[Hermione*]

I'd definitely recomment the Oxford Companion. Got mine for €10 in Galway and it's so useful and well-presented. I also liked Green Flag (bought at the same time, I was on a book buying spree!)

Ireland from Independence to Occupation, 1641-1660 by Jane Ohlmeyer is a good place to start on the Confederacy. It's also very interesting to read on the English Civil War and see how the immediate requirements of both the Cavavliers and Roundheads affected events in Ireland.

[Ohyeah]

There is a film about James Connolly that is supposed ot come out next year, so I decided to read books about the 1916 left wing leader. Two very different but decent books were Donal Nevin's James Connolly a Life (G&M)which is a long, detailed,but well written bio,

while David Lynch's too short, but interesting study of JC's early political life in Ireland is worth having a look at 'Radical Politics in Modern Ireland- A History of the Irish Socialist Republican Party 1896-1904' (Irish Academic Press)

Looking forward to the flick, lets hope its not rubbish

[Fabio]

"Khrushchev. The Man. His Era." by William Taubman is an excellent read and very detailed giving an account of the mans whole life up until his death. There are also some rare photos in the centre of the book which are accompanied by interesting notes. I read somwhere that it took two decades to research...

"Twentieth Century Ireland" by Dermot Keogh is also a very deatiled but readbale book which covers this country's history from independence up to pretty much now.

"Mao - the Unknown Story" by Juan Chang and Jon Halliday is a book tha looks quite good. I got it as a Christmas present so hope to get stuck into it soon.

[Paddy Geoghegan]

Originally Posted by Dun

If you like history and stories about ordinary people, there is a brilliant book called "The Last of The Name" by Charles McGlinchey. He lived in Donegal around the end of the 1800s/start of the 1900s, and his stories were taken down and published by a local schoolteacher (whose name escapes me now - he was Kavanagh anyway). It is a real insight into the life of ordinary Irish people during the late 1800s - their traditions and customs and the way of life in rural Ireland.

I would like to add, "A Tragic Troubadour" The collected works of Edward Walsh ( John J. O'Riordain, CSSR) " A man of exquisite genius" "An erudite Irish Scholar" Sir Charles Gavin Duffy. An absolutely must have book. The stories and poems reflect Walsh's love for Ireland. Walsh from North Cork, traveled as a School teacher and author in Cork Waterford and Dublin.

[Amtmann]

Originally Posted by da_deadman

I have recently bought Mein Kampf by Hitler
Has anyone else here read it? I am only 3 chapters into it, but i think this is a fascinating book and am looking forward to reading the rest of it. It is an interesting insight into his mind and way of thinking.

Deadman

I've read it, though not sequentially. It's quite turgid. Amazing, though, considering he dictated the whole thing!

But you might find it interesting to read these books too: Foundations of the Nineteenth-Century (1899), by HS Chamberlain (esp. vol i); and The Passing of the Great Race (1916), by Madison Grant.

These two books directly influenced Hitler, and the way he wrote Mein Kampf, and are fascinating primary sources.

[Amtmann]

On general European history:

Norman Davies, Europe: A History.

***

On witch hunts:

B.P. Levack, The witch-hunt in early modern Europe; Kramer and Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum.

****

On the Black Death, see Ziegler's book of that title; for the BD in Ireland, see the book by Maria Kelly.

***

On the emergence of twentieth-century forms of scientific racism - and I'm talking primary sources here - see

Gobineau, Essay on the inequality of the human races (1853);
HS Chamberlain, Foundations of the nineteenth-century 2 vols (1899);
M. Grant, The Passing of the Great Race, or, the racial basis of European History (1916);
Stoddard, The Rising Tide of Color against White World Supremacy;
Hitler, Mein Kampf; see also

Coon, The Races of Europe (1939);
Ripley, The Races of Europe (1899);
Deniker, The Races of Man (1899).

***

Biographies

Bainton, Here I stand: a life of Martin Luther;
Guy, My Heart is my own: Mary Queen of Scots;
Jenkins, Churchill.

***

Irish interest

For medieval-early modern, see anything by:

Hiram Morgan;
David Edwards;
Brendan Bradshaw;
J. Ohlmeyer;
N. Canny;
K. Nicholls;
Simms;
Ellis;
D. O'Corrain.

Of course, for modern Irish, see Roy Foster's Modern Ireland 1600-1972.

***

I could go on...!

[PDN]

Two excellent books I read recently:

1. Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger. A very matter of fact memoir of trench warfare in World War I from the German perspective. It avoids making moral judgments so has a very different tone to most of what I've read about the trenches (the British war poets etc). Unfortunately Junger became a bit of a poster child for the Nazis, but that doesn't lessen the impact of this remarkable book.

2. God's Secret Agents: Queen Elizabeth's Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot by Alice Hogge. This is Hogge's first book, but she writes well and describes how the Jesuits sent missionaries to England during the anti-Catholic paranoia that followed the Spanish Armada. I was struck by the savagery of the persecution and the courage of the Jesuits. The missionaries slowly gained a foothold, helped by Nicholas Owen - the Oxford joiner who became a master architect of 'priest holes' and secret hiding places. The book skilfully builds up to the needless tragedy (for English Catholicism) of the Gunpowder Plot.

[Killaqueen!!!]

I don't know any books about the land war or Land League but I'd have to recommend Parnell by F.S.L Lyons. It's THE book on Charles Stewart Parnell. I'm going through a phase of being really interested in this man! It, of course, has elements of the Land League in it so if you're interested in that era it's worth getting your hand on a copy.

[thusspakeblixa]

I don't know if they've been mentioned but I'd really recommend either ''Atatuerk'' by Andrew Mango, or ''Gallipoli'' by Alan Moorehead. Particularly the latter.

[Belfast]

Free to download all out of copyright.
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/results

[Belfast]

Middle east
Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark: Amazing Revelations of the Incredible Power of Gold by Laurence Gardner

Megalithic
Atlantis of the West: The Case For Britain's Drowned Megalithic Civilization by Paul Dunbavin

Age of Enlightenment
The Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment by Henry Steele Commager

American politics
The Right Nation: Why America is Different by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge

WWI
The myth of the great war :a new military history of world war one by John Mosier (How the Germans won the battles and how the Americans saved the Allies)

WWII
A Low Dishonest Decade: The Great Powers, Eastern Europe, and the Economic Origins of World War II, 1930-1941 by Paul N. Hehn

The Luftwaffe : Strategy for Defeat by Williamson Murray

The Last Year of the Luftwaffe, May1944 to May 1945, by Alfred Price

This Is Berlin: Radio Broadcasts from Nazi Germany by "William Shirer"

Hitler's Greatest Defeat: The Collapse of Army Group Centre, June 1944 By Paul Adair

Hitler's Espionage Machine: The True Story Behind One of the World's Most Ruthless Spy Networks by Christer Jorgensen

very good site about the u-boat war
http://www.uboat.net/

David Irving is one of the most controversial authors of history books.
He is one of the few English speaking historians and can read and speak German and was able to read original source documents in German and interview witness in German.

David Irving books
Download for free or buy
http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/index.html

Vietnam war
The Linebacker Raids: The Bombing Of North Vietnam, 1972 by John Smith

[Flume]

Originally Posted by Belfast

David Irving is one of the most controversial authors of history books.
He is one of the few English speaking historians and can read and speak German and was able to read original source documents in German and interview witness in German.

David Irving books
Download for free or buy
http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/index.html

Be very careful when reading through these. I find a lot of the ideas while striving to be original are slightly far fetched. Still good to read though.

The third reich by michael burleigh is an excellent book and very easy to read and covers from the fall of the weimar to the fall of the nazis in great detail.

Reformation by Diarmuid MacCulloch is also very well written, dealing with the reformation period and its effect throughout Europe.

[Belfast]

Originally Posted by Flume

Be very careful when reading through these. I find a lot of the ideas while striving to be original are slightly far fetched. Still good to read though.

All history books need to be treated with a degree of scepticism

[Pride Fighter]

The thread is 5 years old and not a mention of Herodotus, the father of history.

[reregholdsworth]

Originally Posted by Manach

From a rather conservative and pessimistic view of human nature:
3 tips:

The 30 year war - CV Wedgewood, the stupidites that kept this German Civil war going for so long and the human cost.

If you are interested in the early seventeenth century and the Thirty Years War you could do worse than to look up Frances Yates' 'The Rosicrucian Enlightenment' which is a well-researched and tightly argued thesis on the prehistory of the Thirty Years War and the Royal Society.

Yates' focus on the marriage of the Rhine and the Thames (Frederick, Elector of the Palatinate and Elizabeth, daughter of King James) and the consequent enthusiasm for universal reform is very well constructed and paced across the seventeenth century.

oh yeah, and Herodotus