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Edit: Rambled more than I thought. TL;DR Roy Jenkins' Churchill was pretty balanced overall. Scroll down to the last lot of quoted text to see a few paragraphs from the book.

Roy Jenkins Churchill is pretty good. He is a retired (now dead) Labour MP so was from the other party to Churchill, but was on the centre of the Labour party so doesn't hate Churchill like some left wingers do.

It isn't perfect but it is pretty balanced.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/0330488058/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_one?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&showViewpoints=0

That Amazon reviews on it are pretty good. Nearly all the one star reviews are complaining about puncutation and sentence structure but I remember it being well written and pretty easy to read.

One one star reviewer writes:

>This book is hard going, the use of public school latin/french expressions make it impossible to follow for other than the classically educated. There is far too much focus during the 1940 - 1945 period on the political factors at the time. This might sound stupid, but given WSC encounters and meetings with senior generals, naval officers as well of heads of other states etc etc too much space is used for the mundane, during a very non mundane period of British History.

Which based off my memory of the book should be translated to "I like simple sentences and skipping all the boring bits". It definitely is not particually difficult to read although it isn't really simple either.

Also I think that Jenkins mentioning the political context, etc is a useful reminder (or introduction) when reading the biography.

I'd see it leans to the pro-Churchill point of view but isn't syscophantic. He gets some high praise but also some harsh critcism from Jenkins. However, like with any person, if you want a full view it is best to read lots of views and do some of your own fact checking to. I definitely give Jenkins' biography my vote for a place to start though. I didn't agree with all Jenkins' analysis, and I can't remember if there were any small ommissions, but overall it was very thorough.

It has a good index and some nice photos to (a grumpy looking Churchill while a PoW, a happy Churchill after getting back to the British, a pictre of Stalin and Churchill laughing about something and some of Churchill's paintings). Lots of references although I can't remember just how thorough it was, definitely better than some biographies. It's around 900 pages long.

Seeing as we were talking about the Dardanelles, and that was one of Churchill's most criticised actions, here is a bit to give you an idea of the tone of the book:

>How much was Churchill to blame for the Dardanlles? Whether he over-estimated the impact a decisive victory in the Near East would have on the twomain fronts is almost impossibleto answer given the actual outcome. The Dardanelles strategy was bold and imaginative, and its central premise, summed up in Churchill's famous phrase of seeking an alternative to 'chew[ing] barbed wire in Flanders', was undoubtedbly legitimate - as half a million British grave in that flat and sombre countryside bear eloquent testasment.

>The critical weakness was the failure to plan for an integrated naval and military operation from the outset. Much of the blame for this lies with Churchill. The planning in late december 1914 and early January 1915 assumed it would in fact be a joint operation. It was Churchill who argued for solely naval attack at the War Councils of 13 and 28 January, despite Fisher's obvious misgivings. Fisher had to be restrained by Kitchener from walking out of a Defence Committee on 28 January, and did so only to maintain 'an obstinate and ominous silence', as Asquith noted aftewards. Only in mid-February, six days before the commencment of the naval bombardment, was a decision taken to send troops. the deatchment was too little and too late, and one of the First World War's human catastrophes resulted.

>Hankey, writing in his diary on 19 March, speculated that Churchill planned a solely naval operation in order to recoup the prestige he had lost at Antwerp. Yet Chuirchill was First Lord of the Admiralty, not Secretary of State for War, let alone Prime Minister. Kitchener and Asquith ought ot have had continual regard to the wider military implications. Asquith in particular failed to elicit either Kitchener's full commitment or the nature of Fisher's misgivings.

>Churchill's later summing up was that the concept was overwhelmingly right, that it was only a singularly unfortunateunfortunate accumulation of narrowly missed chances which prevented it from working, but that iwas nonetheless a 'bridge too far' for him to attempt without supreme power. Had he been Prime Minister, with the impication that he would have run a very much more taut decision-making line of command (as indeed he did a quater of acentur later), he would have won a great victory, substantially shortend the war and saved many hundreds of thousands of lives. But it is difficult to find a serious miltiary historian who agrees.

There are references for the quotes but I skipped them obviously. And he does talk about the subject further but I'm not typing out more than a page! haha

He does use some long sentences and a bit of 'public school' language as that reviewer puts it, but that is a matter of taste and doesn't really take away from the overall quality of the book in telling you about Churchill. And it definitely isn't improper sentence structure as some reviewers said. I actualyl quite enjoyed his writing style for a biography.

Also you can see he tries to be pretty balanced.

Jenkins biography of Gladstone was good to.

Loads! My favourite secondary source is probably this, Other Powers: the Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull. It's really easy to read and covers her full life. I found a lot of my best sources by following the references in it too.


There is a lot of good primary stuff just on the internet.

I'm not sure if this will work but this is a link to a biography of her that is written by the guy who's wife had the affair that Woodhull exposed, sorryfor explaining that so badly haha. It's such an interesting perspective I think. Basically, this super famous and popular minister, Henry Ward Beecher, had been rattling on about how abhorrent free love was constantly and pretty much equated Woodhull's ideas as the ultimate sin, whilst shagging about with loads of women in his congregation at the same time. One being Elizabeth Titlton, the wife of the man who authored the biography I just linked. Woodhull thought he was a massive bell end, which he was, so she published a story titled "The Beecher-Tilton Scandal Case" in the newspaper she ran with her sister (which was the first paper to publish Karl Marx in the USA too. She loves riling people). I'm doing a full chapter just on this incident because it so demonstrative of the attitudes people had towards women and religion and Victoria gender roles. My key argument is that the Protestant establishment had overwhelming control of society despite the emergence of dissenting reliigous groups and radical like Woodhull, and the case fits it very well. It was obvious to everyone that Beecher was in the wrong here but he emerged at the other side scot free, pretty much on the basis that as a white male clergyman he would be protected by the judicial system.

The internet archive also has some of her own work on it, not much though. The central text in for my dissertation is "And the Truth shall Make You Free: a Speech on the Principles of Social Freedom" which is just incredible. There is alot of controvesry over whether her work is her own or a combination of other people's but it's important not to let that cloud her message. Give it a read and see what you think. I believe her magic comes from the fact that rhetoric was filled will so many normal things about religion and 'American-ness' so that people were like "yeah, cool I feel ya" and were kind of subconsciously receptive to what she was saying. Once this had happen she would drop in all these radical ideas, framed in a way so that they seemed in a similar vein to the stuff people already identified with.  She was like a pioneer of the buzzword, constantly talking about freedom and liberty and stuff and then being like 'also, free love'. Although she never gained any real traction, she did frame everything in a way that forced people to doubt their own principles on some level if the disagreed with her. I LOVE HER.


If you just google around there is alot of stuff but unfortunately it's not vey good. She just isn't that well known, which makes me sad.

There are tons of books available, but the hardest part about getting into it is that in order to fully appreciate it, there's a lot of context you'd need to know. I think that's the most off-putting thing for most people--I have friends who just want to know about the battles, but really the war was much more complicated than that. The German situation preceding the war is crucial, and that's what every book is going to start with, and then the Beer Hall Putsch and Brown Shirts etc., all of which can be pretty boring to someone who just wants to read about war. But it's actually really interesting, to me at least. Once you start to get involved in the spiderweb of history I think it becomes much more interesting.

Anyway, for recommendations, I liked The Story of World War II. It really does a good job of telling a "story" and using a lot of first-hand accounts... there are tons of great little tidbits in there, some of them funny and some just epic in their profound magnificence, and all of them sad in one way or another. But seriously there are tons of books about WW2 out there. I'm currently (on-and-off) reading The Storm of War.

Another thing you could do is listen to podcasts about it. There are several on iTunes I believe. In fact there are podcasts about pretty much every period in history on iTunes, and also iTunes U. In my opinion those aren't as good because you don't get a full sense of context and, perhaps most importantly, there are no maps. Geography is the thorn in the side of every historian, so without maps it's very hard to understand what's going on. The moment I bought my historical atlas was like finding an oasis in a desert.

Anyway, hope that helps! I think there are probably others on here who might have better recommendations as well :P

They were towed out of Callao about 50 miles to sea
and then after wrecking, towed in to Tahiti. Recountings of the adventure tend to minimize this, but it's definitely there in the story. I recommend reading between the lines. Sailors in general who have done great crossings don't seems to have much respect for the opportunistic justifications of all the help the expedition got. Read The Wayfinders to get an idea of how great Polynesian navigation was and just how clueless westerners remain about it and the cultural agenda that motivates this ignorance.

Ooh, don't forget about Georges Lemaître! He's the one generally credited with first introducing the idea of a "big bang" (and also derived what we now call Hubble's Law two years before Hubble himself did), but interestingly was also a devout priest, which is sort of unusual.

For anyone interested in any further reading on the subject, The Day Without Yesterday by John Farrell is a great, easy to read biography of Lemaître that also mentions and mixes in brief details of many of the physicists listed above (Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, etc). Highly recommended!

Misleading title. The expedition split into general groups during that time. One went south to the pole (southern party consisting of Scott, Wilson, Oates, Bowers and Edgar Evans), one group stayed at the hut at Cape Royds, and one got stranded on inexpressible island. No one in the southern party (the group that went to the south pole) survived, but the rest of the expedition members did, including the northern party (which is a really amazing story) and the Ponting, the photographer, which is why this photo exists. I don't know for sure who is in the photo, but I think one of them may be Griffith Taylor, one of the geologists on the trip.

Wiki story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_Expedition

A good book that i'm currently reading about the trip: https://www.amazon.com/Scott-Silver-Lining-Classic-Reprint/dp/1333859058

I just posted this on another comment in here but this book is great if you enjoyed With the Old Breed.

This reminds me of a great book I read quite some time ago. It was about how some scientist or explorers found during the 70s or 80s or 90s a Russian family of peasants (or the like) living in the Siberian wilderness, completely cut of from the rest of the world. They had no electricity or any modern amenities and I seem to remember that the last time they had any outside contact Russia still had a Tzar. It was absolutely fascinating.

EDIT: I miss-remembered the Tzar bit, it was early Stalinism when they left, but I still think it is a very good book. Like, they had barely heard of WWII (though again it's been... maybe 10 years since I read this book, the details are fuzzy, but I remember it being very fascinating)

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Taiga-Fifty-Year-Religious-Wilderness/dp/product-description/0385472099

Eugene Sledge, in his book With The Old Breed, mentioned that while they were happy for the troops in Europe, it meant nothing to them.

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Oh wow! It's on YouTube

Disk 1

Disk 2

A very tough read at times.

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Edit: Those are soldiers of the 77th Division. My Grandfather was a Doughboy with the 77th in France from 1917-1918. My Uncle was in the Navy at Okinawa on an LST that landed troops from the 77th. He was always proud that he served with his Father's unit.

Nope, but I on Thursday I finished a 650 page book about the WW2 experience. That should count for at least something. Anyways, the wish for this such wounds was repeated by multiple soldiers on multiple fronts and made to sound like it was a common sentiment. Here's a link if you're interested.

These photos were taken while I accompanied the Grey's Scouts, a special forces unit that was much like the Selous Scouts, except the Grey's were on horseback, effectively the last fighting cavalry in the world. I have written several chapters of context and rich detail about the making of these photos in my recent autobiography entitled ANGLE. [Here is the link] (http://www.amazon.com/Angle-Fighting-Censorship-Threats-Pulitzer-ebook/dp/B00NKUI0CC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419622331&sr=8-1&keywords=J.+Ross+Baughman) I'll reply to several of the comments below.

yes. It was a two part book actually. Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris

Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis

Not the quickest read, its super in depth. But I promise you'll know more about Hitler and Germany around that time than 99% of people.

From Devil In The White City, p.252:

"Although such interior exhibits were compelling, the earliest visitors to Jackson Park saw immediately that the fair's greatest power lay in the strange gravity of the buildings themselves."

"Some visitors found themselves so moved by the Court of Honor that immediately upon entering they began to weep."

> Its actually quite an interesting story how he didn't want to ruin any of the french landmarks

You do realize that be ordered his local commanders to destroy Paris rather than surrender it to the Allies in 1944? Please check out the book "Is Paris Burning" for details: -> *there's also a movie of the same name, but let's assume the book is a better citation, since it has loads more detail).

I mean, c'mon - please don't rewrite history, dude...

[Hope you like it as much as I did.] (https://i.imgur.com/TFrI6xM.gif) If you do, you will not want to miss his follow-up book : [The Fall Of Berlin] (http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Berlin-1945-Antony-Beevor/dp/0142002801/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418409049&sr=8-2&keywords=the+battle+of+berlin&pebp=1418409052291). Enjoy.

For anyone interested about how it all happened: http://www.amazon.com/Is-Paris-Burning-Dominique-Lapierre/dp/0446392251 One of my all time favorite books.

Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account has been one of my favorite memoirs about Auschwitz. The doctor is spared in order to help Mengele.

My two favorite WWII memoirs that I recommend to everyone interested in WWII history:

Always Faithful: A memoir of the marine dogs of WWII - The story of the US Marine Corps war dogs from training to battle on Guam as told by the commander of the Third Dog Platoon. This book is all about the loyalty, companionship, heroism, and immeasurable value of the war dogs on the battlefield, most of which were ordinary family pets who were "volunteered" by their owners to help with the war effort.

"With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa - If you haven't read this one, it's an essential pick and a no-brainer. The HBO series "The Pacific" was based partly on this book. A view of joining the US Marine Corp in late 1943, training, and deployment to Peleliu and Okinawa as told from the perspective of a young grunt.

You might be thinking of President Wilson. If you're genuinely curious about Coolidge, here is an interesting recent biography of him: https://www.amazon.com/Coolidge-Amity-Shlaes/dp/0061967599

Check out this book by Miklos Nyiszli. He was a Hungarian Jew taken to Auschwitz and made to work for Joseph Mengele. His work was a major source in my undergrad capstone research and details many duties of the Sonderkommando. It's an excellent read!
www.amazon.com/Auschwitz-A-Doctors-Eyewitness-Account/dp/161145011X/ref=la_B001K8O94Y_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342001947&sr=1-1

There's a book that won the National Book Critics Circle Award about the genocide, written by Philip Gourevitch who covered the story for The New Yorker. It is called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.

If you want to read his pieces from The New Yorker, here's the author's page on their website with links to his stories.

If you want to read an incredibly powerful and gut-wrenching book on the Rwandan genocide, I highly recommend Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.

Thanks for elaborating, I was trying to give a very brief outline.

For anyone interested in the history of Rwanda and the Rwandan genocide, I'd recommend Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families. It's absolutely nuts to me that over a 3 month period people picked up their machetes and slaughtered 20% of the population.

Just finished [Fall of Berlin] (http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Berlin-1945-Antony-Beevor/dp/0142002801) which is a great account of that period and talks a little about how kids were forced into service in the final days.

Ian Kershaw is a historian who wrote a two part biography that was very good. The first part is "Hubris" about 1888-1936 and the second part Nemesis about the years 1936-1945.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is also good but it was written by a journalist who lived in Germany at the time - so there definitely is some bias in what he wrote. That's not to say that it's not worth reading or that it isn't informative though.

you want to read one of THE best books on the pacific campaign, check E.B. Sledge: With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. Sledge ran 60mm mortars & man, the combat detail is nuts.

This story is told really well in Erik Larson's excellent The Devil in the White City.

If you haven't read it, this is worth a read to get some understanding of the horror which was Okinawa -- With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa http://amzn.com/0891419195