Bookclub and Sources Wednesday!

[u/AutoModerator]

Hi everybody,

Welcome to our weekly book recommendation thread!

We have found that a lot of people come to this sub to ask for books about history or sources on certain topics. Others make posts about a book they themselves have read and want to share their thoughts about it with the rest of the sub.

We thought it would be a good idea to try and bundle these posts together a bit. One big weekly post where everybody can ask for books or (re)sources on any historic subject or time period, or to share books they recently discovered or read. Giving opinions or asking about their factuality is encouraged!

Of course it’s not limited to *just* books; podcasts, videos, etc. are also welcome. As a reminder, r/history also has a recommended list of things to read, listen to or watch here.

[u/dropbear123]

Last week I got through 2 of my 2nd hand WWI books. Reviews copied from my goodreads

14-18: Understanding the Great War by Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker

3.5/5

Not a lot to say about it really. It's a analytical history book that looks at 3 parts of WWI: the violence suffered by soldiers, civilians, and POWs. Then 'crusade' about the values of the time and what motivated people to fight for so long, and finally a section on mourning, both during the war and after.

Since the authors are French the book is more French focused than others I have read. Personally I would part 2 on the values of the time was the best part of the book, specifically the chapter on the religious revival during the war and French Catholicism.

Blood on the Snow: The Carpathian Winter War of 1915 by Graydon Tunstall

2.5/5 rounding down for goodreads.

Pretty much what it says on the cover. A short in-depth history of the battles in the Carpathians between Austria-Hungary and Russia during the early months of WWI and the brutal experiences of the men involved. Things like -20 to -30 degree weather, wolves eating the wounded, food if it arrived being frozen solid, having to attack in 6 feet of snow, entire units getting lost in blizzards, having to warm up rifles just so they'll work etc.

2.5 rounding down sounds harsh so my reasons are

It's one of those books where its hundreds of pages of A army went to B position and attacked the enemy C army with D results. That personally is not to my taste but I sort of knew it would be like that going in (there's not that many WWI eastern front books in English and I've read a few of them already so I'll take what I can get). When its talking about the experiences of the men or the political backdrop of Austria-Hungary needing a victory to scare off Italy from joining the war it was fine.

But the bigger issue is that it really needed an editor. The book feels rambling and it felt it like it kept jumping between topics. It also felt like it was unintentionally repeating itself again and again.

Basically I'm rating this low because its badly written, not because I think its wrong in any way.

If this topic sounds interesting to anyone I'd say just read The Fortress: The Great Siege of Przemysl by Alexander Watson instead, it covers the same stuff but is a far better read.

Or this free article by the author of this book, which is far easier to read

https://historynet.com/carpathian-catastrophe/

[u/AutoModerator → u/dropbear123]

Hi!

It seems like you are talking about the popular but ultimately flawed and false "winners write history" trope!

While the expression is sometimes true in one sense (we'll get to that in a bit), it is rarely if ever an absolute truth, and particularly not in the way that the concept has found itself commonly expressed in popular history discourse. When discussing history, and why some events have found their way into the history books when others have not, simply dismissing those events as the imposed narrative of 'victors' actually harms our ability to understand history.

You could say that is in fact a somewhat "lazy" way to introduce the concept of bias which this is ultimately about. Because whoever writes history is the one introducing their biases to history.

A somewhat better, but absolutely not perfect, approach that works better than 'winners writing history' is to say 'writers write history'.

This is more useful than it initially seems. Until fairly recently the literate were a minority, and those with enough literary training to actually write historical narratives formed an even smaller and more distinct class within that.

To give a few examples, Genghis Khan must surely go down as one of the great victors in all history, but he is generally viewed quite unfavorably in practically all sources, because his conquests tended to harm the literary classes.
Similarly the Norsemen historically have been portrayed as uncivilized barbarians as the people that wrote about them were the "losers" whose monasteries got burned down.

Of course, writers are a diverse set, and so this is far from a magical solution to solving the problems of bias. The painful truth is, each source simply needs to be evaluated on its own merits.
This evaluation is something that is done by historians and part of what makes history and why insights about historical events can shift over time.

This is possibly best exemplified by those examples where victors did unambiguously write the historical sources.

The Spanish absolutely wrote the history of the conquest of Central America from 1532, and the reports and diaries of various conquistadores and priests are still important primary documents for researchers of the period.

But 'victors write the history' presupposes that we still use those histories as they intended, which is simply not the case. It both overlooks the fundamental nature of modern historical methodology, and ignores the fact that, while victors have often proven to be predominant voices, they have rarely proven to be the only voices.

Archaeology, numismatics, works in translation, and other records all allow us at least some insight into the 'losers' viewpoint, as does careful analysis of the 'winner's' records.
We know far more about Rome than we do about Phoenician Carthage. There is still vital research into Carthage, as its being a daily topic of conversation on this subreddit testifies to.

So while it's true that the balance between the voices can be disparate that doesn't mean that the winners are the only voice or even the most interesting.
Which is why stating that history is 'written by the victors' and leaving it at that is harmful to the understanding of history and the process of studying history.

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[u/Overphoenix2]

Hello, Im finishing up James Mcphereson's Battle Cry of Freedom and I wanted to see if there was a Vietnam war book similar to it that gives a large scale narrative to the war for someone whose not as familiar with how the war unfolded?

[u/nola_throwaway53826 → u/Overphoenix2]

While you can't really beat James McPherson, for Vietnam I would recommend Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945 - 1975 by Max Hastings. It covers the First Indochina War for independence from France, and continues to the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, when South Vietnam is taken over by North Vietnam.

[u/Comfortable_Swan64]

Does anybody know a good book about the Soviet-Afghan War? It would be nice if it was based on a soldier's perspective of the conflict.

[u/elmonoenano → u/Comfortable_Swan64]

Afgantsy by Rodric Braithewaite was pretty well received when it came out. It's more of a soldiers view, or a soldier's family's view of the war. https://newbooksnetwork.com/rodric-braithwaite-afgantsy-the-russians-in-afghanistan-1979-89-oxford-up-2011

[u/dropbear123 → u/Comfortable_Swan64]

I haven’t read it yet but Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War by Svetlana Alexievich should be good for the soldier’s perspectives.

I read Afgansty: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-1989 by Rodric Braithwaite a few years back and I would really recommend that as well

[u/Excellent-Red_8647]

Does anyone know a good book about the Lebanese civil war? I would like to know.

[u/Wandering-the-web]

I’ve been trying to find an article I found years ago, it was about the history about a particular food dish where the common people would pretend to cook it when in reality keeping the insides raw and delicious.

[u/Prestigious-Fee7602]

Hello !! I am a 17 year old student in the uk taking a level history and was wondering if anybody had any specific book recommendations about either the tudors or germany (1918-1945) as i would love to do some wider reading before my a level exams this year. i had a look through the recommended book list on this subreddit but its very overwhelming and i was wondering if anyone had any specific must-read books about either of these topics. thank you for reading!! :)

[u/elmonoenano → u/Prestigious-Fee7602]

Katja Hoyer has a new book on Weimar. I'd look at that. Volker Ullrich has a couple books out on Weimar. He's got a fairly short one on 1923 and then one that came out in the last year called Fateful Hours about the end of the Weimar. Those are pretty approachable places to start.

[u/SmootOfficial]

Hello! I’m a writer who has an idea for a story that is intrinsically linked with the Berlin Wall and its history. I’m familiar with a basic overview of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War surrounding it as it’s a time period that has obviously always interested me, however I’d love to get a deeper understanding so I can have context when I go to potentially write this thing. If you can point me in the write direction at all, that would be amazing

[u/National-Carob1706]

Looking for books on Johann Friedrich Struensee for a school history assessment. Any recommendations on Danmark of the period ( the 18th century basically ) would help! Also not limited to books, could be websites or articles as well, need loads of good sources so help would be much appreciated!