Reddit mentions: The best us civil war history books

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I've known a fair number of people who have changed from red tribe to blue as you describe, but I've also known plenty of people who were born blue tribe to relatively moderate parents, and then evolved into a kind of heightened or radicalized version of their blue tribe values in high school or college for a while (which usual involves things like militant veganism) until they burn themselves out, in a way that is not too dissimilar to equivalents on the right (say fundamentalist Muslim children of moderate assimilated Muslim immigrant parents, or super Southern Baptist or Mormon children of pretty moderate Southern Baptist or Mormon parents, something I experienced first hand a lot).

There is a kind of idealism underneath this that makes a great deal of sense for the young - they shared their parents values, but don't understand why they aren't living up to them.

I don't know of modern research on these patterns, but as a nice (older) example of exactly this kind of phenomenon, here's an interesting Atlantic piece from 1967, talking about the Haight in San Francisco, and the rise of hippies.

The following paragraph from that piece stuck with me back when I read it:

"Many hippies lived with the help of remittances from home, whose parents, so straight, so square, so seeming compliant, rejected, in fact, a great portion of that official American program rejected by the hippies in psychedelic script. The 19th Century Was A Mistake The 20th Century Is A Disaster. Even in arrest they found approval from their parents, who had taught them in years of civil rights and resistance to the war in Vietnam that authority was often questionable, sometimes despicable. George F. Babbitt, forty years before in Zenith, U.S.A., declared his hope, at the end of a famous book, that his son might go farther than Babbitt had dared along lines of break and rebellion."

Likewise, the following really good history book about radicals on both the left and right in the 60s, which performed a bunch of first hand interviews with activists from that era, found that, while there was some of what we'd call red-to-blue crossover, many, many of the activists had, essentially, their parents values, but often with a much harder, more radicalized edge. Many of the young left-wing organizers in the 60s were explicitly atheist Jews who had abandoned their parents Reform Judaism while largely sharing their basic values and world view. Many of the young right-wing organizers of the era were the less moderate children of somewhat more moderate Catholic immigrant parents.

Granted, this last example is talking about particular exceptional people, outliers.

Even now, I get the sense that a big source of momentum behind the rise of the Alt-Right / Intellectual Dark Web / Jordan Peterson / whatever is that there is a giant of cohort of young men who abandoned the Religious Right / Moral Majority religious framework of their parents, who nevertheless respond positively to something like a rehabilitated secular vision of conservatism, and who find a lot of progressive values and rhetoric alien and, ultimately, off-putting, once progressivism got out of its defense crouch and started making full-throated claims on its values after Obama had been in office for a while.

But this is all just my impressions and musing. I would be extremely interested in knowing some actual demographic data about all this stuff.

As I said in the podcast, I'd be posting a bibliography. You can find a much more extensive one here, but for a briefer one speaking mainly just to the topic of the Podcast, namely dueling in the United States with a focus on political encoutners, here is the limited edition "Greatest Hits" release:

• Ayers, Edward L. & John Mayfield & Todd Hagstette, eds. The Field of Honor: Essays on Southern Character and American Identity. University of South Carolina Press, 2017: Particularly several chapters in “Part II: Honor, Violence, and the Law”, and “Part III: Defining the Man - Honor and Character”.
  
• Bruce, Jr., Dickson D. Violence and Culture in the Antebellum South. University of Texas Press, 1979
  
• Fleming, Thomas J. "Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America": Very lively book and fun to read even if a bit overly "Popish", it focuses specifically on the relationship between Burr and Hamilton in 1803-1804 as they march towards their "interview". Would certainly recommend to anyone looking for a book-length treatment of the duel.
  
• Freeman, Joanne B. Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic. Yale University Press, 2002: Concerned with a broader look at American politics in the early United States, Freeman devotes part of the book specifically to the Duel and its place within the world of politics at the time. The key chapter on this front can also be found in an earlier version, see below.
  
• Greenberg, Kenneth S. Honor & Slavery: Lies, Duels, Noses, Masks, Dressing as a Woman, Gifts, Strangers, Humanitarianism, Death, Slave Rebellions, the Proslavery Argument, Baseball, Hunting, and Gambling in the Old South. Princeton University Press, 1996: The book is as excellent as its name!
  
• Greene, Evarts B. 1927. “The Code of Honor in Colonial and Revolutionary Times with Special Reference to New England.” Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts 26: 367–89: Old but solid, Greene's article remains heavily cited as one of the "go-to" pieces with regards to the origins of dueling in the United States.
  
• Hopton, Richard. Pistols at Dawn: A History of Duelling: If you are looking for a decently written and researched pop history introduction, this is the book for you! Providing a general overview of the history of the duel in Europe, while it has its small errors and simplifications, all in all, it provides a solid survey for someone who doesn't want to jump into more academic works yet.
  
• Moore, James T. 1975. “The Death of the Duel: The Code Duello in Readjuster Virginia, 1879-1883.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 83 (3): 259–78.
  
• Olson, Christopher J. Political Culture and Secession in Mississippi: Masculinity, Honor, and the Antiparty Tradition, 1830-1860. Oxford University Press, 2002 Schneller, Mark G. Invisible Sovereign: Imagining Public Opinion from the Revolution to Reconstruction. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015.
  
• Rorabaugh, W J. 1995. “The Political Duel in the Early Republic: Burr v. Hamilton.” Journal of the Early Republic 15 (1): 1–23: A good, concise evaluation of the Burr-Hamilton Duel in political context.
  
• Stevens, William Oliver Pistols at Ten Paces: The Story of the Code of Honor in America. Houghton Mifflin, 1940: While a bit dated, it is an unfortunate fact that solid, book length treatments of dueling in the United States are few and far between. While falling into the common fault of over emphasizing anecdote common to older books on the duel, it nevertheless is a good read.
  
• Steward, Dick. Duels and the Roots of Violence in Missouri. University of Missouri Press, 2000
  
• Stowe, Steven M. Intimacy and Power in the Old South: Ritual in the Lives of the Planters. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.
  
• Wells, C.A. Harwell. 2001. “The End of the Affair? Anti-Dueling Laws and Social Norms in Antebellum America.” Vanderbilt Law Review 54 (4): Focused most specifically on dueling, legally, and its decline in the United States.
  
• Williams, Jack K. Dueling in the Old South: Vignettes of Social History. Texas A&M University Press, 1980: A nice, short book that looks at the duel in the American South.
  
• Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South. Oxford University Press, 1983: An (the most?) important work on the study of antebellum culture in the American South, looking at the duel, and the wider society in which it belonged. See also "Honor and Violence in the Old South which is an abridged version focused more on the role of violence specifically in the life of the Southern gentleman.
  
  Also, I haven't listened back through the podcast as like most people it isn't like I can stand hearing my own voice, but off hand as far as error corrections, I know I messed up at least one thing, confusing the date of the Cilley-Graves encounter and placing it in 1826, the year of the Randolph-Clay duel which also touched on Congressional privilege. Cilley-Graves was in fact in 1838. Quite possibly a few other mix-ups in there which I blustered through, but that one at least struck me practically the moment after wrapping up, so thought to point it out.

Congrats on getting hired!!! I'd recommend a mix of PD/teaching books and content. When you get bored of one switch to the other. Both are equally important (unless you feel stronger in one area than the other).

For PD, I'd recommend: Teach Like a Pirate, Blended, The Wild Card, and the classic Essential 55. Another one on grading is Fair Isn't Always Equal - this one really changed how I thought about grading in my classes.

As far as content, you have a couple ways to go - review an overview of history like Lies My Teacher Told Me, the classic People's History, or Teaching What Really Happened, or you can go with a really good book on a specific event or time period to make that unit really pop in the classroom. The Ron Chernow books on Hamilton, Washington, or Grant would be great (but long). I loved Undaunted Courage about Lewis & Clark and turned that into a really great lesson.

Have a great summer and best of luck next year!!

I have some experience in this area, having once been involved with a group of short story writers that worked on the anthologies in Eric Flint’s "Ring of Fire" series (http://www.amazon.com/Ring-of-Fire/lm/R27BF7HO8G45VW - where a mining town in West Virginia is transported back to 1632 and kicks off the American Revolution about a hundred and fifty years earlier). A lot of discussion went on about how to bootstrap technologies. Now, this mining town started with more infrastructure (it’s based on a real town, circa 2000), but a Marine Expeditionary Unit has a logistics combat element to keep everything supplied and running. That would include things like heavy equipment, machine tools, and generators. In terms of manpower, it’s safe to assume that some of the officers are trained engineers and there are machinists and various other technical specialists among the enlisted men. So, you have the tools to make tools and the people with the expertise to operate those tools (surprisingly, you can build "precision" machine tools from relatively little - http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/series/index.html).

Goldsworthy is correct that it would take many months or years to reproduce even bulky analogues to their current equipment. The vacuum process needed to make make a Edison light bulb or a vacuum tube (no more transistors for ten to twenty years or integrated circuits for fifty…) by itself is a pain in the ass. It’ll take three to five years to figure that one out, as an example. If they wish to maintain a technical edge in the long term, it would behoove them to conserve resources and redirect as much of it as possible into bootstrapping an industrial and technical base.

And that sets up the dilemma. With survival being the immediate need, the best short term tactical course is to remain mobile, but remaining mobile means either expending or abandoning the resources that give you a vital edge (and it would likely strike your average Marine as rather stupid to expend gas and bullets “in a few days” anyway). So, the other option is to hunker down, dig in, and fortify. Expend a minimum of resources to obtain a psychological advantage over the enemy (read: scare the shit out of them) to discourage them from attacking you as long as possible. That gives you time (hopefully) to resupply, but as you’re conserving resources, you lose mobility. You then go about the business of establishing contact with indigenous populations (plenty around that would love to throw off Roman rule) to trade for raw materials (as well as to obtain vital intelligence). Anything running off diesel can be modified to run on vegetable oil. Gasoline engines can be modified to run on methane (fermenting animal dung). But likely, much of your heavy equipment is going to be cannibalized for other purposes, so you’re focus is on maintaining man-portable weaponry.

But the Marines also have vital "force multipliers" (the fruit of centuries of development in military doctrine) outside of their raw technical advantages: centralized all-source intelligence gathering ("The Secret War for the Union" - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0395901367 - tells the story of how vital such intelligence gathering can be), a command staff, a more flexible hierarchy, etc. They also have advantages of technique in areas like medicine. On the flip side, the Romans have some clear advantages (other than numbers): established networks for transportation, communication, logistics, and intelligence, as well as better knowledge of the terrain; physical, human, and otherwise.

As for the Roman world, circa 23 BC, the state of philosophy during that period--Epicurean, Stoic, neo-Platonic, Aristotelian, and otherwise--would surprise most moderns with the level of sophistication and depth in discussions of metaphysics and the nature of reality. In fact, it was the reintroduction and synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy in the medieval universities of the Latin West that catalyzed the rise of modern science. The ancients weren't dumb (smarter than us, in some ways). Fargosucks was fairly close to the mark.

And what would psychologically motivate the Marines? In the short to mid-term, group survival. All they have is each other and they'll be fighting for each other, as soldiers always have. But like Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, they're commanders will realize that they have to give their men more reason to fight, an ultimate objective to work toward. A Marine officer familiar with history might suggest restoring the Republic, the Rome of Cincinnatus and Scipio, not of Caesar. It's a recognition that Rome was a civilizing and stabilizing force in the West, better than much of the barbarism that surrounded it, but it was once and could again be better.

Based on your last three sentences, J_Jammer, you have no idea what you're talking about. On the surface you are factually correct, but your ignorance of U.S. politics and political parties of the 1800s to the early/mid 1900s shines through in those last three sentences. The Democrats of 1800s America are not synonymous with Democrats of today or, actually, even Democrats of the 1970s, just as the Republicans of today are not synonymous with Republicans of 1800s America or even the Republicans of the 1970s. Democrats were not exclusively "liberal" in the 1800s. (Also, what liberal meant and represents then and what it means now are not, in some respects, the same). The ideologies and party platforms of both Democrats and Republicans at that time are worlds apart from what they are today.

Here are two excellent book to get you started on an education in the American political system and party ideology of that time period.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Peculiar-Democracy-Southern-Democrats/dp/0820322822

http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Reconstruction-1863-1867-David-Donald/dp/1583484418/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_9

Also, any books pertaining specifically to the history of Southern Democrats and their ideology would also help you better understand Democrats of the 1800s. You could also learn about Blue Dog Democrats of today and the New Democratic Coalition to understand further how the Democratic party works and can be so divided in their voting.

Another good book to read, although not related to Democrats, but describing how the Republican party platform dramatically shifted after the early 1970s and how this ties into the decisions made after 9-11, read "American Theocracy" by Kevin Phillips. It is tangentially related because it, at points, outlines the Republican party and their ideology pre-1970s, and overall will give you some insight into just how dramatically a political party's ideology and agenda can shift in a short amount of time.

Just because you read something somewhere that said, "Democrats supported (insert something completely out of line with modern Democrats)", or even "Republicans supported (insert something completely out of line with modern Republicans)", don't assume it's shocking or hypocritical unless you fully understand America's political history, party policy shifts and why those shifts happened. America's political history is far more fascinating, I think, than most people realize.

For the Revolutionary War

• This Glorious Cause. One volume book, so it's not going to cover everything but for a general overview of the Revolutionary War it's great.
  
  
• Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy I'm partial to this one because of the focus on the Navy.
  
  
• Paul Revere's Ride Fischer does a great job in explaining the build up to the Revolution using Revere as a central figure.
  
  
• The First Salute. Barbara Truchman writes here about the vital role the Dutch played in keeping the Revolution alive via trade, and the consequences of that trade for the Dutch. It can sometime lose focus as Truchman goes into great detail about things that probably would be better left to footnotes, but it's still a great read. (Her Guns of August won a Pulitzer, and in my opinion it's a must-read for anyone at all interested in WWI.)
  
  For the Civil War
  
  
• The Civil War: A Narrative, by Shelby Foote. I'm a big fan of this, but it is three volumes so that means it's rather long.
  
  
• Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson is also another classic in the field.
  
  
• Grant's Memoirs and Sherman's Memoirs are both must-reads.
  
  I have to recommend Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane and Killer Angels by Michael Sharra, both fantastic military fiction.
  
  
  
  

These should be the top recommendations hands down, both of these books were designed with your specific goal in mind:

A People's History of America - This focuses on history of the US from the perspective of the everyman rather than the 'big man' side of history where every politician is a gentle statesman. It shows just how barbaric and ghoulish those in charge often are.

Lies My Teacher Told Me. - Similar to the last one, this one shows how modern history loves to pretend all sorts of shit did not happen or ignore anything that's even slightly discomforting, like the idea that Henry Ford literally inspired Hitler, both in a model industry and anti-semitism.

These are both relatively easy reads with lots of praise.

Adam Curtis docs are always good, I recommend starting with one called "Black Power" which answers the question "What happens to African countries when they try to play ball with the west?"

Napolitano really sneaks in the "Lincoln tried to arm the slaves" line in the interview without much context. I was hoping to tackle this, but I'm not sure where he is coming from.

Can we speak to what position he might be making this claim from?

Lincoln dispels any notion of support for John Brown in his famous Cooper Union Speech on Feb. 27, 1860. There were some prominent Northern supporters and funders of Brown's (a few of whom fled to Canada after the raid on Harper's Ferry), but attempting to tie their ambitions of an armed slave uprising to Lincoln would be tenuous at best.

My reading and research into Brown hasn't shown any other connection there aside from the strange linkage of Lincoln's love of "Battle Hymn of the Republic," which was written to the tune of "John Brown's Body," which was written by Julia Ward Howe after visiting Lincoln in Washington. Howe was wife of Samuel Gridley Howe, who himself was one of the "Secret Six" funders of Brown's raid. This New York Times post recognizes this connection as fairly ironic given Lincoln's previous attempts to distance himself from Brown and concedes that Lincoln appears ignorant to the tune's origin. It's more of an interesting factoid than anything else.

More information of the Howes and Brown's supporters:
> Nora Titone, My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry That Led to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Free Press, 2011).

As an aside, there does appear to be well-researched documentation for the Confederacy's attempts to arm slaves. Near the end of the war as the military situation worsened for the South, there was support for allowing slaves to earn their freedom by fighting for the Confederacy. The first all-black company was formed in Richmond in late-March of 1865, then the capital city fell to the Union a week later.

Bruce Levine has written about this in "Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves during the Civil War." A quick journal review of his work is here for those interested.

That's a good book. It's more of a reference.

You might also consider Farnsworth , or Arthur Quinn. Less of a guidebook, but interesting nonetheless is Words Like Loaded Pistols. This may be overkill for you, but there is a very good section in the last 1/3 of this book that is very good: Classical Rhetoric. There are lots and lots more depending how much you want to get into it.

This is the subject of a very interesting book by Bruce Levine, called Confederate Emancipation.

The skinny of it is that both the idea of emancipating the slaves as a war necessity (whether to help encourage European recognition or else to try and endear the slaves into joining the southern cause en masse) and of training slaves to fight for the Confederate Army, whether or not freedom was part of that enlistment, was talked about almost from day one of the war. However, it was only ever seriously supported by a fairly small minority among Confederates and in all cases encountered very, very strong opposition from most confederates. As things turned badly for the Confederacy during the war, Jefferson Davis began trying very hard to enlist black troops for the south and was heavily resisted. Ultimately a very small number of black troops were trained at the very end of the war, but they never saw actual combat. Predictably, black volunteers, even with the incentive of freedom, always came up short, and the number who actually got into uniforms is too small to be significant in any way. IIRC barely a company of black confederate troops was formed, but I can't confirm that at the moment.

That being said, black slaves were used by the army for support roles from day one as well. They tended soldiers in the camps, built defenses, and fulfilled many other roles, except fighting and soldiering. This led to the whole incident at Fort Monroe and the Confiscation Acts, which are quite worth researching.

>Really ? Can you give me one example where in any social science women are treated as the majority group.

academia is much larger than social science.

here is one example:

>The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Majority-Finds-Its-Past-Placing/dp/0807856061/

Another which talks about demographics which is a social science... Any form of geography that deals with demographics is a social science and will talk about statistics and women are in fact a statistical majority in the UK.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-503-x/2010001/article/11475-eng.htm

>In the statistical sense it is definitely true. Feel free to look at the number of women in position in power. I think you mean that numerically women are not a minority. Which is true. But when people talk about minorities in the context of social groups, it almost never means in a numerical sense.

Nobody mentioned women in power. They were only mentioned as a percentage of population. If you want to say women are a minority of MPs, CEOs etc, then that is true, but you MUST specify the specific situation. Just to say women are a minority generally implies to most people in terms of total population, which is not true in the UK.

>I think you mean that numerically women are not a minority

Of course I do, people in this country do, I don't think I know anyone in my social or professional life who doesn't use minority to use statistical minority (I did a STEM PhD).

>But when people talk about minorities in the context of social groups, it almost never means in a numerical sense.

Outside of certain social sciences (not including geography) it is uncommon for people to do that.

>Everybody that would discuss this with any BASIC KNOWLEDGE would understand that it's perfectly valid to describe women as minority group. Give that you apparently find Oxford reliable may I suggest the dictionary of sociology

Basic knowledge of sociology as used by a particular part of the field..... Outside of that field, people would not get what your are saying as most people only deal with statistic majorities.

It seems the term minority has been used to equate/compare women to statistical minority groups. As someone who deals with numbers on a regular basis, this terminology is rather counter intuitive. It is strange to use it when the exact opposite is true statistically.

On top of the link provided by /carpenter I'd say that Intelligence played its part and much of this intelligence was linked to the Pinkerton agency. I recommend reading a quite interesting, and probably unique, book titled "The secret war for the Union". Relates all the intelligence efforts and sources of the Army of the Potomac with each of its commanding generals; by Intelligence I mean all intelligence in military terms, from agents, to scouts, use of cavalry for info gathering, balloons etc.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-War-Union-Intelligence/dp/0395901367

The capital of the Confederacy would have been substantially more defensible by land, but it is worth remembering that ultimately the fall of Richmond was more a symptom of the Confederacy's loss of the war than its cause, which came as a result of the Union's systematic encirclement, isolation, and division of the economy, followed by pinning its main army down by the use of superior numbers. As a result, I'd argue that keeping the capital in Montgomery doesn't prolong the war.

It's an interesting counterfactual, though, because there's not a lot of reasons to stick with Montgomery besides defensiveness. Richmond was chosen as the capital of the Confederacy for a number of reasons, both political and economic. You correctly point out that Alabama possesses industrial capacity today, but the iron and manufacturing center of Birmingham didn't develop until after the war. In fact, in 1861, the South possessed precious little industry at all. Richmond was one of these, and one of the mightiest, thanks to one key advantage: the falls of the James. Since the city was built directly on the Fall Line, unlike most of its neighbors to the north and south which were typically built just below the Fall Line for easy access to navigable water (for example, Fredericksburg, Alexandria, and Petersburg), it had easy access to water power simply by exploiting the natural ~100' drop in elevation. This provided a fertile environment for businesses such as Tredegar Ironworks (the third-largest in America and the largest in the South, which produced half of the artillery used by the Confederacy by itself) and the Gallego Flour Mills (the largest of its kind in the world). In fact, according to an estimate by James McPherson, Virginia's industrial capacity was "nearly as great as that of the seven original Confederate states combined," and was focused in areas the South sorely needed: ordnance, cannon, and manufactured comestibles. Richmond was also one of the largest rail hubs in the South, with Atlanta close behind and developing into a more important one following the war.

Without all of that protected by the Confederacy with all of the energy and money that desperate self-preservation can provide, you run the risk that Virginia falls more swiftly, and with it the South. The Confederates knew this, and it factored into their decision-making. Better to risk attack from the North than to lose the only ironworks large enough to supply the army they knew they would need. Ultimately, I think their decision was correct. It just wasn't enough.

I have, actually. You might try a couple books I've found to be very helpful in that regard.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

A People's History of the United States

I'm only halfway through the second one, but there's really nothing quite like reading history through the words of everyday people like you and me. Rather than the heroic narrative that glorifies and omits based upon the preferred narrative of the writer.

This book is a great beginner's guide to Marx, very easy to understand and has all of the basics.

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn is also a great socialist history of the US and includes some anecdotes about radical religious figures.

I would also point him towards anything by Father Dan Berrigan.

Read Gary Wills' Lincoln At Gettysburg, one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. Wills claims, and supports, that Lincoln successfully set out to re-formulate the relationship between the American people and our government. If nothing else, it is a great example of how to really read a text.

I learned more about US history from the books below than anything I learned from my high school teachers. I did have some good college professors - but they are the ones who recommended these books. Also, "Untold History of The United States" documentary by Oliver Stone on Netflix. If you like dry stuff any Ken Burns documentary.

Lies My Teach Told Me

People's History of the United States

Currently working my way through Shelby Foote's "The Civil War", (he's one of the featured narrators of Ken Burn's tv series on the civil war). It's an impressive compilation, three substantial volumes, which may be a little heavy on narrative for you but I've really appreciated how he lays out everything in kind of a 360 degree approach. I highly recommend it!

https://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Volumes-1-3-Box/dp/0394749138/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479537418&sr=8-1&keywords=shelby+foote%27s+the+civil+war+set

The Civil War Trust, a group dedicated to preserving battlefields, has a really good map section. Some of them are even animated.

http://www.civilwar.org/maps/animated-maps/

You can also check the NPS sites for various battlefields, as they sometimes have good maps.

This book is also pretty good:
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Civil-War-Complete-Tactics/dp/1426203470/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=61TsRd1h-jL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR122%2C160_&refRID=08882N170JEKS439HZDE

You can alwAys just do a quick Google search, too.

This is an excellent comment, I wish I could give you gold. I just downloaded a sample of the book, the first essay is supposed to be one of the better ones so maybe most of it will be in the sample for now, ha.

Here's a link if anyone is feeling lazy:
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Lost-Cause-Civil-History-ebook/dp/B00866HAI0

Are you asking a question, or making a statement? Would you like to define what you mean by "other stuff"?




If you want to know where I derived the ideas that I formed my comment from. It was mainly from reading these three books -




Security Analysis, 6th edition, by Graham & Dodd




The Intelligent Investor, by Graham




A People's History of the United States, by Zinn

What is WC?

I watched some of the 9/11 video. Self-sacrifice is associated with goodness, but then the Islamic terrorists also practiced self-sacrifice, so self-sacrifice by itself isn't enough. Good judgement is also needed. Also, 2000 was still better than now. There probably were some good people at that time, it is only in the last few years that I have seen all traces of goodness disappear.

Romans 12:2 is something I quote to Christians all the time (at least I did when I dealt with them). Of course I wish Christians would follow this, but only traditional Anabaptists seem to. Mainstream Christianity is completely conformed to this age.

I haven't read "Night" by Elie Wiesel. I know enough about this topic since most of family died in the Holocaust and my father escaped from a Nazi work camp and then fought, blowing up German trains. Individuals can make the most difference when there is open war between good and evil, by siding with good. But when one is surrounded by ubiquitous evil, as in modern culture, it is much harder to make a difference.

Ancient Israel was a case of constant conflict between good and evil with good generally being the minority. Still, at least there always seemed to be at least one prophet of good, which is better than today.

Most of what Jesus says is consistent with the Old Testament, and his opinion of Solomon is no exception. Solomon clearly violated Deuteronomy 17:14-20.

I didn't write much about the New Testament because modern Christianity doesn't work. But here is one thing I wrote:

http://www.mikraite.org/Who-is-my-neighbor-tp481.html

About history, please don't waste your time on YouTube and on history books. Only original sources have value. Here are some books that you may find interesting:

https://www.amazon.com/Reformation-Reader-Primary-Texts-Introductions/dp/0800663101/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002GJGIDQ/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1607961806/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140444203/

https://www.amazon.com/002-American-History-Revolution-1765-1865/dp/0394705416/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394708423/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140455280/

To understand the world wars, probably the best book to read is Mein Kampf.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LDLI0S/

Like with religion, one has to get as close to the source as possible in history to find truth.

I highly, highly recommend Bound for Canaan if you want to understand the human aspect of the movement. It reads sort of like a good Atlantic story: not shying away from historical detail or complexity, but also using and following interesting individuals to highlight whatever broader point he is making.

There is a lot going on in this question, but briefly, the state of historiography concerning the American Civil War in 1990 could best be described as being dominated by a neo-abolitionist interpretation that began gaining steam in the 1960s, and is perhaps best represented (in a 1990s context) by James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom published in 1988, around the same time that Ken Burn was preparing his documentary.

While I'm being reductionist here, neo-abolistionists were insistent upon returning to the narrative the singular importance of slavery, not simply for Southern desires to maintain it, but for the North's moral desire to see it vanquished as well. Much of this criticism was geared towards the revisionist scholars of the 30s and 40s who saw the Civil War as the product of a selfish, impulsive group of political elites who's inability to compromise resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and implicitly carried strong anti-war undertones. Kenneth Stammp's The Causes of the Civil War, which received a final revision in 1992, is a good source for understanding these transitions. It best represents the exact nature of the literature in 1990, and it is worth reading if you want to quickly familiarize yourself with these debates leading up to 1990. You can find it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Causes-Civil-War-Revised-Touchstone/dp/0671751557/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458413862&sr=8-1-fkmr1&keywords=ken+stampp+the+cause+of+the+civil+war

The second aspect of your question, I am little more unsure of. But I can say that Burn's documentary is basically in alignment with a neo-aboltionist interpretation, but those types of historical arguments are downplayed a bit in order to focus on the details of battles, personal struggle, courage, adversity, etc. Things that the average public would find more enjoyable to watch, and that approach certainly has it advantages/disadvantages.

By bringing up Shelby Foote, you are correct to speculate that perhaps Burn's documentary was already out of date before it was conceived of. To this I would say yes and no, predicated on my previous paragraph. Foote's work was for a general audience, is well researched, masterfully written and quite engaging. It really is not "argumentative," and is rather neutral in tone, in much the same way Burn's documentary is.

I'm not sure about the progression of historian's thoughts about Foote's work, but as someone who is engaged in the ACW scholarly community, most will praise his work for its engaging narrative, but are quick to point out its limitations as a scholarly source, and that the work is best suited for public consumption rather than academics.

On the other side though, many are resentful of the renewed public interest in the Civil War, because it gave rise to "civil war buffs," who are more interested in battlefield statistics than understanding the cultural implications of the war's outcome in relation to race, racism, slavery, etc. I remember at panel discussion about military history at the Southern Historical Society's annual meeting a few years, exploded into a heated debate about Civil War buffs in the classroom, and what to do about them.

While I did not address everything you asked, I hope this response helped a bit. And hopefully others can modify/or fill any gaps in my response.

I recently read a book called Nothing Like It in the World about the construction of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. Fascinating; I highly recommend it. Other interesting TIL tidbits:

• The Chinese were used to build the Central Pacific eastward from California because they were prohibited from mining for gold. Whites would work the railroad for long enough to earn enough to buy a mine stake, then disappear from the workforce.
  
• "Irish" was a catch-all term for white working-class immigrants working on the westbound Union Pacific. Only a fraction of them actually hailed from Ireland.
  
• Most of the work gang on the Union Pacific were demobilized Union soldiers after the (US) Civil War and the chief of operations was a Union general.
  
• All the heavy equipment and materials for the Central Pacific (locomotives, rails, spikes) were manufactured on the East Coast and either shipped around the tip of South America or hauled on wagons and sledges over Panama. This meant that the supply line was over 6 months long.
  
• The directors of both the Union and Central Pacific companies paid themselves handsomely for their work. In addition to their salaries from the UP and CP, and their income from stock options, they also created shell companies to which the UP and CP contracted for the actual construction of the rail. They then paid themselves salaries and stock options for their management of the shell companies. At the same time, they often refused to pay their laborers for months on end.
  

I don't think my argument is the be all end all, but if I had to suggest reading on the subject, I would say read Battle Cry of Freedom:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002NXOQLQ/

I think a few things have recently been debunked, but it's still pretty much the go to for what I would call an even handed approach. Also, probably my favorite all time non-fiction book.

It's very well written, reads like a novel. Goes into great detail about the man, his personality, his personal life. And of course his military career and exploits. Very good book.

Also, if you have the time, get yourself this:https://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Volumes-1-3-Box/dp/0394749138

Civil War - By Shelby Foote. Best Civil War books I have ever read!

I just read a book that totally opened my eyes about Robert. E. Lee. One of the greatest unsung heroes of American history if you ask me. Read April 1865 by Jay Winik.

Texts and Reference Books

Days in the Lives of Social Workers

DSM-5

Child Development, Third Edition: A Practitioner's Guide

Racial and Ethnic Groups

Social Work Documentation: A Guide to Strengthening Your Case Recording

Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond

[Thoughts and Feelings: Taking Control of Your Moods and Your Life]
(https://www.amazon.com/Thoughts-Feelings-Harbinger-Self-Help-Workbook/dp/1608822087/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3ZW7PRW5TK2PB0MDR9R3)

Interpersonal Process in Therapy: An Integrative Model

[The Clinical Assessment Workbook: Balancing Strengths and Differential Diagnosis]
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0534578438/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_38?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ARCO1HGQTQFT8)

Helping Abused and Traumatized Children

Essential Research Methods for Social Work

Navigating Human Service Organizations

Privilege: A Reader

Play Therapy with Children in Crisis

The Color of Hope: People of Color Mental Health Narratives

The School Counseling and School Social Work Treatment Planner

Streets of Hope : The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood

Deviant Behavior

Social Work with Older Adults

The Aging Networks: A Guide to Programs and Services

[Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society: Bridging Research and Practice]
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415884810/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change

Ethnicity and Family Therapy

Human Behavior in the Social Environment: Perspectives on Development and the Life Course

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

Generalist Social Work Practice: An Empowering Approach

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook

DBT Skills Manual for Adolescents

DBT Skills Manual

DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets

Social Welfare: A History of the American Response to Need

Novels

[A People’s History of the United States]
(https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0062397346/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511070674&sr=1-1&keywords=howard+zinn&dpID=51pps1C9%252BGL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch)


The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Life For Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Tuesdays with Morrie

The Death Class <- This one is based off of a course I took at my undergrad university

The Quiet Room

Girl, Interrupted

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Flowers for Algernon

Of Mice and Men

A Child Called It

Go Ask Alice

Under the Udala Trees

Prozac Nation

It's Kind of a Funny Story

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Yellow Wallpaper

The Bell Jar

The Outsiders

To Kill a Mockingbird

Richard Holfstradter has a good collection of the Lincoln Douglas debates.

Another great work published in 1963 that still applies today.

A History of the American People

or if you are a dirty commie

A People's History.

Honestly they are a yin and yang that do an amazing job of giving you US history in broad strokes.

Other than those Chernow on Washington or just this.

> The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Majority-Finds-Its-Past-Placing/dp/0807856061/

May I guess you never read the book ? She was a radical socialist and feminist, with the title almost surely like this because it plays on the contradiction of women being a minority group despite being a numerical majority.

>Gerda Lerner. One of the most influential feminist historians, Lerner is often credited with being the first to offer college courses in women's history. Lerner was a giant in her field: she rose to prominence in the 1960s, a time of tremendous expansion in the field of history. During this time, social history became popular: increasingly historians began to pay attention to every-day people, including women, the African Americans, the poor, and other minorities, as opposed to the ''great men'' embodied in generals like Robert E. Lee. and politicians like Thomas Jefferson.

You can read maybe The Creation of Patriarchy :P To make sure that she would probably have no issue with describing women as a minority group and would surely understand.

>Of course I do, people in this country do, I don't think I know anyone in my social or professional life who doesn't use minority to use statistical minority (I did a STEM PhD).

Why do you use statistical majority, when you mean numerical majority ? This is the second time now and it's confusing me a bit. And again, sure you and your friends might use the colloquial definition of minority. Which is totally fine, but pretending that women can't be called a minority is just wrong and shows that you have no understanding of minority groups and the social sciences.

>Basic knowledge of sociology as used by a particular part of the field..... Outside of that field, people would not get what your are saying as most people only deal with statistic majorities.

Is what we are discussing right now related to the social sciences or more to numerics ? Also you are kinda not telling the truth when you talk people are dealing with statistic majorities. Because which groups are you dealing with ? Blonde people ? They are a statistical minority. Would you want to give me a list of minorities you are thinking of when you talk about minority ? Because I seriously doubt it coincides with "statistical minorities"

>It seems the term minority has been used to equate/compare women to statistical minority groups. As someone

No, it seems like you don't understand what minority groups are. Like most of society. The term comes from academia, and people just perverse the meaning.

It's a lie to claim people think of "statistical minorities" because then they would think of blonde people, brown eyed people, people with super high IQ, aristocrats, etc etc. There are many many people that you are almost surely not thinking about when talking about minorities. Maybe you mean ethnic minorities. Maybe.

>It is strange to use it when the exact opposite is true statistically.

It's stranger to use it in a way that's completely inconsistent. And ignores the history of the word. Even stranger to not know the multiple meanings of the word, and defend your ignorance like the problem is people who spent decades on this topic know less than you.

I would highly recommend Thomas Jefferson: Author of America by Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens was a journalist and essayist, heavily influenced by George Orwell, Thomas Jefferson, and Leon Trotsky. He's one of the few people I can think of who described himself as a "socialist" of sorts who also admired the American Revolution. An interesting source, but he's a person who hugely admired Jefferson and was also willing to criticize his failings. Basically, you will get the general story that most Americans know, but Hitchens also writes about the more troubling/controversial aspects of Jefferson such as his ownership of slaves and his fathering of children with them.

Anyway, that's Jefferson. For general American history I would suggest reading both A People's History of the United States and A Patriot's History of the United States. Those books will provide general knowledge from two very distinct perspectives. People's is very critical of the country's past, while Patriot's is...well, patriotic.

Here are some that I enjoyed, I am particularly interested in cultural history. Jackson Lears: Rebirth of a Nation and William Leach: Land of Desire.

Well, Antietem is easy to go to if you are in the area.

I went perhaps eight years ago (from VT, so it involved a long car ride and hotel expenses). Many fewer markers than Gettysburg, but it is by no means built up or spoiled in that way. However, I personally had some trouble understanding the picture, as presented by the markers, etc.

I just finished reading Sears's book, which I thought was excellent. I intend to visit again and I feel that now I would have a much better understanding of where people were coming from when they got to the cornfield, etc.

Those aren't one-liners. A one-liner is a joke that has a structure, and there is a technique to constructing them.

The sentences you posted are rhetoric of a different kind. If you're interested in learning more about rhetoric, I can recommend Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric book here: http://www.amazon.com/Farnsworths-Classical-English-Rhetoric-Farnsworth/dp/1567923852/

If you're interested in composing one-liners, study Yogi Berra (classic), Rodney Rangerfield (classic), or Anthony Jeselnik (contemporary). To a lesser extent, there's also Mitch Hedberg. I say lesser because Mitch used a more rhetorical style than a classic one-liner, e.g. "Dogs are forever in the pushup position" is hilarious but not classic one-liner ski jump structure.

There are several eras of US history and not many books that cover them all sadly:

1. European Settlement of the continent (1492-1712)
   
2. Rising Tensions (1712-1776)
   
3. The Articles of Confederation/finding our way (1776-1800)
   
4. Growth and peace (1800-1820)
   
5. Lead up to the civil war (1820-1862)
   
6. The Civil War and Reconstruction (1862-1873)
   
7. The gilded age/expansion west (1873-1900)
   
8. The progressive age (1900-1919)
   
9. The roaring 20s (1920-1929)
   
10. The great depression (1929-1941)
    
11. WW2 (1941-1945)
    
12. Early Cold War/Baby boom (1945-68)
    
13. Nam and Stagflation (68-82)
    
14. Regan, Greenspun and Deregulation (82-2001)
    
15. War on terror (2001-today)
    
    
    If you want to listen: http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/ for the american episodes, go to the 2.x numbered ones in your podcast player to get the skinny on era 2 and 3 from my above list. Backstory Radio www.backstoryradio.com also has great stories about american history from all 15 eras on my list
    
    If you want to read: A People's History of the United States it is a survey of the history of the US. (from the left side of the political spectrum, but written as a corrective on all the OTHER books that were ignoring the common plight of the people)
    
    Additionally http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R3W3WGWMB5IJ3V is good but long, https://www.amazon.com/America-Concise-History-One-1877/dp/0312643284 is a midlength textbook.
    
    Lastly, easier than reading any of this (and targeted at HS students, but largely enjoyable by adults too): Crash Course US History

Just read an awesome book called Lincoln at Gettysburg that outlines a lot of the political and cultural motivations that went into the Gettysburg Address. It also covers a lot about how Lincoln felt about the war at the time, and the language he used to describe it. Also check out The New York City Draft Riots. This book, in addition to telling a really interesting story about what happened those few days in New York in 1863, it also provides an interesting perspective of what Bernstein calls "The Lincoln Regime", and the centralization of federal Republican power during that time.

Earlier this week, I ordered the 2nd and 3rd and this one. I've read many, many positive reviews on the second book, so I figured it was something worth looking into.

https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0062397346/ref=sr_1_1?crid=26YP0Z8XLW9FE&keywords=the+people%27s+history+of+the+united+states&qid=1571044008&sprefix=the+people%27s+hi%2Caps%2C392&sr=8-1

​

Read this. It'll change your perspective on the things you were taught in history class. It has a great chapter on Columbus, among others.

Man, I love that show.

There are some different and great books about the real history of Deadwood that are worth checking out.

Other stuff you might enjoy re: periods and themes of 19th Century U.S. History.

The Devil In The White City

Rebirth of a Nation

Battle Cry Of Freedom

Tocqueville's Democracy In America

The Johnstown Flood

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

Desperate Passage

There are tons more but those are some of my favorites, especially Devil In The White City, Bury My Heart and Desperate Passage... for the darker side of history, a'la Deadwood.

Anyone interested in this period of American history should definitely read Stephen Ambrose's "Nothing Like It In the World..." http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World-Transcontinental-1863-1869/dp/0743203178

IIRC Turner was still there and the Civil War](http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Lost-Cause-Civil-History-ebook/dp/B00866HAI0)*. This is a good way to make SS jokes.

I will recommend a single volume by way of answering your question:

The Causes of the Civil War edited by the late Kenneth M. Stampp. It contains many relevant primary source accounts (or excerpts therefrom) as well as interpretive secondary essays.

If you have the patience and the time, and are really interested in learning about the Civil War, I cannot recommend Shelby Foote's The Civil War - A Narrative enough. It is an absolute masterpiece.

Another that is definitely worth reading is Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson.

If you want to stick with Shaara, read his son's Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure.

Read Bound of Canann, which details how many early Christian Americans were abolitionists, even before the South started to develop. For example, there were early Puritans in New England who argued for equality among the races, and Quakers did the same, with their intentions focused on using Christianity to be a force for equality. Their early intentions had little to nothing to do with the South and were purely religious and social justice oriented.

Nu er jeg ikke historiker, men handlede det ikke om den kæmpe kløft mellem immigranterne og de indfødte, rent teknologisk?

Jeg er i gang med at lytte A People's History of the United States. Deri er der meget tydeligt beskrevet hvor stor en forskel der var på Columbus og de indfødte. Blandt andet kendte de indfødte ikke til metal, og skar sig på de sværd de prøvede at holde fordi de ikke forstod hvordan en klinge fungerede.

Hvis der er en kløft imellem immigranter og indfødte i vores nuværende tilfælde, er det da i høj grad os som har den klare fordel.

If you're interested in rhetoric, Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric might be for you. I learned a lot from it!

A People's History of the United States of America should be required reading.

A favorite of mine that I have read several times over is Landscape Turned Red by Stephen W. Sears. It's about Antietam and I always have a hard time putting it down.

Two really good books on the topic are, The Gray and the Black and Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves during the Civil War.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0807125571/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195315863/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

Right so there's the Iron Law of Institutions, can be a factor. But this necessarily implies bad character judgement as you are making bad decisions that are only to your short term personal advantage.

>Iron Law of Institutions. The Iron Law of Institutions is: the people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution "fail" while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to "succeed" if that requires them to lose power within the institution.

So if you're in charge of an HMO or a record company you are like IBM in the early 90s when it almost went out of business. Or Apple in the dark years before Jobs returned. You have a choice, rearrange the deck chairs and bail, or rebuild the ship. People with character judgement rebuild the ship.

Case in point: Robert E. Lee in April 1865.

There's a guy with excellent character judgement, v. Jefferson Davis- not so much.

Normally I'm completely opposed to burning books... But if this abomination calls itself a textbook, then chuck it in the fire. Instead, pick up a copy of A People's History of the United States.

This should keep you busy.

https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0062397346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494803789&sr=8-1&keywords=a+peoples+history+of+the+united+states

Read these:
https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0062397346

https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/1620973928

https://www.amazon.com/Bartolome-las-Casas-Destruction-Indies/dp/1451526997

https://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/1400032059

https://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Introduction-Philosophy-Michael-Patton/dp/0809033623

https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0062397346/

This book changed my whole worldview.

Well, since no one had said it, The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote. Amazing read.

>We are not a nation of bullies, or zealots, or authoritarians.. they just got lucky.

Yes, we are. ^[1]

>Now they are scared. They are so scared that they will lose that hey are playing dirty. As long as we fight diligently we will win. It will take time.

No, they are not. They are so empowered, social security and Medicare are about to go bye-bye for an arms race.

Oh, I remember it. I was educated in California public schools, which were excellent before they were destroyed in the 80s.

And it worked for me: I've only missed voting in a few elections in my three plus decades of voting eligibility, when I was out of my state or the country.

But, the thing is, it's largely bullshit, and it wasn't until I was an older adult that I've learned how corrupt and undemocratic our political system really is. 2016 kicked it up a whole new notch. Here's what would convince me that whatever curriculum they impose on the kids isn't just exceptionalist propaganda: they adopt Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States as course curriculum.

You have no idea how poorly minorities are treated in this country by whites and the ruling nb g ckass. You should read this book.

This Thanksgiving I did a bunch of traveling and chose to listen to Howard Zinn's A people's history of the United States - and that book definitely keeps up a drumbeat of 'everything you thought was good about America was actually garbage which hurt people'. In that way, my views on America could be stereotyped as:

>the US is a deeply hateful, racist, and generally terrible place to live, especially for minorities and the poor.

But I don't think the US is a terrible place to live - far from it. America's one of the safest, most prosperous places on earth. But it's only sensible to be aware and cognizant of our troubled past and how many of those same issues linger today. Migrants trying to come here are escaping conditions much worse that those seen in America, but that doesn't mean America is prepared to do right by them or that living here wont be extremely difficult because of persecutions of class and race.

I used some Christmas money to get The Civil War: A Narrative I believe I am set for reading the rest of the winter!

All of it, hence the line:

Frantically starts flipping through pages, "oh oh. oh no. no no no. oh oh."

But if you really want to know specifics: https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0062397346

Is Shelby Foote's Civil War still well-regarded? My dad's a civil war buff and he used to swear by these volumes (20 years ago).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0394749138?pc_redir=1395777254&robot_redir=1

> And in response to the hordes of people who will insist that not voting is irresponsible and support the age old lie that if we just can get the right people in power then, then, the system will turn around – Such naive assertions should be met with a dose of reality which is glaringly clear through a cursory look at history. Such people should have to explain at what point in time there has been a sea change in our system from where it started from genocidal slavers to benevolent rulers, because such a change is nonexistent, and all one need do to figure this out is pick up a copy of Howard Zinn’s book A People’s History of the United States. What’s been there from the get go to present is abuse, stemming from the very origins of western civilization and top down social hierarchy.
>
>When the people claim they achieved a victory what they have really achieved amounts to a gesture that shuts them up. It’s analogous to hungry child crying that has just irritated their abusive parent enough they finally concede to give them an extra morsel of food. The child then celebrates like they won a battle however the child is still in the abusive state but now thinks their wails do something. What they don’t realize is if they get annoying enough what they will be met with is not another conciliatory gesture but a beating.

We live in a perpetual system of abuse.

No, slavery was the over-riding issue, and States Rights was a justification. How could you expect anything else when an entire economic structure is challenged? Ideas like States Rights come from the material world, not the other way around. To start a discussion with an idea, and proceed to its affects is to turn the entire dialectical exchange on its head.

Regarding the "many" blacks who served in the Confederate Army: Where are the enlistment records for black confederates? Where are the muster rolls? Where are the reliable eyewitness accounts? Why did the Confederate Congress debate recruiting blacks and authorized that recruitment, in the closing days of the war, if there were already black regiments?

Here's a book and a comic.

You keep saying that the Muslim ban isn't as alienating as killing innocent people there for decades, but that doesn't mean the Muslim ban isn't bad! Is your argument that it doesn't affect our safety? The ban alienates the people that would be translators or partners in reconstruction and peace building in a fragile region. More worrisome: Trump ignored established legal precedents for this sort of thing, which implies he's testing what he can get away with. Classic dictator rehearsal.

Yeah, John Oliver is a comedian who's kind of preaching to his choir, but you dismiss him just because he's a comedian. There are good points in there, though this Adam Ruins Everything segment is probably more informative (and a bit less cloying than John Oliver, though still a comedy show).

Lots of people on this thread have said there are more effective, less expensive ways to secure the border (this person ran some numbers above). But you're like, meh, it will stop some people, maybe, so let's do it. That's such a flippant attitude towards fiscal responsibility, cost effectiveness and actually dealing with immigration.

You keep saying economics is an area where you have a lot to learn. A lot of people have been really polite to you on this thread, and you've matched their civility, and I want you to know it's very hard for me to not just heap disdain on you for your ignorance about economics. Please read more.

And while you're reading, check out The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. You keep saying there's more to life than politics, but when fascists consolidate power and slaughter their opponents, there isn't more to life. I'm 100% sure you're rolling your eyes, just like people rolled their eyes at Hitler.

War with China would be terrible and a net loss for both sides. Lots of wars started over small economic disputes and spiraled out of control.

You seem to have a vague idea that "open borders" are unquestionably bad. Why? I'm not being facetious. Undocumented people are doing backbreaking labor that white citizens wouldn't do. Our birth rates are not that high; immigration is a component of growing the workforce and the economy.

And look, at this point, I doubt you or anyone else is reading this comment, but I have to say: the problem is capitalism. The whole point of capitalism is exploitation. The capitalist owns the business, you do the labor, he pays you less than the value of your labor and he keeps the excess as profit. Then they hiss aspersions to set the white worker against the black and against the latino.

This country has been bickering about immigrants forever but in a few years AI is going to reshape workplace productivity so dramatically that we'll see widespread unemployment across the whole economy. Law firms will lay off paralegals when they have better algorithms to search and understand cases. Then those paralegals will try to drive for Uber, but Uber will have self-driving cars. The economic displacement will ripple out. Then everybody will be competing for fewer and fewer jobs without enough time to learn new marketable skills. It wouldn't matter if we let all the immigrants in; market forces will increasingly replace or augment workers with better and better software. So we're probably headed for a technological utopia for the elites and a Hunger Games hellscape for the rest. At that point, it's going to get more and more violent.

Trump is the symptom, capitalism is the disease, socialism is the cure.

If this all sounds like a lunatic ranting to you, please please please fan that flame of self-doubt and curiosity that prompted you to make this CMV. Read A People's History of the United States. Trump is probably more of an Andrew Jackson than a Hitler, I hope, but Andrew Jackson was also a fucking monster who left a lot of innocent people dead in his wake.

I get that you're not really worried about name-calling or "PC" stuff; you probably think it's a bit silly that so many of us get scared when such a petty bully has so much power. But I think you're deaf to the echoes of history. You're assuming that your normal life is a lot less fragile than it actually is. And once you make a choice, it's very psychologically difficult to admit you're wrong, so you keep plugging your ears to those echoes. You want to believe it's going to be okay because you want to believe you're a reasonable person and that other people are reasonable, but history holds horrors you haven't comprehended. And the dead had routines and hopes and relationships that were interrupted, bewilderingly, by unreasonable monsters. I believe Trump is an unreasonable monster.

[edited for typos]

The hard part for majority of people is that Historically events and the motives of individual's actions in those events are never "Black&White". Take the Civil War since that is the crux of this issue. In the book What They Fought For, 1861–1865 by James McPherson reported on his reading of hundreds of letters and diaries written by soldiers on both sides of the war on the question of what they believed they were fighting for. Not all Northerns cared for blacks in fact many were super racist they just didn't like slavery and in every major battle there were slave owning union soldiers fighting for the north, and non slave owning southern soldiers fighting for the south. On the other hand 80% of the Southern soldiers didn't own slaves and many felt that if slavery was to be ended it should like everyone born after 1/1/1861 are set free but given and education before hand.

“I was fighting for my home, and he had no business being there”
-Virginia confederate Solider Frank Potts

“We are fighting for the Union . . . a high and noble sentiment, but after all a sentiment. They are fighting for independence, and are animated by passion and hatred against invaders” - A Illinois officer.

“Believe me no solider on either side gave a **** about slaves, they were fighting for other reasons entirely in their minds. Southerns thought they were fighting the second American revolution norther's thought they were fighting to hold the union together [With a few abolitionist and fire eaters on both sides].”

• Shelby Foote
  
  Robert E. Lee is the biggest and the greatest paradox. He was against Virginia leaving the Union but felt his loyalty and duty, like many, was to his home state above the country: “If Virginia stands by the old Union,” Lee told a friend, “so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for revolution), then I will follow my native State with my sword, and, if need be, with my life.” While Lee never publicly came out on one side or the other of Slavery. In a letter to his Wife in 1856 he said “In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.” But Lee's wife and daughters taught the slaves to read and write which was against Virginia law and Lee officially freed his inherited slaves, he had no other slaves, on December 29, 1862 five years after his father-in-law Georgie Washington Custis' death as stated in his will. And yes Georgie Washington Custis is a descendant of President Georgie Washington.
  
  Besides once universal conscription was instituted by the Confederacy in 1862, it didn't matter what they fought for, whether they wanted to fight, or even if they supported the Confederacy they fought or become deserters and risk execution. The Union started conscription in 1863. One could argue those who were conscripted didn't care about slavery since if they did they would've volunteered earlier. Many were concerned more about their farms and family. One Confederate officer at the time noted, "The deserters belong almost entirely to the poorest class of non slave-holders whose labor is indispensable to the daily support of their families" and that "When the father, husband or son is forced into the service, the suffering at home with them is inevitable. It is not in the nature of these men to remain quiet in the ranks under such circumstances." Which was used by both sides trying to get them on their side the Union offered pardons and the Confederacy offered jobs or land in some cases.
  
  Now those caught deserted in the Union 147 were executed for desertion out of 200,000 deserters. In the Confederacy 229 were executed out of the 100,000 deserters. But since you can't kill off all the 300,000 men that deserted from both sides many were branded with a "D" on their hip. Many were just purely tortured:
  
  "One punishment much affected in the light artillery was called 'tying on the spare wheel.' Springing upward and rearward from the center rail of every cassion was a fifth axel and on it was a spare wheel. A soldier who had been insubordinate was taken to the spare wheel and made to step upon it. His legs were drawn apart until they spanned three spokes. His arms were stretched until there were three or four spokes between his hands. Then the feet and hands were firmly bound to the felloes of the wheel. If the soldier was to be punished moderately then he was left, bound in an upright position on the wheel for five or six hours. If the punishment was to be severe, the ponderous wheel was given a quarter turn after the soldier had been lashed to it, which changed the position of the man from upright to horizontal. Then the prisoner had to exert all his strength to keep his weight from pulling heavily and cuttingly on the cords that bound his upper arm and leg to the wheel." -- Frank Wilkeson, Army of the Potomac in the Union Army.
  
  In the end it is just easier for people paint with broad strokes the "good people"/The Union as saints and "bad guys"/The Confederacy as sinners. It is the same with all of those leaders/people we have had in History. In reality the Slavery had many shades of blue and grey and should be treated as such. There was good and bad in both the Union and the Confederacy.
  
  Sources and other reading material:
  
  http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a25915/punishment-and-torture-in-the-civil-war-111413/
  
  https://web.archive.org/web/20170422015315/http://www.americanheritage.com/content/south%E2%80%99s-inner-civil-war-0
  
  http://uncw.edu/csurf/explorations/documents/volume%209%202014/franch.pdf
  
  https://www.nps.gov/arho/learn/historyculture/slavery.htm
  
  https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/David%20Carr_0.pdf
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Know-Much-About-Civil/dp/0380719088/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493924562&sr=8-1&keywords=Don%27t+Know+much+about+the+Civil+War
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Cry-Freedom-Civil-War/dp/019516895X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493924743&sr=1-1&keywords=Battle+Cry+of+Freedom
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Volumes-1-3-Box/dp/0394749138/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493924920&sr=1-1&keywords=Shelby+Foote