historical non-fiction - what are you reading?

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Historical non=fiction - what are you reading? I'm reading "Brave Black Regiment" by Luis Emilio. Accounts of one of the first black regiments in the Civil War.

You?

― maria d. (scott seward), Tuesday, 23 December 2003 06:36 (twenty-one years ago)

From a 2003 perspective, reading something written in the 1800's, I'm struck by a certain naivete (makes sense, having the benefit of aft-sight).

It seems that slavery and the Civil War and how the "founders" related to slavery is a hot topic now.

― maria d. (scott seward), Tuesday, 23 December 2003 06:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm reading about how Hitler was gay.

― darling, Tuesday, 23 December 2003 06:39 (twenty-one years ago)

This book did not prove to me that Hitler was gay and I read about 300 pages on the topic! Also, I just finished a biography of Jerry Springer. It made me feel I should never watch TV again.

― darling, Tuesday, 23 December 2003 06:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Recently finished vol. 1 of Edmund Morris' Teddy Roosevelt bio. Hugely entertaining. Looking forward to reading vol. 2 (and vol. 3, whenever he writes it).

― spittle (spittle), Tuesday, 23 December 2003 07:42 (twenty-one years ago)

reading a survey of middle eastern history from the advent of christianity to the present day

― brains (cerybut), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 00:16 (twenty-one years ago)

A book on the integration of the textile industry in the south from 1940-1990.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 09:36 (twenty-one years ago)

The best historical fiction I've read this year was Nathaniel Philbrick's 'In the Heart of the Sea', which has all the good bits from Moby Dick without the tedious prose. I also read a great history of the gin riots in London, and a book about those plucky Cathars who everyone loves so much. I'm currently looking for a biography of Captain Cook that's as good as Patrick O'Brian's biography of Joseph Banks, if anyone knows of one.

― accent monkey, Tuesday, 30 December 2003 10:53 (twenty-one years ago)

NON-fiction, you fool. Not fiction. NON.

― accentmonkey, Tuesday, 30 December 2003 10:54 (twenty-one years ago)

'Soviet Psychiatric Prisons' (c. 1975)

― dave q, Tuesday, 30 December 2003 12:54 (twenty-one years ago)

A couple of books about the Englightenment that HSA got for Xmas. Not the Jenny Uglow one, but the other one with the red cover with the Joseph Wright painting on it. Sorry I can't be more specific than that. The Enlightenment is quite big around our place since HSA has been invited to participate in the Enlightenment Festival.

― kate at a web cafe, Tuesday, 30 December 2003 13:18 (twenty-one years ago)

That's the Roy Porter one, isn't it? I've got that as well, picked it up second hand. I'm looking forward to it but daunted by it at the same time. It's a long time since I read a "proper" history book as opposed to a pop history one.

― accentmonkey, Tuesday, 30 December 2003 13:25 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...

I've started reading Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell. This kind of stuff is right up my alley. Funny and nostalgic portraits of quirky New Yorkers from the 1940s - kind of reminds me of Ben Katchor's cartoons as a peephole into a lost world.

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 17:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm currently taking another look at The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Koontz. The book's basically is a social history of different ways the American family worked itself out since Victorian times, meant to counter both leftist _and_ rightist rhetoric re: family values. Seriously essential, if you haven't gotten your hands on it.

Also Cecil Beaton's diaries. They're gorgeous as all hell. Let's all be vicious from now on.

― Matthew K (mtk), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Voltaire's Bastards, John Ralston Saul

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before, Tony Horwitz
Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan, Robert Whiting
Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball
The Barbary Plague: Black Death in Victorian San Francisco, M. Chase
Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz

To Read Soon:
Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the ____ Ship the General Slocum
Benjamin Franklin
Living to Tell the Tale

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Thursday, 5 February 2004 12:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I recently finished Pandora's Baby, about the birth of in vitro fertilization technology. It's fascinating and scandalous. My favorite line from the book: "If the scientist had used a word other than 'decapitated' to describe what he did to the fetuses, perhaps it would have all turned out differently."

― Jessa (Jessa), Thursday, 5 February 2004 15:44 (twenty-one years ago)

So, MsLaura, was The Barbary Plague book any good? I love a good plague book, me. I've got one lined up on the Black Death somewhere around here...

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 5 February 2004 18:12 (twenty-one years ago)

'On Killing' by Grossman. The history of just that. Interesting stuff.

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Thursday, 5 February 2004 21:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I much enjoyed The Barbary Plague, accentmonkey. The emphasis was on the societal and political constraints on isolating and controlling the outbreak, and how the politicians, as they were further away from the scene of the outbreak, downplayed the seriousness of the situation. Not a lot of gruesome details. Have you read Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year? Or Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonder?

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Friday, 6 February 2004 03:16 (twenty-one years ago)

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