Current Reading November 2024

Surprised I'm the first to post here this month, but I'll start off with a doozy. Born to Be Hanged: The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates Who Raided the South Seas, Rescued a Princess, and Stole a Fortune by Keith Thomson is a well-written nonfiction story of a group of pirates, or probably more accurately, buccaneers who crossed the Isthmus of Panama to raid a city and as the title says, rescue a princess. Over the next two years they sailed and attacked the Spanish on the west coast of Central and South America. There were quite a lot of adventures, raids, etc as you would expect from a gang of pirates. Thomson, the author of several novels, uses his stylistic skill to make it an interesting book to read. There are extensive notes and a bibliography as well.

Have just finished In God's Path, an attempt to give a sense of how the rise of the Arab polity took the empires of the Late Classical period by storm, without Classic Islamic anachronism; not bad, not great. I should also mention that I read Revolusi over vacation, a really great examination of the rise of Indonesian nationalism.

Finished The Deadly Stroke by Warren Tute, the fascinating story of how the British navy came to attack and destroy part of the French Atlantic fleet in Algeria during WW2. Very well written.

I'm reading Robert Gerwarth's "Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End." This book deals with the how the war ended in eastern and central Europe: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia. That is, how people, soldiers and the general populace, dealt with defeat and four years of war and deprivation. There is a lot of discussion of the "stab in the back" idea and why is gained credence in Germany and Austria, especially as people asked, "What was the sacrifice of the war for?" In all of these countries, the political upheaval was catastrophic for the ruling class. Ultimately, the monarchies in all of these countries collapsed. This was followed by wide-spread violence and, in some cases, ethnic cleansing. Gerwarth weaves in the thread of the rise of an anti-communist movement and how that blossomed, but also how it led to an embrace of fascism. I have not explored this side of the Great War so this is proving to be a wonderful book for me.

>4 Blythewood: Thanks for mention that book, I've put it on my wishlists. In the past few years I've added to my library quite a number of WW1 and post WW1 books but I've missed that one.

Finished Hadrian's Wall by David J. Breeze and Brian Dobson, a good standard work on the subject. Lots of details about the Roman army there as well.

Gave up after about reading a third of Gordon of Khartoum: From the Crimea to China to Sudan by Alexander McKee. This is one of ninety-nine cent Kindle books published by Sapere Books which are re-releases of older books. Unfortunately I found the author's style of writing to be irksome. He gives opinions on many things which gets tiresome after a while. And he goes off subject on times, discussing for instance Marxism and Fascism when it wasn't really pertinent to the events at hand. And at times he goes off for many pages without talking about Gordon at all. Not recommended.

I finished Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege - 1942-1943, military historian Antony Beevor's well-written, lucid, extremely detailed and horrifying history of arguably the most pivotal battle of World War 2, at least in the European theater. Having had access to new troves of information, including soldiers' diaries and letters home, Beevor is able to give us insight into the planning, execution and errors on both sides of the battle, and focus all the way down to moment-by-moment experiences of individual soldiers. A very grim read, but very much recommended for anyone with an interest in the Second World War itself and also the lengths to which human beings are willing to endure hardship, pain, misery and exhaustion in service to a cause or what they see as their duty.

Did finish Meet Me by the Fountain, an examination of the rise and fall and possible rebirth of the American shopping mall.