I've been getting into history books in the past few years (Texian Iliad, Lone Star, The Pirates Lafitte, 1776, Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin, His Excellency George Washington, 1491 and working my way back in time).

I am currently reading "Legends of the Samurai" (figured I'd get out of the Texas and American History for a while) and next on my list is "The Pirate Coast".

I am interested in reading some good history books concerning:

Ancient History (Roman, Greek, Egyptian, etc.)
European History
Middle East
War (esp. World Wars and US Civil War)

Just looking for some books to catch my interest (they don’t have to be about the subjects above). I wanted to move off of Texas and American histories for a while.

It's been several years since I read it, but I really enjoyed "The Walking Drum" by Louis L'Amour. One of his most famous non-Westerns, it takes place in 13th century Normany, Moorish Spain, and I believe some is even in India. If you like historical fiction, it might be a quite enjoyable read about European history, European-Muslim interaction, and such.

O.K. This is a long list, but here goes. I've kept a list of all the books I've read in the last 15 years, and these are the best of the history ones. Actually, this is about 2/3 of my history list, but I include it to show the areas I’ve read in, and since I had the list on computer, I only had to cut and paste. Those numbered or with asterisks are really good.

One of the things that really helped me was taking "History of Nazi Germany" with Dr. Arnold Krammer at A&M. He gave us this awesome WWII bibliography, and although I've lost it, I think I've gotten through about half of it through the years.

HISTORICAL NOVELS
1. August, 1914 Alexander Solzhenitsyn
(Skip the first five chapters. He wrote those for the Commie censors. After that, it's great)
2. The Killer Angels Michael Shaara
3. Im Westen Nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) Eric Maria Remarque
(Never read the English translation, but it's supposed to be good too. )
4. A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemmingway

The Winds of War/War and Rememberance Herman Wouk
Gods and Generals Jeff Shaara
Die Bruecke Manfred Gregor
"The Bridge" A novel about a group of Hitler youth who hold a bridge against the Americans. I think there is a translation, and I know there is a movie out there somewhere.


WORLD WAR I
* The Guns of August Barbara Tuchman
Silent Night: The story of the World War I Christmas Truce Stanley Weintraub


WORLD WAR II
**The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich William L. Shirer
(If you only read one book on WWII. It is 1500 pages, and I read one book of the five each year for five years)
*Band of Brothers Stephen Ambrose
*Ordinary Men Christopher R. Browning
The Double-Cross System J.C. Masterman
The Ultra Secret F. W. Winterbotham
The Black Angels: A History of the Waffen SS Rupert Butler
Night Elie Wiesel
U-Boat 977 Heinz Schaeffer
Night Raider of the Atlantic Terence Robertson
(U-99 Otto Kretschmer)
Fork-Tailed Devil: The P-38 Martin Caidin
JG 26 -- Top Guns of the Luftwaffe Donald L. Caldwell
* Is Paris Burning Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre
*The Longest Day Cornelius Ryan
(The John Wayne Movie was based on this)
D-Day Stephen Ambrose
Citizen Soldiers Stephen Ambrose
*The Blonde Knight of Germany Col. Raymond F. Tolliver
(About Erich Hartmann)
Day of Infamy Walter Lord
*Slaughterhouse 5 Kurt Vonnegut
(Vonnegut was a U.S. POW in Germany before he became a sci-fi writer. This is his biogrphical view of being in Dresden when we bombed it)
* Panzer Commander Hans von Luck
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo Ted Lawson
Fighter Len Deighton
(Battle of Britain)
* Blitzkrieg Len Deighton
Torpedoes In The Gulf: Galveston and the U-Boats Melanie Wiggins
(Could be written better, but it's a great story about U-Boat activity in the Gulf of Mexico. )
The Rise of Fascism F.L. Carsten
The Fascist Tradition John Weiss

SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR/TEDDY ROOSEVELT
Theodore Roosevelt, A Life Nathan Miller
* The Rough Riders Theodore Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet Kenneth Wimmel
* The Boys of ’98 Dale Walker
The Splendid Little War Frank Freidel
The Story of Our War With Spain Elbridge S. Brooks

BIOGRAPHY
Winston Churchill Rene Kraus
George Washington, Man and Monument Marcus Cunliffe
Thomas Jefferson Willard Sterne Randall
* The Autobiography Benjamin Franklin
Daniel Webster Richard N. Current
* Stonewall Jackson Allen Tate
* To Hell and Back Audie Murphy
Life of Alexander Hamilton Samuel M. Schmucker
*Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Frederick Douglass
(Probably the only one that will ever appear in my list and Jesse Jackson's list too. )


AMERICAN HISTORY
*Undaunted Courage Stephen Ambrose
Company Aych Sam Watkins
(Civil war diary of a confederate soldier)


TEXAS HISTORY
13 Days to Glory Lon Tinkle
A Time to Stand Walter Lord
* Texian Illiad Stephen L. Hardin
* Forgotten Battlefield of the First Texas Revolution: The Battle of Medina, August 18, 1813 Ted Schwarz
(The largest battle ever fought in Texas was 23 years before the Alamo and featured Americans, Tejanos and Indians vs. Spanish)
The Eagle and the Raven James A. Mitchner
(Parallel bio of Santa Anna and Sam Houston)
* Viva Tejas! The Story of the Tejanos, the Mexican-born Patriots of the Texas Revolution Ruben Rendon Lozano
Texas Culture, 1836-1846 Dr. Joseph William Schmitz

OTHER
*The Devil Soldier Caleb Carr
*Marine Sniper Charles Henderson
(About Carlos Hathcock, the best sniper in Vietnam)
*The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia Peter Hopkirk
A History of Latin America George Pendle
Fighting Sail A.B.C. Whipple
*Guns, Sails and Empires Carlo Cipolla
*A History of Britain Simon Schama
The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties’ Legacy to the Underclass Myron Magnet
Her Name, Titanic Charles Pellegrino
The Greeks H.D.F. Kitto
(Fairly good summary of the civilization)
The Echo of Greece Edith Hamilton
(I haven't read "The Greek Way" by her, but I hear it's the best single-volume book on Greece)
1848: Revolutionary Tide in Europe Peter N. Stearns
The Old Regime and the French Revolution: Alexis de Tocqueville
Hannibal Harold Lamb
(This ties in with our other conversation)
The History of Torture Daniel P. Mannix
(Just because it was fun)
Luftbruecke Berlin Klaus Scherff
(I doubt there's an English translation, but any book you can find on the Berlin Airlift is bound to be cool)
Battle for the Falklands Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins
Shakespeare's English Kings Peter Saccio
(Gives you the real history and you’ll never read Shakespeare the same again)
Lancastrians and Yorkists: The Wars of the Roses David R. Cook
The Wars of the Roses A.J. Pollard
(I read both of the last two books for a research project in grad school. One was really good, but I forget which one)
Taliban Ahmed Rashid
Life and Teachings of V.I. Lenin R. Palme Dutt
(Pretty biased in favor of V.I.L. )


[This message has been edited by aalan94 (edited 4/28/2006 12:27a).]



[This message has been edited by aalan94 (edited 2/2/2010 9:20a).]

Modern Times by Paul Johnson

It's a British Conservative's view of 20th Century geopolitics from 1918 to 1990. I highly suggest it... especially the pre- and post-World War II sections.

For the ancients, read The Persian Wars by Herodotus and The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. This is the best introduction to the series of wars the Greeks fought with the Persians and then with each other (Athens v. Sparta) and without which there would be no western civilization. Both were excellent historians (Historians consider Thucydides the father of historians)and the stories they tell are unsurpased for drama and read as if they were written yesterday.

Thucydides remains topical because his story of how the greatest civilization of all time destroyed itself by imperial over reach (Athens) resonates to this day.

Aalan mentioned Len Deighton's WW II book. He wrote several and all are very good. Deighton was a fine novelist and served in the Brit military and so his histories are very well written as well as being well informed.

Another book I would recommend for WW II is Hitler's War, by the Brit historian/Hitler admirer David Irving. On his way to becoming the most knowledgable historian in the world on the German sources, Irving developed a fondness for the furher but that does not lessen the quality of this book. It is the war on a virtually day by day basis as seen by Hitler. Who he was seeing, what they were telling him, how he reacted, what he did, etc.

A couple of interesting bits turn up: he was shocked again and again at how many divisions the russians could field after the wehrmacht destroyed the previous ones. He became an admirer of Stalin and said several times that if he had realized the USSR's resources, he would never have attacked.

For the mideast, T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom is an account of the arab revolt against the Turks in WW I and how it all looked to a wordy English officer who was present at the creation of modern arab nationalism. Among the major characters he deals with are the future king of Iraq, Prince Feisal, and his nemesis, the wiley nomad, Saud, founder of the Saudi royal family. The star of the show, however, is the author. This book is the basis of the second or third most Oscar laden movie ever, "Lawrence of Arabia."

I read The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer a few years ago. Interesting (fictional) narrative about a rifle platoon on a pacific island bushwhacking through the jungle trying to outflank a Japanese encampment (as best I recall) ... Mailer drew on his WWII experience as a soldier in the Phillipines when writing this book ...

[This message has been edited by BrazosBendHorn (edited 4/28/2006 9:18a).]

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Brit historian/Hitler admirer David Irving

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He also wrote a fairly good book on the German atomic bomb project.

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This book is the basis of the second or third most Oscar laden movie ever, "Lawrence of Arabia."

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Fantastic movie.

For Rome, recommend Colleen McCullough's series and of course Robert Graves 2 books on Claudius.

Thanks everyone. Look like I've got some reading to do.

Is the book "Texas" by Michener much different than the movie?

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Is the book "Texas" by Michener much different than the movie?

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Yes. I've never seen the movie, but by looking at its page on IMDB.com, it only covers a couple of chapters out of the book, during the time period of the Texas Revolution and the Republic of Texas. The book itself starts with the Spanish exploration into Texas in the 16th century and ends in the early 1980s, with the meetings of a Governor's Task Force on Texas history taking place in 1983 woven throughout the book.