What historical book(s) are you reading right now?

[rousseau]

'The History of Jazz' by Ted Gioia arrived recently too. Really enjoying that one so far.

This one's been fantastic so far, has really heightened my experience of listening to jazz. It serves as a nice off-hand social history of the US too.

 

[Herrick]

I am currently reading A History of the American People by Paul Johnson. I'm half way through it. I was going to read Howard Zinn's A People's History Of The United States but I figured I should read Johnson's book because I've had it for years but never managed to finish it. It's very readable but I always got distracted by other books, mostly fiction. I don't often read non-fiction.

 

[rousseau]

I am currently reading A History of the American People by Paul Johnson. I'm half way through it. I was going to read Howard Zinn's A People's History Of The United States but I figured I should read Johnson's book because I've had it for years but never managed to finish it. It's very readable but I always got distracted by other books, mostly fiction. I don't often read non-fiction.

What do you think of the work by Johnson? Didn't realize he wrote on that subject.

 

[Herrick]

I am currently reading A History of the American People by Paul Johnson. I'm half way through it. I was going to read Howard Zinn's A People's History Of The United States but I figured I should read Johnson's book because I've had it for years but never managed to finish it. It's very readable but I always got distracted by other books, mostly fiction. I don't often read non-fiction.

What do you think of the work by Johnson? Didn't realize he wrote on that subject.

Sorry for the late reply. I think Johnson's book is very enjoyable to read. I can't comment on how objective or accurate he is because I don't know a lot about US history. Johnson is a conservative and he does insert his own opinions in the book. This is why I felt obligated to read this book before Zinn's book. I didn't want to read just one perspective.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

Just finished Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life by Alison Weir, and am now partway through Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England by the same author.

The differences between the two are quite striking, mainly, I think, due to the variation in the sources available for two lives approximately 100 years apart. Eleanor seems to rely much more on the stories of the men in her life (Louis VII, Henry II, and her sons Henry, Richard, John and Geoffrey) while Isabella's story is more her own.

It's a shame, really, because Eleanor's story could have been fascinating if more of it was available to tell, I think. As it is, it's an interesting story and well worth the read, but seems to lack much detail.

In Isabella, sometimes there's too much detail. I'm talking here about the architectural and interior design minutiae of the various royal residences which Weir often refers to, and which don't, I feel, add much to the story, which would stand up very well on its own without them. As for the life, it grips this reader in a way the other didn't, purely because there is more of it, with more sources such as Isabella's letters and chronicles and almost-contemporary biographies available.

 

[MarkW]

What do you think of the work by Johnson? Didn't realize he wrote on that subject.

Sorry for the late reply. I think Johnson's book is very enjoyable to read. I can't comment on how objective or accurate he is because I don't know a lot about US history. Johnson is a conservative and he does insert his own opinions in the book. This is why I felt obligated to read this book before Zinn's book. I didn't want to read just one perspective.

I've read both Zinn and Johnson, although it's been some time since I looked at either. If you're not familiar with US history, neither is really a good introduction. Johnson, although he writes well, is not served well by his ideological slant. It's not that he inserts his right-wing opinions throughout the book, especially as you get further into the 20th century. The real problem is that his bias leads him to trivialize issues of enormous importance and to build very minor historical molehills into Everest-sized mountains. For instance, Johnson spent, as I recall, more pages of his book rhapsodizing about "the power of Ronald Reagan's humor" than he did on the civil rights movement and the environmental movement combined. That's simply unjustifiable--whatever you feel about those social movements, they had a very big impact on 20th century America and a good historian has to give them attention.

In Zinn's case, I'm a lot closer to his ideological leanings, but I still find his book unsatisfactory on the whole. My reasons for thinking that are very similar to those expressed in this essay by left-of-center historian Michael Kazin.

Personally, I don't think that a truly outstanding one-volume history of the US exists. The best I've found is America, Empire of Liberty, by David Reynolds, and I'd consider this one competent but not exceptional. To get a really solid grasp of US history, though, you're going to need more depth than a single volume provides; I'd advise you, or anyone with an interest in the subject, to check out the various volumes of the Oxford History of the United States.

 

[Herrick]

Agreed, one book can't do it all. For a very general history, I think Johnson's book is good. I'm not finished yet. Just finished the very brief summary of the Korean war.

I read The Glorious Cause...well most of it. I was bored to tears with the book after the war ended. Couldn't finish it.

 

[MarkW]

My current historical reading includes Empire of Cotton: A Global History, by Sven Beckert, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, by William Freehling, and The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-6, 1864, by Gordon Rhea, the first in his 4-volume series about the Overland Campaign of 1864.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

The Original Proof That Inheritance Must Be Abolished

The Grass Crown, the only volume I had not yet read in Colleen McCullough's great "fictional" saga about what happened at the end of the Roman Republic, which was really a doomed aristocratic government structure. Much like our own HeirHead Supremacy in Terminal America. But I doubt if, like the Roman Empire, we will last 500 years after this toxic republic and its fascist Constitution collapses on top of us.