*The dawn of everything* by Davids Graeber and Wengrow
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True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey.
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A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. It’s about Western Europe in the 13th century.
Spoiler alert: times were tough.
Bharaomick on
Persian Manuscript Manuscrito Vat ar 1
In digital vatican library
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This is good:
Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides – the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were not only unprecedented, they were agonisingly widespread. A global crisis extended from England to Japan, and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa. North and South America, too, suffered turbulence. The distinguished historian Geoffrey Parker examines first-hand accounts of men and women throughout the world describing what they saw and suffered during a sequence of political, economic and social crises that stretched from 1618 to the 1680s. Parker also deploys scientific evidence concerning climate conditions of the period, and his use of ‘natural’ as well as ‘human’ archives transforms our understanding of the World Crisis. Changes in the prevailing weather patterns during the 1640s and 1650s – longer and harsher winters, and cooler and wetter summers – disrupted growing seasons, causing dearth, malnutrition, and disease, along with more deaths and fewer births. Some contemporaries estimated that one-third of the world died, and much of the surviving historical evidence supports their pessimism.
Parker’s demonstration of the link between climate change and worldwide catastrophe 350 years ago stands as an extraordinary historical achievement. And the contemporary implications of his study are equally important: are we at all prepared today for the catastrophes that climate change could bring tomorrow?
The Secret History of the Mongols, translation by Arthur Waley… It’s a good mix of history, mythology, and anthropology. There are more recent translations that might be a smoother read.
mommima on
*Dead Wake* by Erik Larson (or anything else by him; he’s great, but this one is my favorite) about the sinking of the Lusitania during WWI.
*A Woman of No Importance* by Sonia Purnell about a one-legged, female American spy for the British in Nazi-occupied France.
*Assassin’s Accomplice* by Kate Clifford Larson about the plot to murder Abraham Lincoln and his top cabinet members, and the subsequent trial of Booth’s accomplices. She does such a good job of making you feel the ups and downs and uncertainty of the trial.
*Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage* by Alfred Lansing about a shipwreck in Antarctica and the crew’s survival on ice floes and in the open ocean on canoes.
*Liar Temptress Soldier Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War* by Karen Abbott about four women (two Union, two Confederate)
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*The Jakarta method* by Vincent Bevins
*The dawn of everything* by Davids Graeber and Wengrow
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey.
A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. It’s about Western Europe in the 13th century.
Spoiler alert: times were tough.
Persian Manuscript Manuscrito Vat ar 1
In digital vatican library
This is good:
Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides – the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were not only unprecedented, they were agonisingly widespread. A global crisis extended from England to Japan, and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa. North and South America, too, suffered turbulence. The distinguished historian Geoffrey Parker examines first-hand accounts of men and women throughout the world describing what they saw and suffered during a sequence of political, economic and social crises that stretched from 1618 to the 1680s. Parker also deploys scientific evidence concerning climate conditions of the period, and his use of ‘natural’ as well as ‘human’ archives transforms our understanding of the World Crisis. Changes in the prevailing weather patterns during the 1640s and 1650s – longer and harsher winters, and cooler and wetter summers – disrupted growing seasons, causing dearth, malnutrition, and disease, along with more deaths and fewer births. Some contemporaries estimated that one-third of the world died, and much of the surviving historical evidence supports their pessimism.
Parker’s demonstration of the link between climate change and worldwide catastrophe 350 years ago stands as an extraordinary historical achievement. And the contemporary implications of his study are equally important: are we at all prepared today for the catastrophes that climate change could bring tomorrow?
https://www.amazon.com/Global-Crisis-Climate-Catastrophe-Seventeenth/dp/0300208634
The Fifties by David Halberstam
Taking Hawai’i by Stephen Dando-Collins.
Reclaiming Kalākaua by Tiffany Lani Ing.
Aloha Betrayed by Noenoe K. Silva.
Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham
The Secret History of the Mongols, translation by Arthur Waley… It’s a good mix of history, mythology, and anthropology. There are more recent translations that might be a smoother read.
*Dead Wake* by Erik Larson (or anything else by him; he’s great, but this one is my favorite) about the sinking of the Lusitania during WWI.
*A Woman of No Importance* by Sonia Purnell about a one-legged, female American spy for the British in Nazi-occupied France.
*Assassin’s Accomplice* by Kate Clifford Larson about the plot to murder Abraham Lincoln and his top cabinet members, and the subsequent trial of Booth’s accomplices. She does such a good job of making you feel the ups and downs and uncertainty of the trial.
*Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage* by Alfred Lansing about a shipwreck in Antarctica and the crew’s survival on ice floes and in the open ocean on canoes.
*Liar Temptress Soldier Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War* by Karen Abbott about four women (two Union, two Confederate)