Non fiction

I like reading historical non-fiction. I prefer throroughly researched and detailed post mortems of events at least a couple of decades old. I'd recommend the following books for general non-fiction

Randy Shilts, "And the Band Played On" . AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Fascinating because author himself was gay, and thus the book offers an insiders view into the events. The author later died of AIDS related complications.

Kurt Eichenwald, "Conspiracy of Fools". The rise and fall of Enron. Starts a bit slow, and requires some basic understanding/googling of the financial terms used. Interesting because the sheer arrogance (and ignorance) of the people involved at the top of the corporate food chain, and how it ends up biting everyone in the ass.

William M. Bass "Death's Acre". The OG forensic anthropologist. The memoir is very well written, and covers his journey into the field, establishment of the Body Farm (human decomposition research facility), various famous case histories and his later years.

Basically anything by Anthony Beevor. Hands down my favourite military historian.

I like this thread. I usually have one non-fiction one fiction going depending on my mood and energy levels. As a history major turned back to school engineering major I have a pretty diverse interest in a lot of non-fiction.

But recently I decided I should learn a bit about biology, as that's really the only main branch of science I don't have rudimentary knowledge of. Rather than learning about cells and stuff that I don't think I'd find too interesting, I decided to focus on evolutionary biology, which involves both history and geological scale timelines of which I'm studying (mining engineering major).

A Brief Guide to: Charles Darwin - His Life and Times
I started with a quick survey of Darwin's life, 300 pages, was on sale for $6 at Chapters and an easy read. I was surprised at how well the "Brief Guide" books are researched and cited, as I found a pretty solid bibliography at the back which allowed me to confidently read this without too much trepidation.



Now I'm slowly sifting around his Origin of Species when I feel like it (can find it for free on your Kobo or lots of places on the internet). For a book written in the 19th century it's pretty easy to follow his writing.


The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
Next I've started on Dawkin's The Selfish Gene, written in the 70's, it was the book that put Dawkins on the map. Good read so far albeit I'm not too far into it. The 30'th anniversary edition has a forward in which he says most of the book still stands up today, which made me confident in reading it without the danger of learning something that has since been completely discounted.




A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn
This was a great read especially as a Canadian History major who studied little to no American history. I wanted a book that gave me a good survey of the big American events in history, rather than getting a book each on the independence, civil war, etc. This book was especially important when it was released because it gave insight into how these great events impacted the common people, instead of just focusing on the great men of history. John Keegan's the Face of Battle was also a great example of this and one I'd highly recommend if you're into military history.

If you really do start off with The Gulag Archipelago, then you are a trooper of the utmost magnitude. It took me years to work my way up to that book. But then, I was practically coached to avoid it almost all my life so maybe my path to it was artificially stunted in that way.

It is an adventure into a world that is almost unimaginable to comprehend. And yet, it happened. It happened in our own parents lifetimes.

Kiroy said:

Bumping this --

As I get older I'm getting more into non-fiction. I'd like to hit up some every man political history / history books (no doctoral thesis type shit). AngryGerbil always recommends the 'gulag archipelago' so I'm going to start with that, but i'd like some other suggestions. Going to try 'A People's History' highlighted above. Anyone have any good suggestions for the roman empire (rip woolygimp)? I'd like to tackle the west before heading east.

@Lithose tagging you cause I know your a big reader. Can ya'll tag a couple other people who would have some good recommendations.

Thanks fags.

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Read Guns Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond if you haven't already, it's a good way to introduce how a historian thinks/builds on a thesis, and is well reasoned. They also made a documentary about it.

Resurrecting this thread because I haven't been into fiction lately. I'm always looking for something interesting to read even tho my backlog of books will take me years to get through, and I never find enough time to read. Some recent reads.

Tribe - Sebastian Junger. A kind of a meandering book about Identity, community, purpose and belonging. He looks at how the events of war time effect people when they return to normal life. Pretty short read at 196 pages.

Coyote America - Dan Flores. Covers the Native American view of coyotes, the efforts of westward moving Americans to eradicate them and their ability to adapt and survive. Gets pretty gruesome because it goes over the different methods used to try and wipe them out. But it's an interesting take on why coyotes are increasingly in urban areas, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright. Good primer on modern Islamic Terrorism. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic. It's easy to read and has an engaging narrative.

The Terror Years - Lawrence Wright. I thought this would be a follow up to the Looming tower, but it's just a collection of articles he wrote about terror related government officials and events. It's hard to recommend, but it does have a few good stories, especially the last one about the journalists who were executed early in the Syria crisis.

Black Flags - Joby Warrick. This is a great followup to the Terror Years. Picks up the story with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and goes from his roots in Jordan through Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Like The Looming Tower it's an easy ready.

Free Will - Sam Harris. Good primer for Free Will vs Determinism in a short 96 pages. Harris lays out the basics of the discussion, his arguments and some arguments from those who disagree with him.

Heretic - Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This covers a bit of her early life/education and moves on to her classifications of modern Muslims, the problems modern Islam has and how it might be reformed to better coexist with modern Life. Recommended if you're interested in the topic of Islamic Reformation.

I really, really liked Gang Leader for a Day.

Thread necro.

Any of you history buffs have a good recommendation on Weimar Germany?

Tirant said:

Thread necro.

Any of you history buffs have a good recommendation on Weimar Germany?

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I found this discussion on this subject to be well worth the time; they discuss modern, NatSoc and British accounts of the period and mention the sources as they go along if you want to explore those as well.
Here's one of the books they mention, Unfinished Victory, by Sir Arthur Bryant a British historian written in 1940.

Perfect, thank you sir!