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

 
 
 
I am currently reading American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A. Wallace, by John Culver and John Hyde and also The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. In addition, I am rereading The Coming Fury by Bruce Catton, the first volume of the Centennial History of the Civil War.
 
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker.
 
I found 'Practicing History' by Barbara Tuchman at a thrift shop this past weekend. Score of the year.
 
rousseau said:
I found 'Practicing History' by Barbara Tuchman at a thrift shop this past weekend. Score of the year.
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Such a good book. Unfortunately, I had to put 'Mind of the South' on hold because I can't put this one down.

She's just such an intelligent, insightful, and eloquent writer. Even if I don't always agree with her, she's full of wisdom.
 
My reading currently includes Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle that Made England, by Juliet Barker, The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis, by Ira Shapiro, and God's Fury, England's Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars, by Michael Braddick.
 
Started reading Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States' in the past week and am enjoying it. I also rounded out my collection of Richard Hofstadter's "Great Issues in American History" series in the past week. Those books are pretty dry, but make nice references to browse through.

Also ordered "Louisbourg Portraits: Five Dramatic, True Tales of People Who Lived in an Eighteenth-Century Garrison Town" tonight, which I found in my search for a 19th century social history of Canada.
 
I'm starting David Sehat's The Myth of American Religious Freedom. With religious conservatives owning the Republican Party and billionaires wanting to own it, we progressive Yanks are having exciting times.

Also, Ian Toll's Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific 1941-1942 is keeping this former tin can sailor (1950-1952) up past his bedtime.
 
17 Carnations: the Windsors, the Nazis and the Cover-Up by Andrew Morton
Interesting, but not earth-shattering. So far, anyway. I'm only about halfway through it, so while I've read a lot about the Windsors and the Nazis, I haven't got to the cover-up yet.
MarkW said:
My reading currently includes Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle that Made England, by Juliet Barker
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That's on my list of forthcoming attractions, when I finish with the current read.
 
Right now I am reading The Power Broker, Robert Caro's terrific, enormous biography of Robert Moses, and also To the Gates of Stalingrad, by David Glantz and Jonathan House, the first volume in their extremely detailed Stalingrad Trilogy.
 
'The History of Jazz' by Ted Gioia arrived recently too. Really enjoying that one so far.
 
Just finished Kertzer's The Pope and Mussolini. It was pretty good. People usually discuss Pius XII because he was the wartime Pope. Pius XI was historically much more substantial than Pius XII, yet up till now much less known.
 
Finally finished with The Power Broker, which is excellent but also over 1100 pages long (not counting endnotes), and I'm also close to finishing Norman Cantor's The Civilization of the Middle Ages, a very solid survey/synthesis.
 
Tom in Napa said:
Also, Ian Toll's Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific 1941-1942 is keeping this former tin can sailor (1950-1952) up past his bedtime.
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If you haven't already read it I highly recommend Tameichi Hara's Japanese Destroyer Captain. It's fascinating reading these events from the Japanese perspective, and as I'm sure you are aware their destroyer men were without equal in the early years of the war.
 
I am close to finishing No Ordinary Men: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi, Resisters Against Hitler in Church and State, by Elisabeth Sifton and Fritz Stern.
 
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