Do you have a favorite book covering a specific specific of history?

[Flaxbee]

If so, what is it?

[handmade34]

1. Roll Jordon, Roll, by Eugene Genovese

Power, Faith and Fantasy, by Michael Oren

anything by Peter Gay

Lies My Teacher Told Me

of course anything by Howard Zinn

Joseph Campbell's books (Mythology)

.......

[sabrina 1]

2. 'John Adams' by David McCullough

It was worth reading just for the prolific correspondence between John Adams and his wife, Abigail alone.

I did not know what a real love story theirs was. Until I read this book, I never thought of Adams as one of the greatest of the Founding Fathers, but now I think he was one of the best without whom none of it would have happened. The dream of a free nation, not yet realized, but it was a great dream even though he himself later wondered if it would ever really come to pass.

Adams is one of the FFs who cannot be accused of ever supporting slavery. He abhorred it as did his wife. She was a brilliant thinker, and really the strength behind her husband as he depended so much on her for her opinions as much as for her love, which he often conceded, referring to her always as his best friend.

She questioned the cries for freedom and wondered in one of her letters

whether the passion for liberty could be "equally strong in the breasts of those who had been accustomed to deprive their fellow creatures of theirs," and had earlier pondered whether the agonies of pestilence and war could be God's punishment for the sin of slavery.

And the Adams family lived by what they believed. She also chided her husband about the lack of rights afforded to women causing him to think about it, no small thing at that time.

The graphic descriptions of the War for Independence were so real you feel you were there. It is easy to read, it moves fast, and you don't want to put it down. And you get to really know the people, on a personal level, who fought for Independence, their brilliance, courage and their faults.

If you haven't read it, I would highly recommend it even to people who are not especially interested in history. Because aside from the fact that McCullough stays close to the facts it is a great story, told by a great story teller backed up by incredible research and personal letters from those who left us with a record of their thoughts and feelings during that tumultuous time.

[pa28]

3. "Somme"

by Lynn McDonald.

Felt like I was living the book. I guess it's good history when you finish and have to read it twice and then you study further.

to add: The author's passion for the subject shows through more brightly than any other non-fiction history piece I've read.

[pansypoo53219]

4. i am reading

a 1891 set of encyclopedia britannicas. i am in E. i expect a bachelors of history when i finish.

i must say, i really enjoyed reading and they said we wouldn't fight by floyd gibbons? a WW1 embedded reporter. and the i read george catlin's noted + letters from indian country. studs terkel's the "good" war, too.

i found all but the catlin book at estate sales. i find some really good books. and the decameron is a great read too.

i am looking forward to my 6 volumn set of casanova's memoirs.

[Journeyman]

5. "The Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt. . .

Each of the three parts that comprise the work stand alone as definitive treatments of their topic: "Antisemitism," "Imperialism," and "Totalitarianism," and taken together they present a view of twentieth-century events that transcends traditional concepts of 'left' and 'right.'

As Dr Arendt showed, when seen in the context of the only two totalitarian regimes the world has ever known, the political spectrum is not a linear progression from left to right but a circular configuration with totalitarian domination from both ends of the spectrum at the juncture of the two ends bent together.

[ixion]

6. 'The Sun Also Rises' or 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'

Either would fall into that category for me.

[Mnemosyne]

7. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee n/t

[safeinOhio]

8. Norma Corwin's

One World Flight, The lost Journal of Radio's Greatest Writer.
WOW what a find and great read on the post history of WWII. The guy is still living and 99 years old.

[azmouse]

9. "Nixonland" by Rick Perlstein

Best book I've read about the '60s.

[BurtWorm]

10. Before the Storm, about the Goldwater movement, is another great Perlstein history of that era.

[Petrushka]

11. Everything In Its Path: Destruction of Community In The Buffalo Creek Flood --- by Kai T. Erikson

http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Its-Path-Destruction-Community/dp/0671240676

Just as the Farmington, West Virginia mine disaster in 1968* led to the passage of
the federal Mine Safety & Health Act (MSHA) in 1969, it took yet another disaster
in West Virginia---the 1972 Buffalo Creek flood**---before the Surface Mining Control &
Reclamation Act (SMCRA) was signed into law in 1977.

________________________________________________________
*Mine explosion killed 78 coal miners.
**Coal mine-waste dam collapsed: 125 killed, 1,121 injured,
thousands left homeless, and whole towns washed off the map.





=========================================================
More info here:
http://wvgazette.com/static/series/buffalocreek/index.html

[YankeyMCC]

12. "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick

[Hamlette]

13. All the Shah's Men, (how we overthrew a democraticly elected gov't and insalled the Shah

Last Call (prohibition, tons of stuff I never knew and I was a history major)
Nicholas and Alexandra (Russian civil war, great book) Common Ground (Boston busing issue)
Arc of Justice (segregating housing in Detroit with Clarance Darrow as defense council, his last case)
Killer Angels (gettysburg but its historical fiction)