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

Got a good start on The History of Christianity a few months back which I chronicled in another thread in the history section. Have now been out of reading history for a while now, I think because I've gotten overwhelmed by all of the titles I've started (that and intellectual burnout as well as no free time).

Although, I have started looking at a tiny chronology of world history lately before bed. Literally all of world history in bullet point form. It's fun.
 
The Golden Age of Burgundy: The Magnificent Dukes and Their Courts. by Joseph Calmette and Doreen Weightman.

Despite its old fashioned cover and ponderous title, a very exciting work about an area and period that I was constantly reading allusions to, but never actually set down and studied. The doings of the various dukes were really quite interesting and extraordinary. That, and I love the era of history where everyone had an epigram: Charles the Bold, John the Fearless, Joan the Mad, Charles the Bad, etc.

Freedom at Midnight. by Dominique Lapier and Larry Collins. This is my car book, so it is going slowly. A very good account of the last days of british rule in India. Apparently everything is that fucker Ali Jinnah's fault.
 
Shadow Divers

About a group of SCUBA divers that revolutionized mixed-gas diving and spawned a re-write of WWII history with their discoveries of sunken German submarines off the shores of Long Island.
 
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage. Explains how beer, wine, spirits (whisky, rum, etc.), coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola have affected human history.

If "historical" novels are included, I'm also working on James Michener's Poland.
 
I just finished reading The Lives of Confucius by Michael Nylan and Thomas Wilson.

Before that I read The Sea Shall Embrace Them by David Shaw.

Right now I am trying to finish up The Life and Times of Chaucer by John Gardner and Conspirator by Helen Rappaport.
 
McCullough's The Johnstown Flood (1968), a classic. He does the job in about 270 pages and covers all the pertinent scientific, sociological, economic issues, and gives you a strong sense of the human tragedy. He also finds the words to describe the nearly unimaginable sight and sound of a 70 foot-deep lake emptying itself down a mountain valley in one chaotic hour-long rampage.
 
Gary Kinsman, The Regulation of Desire: a history of gay men and lesbians in Canada, from the 1980s. Once you get past the postmodernist, poststructuralist stuff in the beginning--de riguer for "cutting edge" scholarly work of the 80s, the book grows quite interesting and informative.
 
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“In the Shadow of the Sword” by Tom Holland

An examination of the origins of Islam and how the Arab Empire displaced the Roman and Persian Empires in the Levant. Haven't got that far into it yet, but what I have read is fascinating; the credibility of the Hadith and, by extension, the Koran, called into question if not utterly destroyed.
 
On my Kindle:
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, by Ulysses S. Grant. He writes so well that I'm wanting a map of where he fought.
and
Going Ape: Florida's Battles over Evolution in the Classroom. I was at Univ of Fla when the battles began and remember the names of some of those involved.
 
I'm hoping to soon get my hands on some writing on the social history of the working class in 19th century Canada (or Europe, but preferably Canada). I think I may own a few titles that might touch on the subject on England and France, but haven't checked yet.

The book on Canada must exist, and I must find it.
 
I just finished "The Balkans since 1453." A ponderous but very complete tome, filled with very in depth analysis of the history of the Balkans, including economic analyses and a break down of each period by country.
 
Started The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche. Iam pretty curious!
 
In the last year or two I found and started reading this guy which was an excellent work on both Scottish history, and a nice case study of early-modern European history.

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Then a few days ago I found the follow-up by the same author:

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If you've ever been interested in Scottish history they're both incredible reads, and even if not they're both still very enjoyable.
 
George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I by Miranda Carter

Interesting portrait of the relationship(s) between King, Kaizer and Czar. Poor Wilhelm; nobody seems to have liked him much. Then again, he doesn't seem to have been particularly likeable ...
 
[Wilhelm] doesn't seem to have been particularly likeable ...
Click to expand...
Soon after WW2, I saw (but did not read) a book titled Hitler: The Psychopathic God.
After I did some hard ball politics I started wondering if there are any books about correlations between political power and socio/psychopathy.
I have concluded that post traumatic stress, at least its hyper-alertness and maybe its paranoia, energizes many politically active people. Some of them win elections.
Any thoughts?
 
Tom in Napa said:
[Wilhelm] doesn't seem to have been particularly likeable ...
Click to expand...
Soon after WW2, I saw (but did not read) a book titled Hitler: The Psychopathic God.
After I did some hard ball politics I started wondering if there are any books about correlations between political power and socio/psychopathy.
I have concluded that post traumatic stress, at least its hyper-alertness and maybe its paranoia, energizes many politically active people. Some of them win elections.
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
I haven't really read on the subject, so I don't think I could give a very informed answer to that. In the case of Wilhelm II, though, he wasn't so much socio/psychopathic as narcissistic. Brought up in isolation, as befitted a royal prince of the time, poorly educated, surrounded since childhood by flatterers, and overcompensating for the perceived loss of masculinity and martial bearing caused by his withered arm ... and that's before even mentioning the family problems ... as Victoria's oldest grandson, he thought he deserved first place in her affections, but was overshadowed by George and Nicholas in that regard. There are many extant quotes from his ministers describing his childish tantrums when baulked and how untrustworthy he was when it came to state business (one example: at a time when Germany was secretly building her navy to match the British, Willhelm had King Edward VII as his guest at Kiel, the main German naval base. Despite being warned not to let slip anything about the secret naval build-up, Wilhelm couldn't help showing off, so he ordered the entire fleet to Kiel for a review just to show it off to Edward).

This is not to say that his cousins, George V and Tsar Nicholas were all that much better, or more suited to their roles (although George grew into his), but Wilhelm was certainly the worst of the three cousins to have in charge of a country.
 
C_Mucius_Scaevola said:
Tom in Napa said:
Soon after WW2, I saw (but did not read) a book titled Hitler: The Psychopathic God.
After I did some hard ball politics I started wondering if there are any books about correlations between political power and socio/psychopathy.
I have concluded that post traumatic stress, at least its hyper-alertness and maybe its paranoia, energizes many politically active people. Some of them win elections.
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
I haven't really read on the subject, so I don't think I could give a very informed answer to that. In the case of Wilhelm II, though, he wasn't so much socio/psychopathic as narcissistic. Brought up in isolation, as befitted a royal prince of the time, poorly educated, surrounded since childhood by flatterers, and overcompensating for the perceived loss of masculinity and martial bearing caused by his withered arm ... and that's before even mentioning the family problems ... as Victoria's oldest grandson, he thought he deserved first place in her affections, but was overshadowed by George and Nicholas in that regard. There are many extant quotes from his ministers describing his childish tantrums when baulked and how untrustworthy he was when it came to state business (one example: at a time when Germany was secretly building her navy to match the British, Willhelm had King Edward VII as his guest at Kiel, the main German naval base. Despite being warned not to let slip anything about the secret naval build-up, Wilhelm couldn't help showing off, so he ordered the entire fleet to Kiel for a review just to show it off to Edward).

This is not to say that his cousins, George V and Tsar Nicholas were all that much better, or more suited to their roles (although George grew into his), but Wilhelm was certainly the worst of the three cousins to have in charge of a country.
Click to expand...

There was a popular joke in Russia in the years immediately running up to the revolution. A man is arrested by the secret police, who beat him about the head and say "Admit it! You were overheard saying 'Nicholas is a moron', and that is treason!". The desperate arrestee says "I admit that I said it; But I was not talking of His Royal Highness the Worshipful Tsar, father to his people and God amongst men; I was speaking about another man called Nicholas". "Ah, yes", says the secret policeman. "But we know you were talking of the Tsar. Why else would you use the word 'moron'?".

George V had the great good fortune to be a monarch who was more a figurehead than an actual ruler; If he had a truly stupid idea, his Prime Minister or parliament could easily find a way to do something completely different from what he wanted, and indeed the British system since the 17th Century had been explicitly structured to discourage monarchs from taking an interventionist role in the formulation of policy. Wilhelm was still in charge, not just in name but also in fact - an order from the Kaiser was expected to be obeyed. Nicholas was even more empowered; the Tsar's word was the word of God, and heaven help anyone who tried to modify his orders in any way.

All three men, and their actions in the run up to the outbreak of the great war, are very good examples of the perils of hereditary absolute monarchy. If you want an hereditary monarchy, then it is a good idea to give the actual executive powers to somebody who can easily be ditched if he goes crazy.
 
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