Best historical british biographies according to redditors

We found 821 Reddit comments discussing the best historical british biographies. We ranked the 230 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top Reddit comments about Historical British Biographies:

u/Kerri_Struggles · 575 pointsr/AskHistorians

Your question made me think me think of James Cook and Joseph Banks' experiences as described in Richard Holmes' The Age of Wonder. I went back to it looking for some insight.

Most conflicts between the islanders and the ship's men seemed to revolve around theft. Sex, on the other hand, seemed to be an amicable form of trade:

> Much time was spent in bargaining for sexual favors. The basic currency was any kind of usable metal object: there was no need for gold or silver or trinkets. Among the able seamen the initial going rate was one ship's nail for one ordinary fuck, but hyper-inflation soon set in. The Tahitians well understood a market economy. There was a run on anything metal that could be smuggled off the ship - cutlery, cleats, handles, cooking utensils, spare tools, but especially nails. It was said that the Endeavour's carpenter soon operated an illegal monopoly on metal goods, and nails were leaving the ship by the sackful.

Their queen, Oborea, allowed Banks to sleep with her personal servant, Otheothea, and later offered herself as a companion (though Banks wasn't interested). He also describes a Tahitian man bartering with him for the use of a woman. So it seems like the trading of sexual favors was acceptable within the Tahitian community. But I doubt the Tahitians were happy with their women acquiring "the British disease" - the STD - that became rampant during the ship's stay.

Edit: In response to u/359RP's question, another excerpt from Holmes' book:

> The only Tahitian practice that Banks found totally alien and repulsive was that of infanticide, which was used regularly and without compunction as a form of birth control by couples who were not ready yet to support children. Banks could scarcely believe this, until he questioned several couples who freely admitted to destroying two or three children, showing not the slightest apparent guilt or regret. This was a different kind of innocence, one far harder to accept. Banks pursued the question, and found that the custom originated in the formation of communal groups in which the trading of sexual favors were freely exchanged between different partners.

Source: The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes (2010, Kindle edition)

u/labarge3 · 164 pointsr/AskHistorians

This is a tough question to answer with any degree of specificity because there was a plurality of experiences for peasants across Europe and the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages. However, in general, the economic life of medieval peasants was perilous. Subsistence agriculture provides little job security. A bad harvest could spell devastation for you, your family, and your community. I suggest taking a look at the online English translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for evidence of famine/drought/general devastation in the British Isles. Here are a few examples from just the eleventh century - a time when the Commercial Revolution (which brought substantial increases in agricultural production and peasant populations) was beginning to take hold:

A.D. 1005… This year died Archbishop Elfric; and Bishop Elfeah succeeded him in the archbishopric. This year was the great famine in England so severe that no man ere remembered such.

A.D. 1070… There was a great famine this year.

A.D. 1082. This year the king seized Bishop Odo; and this year also was a great famine.

A.D. 1087. After the birth of our Lord and Saviour Christ, one thousand and eighty-seven winters; in the one and twentieth year after William began to govern and direct England, as God granted him, was a very heavy and pestilent season in this land. Such a sickness came on men, that full nigh every other man was in the worst disorder, that is, in the diarrhoea; and that so dreadfully, that many men died in the disorder. Afterwards came, through the badness of the weather as we before mentioned, so great a famine over all England, that many hundreds of men died a miserable death through hunger. Alas! how wretched and how rueful a time was there! When the poor wretches lay full nigh driven to death prematurely, and afterwards came sharp hunger, and dispatched them withall! Who will not be penetrated with grief at such a season? or who is so hardhearted as not to weep at such misfortune? Yet such things happen for folks' sins, that they will not love God and righteousness.

We do not have census data or detailed tax records to corroborate the extent of these famines, but we nonetheless have to assume that they were disruptive to peasants living off the English land. Entries like these from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are echoed across other Latin chronicles and in Arabic ones as well. I am most familiar with The Complete History of Ibn al-Athir, which mentions numerous famines across the Islamicate World. Take, for example, his account of a long-lasting famine in Ifriqiya (roughly modern Tunisia) in the 1140s:

It had a terrible effect on the population, who even resorted to cannibalism. Because of starvation the nomads sought out the towns and the townspeople closed the gates against them. Plague and great mortality followed. The country was emptied and from whole families not a single person survived. Many people travelled to Sicily in search of food and met with great hardship.

Since medieval sources tend to be written from the perspective of literate men based in cities or monasteries, the perspective of peasants is often only briefly mentioned. It is likewise difficult to make any concrete estimations about lifespan, infant mortality rate, and nutrition for most medieval peasant communities due to lack of sources (although the picture begins to come into focus during the Early Modern Period). When we read about a “great famine” in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or The Complete History of Ibn al-Athir, we therefore have to imagine that a bad harvest - caused potentially by drought, an early frost, heavy rains, or conflict - brought with it immense human suffering and the displacement of communities from their ancestral homes.

This is not to say that peasant life was only defined by suffering at the hands of subsistence agriculture and overly aggressive landed elites. We know that there were robust and complex communities in rural medieval villages, many of which survived the ordeals brought by mother nature. I recommend Judith Bennett’s biography of Cecilia Penifader as a microhistory of peasant life in the English town of Brigstock during the late-thirteenth through mid-fourteenth centuries.

For those interested in environmental data related to medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, I highly recommend the Old World Drought Atlas, which uses dendrochronological (tree-ring) data to chart annual rainfall across the region. This link shows annual rainfall in Europe in 1315, the first year of The Great Famine in Europe. As the link shows, there was abnormally heavy rainfall across Western Europe. This corroborates written sources, which detail how heavy rains destroyed harvests and had profoundly negative consequences for peasants.

u/goldenfeder · 78 pointsr/TheWayWeWere

Reading a book on world war 2 right now, it's amazing how little the Brits ever considered they'd lose the war. They just armed themselves with handmade weapons like Molotov cocktails and waited to fuck up some nazi's if they ever invaded their island

Edit: If anyone is curious about the book, it's called The Last Lion by William Manchester. It's the last book in a trilogy about Winston Churchill's life and the first part of the book focuses on how Churchill came up with war strategy and basically kept the country together when they were fighting the Nazi's alone. It's absolutely fantastic.

u/DrKarenDempsey · 76 pointsr/AskHistorians

Feminism as it currently exists today was not present in the medieval period. What we can talk about is female agency. In other words how women acted within the constraints of a patriarchal society either as individuals or as a group. Acts of subversion can be seen in a number of ways. I have mentioned a few times on here about how women could not participate fully in the church- they were forbidden to touch the alter. However, many women donated their clothes, or made personalised alter clothes for the church or priests. This meant that clothes that has touched them, that they had owned or made and perhaps worn on their body eventually came to wrap the alter - one of the most sacred parts of the church. Or touched the body of the clergyman they donated it too. While we cannot say that this was a feminist act it was certainly a way of cleverly avoiding the ban on touching (even if by proxy!).

Another, perhaps more obvious way, was that many women who were married once and became widows chose to stay that way. They elected not to remarry. Widows had a special place in society - they almost operated as men, especially in relation to property and wealth.

There are of course unmarried or single women who equally chose to live that way (a wonderful book on Cecila Penifader by Judith Bennettt https://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Life-Penifader-Brigstock-1295-1344/dp/0072903317 shows one such (well off) peasant woman. This is a super book! I return to it again and again. Also, work by Dr Cordelia Beattie discusses single women Beattie, C. (2007) Medieval Single Women: The Politics of Social Classification in Late Medieval England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dr Beattie has a range of really informative publications on medieval women!

u/eternalkerri · 52 pointsr/AskHistorians

Fair warning, the War of the Roses is a very complex and dense topic to dive into. Any book you pick up worth it's salt, will have (and better have) at least two chapters dedicated to just background before you even begin to get to the foundations of the causes for the War. The WotR is easily the most defining moment in English history between the Norman invasion and the Civil War and covers decades of history, literally.

Having said that, while this is not my subject area, and I'm not terribly well read in the topic, I do have a recommendation for a book that sits astride "popular history" and "academic history". I say that, because again, this is a dense subject and no book that is worth your time would be purely "pop history".

Alison Weir's War of the Roses, does a good job of making the subject accessible to readers of history, though not to fans of "lite history." "Lite History" to me are those pulpy history paperbacks that tend to populate the military history sections of bookstores about Navy Seals, Special Forces, Nazis, and those god awful books about the Merovingians being descendants of Jesus.

While the book only has one footnote that I can recall (giving a rough estimation of price equivalencies between 14th century money and late 20th Century), it does have an extensive bibliography and helpful index. Footnoting would be helpful in knowing the sources and providing additional information (my favorite thing about footnotes!) provided, but since the book is not "academic" its overlooked. The most helpful addition to the book are simplified family trees which I promise will be useful as the overlapping and twisting mixtures of marriages, second cousins, and family offshoots played a major part in being the cause and agitator of the war, and I promise you will refer to it more than once.

While the writing style is very casual and doesn't run down various rabbit hole topics that would fascinate an academic (and confuse the casual), it is still very dense. Keeping track of the names of the players, which Houses they were loyal to, and what role they play requires close attention to be paid or you will find yourself backtracking. I myself restarted the book three or four times before I reached page 100 over the years as I easily became lost and confused. I don't fault the writer at all as this was my first book on the subject and I often found myself lost. You will still need to sit quietly and read alone; this is not a book to read on a busy cross town bus, its by no means is a summer page turner.

Weir has a background in history, but is not a formal academic. She focuses mostly on historical fictions and biographies of England's royalty from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. You can clearly tell that she has strong familiarity with the subject, knows how to research, and is thorough in covering the topics she tries to tackle (though through out her career some have been better than others). She presents her works in a way that makes complex histories and dense materials accessible to those who want to go beyond a tv documentary familiarity but not ready to delve into the dense undergrowth of an academic book.

For a casual yet informative and quality work, I recommend Alison Weir's War of the Roses.

Just don't use it as a source for your history paper.

u/enjoy_my_jacket · 38 pointsr/AdviceAnimals

It's very entertaining IMO, but I don't recommend it for being historically accurate, no. For that, check out this book.

u/gshenck · 23 pointsr/AskHistorians

I'd reccommend reading A Medieval Life, which uses both outside research and a very fortunate abundance of local court records to piece together the life of a single villain from England. http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Life-Penifader-Brigstock-1295-1344/dp/0072903317

The book makes it very clear several times that she isn't representative of all peasants simply because they were so diverse across Europe, but one thing I recall it pointing out is that there were indeed a substantial number of 'holidays', all based around the church calendar. Several large feasts around christmas and easter, as well as a long succession in the summer, along with a multitude of single day feasts throughout the year, plus you would have the sabbath.

It makes it clear that while she had hardships, it wasn't as bad as commonly imagined for many, if not most, in the lower class. If you made it past childhood you would likely live a fairly decent life (average lifespans are heavily skewed by the huge infant mortality rate), and the work itself wasn't for many as bad as commonly portrayed in modern fiction.

u/jjohn6438 · 20 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

OP if you're interested in the development of early electric land-to-sea communication, Erik Larson's [Thunderstruck] (http://www.amazon.com/Thunderstruck-Erik-Larson/dp/1400080673) is an amazing read on the subject, as well as how this technology helped lead to the arrest of a wanted murderer.

u/jimbohairs · 17 pointsr/history

The Diary of A Napoleonic Foot Soldier is probably the best first hand account I know. The tales of unimaginable cold and human suffering (and survival) are amazing. If I recall, it was common for soldiers to sleep inside dead horses when they found them. http://www.amazon.com/The-Diary-Napoleonic-Foot-Soldier/dp/0140165592

u/jaina_jade · 16 pointsr/AskHistorians

In 1460 at the battle of Northampton during England's War of the Roses, Edward the Earl of March, went to battle against forces led by King Henry VI. At the end of the battle Edward's forces captured King Henry VI, and in early 1461 Edward was declared Edward IV the King of England. Also interesting to note that after Henry was captured his wife, Queen Margaret of Anjou, attempted to rally and led his forces against Edward before being forced to flee to France with her son.

Eventually Henry VI was restored to the throne and Edward was forced to flee to Burgundy. In 1471 Edward again led forces against Henry VI, capturing him in London and then engaging in battle at Tewkesbury. In this battle Henry's heir, another Edward, was killed in battle along with Warwick the Kingmaker. At Edward's side were his two brothers, one of whom became King Richard III - who was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field by the bodyguards of the future Henry VII.

Alison Weir's War of the Roses is a great text if you are interested in the other battles fought during the time, most of which were led by upper nobility. For more on Henry VII, William Penn's Winter King has great information about his early years as King (including Bosworth Field) but the test is rather lacking when it comes to the events leading up to Bosworth Field.

u/clairekincaid · 16 pointsr/SRSWomen

The Game of Thrones books (finally!) and an autobiography of Alan Turing called The Enigma, which is taking forever to get through, but is very interesting nonetheless.

u/EngineerBill · 15 pointsr/history

Haven't seen anyone mention this yet, so "Diary of a Napoleonic foot Soldier": ->

This is, as the name suggests, a book written by a German who participated in the French attack.

It's not well known, but in many cases Napoleon's armies consisted of soldiers from the various countries he'd either allied with or conquered. In this case, the author (Jakob Walter): -> was a German who served in Napoleon's "Grande Armee". He survived the campaign and devastating retreat and left on one of the few contemporary accounts of what it was to serve as a soldier in the Napoleonic wars.

Highly recommended...

Edit: Fixed tpyo..

u/pokemon_fetish · 13 pointsr/TumblrInAction

I know what you're responding to is dealing with America (which had it's own violent and racist suffragettes) but I highly recommend the book The Suffragette Bombers:Britain's Forgotten Terrorists that documents all of the instances of radical women planting bombs and starting fires, etc. in Britain. Some of these terrorists are still celebrated today and the fun part of it all is that many things seem to suggest strongly that women would have gained the franchise without the King's Horse trampling a mentally ill woman. Of course, like America, the vast majority of those fighting for "Votes for Women" really meant "Votes for Property Owning Women". This is one small aspect where I can agree with the "White feminism reeeeeee" people. Where they take it though, well shit. That's why this sub exists.

E: added amazon link to book.

u/possompants · 12 pointsr/books

The Age of Wonder tells historical stories about scientists working in the late 1700's - interesting mix of various sciences, philosophy, and history.

u/ReallyLikesCooking · 11 pointsr/preppers

Interesting stuff. There's a book I own about a very similar experience, where a guy spent 5 years living in the middle of nowhere in the Welsh hills. Definitely worth picking up if you can get it in the US: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deep-Country-Years-Welsh-Hills/dp/0141049324

EDIT: US link: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Country-Years-Welsh-Hills/dp/0141049324

u/blackcatkarma · 10 pointsr/history

Larger population and more powerful industry (especially compared to Russia).

If you look at this pdf, you'll see (from p. 34 onwards) that Germany's industry was more powerful than that of France. Just as one example, according to that essay, Germany in 1913 mined 190 million tons (metric) of coal compared to France's 41 million tons.

As to the organisation, I remember from Barbara Tuchmans's The Guns of August - a very well written, fascinating read about the outbreak and first months of WW1 - that the Germans had everything planned down to the minute (time intervals for trains crossing the Rhine etc.), while the French were less meticulous in organising beforehand which train car would be where etc. (Tuchman mentions "Système D" for "se débrouiller", meaning to think up something or to muddle along; I guess that would have been the soldiers' joke name for a lack of organisation).

Apart from stereotypes about the German planning fetish and French disorganisation, I presume the differences also had to do with how the armies expected the confrontation to develop: sending parts of the French army into Alsace and leaving the rest in the homeland to defend against the enemy would have required a bit less organisation and planning than sending almost the entire German army through a neutral country and into enemy territory, winning that war and then sending everything back against Russia.

As for Germany being a "young country" at that time: as a state, yes, but the population was larger than that of France, by quite a bit (about 20 million IIRC?). I don't remember the proportions of fighting-age males but with a larger population in general, the Germans will have had a larger reserve of army recruits as well.

German/Prussian militarism should also be noted. While this doesn't have much to do with organisation per se, German culture was, in general, much more militaristic than the French or British cultures. Quoting from memory from Robert K. Massie's wonderful Dreadnought: "It illustrates the great difference between German and British political culture that the German chancellor [Caprivi in the 1890s] would, in uniform, lead a cavalry charge past the Emperor." - or something to that effect. Germany was itching, as the newcomer on the European political stage, to get what it thought was its due. The beginning of WW1 was what the general staff had spent their professional lives planning for.

If you're looking for books:

  • Christopher Clark's "The Sleepwalkers" was a bit dry for my taste but contains a lot of information on the situation in the Balkans, which sparked the whole thing, that I hadn't previously seen.

  • Massie's "Dreadnought" is more biographical, going deeply into the characters of everyone involved from about 1850. I'm not sure he counts as "academic enough", but he sure is a great writer; it's the kind of history book you can read on the beach while learning tons of stuff about the time, the major actors and the political crises which led up to the war.

  • Tuchman's "The Guns of August" is, on a literary level, simply a pleasure to read and basically a day-by-day account of the outbreak and first weeks of the war.

  • John Keegan's "The First World War" is more of a military history. Very detailed... a bit too detailed for me, but anyone interested in a one-volume military history of WW1 is going to get what they were looking for, I think.
u/Toadforpresident · 9 pointsr/todayilearned

There's a great book, The Age of Wonder, that goes into a lot of detail about Herschel's life (including other scientists in that generation). Pretty fascinating guy, he also had a brilliant sister (Caroline Herschel) who was a famous comet 'hunter'.

He eventually built a 40 foot telescope which became famous, which his sister helped him operate. If I'm not mistaken, Herschel was also one of the first to hit upon the idea of deep space and the vast distances involved.

u/TunerOfTuna · 9 pointsr/OutOfTheLoop

I recommend reading The Plantegents it’s an easy to read book that isn’t that dry most of the time.

u/vonstroheims_monocle · 8 pointsr/AskHistorians

The first two Afghan Wars are covered in Byron Farwell's Queen Victoria's Little Wars- Though Farwell's descriptions of the campaigns are brief, they are far better than anything I could write on the subject. You might also want to check out Osprey publishing's Essential Histories of the Anglo-Afghan Wars, which I must admit, I've not read. However, in my experience, the series gives good overviews of military campaigns and I'd imagine this volume would be no different.

u/jschooltiger · 7 pointsr/AskHistorians

I am glad that you referenced Roger's book. His related book, The Safeguard of the Sea, looks at Britain's (England's, Wessex's, etc.) navy from 660-1649 and is also an excellent read.

If you don't mind, I would expand on your comment to say this: One of the major arguments that both books make is that a major contributor to Britain's naval success was also the bureaucracy that grew up around the Navy. We tend to think of bureaucracy in negative terms today, but in having a regularized, systemic way of casting and distributing guns and ordnance; building and repairing ships; victualling ships; and manning ships, the British navy was far ahead of its competitors, even by the time of the Armada.

It's also worth pointing out that Britain's naval strength was helped by the establishment of dockyards, drydocks, and associated naval "bases" (although that's an anachronistic term) in various places, including the Thames and Portsmouth but also in other places along England's coast. Not to put too fine a point on it, but wooden ships rot, and regular maintenance was a major reason why Britain was able to keep up its naval strength.

This moves a bit past OP's timeframe, but allow me to recommend two other books by Robert K. Massie, that specifically look at the Anglo-German naval race in the run-up to World War I:

http://www.amazon.com/Dreadnought-Robert-K-Massie/dp/0345375564

http://www.amazon.com/Castles-Steel-Britain-Germany-Winning/dp/0345408780/ref=la_B000AQ6XVE_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1370812631&sr=1-6


u/rob_cornelius · 7 pointsr/EOOD

I really liked the idea of a sense of place being important. Somewhere you belong. Somewhere you can be happy.

I have read quite a bit of nature writing recently and there is a trend of the writer concentrating their efforts on a very small area of land rather than writing something with a title like Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape. (still a brilliant book)

In these new books the writers spend considerable time, years even getting to know their local environment intimately and writing about their experiences. There is a real sense that they belong in that area and are happy there.

Of course this is not a new thing. Thoreau probably started it off with Walden. Some modern books I can really recommend are Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet by Mark Crocker, Common Ground by Rob Cowen, Deep country, five years in the welsh hills by Neil Ansell (a modern day Walden IMHO) and particularly and especially Nature Cure by Richard Mabey who covers his own breakdown, mental health and depression and how walking and the local countryside helped him explicitly in his book. All of these are British writers but I am sure there are similar writers elsewhere. One Man's Wilderness by Dick Proenneke springs to mind. You can see his films on youtube.

My family have lived in the same village in very rural Somerset for hundreds if not thousands of years if some of the explanations of my odd Latin surname is correct. I have not lived there myself for about 12 years now (moving 7 miles away when I got married was a big step) but I still know every last detail about my home. Drop me within five miles and I can find my way around, not just on the roads but on footpaths and across fields and through hedges. My father can tell me a farmer cut down a certain prominent tree and I know exactly which one he means. I do miss my home.

I now live in an area that has been immortalised in a nature study to that level of detail. I live not far from the real location of Watership Down Richard Adams spent his days walking the countryside around his home and if you know what you are looking for in the pages of the book and the countryside you can pinpoint individual trees that the rabbits pass that still stand in the fields today. Some of the events in the book took place about half a mile from our house.

That gives me an idea. Perhaps I will use the book as a guide to my new home as I continue to explore the area.

Where did all that writing come from? ;)

u/Gaimar · 6 pointsr/AskHistorians

Peasants were the largest demographic group in Latin Christendom, comprising somewhere around ninety percent of the population or more. Most of these people were tenant farmers who leased a portion of a larger slice of land in return for a rent of service, kind, or money (although the latter is more rare and often only found in the later Middle Ages). These people could theoretically support themselves and their family off their own land. Some of these peasants were not free—serfs—meaning, depending on when and where they lived, they may be bound to the land that they worked and could not seek legal redress outside of their primary lord (the kings justice, for example, would have been beyond the reach of these people). All of this is to say that medieval peasants, even if serfs, were not slaves—a misconception that comes from the continued use in some medieval sources of the Roman word for slave, servus, and should not be taken as a indicator of shared meaning. I've seen documents that use servus, rusticus, and—in the vernacular Old French—vilain. Outside of what they needed to pay as part of their obligation, they were free to sell, trade, or work elsewhere in the hamlet or town for wage or kind.

The details for the sort of trade you are asking about is difficult to trace since the economic lives of most peasants only appear in the records of lords and local courts when they have some sort of legal problem or reach a certain level of wealth. The community in which most medieval peasants would have interacted and traded was the Parish, which—besides the family—is the basic unit for understanding peasant society. The Parish community would have operated as a sort of social nexus for the rural peasantry, through which small transactions would have been negotiated. Work/Trade for wage and work for kind probably occurred simultaneously based on need, although certain economic historians believe quite strongly that the latter wouldn't have occurred at certain points of economic crisis.

Most farming hamlets were largely self sufficient in respect to their daily needs, so the average peasant had no need to access the sort of long distance trade I think you might be imagining. This is easier to understand when you consider what we know about their eating habits. For most, diet was simple and with the exception of certain feast days fish or meat was largely a luxury most peasants could not afford. The bulk of peasant diet probably came from cereals, supplemented by whatever local herbs and vegetables that they grew in their personal garden, of which every farm was sure to have at least one. On the plus side, beer was plentiful, although it was usually not brewed at a high ABV. A quirky and active market in late medieval England was in beer, which often was brewed by women and sold ad-hoc as a means to supplement income.

I should add that the definition of peasantry is something of a thorny topic for medieval economic historians, particularly in England where they have a wealth of sources that give them a wide range of local practice to squabble about. For your purposes, I would recommend avoiding most of these debates and read Judith Bennett's A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1295-1344, a slender volume that will give you a good general overview of medieval peasant life rich with economic detail. For a contemporary, non-economic view of French peasant life I would recommend Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error, that chronicles life in a small southern French town through inquisitional records and provides small details about how peasants moved through the world, made friendships, and even weird things like their perception of time. A wonderful view of life peasant life a few centuries later is presented in the first few chapters of Eamon Duffy's The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (2003), a book that, although about religious change, gives insight into the everyday.

edit: spelling words.

u/derdody · 6 pointsr/history
u/omaca · 6 pointsr/history

I'm going to be lazy and simply repost a post of mine from a year ago. :)

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. :)

u/LinuxFreeOrDie · 6 pointsr/AskReddit

Among the Thugs, about someone (an American) who spent years with the football hooligans, while he worked in London as a journalist (he didn't do journalist on the hooligans, saved it all for the book).

u/KapitanKurt · 5 pointsr/WarshipPorn

Yes, there's a big distinction. Here's a link that scratches the surface of dreadnought background & development to get you started.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dreadnought_(1906)

If you get really curious, here's two books that round out the subject of how dreadnoughts fit into naval history...

http://www.amazon.com/Dreadnought-Robert-K-Massie/dp/0345375564/ref=la_B000AQ6XVE_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406314026&sr=1-6

http://www.amazon.com/Castles-Steel-Britain-Germany-Winning/dp/0345408780

u/twominitsturkish · 5 pointsr/todayilearned

I read The Wars of the Roses by Dan Jones after I finished the ASOIAF books. Really shed some light on history for me and how medieval politics and warfare really worked.

u/sensor · 5 pointsr/reddit.com

Alan Turing rocks! It's way past time for the British government to apologize, but better late than never.

If you're at all curious about Turing, I recommend "Alan Turing: The Enigma." (http://www.amazon.ca/Alan-Turing-Enigma-Andrew-Hodges/dp/0099116413/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252681070&sr=8-1)


It's the best bio I've found of him and seems to provide the basis for some of the other bios out there.

u/giaaeron · 5 pointsr/suggestmeabook

My favorite: Alison Weir

u/kellyro9 · 5 pointsr/soccer

Strongly recommend Bill Buford's Among the Thugs. Gets into the politics and sociology of hooliganism, if that's what you're looking for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Among_the_Thugs

https://www.amazon.com/Among-Thugs-Bill-Buford/dp/0679745351

u/JayhawkCSC · 5 pointsr/football

I would recommend the book Among the Thugs by Bill Buford. It's an incredible look into the ultras culture in Europe, including the UK Firms of the 70's and 80's. One of my favorite reads of all time, and it definitely touches on the sociological aspect of hooliganism.

u/Badgerfest · 4 pointsr/WarCollege

For the First World War I strongly recommend Richard Holmes' Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front 1914-1918 which is both comprehensive and accessible. Holmes' masterpiece Soldiers: Army lives and loyalties from Redcoats to Dusty Warriors is excellent, but has a much broader scope so may offer less detail.

For a view on how Junior Officers and NCOs interacted you can try John Lewis-Stempell's Six Weeks: The short and gallant life of the British Officer in the First World War. I must caution that I am only half way through it and so far have found it to be rather sentimental and lacking in critique, but it is a good read nonetheless.

On a point of order Colour Sergeant is a rank specific to the infantry and Royal Marines, in the Household Cavalry it is Staff Corporal (or Company Quartermaster Corporal) and in other cap badges the rank is Staff Sergeant: something to bear in mind if you're interested in broader research. Also The Rifles spell it as serjeant.

u/CallMePlissken · 4 pointsr/bestof

I think that's fine as far as it goes. But I'm not sure that /u/jeffp12 really knows that that's why the folks in Ferguson are rioting. Riots happen all the time--after sporting events, for example. And while you COULD try to come up with an intellectual justification for them, it also seems to me equally possible that they're simply engaging in mob behavior. This book, for example, is a solid account of someone who went undercover as a soccer hooligan to see WHY they would behave the way they behaved. And while there is an economic component to it, the simple fact of the matter is that it was more mob mentality than anything else.

I certainly don't agree with the folks that /u/jeffp12 argues against either. But by saying "no, it's not X, it's Y", you're losing the fact that what we have going on here is a mob trying to overturn a fair process. And that's not an acceptable thing to be happening.

u/RenoXD · 4 pointsr/AskHistorians

I would recommend 'Tommy - The British Soldier on the Western Front' by Richard Holmes. It is very respectful to the men and I didn't become bogged down in difficult and confusing reading as I do with some books. There's an interesting chapter on the structure of the British Army which I really couldn't get my head around until I read it.

u/Difficat · 4 pointsr/HPMOR

In the interest of trying to recommend books you may not have read, I am suggesting some that may seem far afield from books like HPMOR. But I have read each of them multiple times and loved them, and all of them gave me a lot to think about.

I just created a comment for Chapter 85 recommending Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks. It is non-fiction, a painfully honest autobiography, and not very similar except for the bits about Knut Haukelid, but it is an amazing book. The author was the head of codes for SOE during WWII and so the book is about cryptography and secrets. And courage. I'm reading it for the third time right now.

Tuf Voyaging is a collection of short stories by George R. R. Martin (no one named Stark is in it), about Haviland Tuf, a misanthropic cat-loving merchant who starts with his humble ship "Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices" and ends up with terrifying power and some hard decisions to make about how to use it. I'd call it comedy because it is hilarious, but it is also brilliantly-written horror.

Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is a tiny surreal book by Stanislaw Lem, about a journal uncovered by a post-apolcalyptic civilization. The main character has no name, and is apparently a spy on a mission so secret even he doesn't know about it. It is nightmarish, has absolutely no rationality to it at all, is clever and unlike any other book I've read, and most people haven't heard of it.

The Control of Nature by John McPhee is another non-fiction book. I recommend it for the beauty of the language, the depth of the research, and the fact that it is incredibly fascinating and impossible to put down. McPhee makes every person he meets into someone you want to know, and his science has substance without ever losing that sense of wonder.

u/LocalAmazonBot · 3 pointsr/todayilearned

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Link: The Age of Wonder

u/cassander · 3 pointsr/history

Robert Massie is my favorite historian, and he has 3 amazing books on the period. Dreadnought, about the Anglo-German naval rivalry that led to WWI, Nicholas and Alexander, a biography of the last Czar and the fall of the Russian Empire, and the beautifully titled Castles of Steel, about the naval battles of WWI.

u/OrangePlus · 3 pointsr/scifi

You may wish to check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Dreadnought-Robert-K-Massie/dp/0345375564

I highly recommend it.

u/Trexdacy · 3 pointsr/history

Dreadnought by Robert K. Massie. It starts well before the war (1900-ish) and is a bit of a dry read. I found it fascinating, however.

u/send_nasty_stuff · 3 pointsr/DebateAltRight

I'm a history nut as well.

Short starter essay to get you going; get in a comfy chair for this.

https://rense.com//general34/amaz.htm

Here's another good short starter on Bolshevism.

https://bloodyshovel.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/biological-leninism/

I'm going to give you amazon links but if you have time and resources try to go directly to the authors website as they get a better cut of proceeds. There's also archive.org if you're poor.

https://www.amazon.com/Under-Sign-Scorpion-Soviet-Empire/dp/9197289779/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550521515&sr=1-2&keywords=juri+lina

Lina did a doc as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIuW-vNQsQI

https://www.amazon.com/Two-Hundred-Years-Together-Part/dp/5969703729/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550521619&sr=1-3&keywords=200+years+together

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2017/02/20/english-translation-of-alexander-solzhenitsyns-200-years-together/

https://www.amazon.com/Wall-Street-Bolshevik-Revolution-Capitalists/dp/190557035X

https://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Hitler-Unnecessary-War-Britain/dp/0307405168/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550521963&sr=1-3-fkmr0&keywords=hitler+and+the+unneccary+war

Awesome dissident right publisher.

https://www.counter-currents.com/

Awesome website with LOTS of great articles

http://www.unz.com/

Here are some starters

http://www.unz.com/runz/our-american-pravda/

http://www.unz.com/article/reply-to-jordan-peterson-on-the-jewish-question-from-his-heroes/

If you're a REAL big brained check out E. Michael Jones

http://www.culturewars.com/

Here are some more fun history essays not necessarily related to bolshevism but still interesting.

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2018/07/22/the-cause-of-the-second-civil-war-in-america/

https://wethoughttheywerewhite.tumblr.com/WhoAreTheJews

Here's a write up to learn more about our movement.

https://katana17.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/the-daily-stormer-a-normies-guide-to-the-alt-right/


Happy cake day!

u/IlluminatiRex · 3 pointsr/AskHistorians

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

u/RichieSM · 3 pointsr/Wales

Wow. They completely missed Deep Country, which is astonishing considering that I bought it on The Guardian's recommendation only a few years ago.

Here's a link - I highly recommend it: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deep-Country-Years-Welsh-Hills/dp/0141049324

u/cbat_Maersk · 3 pointsr/MLS

At the risk of having everyone here roll their eyes at me, Among the Thugs by Bill Buford is still one of my favorites. I know a lot of people don't really consider it a soccer book, but it was my first real exposure to the sport beyond YMCA herd soccer, so it holds a bit of a place in my heart.

u/devnull5475 · 3 pointsr/history

Yea, what the hell was that supposed to mean?

Maybe a swipe at Pat Buchanan and The Unnecessary War (which is a fascinating book, anything but ignorant).

Anyway, interesting article, but given gratuitous insult, I won't be back any time soon.

u/vakerr · 3 pointsr/european

The 'commonly known' version of modern history is written from a very specific angle...

For a gentle intro to reality start with Pat Buchanan's book.

u/Solleret · 3 pointsr/literature

If you like the Romantics, you can't go wrong with anything by Richard Holmes:

u/Spockhammer · 3 pointsr/conspiratard

Apparently Aleister Crowley offered his services to the British Secret Service and was declined. And there's this book, whose veracity and quality I can't vouch for since I haven't read it, that supposedly tells a different story.

u/SetPhasersToStupid · 3 pointsr/worldnews

This is not the case. We have a very good documentation about peasants' lives. It's not as plentiful as other periods, but we still have many accounts.

E.g.,

https://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Life-Penifader-Brigstock-1295-1344/dp/0072903317

u/howardson1 · 3 pointsr/todayilearned

This is a great book that busts the Churchill myth.
http://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Hitler-The-Unnecessary-War/dp/0307405168

I'm American, and the Americans entered Europe not in self defense. The cold war would never have happened if America had let the nazis and soviets defeat each other. The soviet threat was a problem the American government created itself. Just like the neocons who supported the overthrow of Saddam then wanted to go after Iran, even though Iran would never have been a problem is the US had not overthrown Saddam, the Soviets would have never been a threat if the US had not fought the nazis.

u/jay--mac · 3 pointsr/badhistory

I've encountered this weird WWII revisionism before. I saw this book at Barnes and Noble one day and it totally disgusted me. In fact, someone braver than I should probably do a whole write up about this thing.

u/orangefolders · 2 pointsr/OkCupid

OP goes first. Among the Thugs by Bill Buford about English football hooligans.

u/joepyeweed · 2 pointsr/asoiaf

https://www.amazon.com/Plantagenets-Warrior-Kings-Queens-England/dp/0143124927

https://www.amazon.com/Wars-Roses-Fall-Plantagenets-Tudors/dp/0143127888?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

Knights, kings, clashing houses, evil queens, battles, betrayals, bastards, marriage pacts, etc...

These may be non-fiction, but they positively reek of ASOIAF and are a good read besides.

u/FourthFloorBroad · 2 pointsr/wikipedia

There is a really good book on Dr. Crippen and the development of wireless technology...Thunderstruck by Erik Larson.

u/Whoosier · 2 pointsr/AskHistorians

I’m recommending books meant for general readers here. If you want something more in-depth, I’ll be happy to supply it.

For military matters, a very approachable overview by a historian of medieval military matters is Michael Prestwich’s [Knight: The Medieval Warrior’s (Unofficial) Manual] (http://www.amazon.com/Knight-Medieval-Warriors-Unofficial-Manual/dp/0500251606) (2010).

For urban life, there is a heavily illustrated survey by Chiara Frigoni, [A Day in a Medieval City] (http://www.amazon.com/Day-Medieval-City-Chiara-Frugoni/dp/0226266354) (2005).

For the life of common people, a brief but very informative look is Judith Bennett’s [A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1295-1344] (http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Life-Penifader-Brigstock-1295-1344/dp/0072903317) (1998), which explains what life in an English village would be like. Much older (1937), outdated in many respects, but still very readable is H. S. Bennett’s (no relation) [Life on an English Manor] (http://archive.org/details/lifeontheenglish020976mbp) here in a free e-book link but also available second hand.

u/frozentedwilliams · 2 pointsr/asoiaf

This may seem dry, but after ASOIAF, I found myself digging into the Wars of the Roses and the conflict between the Lancasters and the Yorks. There's a TON of great books out there detailing the history between the two houses and how it shaped England. (I'd recommend this one to start with.) It fit right into my mindset following those books, and it added some historical perspective to Martin's fictional world.

u/CrucialWax · 2 pointsr/history

It's been a while since I picked it up, but The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes has a lot of information on both Mary Shelley and the scientific scene during the late 18th/early 19th century.

At that point in science people were making some astonishing breakthroughs: planets were being discovered, Humphrey Davies was experimenting with the power of chemicals, the first hot-air balloons were being created, etc. Basically, it was a point in English history when both Romanticism and Science were making breakthroughs and the current mood of England was one of unbridled wonder at the possibilities of science.

u/lngwstksgk · 2 pointsr/books
u/mistermoxy · 2 pointsr/books

Dreadnought. It's a history of the naval build-up prior to WWI. And it's sequel Castles of Steel about the naval history of WWI coincidentally.

u/malpingu · 2 pointsr/books

Barbara Tuchman was brilliant writer of history.

Albert Camus was a brilliant absurdist philosopher and novelist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy!

u/JaseTheAce · 2 pointsr/soccer

If you do go down the violence path this is a great read.

u/KonradSartorius · 2 pointsr/ShitWehraboosSay

This talking point has unfortunately been gaining ground in recent years, with Reagan's former speech writer, Patrick Buchanan writing an over 500 page book defending Nazi Germany and blaming Britain for not only WWII but also WWI. Additionally, he also claims that the West should have teamed up with Nazi Germany because Hitler "only" wanted E. Europe and that Britain should have abandoned a "warmongering, Polish dictatorship."

​

Get this and other Nazi-apologia woke truth in his recent book The Unneccessary War!

u/westhamster · 2 pointsr/Hammers

If you enjoyed Green Street then you really should give this book a read if you haven't already.

u/AngelOfLight · 2 pointsr/exmormon

The actual book that the movie was based on is actually pretty good. There is also Enigma: Battle for the Code that goes into much more detail about all the players involved in breaking the Enigma, not just Turing.

u/tooth2gum_ratio · 2 pointsr/cigars

Lone Survivor - by Marcus Luttrell


One of the best action non-fiction stories I have ever read. Considering where our troops are around Afghanistan I found this book to be amazing with its detail, the courage of these men, and the ultimate battle each faces within himself. Truly an inspiring account of events we tend to not usually have privy to within our government.


Another favorite of mine that I recently finished was Among the Thugs by Bill Bufford - it's about soccer hooliganism in Europe during the 1970s and 80s. I am a big soccer fan so I absolutely loved it, but I think it would be a good, entertaining read for anyone that likes first person accounts where the author puts you in the mix of the craziness and you can picture yourself going through the story.

I can work on the + if allowable.

u/leavenworth · 2 pointsr/AskWomen

Alison Weir is a good mix of informative and readable; this book in particular would be a good start.

u/orsodrwilybelieved · 2 pointsr/AskHistorians
u/xscientist · 2 pointsr/soccer

Read Among the Thugs. Terrifying stuff.

u/JohnKimble111 · 2 pointsr/ukpolitics

Don't forget terrorists. The first terrorist ats in Northern Ireland weren't related to the troubles but were by Suffragettes. They attempted to assassinate politicians, set of bombs and were also rather fond of arson too.

A good book on the topic is "The Suffragette Bombers: Britain's Forgotten Terrorists": https://www.amazon.co.uk/Suffragette-Bombers-Britains-Forgotten-Terrorists/dp/1783400641

u/Jasper1984 · 2 pointsr/media_criticism

Not entirely clear what he was getting at, getting involved in WWII at that point might have been necessary.

He is using this as a hook to promote his book, but i think a it is mistake not to mention the way WWII got started and how elites and groups of people were (co-)responsible for it.

u/Rogue-Journalist · 2 pointsr/history

This is a great book for the mid to later medevil period that came out recently, that I enjoyed. It ties together a lot of history that you know with what you don't.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Plantagenets-Warrior-Queens-England/dp/0143124927

u/GNG · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Fiction: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Non-Fiction: Among the Thugs by Bill Buford (here it is, I want you to read it)

u/DoorsofPerceptron · 2 pointsr/AskComputerScience

If you want a book specifically about Turing the man, rather than just his mathematical work Alan Turing: the enigma by Andrew Hodges is great.

Edit: See reviews here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alan-Turing-Enigma-Andrew-Hodges/dp/0099116413

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/TheRedPill

Your assumption is that matriarchal cultures are not violent, and thus it is impossible for a violent culture to be matriarchal.

The evidence in this case clearly shows that the Moche were both matriarchal and violent.

>The first of the discoveries that hinted at this possibility, apparently, was the Lady of Cao, a mummy unearthed from a tomb in 2006 that showed signs of dying during childbirth. The discovery of yet another priestess's skeleton, the latest of eight found so far, has confirmed this. The body was buried in an elaborate 1,200 year old tomb in Chepén, along with adult and child sacrifices.
"This find makes it clear that women didn't just run rituals in this area but governed here and were queens of Mochica society," said project director Luis Jaime Castillo, according to the Associated Free Press.

>"It is the eighth priestess to be discovered," he added. "Our excavations have only turned up tombs with women, never men."

When evidence contradicts assumptions, do you discard your assumptions or the evidence?

>Honestly, from what I understand, a true matriarchal culture would have not the problem of violence, but the problem of a lack of ambition.

As America has become more feminist over the past 50 years, we have also become significantly more violent. See also http://www.amazon.com/Queen-Victorias-Little-Byron-Farwell/dp/0393302350 . See also "white feather" and similar female-based warhawk cultures. The idea that female leadership is peaceful is a feminist fiction with no basis in observable or historical reality.

u/jaylocked · 2 pointsr/wwi

I don't know which category this would go under- it best fits "Broad overviews" but it's so in-depth I would hesitate to place it there. Maybe a new category of something like "Great Britain" or "English Perspective"?

Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front (link) by Richard Holmes (2005)

Incredibly in-depth overview of England during the War that thoroughly explains the experience of the average Tommy and how the English army operated. Uses extensive primary sources (letters, diaries, etc.) and is a good place to go if you're interested in England during the War, although it's pretty long for a casual read (~750 pages).

u/lordofheck · 2 pointsr/wwi

The hopelessness and the inevitability leading up to it fascinate me. I find WWI (more so than any other) to be a pointless, depressing affair; it is like watching a train wreck in slow motion, with a 2 mile lead up. If you are interested in the causes, Robert Massie's book Dreadnought is a phenomenal read, and its followup Castles of Steel regarding the navel battle is equally interesting.

u/bensully · 2 pointsr/books

I can't believe nobody has mentioned The Age of Wonder yet. This is one of the best non-fiction science books that I've ever read. Great narrative, great information, very entertaining.

u/quantumcipher · 2 pointsr/HighStrangeness

That certainly does sound interesting, for fiction. For a non-fiction account, I'd be more curious to read the following, which I probably will at some point:

Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult

The synopsis:

> Aleister Crowley is best known today as a founding father of modern occultism. His wide, hypnotic eyes peer at us from the cover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and his influence can be found everywhere in popular culture.

> Crowley, also known as the Great Beast, has been the subject of several biographies, some painting him as a misunderstood genius, others as a manipulative charlatan. None of them have looked seriously at his career as an agent of British Intelligence.

> Using documents gleaned from British, American, French, and Italian archives, Secret Agent 666 sensationally reveals that Crowley played a major role in the sinking of the Lusitania, a plot to overthrow the government of Spain, the thwarting of Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, and the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess.

> Author Richard B. Spence argues that Crowley—in his own unconventional way—was a patriotic Englishman who endured years of public vilification in part to mask his role as a secret agent.

> The verification of the Great Beast’s participation in the twentieth century’s most astounding government plots will likely blow the minds of history buff s and occult aficionados alike.

> Author Richard B. Spence can be seen on various documentaries on the History Channel and is a consultant for Washington, DC’s International Spy Museum. He is also the author of Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly (Feral House).

I'm not sure how much of that is accurate but it should make for a fun read, and interesting to fact-check (if feasible).

u/Notreallysureatall · 1 pointr/todayilearned

He might not have acted drunk, but he was definitely drinking a lot. He woke up to a watered down brandy, and drank several watered down brandies all through the day. At both lunch and dinner he would drink champagne and brandy, and he would imbibe heavily after dinner.

I recently finished Volume III of The Last Lion, which dedicated a lot of space to Churchill's true drinking habits. He was definitely a high-functioning alcoholic.

I'm not trying to disparage Churchill -- he's my hero, in fact. He came from a different time during which it was acceptable for English aristocrats to drink heavily.

u/CaptMcAllister · 1 pointr/OldSchoolCool

The implication was that we would not have our AC power system without him. That is patently false. We may not have a polyphase motor without him, but that doesn't constitute "inventing AC". Most people will go for their whole life without ever seeing a three phase motor.

The biographies I read were not Wikipedia.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005VSN8RI/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468286076&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=nikola+tesla+life+and+times

https://www.amazon.com/AC-DC-Savage-First-Standards/dp/0787982679/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468286146&sr=8-1&keywords=Ac%2Fdc+the+first+standards+war

https://www.amazon.com/Thunderstruck-Erik-Larson/dp/1400080673/ref=zg_bs_171100_1

I also have a Master's in EE, so I have read quite a few texts that touch on electrical engineering history.

u/GeistFC · 1 pointr/MLS

My list would have to include

The Ball is Round this is an amazing history of the sport. It is a very big book but very good.

The Numbers Game This has been one of my favorite soccer reads and I am surprised at how little people talk about it.

This love is not for cowards Truly an amazing story.

Amung the Thugs a fun and alarming tale of holgainism. Something I am very glad has not developed around the sport in the USA.

also if your not already receiving them you should subscribe to
Howler Magazine and
Eight by Eight


I hope this list gets you started. I have more on my list but have not got around to them.

u/youarearobot · 1 pointr/history

I highly recommend Dreadnaught by Robert K Massie. It is a fascinatingly in depth, if a bit dense, history of the events leading to World War I starting from the foundation of Germany. To be honest, I started it 5 years ago and still have not finished it (it is huge!), but I do not think there is another book on the subject that comes close to the level of detail it contains. Read it if only to understand the complex personal relationships of the Royal families of that era that had such a great impact on the coming war.

u/LOLKH · 1 pointr/soccer

In addition to the other books mentioned here, Among the Thugs and Winning at All Costs are both really good.

u/KokorHekkus · 1 pointr/AskReddit

One of my surprise favorites was The Wives of Henry VIII (sometimes titled "The Six Wives of Henry VIII). It offers an interesting perspective of what went on with his many marriages and I've listened to it many times.

Otherwise I'm often into sci/fi fantasy. So when it comes to that I like the audio books of the original Dune series (i.e. nothing involving his son), Dan Simmons Hyperion. And if you want to twist your mind about a bit I can recommend "Anathem" by Neil Stephenson (both in print and in audio format) but it's not really sleepy time listening, at least not the first time, because it really pulls you in. And you might want to add "Snowcrash" from Stephenson as well though they are not set in anything reminding the same surroundings but his type of storytelling is structured in the same way.

u/diana_mn · 1 pointr/history

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

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

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

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

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

u/SaintSorryass · 1 pointr/booksuggestions

How about Alison Weir's War of the Roses. She does a great job of making a hugely complicated bit of history (the bit of history that much of A Song of Ice and Fire is modeled after) at least somewhat easy to follow.

u/drmctesticles · 1 pointr/history

https://www.amazon.com/Plantagenets-Warrior-Kings-Queens-England/dp/0143124927

Pretty good book about the Plantagenets who ruled England (and at times parts of Ireland, Scotland and Wales) during the time period you're talking about.

u/Amerifunk1 · 1 pointr/history

The Royal Stuarts by Alan Massie is a fantastically written account of the Stuart dynasty, from their origins in Scotland to their ultimate fall in the early 18th century.

The Plantagenets by Dan Jones an equally enthralling account of the Plantagenet dynasty (the Angevin line), from Henry II to Richard II--which I believe will give you what you're looking for in the medieval period. More books along this line could be Edward III: The Perfect King by Roger Mortimer which gives a much more in-depth and nuanced view of one of England's greatest monarchs (as well as some controversial opinions of Mortimer's regarding Edward II). Another of Mortimer's books Henry IV: The Righteous King gives a good, well-written look at the "usurper" of the Angevin line and the beginning of the reign of the House of Lancaster.

You might then move on to The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir or The Wars of the Roses by Dan Jones for a good account of the tumultuous civil wars of the 15th century (I've read the former twice and adore it; I have not yet had the opportunity to read Jones' sequel).

I too am still searching for a satisfying biography of Cromwell!

u/ishavedmytoesforyou · 1 pointr/PoliticalHumor

Bull shit. when? where?

Edit: I am wrong. according to this biography he did hold a view similar to the quote, but he never said exactly that.

u/rodmclaughlin · 1 pointr/SargonofAkkad

Backing up my argument, I refer to Pat Buchanan's The Unnecessary War for the case for, and Philip Roth's The Plot Against America for the case against, but with Freudian slips exposing its real agenda, this view of pre-war anti-fascism.

u/Tamatebako · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

I really enjoyed Richard Holmes' The Age of Wonder and also Chaos and The Information by James Gleick.

u/jorgecomacho · 1 pointr/WarshipPorn

This is absolutely right. I mentioned this briefly in my comment pitching Castles of Steel and Dreadnought. These are the two Massie books on the subject.

Dreadnought is the story of the naval arms race leading up to world war 1. It covers the development of the HMS dreadnought, and how this revolutionary ship immediately rendered the navies of the world obsolete. This effectively meant that Germany didn't need to build 500 ships to catch up to the British, they just needed to have comparable numbers of Dreadnought-calibre ships. This started a race on all sides, and caused Britain to end splendid isolation and build alliances to ensure naval supremacy, etc. Really great book on the naval aspect leading up to world war 1.

[Castles of steel] (http://www.amazon.com/Castles-Steel-Britain-Germany-Winning/dp/0345408780/ref=la_B000AQ6XVE_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420834394&sr=1-6) is the story of how the navies conducted themselves during world war 1. It is a very different book from dreadnought, but there's so much more to ww1 naval action than u-boats and Jutland.

Both are great books. Castles of steel more closely answers the question about actual naval combat in world war 1. But if you're going to read just one, go with Dreadnought.

u/Robby00 · 1 pointr/infp

If you dig non-fiction and science and biographies I recommend my favorite book: The Age of Wonder

https://www.amazon.com/Age-Wonder-Romantic-Generation-Discovery/dp/1400031877

u/Israfelll · 1 pointr/TalesFromTheFrontDesk

Also I would recommend these two books https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War
and https://www.amazon.com/Last-Lion-Churchill-Defender-1940-1965/dp/0345548639
They will enlighten you as to the aspect of personal integrity in the face of adversity. Taking the right and honorable path despite personal pain and sacrifice but at the same time not abandoning who you are or becoming a pleb. This music I find most inspirational also https://youtu.be/KkM71JPHfjk

u/permaculture · 1 pointr/videos

http://www.amazon.com/Among-Thugs-Bill-Buford/dp/0679745351

When the glass starts breaking, the ruck is on.

u/NMW · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

In terms of the whole war, no, that would be very hard to find. Still, if you're willing to settle for the British perspective, Richard Holmes' Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front, 1914-1918 is a wonderful volume. It's written with a popular audience in mind, but it's rigorously sourced and -- at 600+ pages -- very detailed. I've recommended it a lot in this subreddit, but I have no qualms about doing so again!

u/MilesOkeefe · 1 pointr/AskReddit

You may be interested in Among the Thugs.

u/coppersnark · 1 pointr/history

"Queen Victoria's Little Wars"

Great collection of short looks at a lot of various actions in the period.

amazon.com/Queen-Victorias-Little-Byron-Farwell/dp/0393302350/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451157936&sr=8-1&keywords=queen+victorias+little+wars

u/markmuetz · 1 pointr/books

Between Silk and Cyanide, memoir of a British codemaker during the 2nd World War

u/semental · 1 pointr/sociology

Not sure what you're interested in but I read Among the Thugs by Buford in a sociology class and it's a great and interesting exploration of mob mentality/crowd psych through the lens of the life and activities of soccer/football hooligans.

http://www.amazon.com/Among-Thugs-Bill-Buford/dp/0679745351

u/pibeinocente · 1 pointr/soccernerd

Hey /u/Revinn, why don't you look up "Among the Thugs" by Bill Buford? I started reading it and I set it down but it seems like a fitting book to contribute to your paper.

http://www.amazon.com/Among-Thugs-Bill-Buford/dp/0679745351

u/determinism89 · 1 pointr/engineering

The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes. It gives a pretty good background for the scientific tradition that we participate in today through the lives and works of noteworthy scientists.

If you dig science fiction, this guy is really amusing. The cyberiad or The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem.

u/elizinthemorning · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

I really liked Antonia Fraser's The Wives of Henry VIII - she seemed to get at the humanness of the historical figures, and quotes plentifully from contemporary letters and other sources. I'd love to hear an opinion on it from a "real historian" as I'm only an interested amateur.

I'll have to put Starkey's biography on my list - thanks for the recommendation!

u/themaskedproducer · 0 pointsr/AskHistorians

I don't think I'd be able to really stay updated, I never do with that sort of stuff. But, I have a reading list that you should add- that is if you are doing payed books:

For full on historians looking for depth in medieval subjects:

-Asbridge's The Crusades is a far better Crusades history that goes into good depth than any other I've read

-Morris' The Norman Conquest oncemore just a great book for depth and detail

-Jones' The Plantagenets this one I would avoid if you hate sensationalism in history, Dan Jones is a real historian and he writes it as a real historian but he's on the edge of being more entertainer level than educator level

-Moore's 2008 edition of The Formation of a Persecuting Society is definitely the best analysis of medieval heresy I've read

(+ for more details into his actual thought process and the full counter argument to his critics that came out against him later on )

For casual historians looking for analysis and shorter reads:

-Phillip's Holy Warriors is probably an overall better analysis than Asbridge but far less deep, if you like battles go for Asbridge but this is a far shorter read

-Asbridge's The Greatest Knight good book on the Plantagenets through the eyes of the knights

-Golding's Conquest and Colonisation a slightly more boring read, maybe go with the "A short introduction to" book isntead

-Pegg's A Most Holy War for lighter reading on medieval heresy

u/damndirtylies · -1 pointsr/occult

It's all shadows and mirrors of course, but I see an interest in the occult on behalf of the CIA. To begin you have to consider what kind of organization the CIA is and how it operates. In my view, without regard for what institutional creed or beliefs the CIA may have, at its core it operates like an occult/secret society. Here's a quote from William Colby, former director of the CIA, published in his memoir:

> Socially as well as professionally they cliqued together, forming a sealed fraternity. They ate together at their own special favorite restaurants; they partied almost only among themselves; their families drifted to each other, so their defenses did not always have to be up. In this way they increasingly separated themselves from the ordinary world and developed a rather skewed view of that world. Their own dedicated double life became the proper norm, and they looked down on the life of the rest of the citizenry. And out of this grew what was later named -- and condemned -- as the "cult" of intelligence, an inbred, distorted, elitist view of intelligence that held it to be above the normal processes of society, with its own rationale and justification, beyond the restraints of the Constitution, which applied to everything and everyone else.

There really is a wealth of evidence out there. I can point you in a few different directions, if you're interested. But if you believe in occult or magical forces, then you should know that the use of occult power in military and intelligence circles goes back thousands of years, starting perhaps with the Bhagavad-Gita, or the Oracle of Delphi, or Crowley's connections to British intelligence, and so on.

u/lappath · -2 pointsr/movies

Hitler invaded Poland. France and Britain then declared war on Germany when they didn't have to.

Patrick Buchanan has an incredible book on the subject matter, if you're curious.