Tag: History
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Around the World in a Hundred Years
Review: I get more solid information our of young readers books than I can from a stack of textbooks. They’re uncluttered and in plain language. 1421 to 1521, from Henry the Navigator through to Magellan. Just 100 years from sailing within sight of shore to a complete circumnavigation of the globe. Nothing short of incredible.… Read more
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The World’s Most Dangerous Place
Review: A fascinating look deep inside the world’s most dangerous outlaw country: Somalia. The book was great, well written, tight and journalistic. It’s like this: Great book but so difficult to read. Heartbreaking. Somalia is the asshole of the universe and I can’t see it getting any better, ever. This book made me want to:… Read more
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The Math Book
Review: This was tough, but I learned a lot of interesting new things. Pascal, Fermat, LaGrange – all were names known to me but now I have learned about the men behind the names. Merseen primes, Pi, Euler’s number… this stuff is fascinating if almost completely beyond the ken of most mortals. This book made… Read more
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The Anarchy
Review: A vivid and richly detailed story of the birth, rise, and decline of the East India Company. A fascinating “like you were there” history of one of the world’s first joint stock corporations and how it grew to control an empire bigger than any of its founders could have ever imagined. The exploitation of… Read more
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History of the World in 100 Objects
Review: Finally found a copy of this (in the UK, naturally!) and what a joy to read. This was of course originally a series of 100 podcasts from BBC Radio 4. First broadcast in 2010, I remember listening to each episode on my first iPod – a 2GB shuffle. This is the story – our… Read more
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Cox’s Navy
Review: This book was sent to me from my old mate that lives on the Orkney Islands, where all the action takes place. It’s interesting to read about places that you are already familiar with: Stromness, Kirkwall, Lyness and so on. In 1919 the German imperial fleet was interned at Scapa Flow in Scotland as… Read more
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Into Africa
Review: Couldn’t put this down. Superb history, well researched and backed by primary sources, yet reads like a novel. An impossibly difficult journey, for a grail quest. Reminded me a lot of the Franklin fiasco and the tremendous waste of lives and resources spent to recover one foolish old adventurer. Learned a lot about 19th… Read more
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A History of France
Review: An excellent short history of France and the French people. From Vercingetorix to De Gaulle, this is the book that covers it all. Not an exhausting or comprehensive history, there are other books for that. This is a brief and concise, often humorous and always entertaining trip through 2000 years of kings and communes,… Read more
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Basic Documents in American History
Review: An actual reading of the documents that so many Americans profess to “defend unto death”, which so few have ever actually read. Americans have a racist past built into their entire socio-political system. Dred Scott, good grief. Brown v. Board of Education – good grief in 1955. A well regulated militia is not the… Read more
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The Penguin History of the World
Review: A superb achievement. From prehistoric man to the rise of civilizations, right through wars and famine and religion and science, all the way up to the world reacting to climate change. Fascinating yet challenging, you have to pay attention closely, as three pages could take in a century or two dynastic changes. A hard,… Read more