronica-Clark/dp/1934703516

If you want to know a skeptics perspective Micheal Shermer's book on this topic is worth a read.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0520260988?pc_redir=1407231362&robot_redir=1

I am so glad that I ordered Veronica Clark's books before they went out of print. Someone gotta get the rights to that and fill up all the unis with copies, their heads would explode!

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Nazis-Veronica-Clark/dp/1934703516

>mas não era nazis

Eram sim. Mas vais ter dificuldade em encontrar material sobre isso.

History: A Very Short Introduction

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/019285352X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519248671&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=history+a+very+short+introduction&dpPl=1&dpID=514Uq4p%2Bt4L&ref=plSrch

I'm sorry, what were you saying?

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Nazis-Veronica-Clark/dp/1934703516

Gay nazis existed

Black Nazis existed

So I'll repeat: those points don't stop someone being Nazi/fascist.

Milo was so blind to the alt-rights true intention sounds like his pathetic excuse for the karaoke video with the Nazi salutes and Spencer. For someone who knew nothing of their true face he certainly was able to court them very well.

Thia "it's just a joke" defence is flimsy too. Let's take his article on women and GPS systems for example. It's simply vitriol under a thin veneer of humour. Also if his mainessage is the internet should just be a tool for him to bully people then he's more of a tit than I thought.

So the take home I'm getting from your post is he isn't a Nazi but has no problem propping up Nazis to further his own agenda? Okay, I'll concede he might not be a Nazi, but he's just as complicit in fostering a Nazi/fascist movement. At what point is that just splitting hairs?

>While he may have brought NSH to a wider audience

This is why my point was about influence more than anything else.
As to your point about objectivity, this is central question that has been challenged by post structuralist writers. (I reject your premise that this is a product of the counterculture.) Zinn is extremely upfront that he is assuming a position in his work. He spends several pages establishing what is perspective is and why.

While most historians since Zinn have settled on a sort of "reasonable analysis" rather than "purposeful commentary," ideas about objectivity in historical writing are notoriously contentious. "Objectivity" should not be thrown around as though there is objective history as opposed to opinion history. See Novick's That Noble Dream

The last book I read was History: A Short Introduction which was assigned reading for me in college. For whatever reason I felt like re-reading it which is stupid because there are a ton of books on my shelf right now I haven't gotten around to yet. Last weekend I picked up Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and with school starting I'm not sure when I'll get around to reading it.