Any recs for nonfiction books that show the “real” side of history (or at least a non-whitewashed “must be the heroes” version)? It’s kinda vague but I’m thinking like Exploration eras, impacts across Asia and Africa, what actually happened during slavery and the Holocaust, even Apartheid. Russia invading/taking over Europe, Japan and China taking over places in Asia, Shanghai being split between native and foreign influences in the 1910s-1950, Hong Kong going through Japanese and British occupations before being “given back” to China.
One thing to note is that I don’t really enjoy memoirs/autobiographies when they are done by politicians or celebrities. Journals and anecdotes from common people or even soldiers would be more my line of thinking. In addition, of course, to more textbook like formatting with facts, maps, and timelines.
by MDS2133
3 Comments
Maybe {{**The Forgotten Soldier** by *Guy Sajer*}}? It’s the memoirs of a young man who served with the Wermacht during WWII.
* *Code Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan—and Why Truman Dropped the Bomb* by Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar.
* *The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire,1936-1945* by John Toland.
* *Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire* by Richard B. Frank.
* *Truman and the Hiroshima Cult* by Robert P. Newman.
* *Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II* by Marc Gallicchio.
* *The Making of the Atomic Bomb* by Richard Rhodes.
* *The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II* by Iris Chang.
* *Unit 731: Testimony* by Hal Gold.
* *Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb* by George Fiefer.
* *Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II* in the Pacific by Gavan Daws.
* *The Prisoner and the Bomb* by Laurens van der Post. CPT, British Intelligence Corps.
* *Japan’s Secret War: Japan’s Race Against Time to Build Its Own Atomic Bomb* by Robert K. Wilcox.
* *Thank God for the Atom Bomb* by Paul Fussell.
* *Marching Orders: The Untold Story of How the American Breaking of the Japanese Secret Codes Led to the Defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan* by Bruce Lee.
* *Return of the Enola Gay* by Paul W. Tibbets.
* *Hiroshima* by John Hersey.
You might like A People’s History by Howard Zinn and Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen.