Post: #26

(06-11-2013 03:27 PM)dk902 Wrote:  

(06-11-2013 03:13 PM)JayRock604 Wrote:  I too was going to recommend "with the old breed" I'm about halfway into it and it is really a good read. I like the writers style too, makes reading it a breeze.

I believe I saw an article on rok for it called "blood guts and sledgehammer" if you want to look into it. Glad I'm not the only one who is into history here.

Thanks man.

I didn't realise there was an article on it.

There's some good recommendations for other books in the comments.

Vietnam is the next one I want to read up on, I don't know a lot about it in detail.

But I feel I need a good Navy or Airforce book to read now as I've been reading about so many land battles.

I'm also halfway through If You Survive - by George Wilson, who was an officer replacement on D-Day.

He survived all of the major battles the Americans fought in.

It reads similar to With The Old Breed. However it's a bit more methodical with attention to detail of maps and tactics, as he's an officer, which makes it drone at times, but overall a good read too.

From reading these books you realise that generation of men was truly a great one.

Normal every day guys like us stepped up to the plate and out of duty to each other performed great acts of bravery. For that they deserve to always be remembered.

I just finished reading Pacific Crucible based on Roosh's book recommendation. It is an excellent book, although I did not get as much enjoyment out of it as Roosh simply because I was familiar with the major aspects of the war in the Pacific already. The book covers a broad overview of the Japanese invasions of China and SE Asia and then goes into detail of the three most critical battles for the USA: the air raid at Pearl Harbor, Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway. Unlike how it is portrayed in "The Pacific", this book will give you an appreciation for how the war in the Pacific between the USA and Imperial Japan was primarily a naval war between the USN and the IJN, and not even the traditional navy but rather naval aviation, of which Japan's was the best in the world.

If you are interested in an alternative way to learn history, I highly recommend checking out the historical simulation computer games by Paradox Interactive. They helped me learn more about history than any book ever did. Hearts of Iron series for WWII, Crusader Kings for the Middle Ages, and Europa Universalis for the Napoleanic Era.

Post: #27

I'll second "A People's History" by Howard Zinn's. I also had to read it in high school, and it's one of the few things I'll say actually benefited my education during those 4 years.

Anthony Beevor's "The Second World War" is a good one, too. It does cover the Pacific, but not just the US and Japan, it goes into detail on the Chinese campaigns and the struggles of the British in the area as well.

Post: #28

The "Rape of Nanking"



It talks about the forgotten Holocaust in China, where the Japanese slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people which was actually one of the first reasons why the US banned oil sanctions to the Japanese which ultimately lead to Pearl Harbor. Its very gruesome and often times spine chilling by the atrocities and stories that you read of what went on. There are many accounts and evidence in the book that the Japanese government till this day denies it even happened, which is one of the many reasons why the Chinese and Japanese hate each other till this very day. Good read.

Post: #29

This looks interesting: "Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields" by Wendy Lower.

Quote:500,000 women had front-row seats to the Final Solution, where they watched and benefitted from the rapidly declining “racially inferior” masses. And yet their presence, and their atrocities, have been largely ignored for the last 70 years. Twenty years ago, Lower was researching in Zhytomyr, a city in western Ukraine, leafing through the normal stuff of archives, the fading ink and illegible handwriting on tattered paper, some of which had bootprints and charred edges. It was there, among the German records that had been inaccessible under the Iron Curtain, that Lower began to notice an abundance of women’s names among the empire-builders. Nurses who experienced a clear perversion of their profession readily justified their transition from savings lives to taking them, explaining that “death by gas doesn’t hurt.” A former German kindergarten teacher recalled her unease upon entering the eastern occupied zone in 1942. She was unaccustomed to hearing a rapid succession of gunshots, but a nearby Nazi official quelled her fears, assuring her it was “just that a few Jews were being shot.”

There is link between the shockingly cavalier testimony given by these women and our collective ignorance of their actions in the Nazi East: genocide is usually considered the business of men, and thus, when it came time to call Nazis to account for their crimes, prosecutors were less interested in these women than in their male colleagues and husbands, people of position and ascertainable power. German defense lawyers convinced courts that women lacked the authority to enact atrocities. Despite the international community’s acute taste for war crime trials, only the rare, flagrantly sadistic woman, like Ilse Koch, the “Bitch of Buchenwald,” captured public attention. In the throes of denazification, courts simply concluded that women were not a threat to postwar German society. That meant a woman like Johanna Altvater, who took particular pleasure in luring Jewish children to their deaths with the promise of candy, could be deemed “usefully employed.” That was written on her file after a man testified that he had witnessed her, during the liquidation of a ghetto, beat his toddler’s head into a wall. Altvater was one of the rare women who were actually tried, and despite copious amounts of eyewitnesses, she was acquitted — twice.

Jewish survivors have consistently described German women in the Nazi East as violent tormenters, not innocent bystanders. Recounting horrific acts, however, proved far easier than naming the perpetrators. Often their names were never known by their victims, while others married after the war and changed their surnames. As for the women themselves, these witnesses, pillagers, tormenters, and murderesses kept quiet for reasons other than accountability; they had good memories of Germany’s seemingly limitless future, and their ambitious roles within it.

http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/women-...ing-fields

Post: #30

(11-26-2013 12:44 PM)MidWest Wrote:  The "Rape of Nanking"

It talks about the forgotten Holocaust in China, where the Japanese slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people which was actually one of the first reasons why the US banned oil sanctions to the Japanese which ultimately lead to Pearl Harbor. Its very gruesome and often times spine chilling by the atrocities and stories that you read of what went on. There are many accounts and evidence in the book that the Japanese government till this day denies it even happened, which is one of the many reasons why the Chinese and Japanese hate each other till this very day. Good read.

The book is very good on many levels, but it gives the US government too much credit for its concern over the plight of the Chinese. The length of time between the Nanking incident and the Japanese embargo was nearly half a decade. The US only used Nanking to help further pro-war rhetoric. Stimson left us with little doubt of his intentions when his private papers were made public after his death.

Post: #31

(01-02-2012 08:56 AM)Pilgrim37 Wrote:  AJP Taylor
This guy was brilliant.
Had very popular series back in the day.
His book English history 1914-1945 is a classic.

Agreed. I highly recommend anyone interested in the history of the west over the last 150 years to read AJP Taylor. David Gordon gave a talk a while back where he cited Taylor a few times, and I've been reading him ever since.

Post: #32

The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker.

Not a traditional history book and Pinker is a Psychologist I believe. The book is about the decline of violence among humanity. Pinker makes a pretty compelling case that we are living in the least violent time in human history. In making this argument Pinker draws on a plethora of historical data. He convinced me.

The second part of the book tries to explain why this decline occurred. He talks about rising literacy and an expanding circle of compassion. I found this argument less compelling. I don't necessarily say he is wrong here, just that the evidence supporting this argument is more flimsy.

Post: #33

'The Empire of the Steppes: History of Central Asia' by Rene Grousset.
"In the endless Sea of Grass, by eagles even unmeasured, stand, raise your head and hear the tales of warriors of yore...,"
Over sixty years old and it still holds up today, in my opinion it gives one of the most comprehensive accounts of the nomadic tribes that dominated an area of land mass bigger than the Atlantic Ocean for thousands of years. If your interested in learning about Jenghis Khan AKA histories greatest recorded conqueror than look no further.

Post: #34

For the American Civil War, an earlier poster mentioned the Pulitzer Prize winning book "The Battle Cry of Freedom" by James McPherson. I read it last year based on this recommendation. It's outstanding and has been described as the best single volume about this war.

Post: #35

If you are interested in the settling of the American West, then check out "Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History." The author, S. C. Gwynne, describes the Comanches as "the Spartans of the high plains." The Comanches were fearsome warriors and the reason that Spain and Mexico were unable to pacify and establish full control of Texas.

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Summer-Moon...1416591060

Post: #36

I would highly recommend "The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich". This book goes beyond the hyperbole and discusses the mindset/power-moves that caused the rise of Hitler. It is really interesting to see the blunders that UK, France and other western powers made facilitating the rise of Hitler.

Beyond that, I also recommend "The Borgias" by G. J. Meyer. It can be a bit dull as it goes into details but again it is a chronicle of how the power-games were played in the Vatican and the rise of Borgias family - Pope Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia, who was described by Machiavelli as the perfect prince.

Post: #37

Read a book called The Transfer Agreement by Edwin Black. It's about how the Nazi's collaborated with Zionist leaders. It's a thick book to get through but fully sourced and documented. It will completely change your worldview about WWII. Edwin Black is an amazing historian who needs some more credit.


http://www.amazon.com/The-Transfer-Agree...+agreement

Post: #38

Patrick Buchanan's "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War" was a fascinating read. He writes about how neither WWI nor WWII needed to happen, but a lot of bad choices and egos forced them into happening. Also talks about how Churchill came to power at a time when the sun never set on the British Empire, but at the end of his career, partly as a result of his choices and actions, the Empire was no more.

A good look at the Pacific was is "I'm Staying With My Boys- the Story of John Basilone". It's written in the third person based on interviews with people who knew him. Basilone is one of the most heroic U.S. Marines to ever set foot in combat. He also served with the legendary Chesty Puller.

Post: #39

If you want to understand any of the terminology used in the media about the situation in the middle east I suggest The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. It gives you a front row seat to how radical Islam began to develop, how 9/11 happened, it also goes into great detail on Al-Qaeda's key members such as Bin Laden and Zawahiri.