Whatcha reading?

[mvlchicago]

God what am I not reading right now. I'll give the five currently holding my interest:

Subaltern Studies IV of XII, Ed. Ranajit Guha s/o to David Hardiman's essay on the Politics of Drinking in Colonial Gujarat.

Genealogical Fictions by the late Maria Elena Martinez, a fascinating text tracing the limpieza de sangre from their origins in fears of converso pollution to their arrival in the Americas.

Nasty Wenches, Good Wives and Anxious Patriarchs by Kathleen Brown, focused on the intersections of race and gender in the context of 16th-17th century North America. 

Coming of Age in Second Life by Tom Boellstorff, focused on ethnographic/anthropological approaches in writing new media/gaming histories, focused on Second Life and other Virtual Worlds.

Defining Boundaries by Janina M. Safran focused on narrating a social/cultural history mediated through Islamic legal texts in the 8th-10th centuries of Andalusia 

[missmend]

Finishing up Ian Buruma's Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan. It's certainly clear that he's European and much more familiar or invested in German reconstruction, and I'd love to read a counterpart written by someone native to Japan.

 

I also picked up HHhH by Laurent Binet, initially to skim through for one quote, but now rereading earnestly. Easily far and away my favorite piece of historical fiction.

[wacyeah]

Missmend, I read Buruma's title as well but I did not enjoy that much tbh. Perhaps Lisa Yoneyama's Hiroshima Traces?

[Gambaosaka1]

Missmend, I read Buruma's title as well but I did not enjoy that much tbh. Perhaps Lisa Yoneyama's Hiroshima Traces?

 

BTW have you seen this little spat between Harootunian and Buruma? Love ol' Harry:

 

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/oct/24/a-case-of-inverted-commas/

[wacyeah]

BTW have you seen this little spat between Harootunian and Buruma? Love ol' Harry:

 

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/oct/24/a-case-of-inverted-commas/

Interesting reading lol!

[Heimat Historian]

I love the dismissiveness Baruma shows towards theoretical approaches. This isn't my field but I'd imagine he's pretty old school. 

[missmend]

BTW have you seen this little spat between Harootunian and Buruma? Love ol' Harry:

 

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/oct/24/a-case-of-inverted-commas/

 

There's nothing I love more than watching academics get passive aggressive. I get the impression that Buruma really doesn't have much patience for specialists himself, since he doesn't really refer to historians in his book much if at all.

 

@wacyeah - I hadn't heard of Hiroshima Traces, but it looks fascinating. I know Susan Southard has a new book about post-bombing and post-war Nagasaki coming out, but I'm not familiar with her work (other than she's not an academic).

[Heimat Historian]

I know this is a bias, but I have little patience for journalist who pretend to be historians. 

[wacyeah]

There's nothing I love more than watching academics get passive aggressive. I get the impression that Buruma really doesn't have much patience for specialists himself, since he doesn't really refer to historians in his book much if at all.

 

@wacyeah - I hadn't heard of Hiroshima Traces, but it looks fascinating. I know Susan Southard has a new book about post-bombing and post-war Nagasaki coming out, but I'm not familiar with her work (other than she's not an academic).

yea, i also cast doubt on Buruma coz of lack of references. btw, i saw your profile and i noticed you're interested in collective memory of post-war period, but what're good secondary sources of collective memory of European theater of the war? (coz my field of focus is on the memory of the Pacific War and atomic bombings as well as post-war nuclear culture and i want to expand my knowledge)

[kotov]

I know this is a bias, but I have little patience for journalist who pretend to be historians. 

 

Still better than Jared Diamond.

 

Also, I guess that Shirer guy was alright.

[dr. t]

Also, I guess that Shirer guy was alright.

 

Was he? I suppose Rise and Fall is at least a fantastic insight into the mentality of the generation that fought the war.

[thedig13]

I know this is a bias, but I have little patience for journalist who pretend to be historians. 

Is there anybody in particular whom you have in mind?

[kotov]

Was he? I suppose Rise and Fall is at least a fantastic insight into the mentality of the generation that fought the war.

 

It is interesting. Not "good", but interesting.

[Heimat Historian]

Still better than Jared Diamond.

 

Also, I guess that Shirer guy was alright.

Yeah. Shirer was pretty good. 

[Heimat Historian]

Is there anybody in particular whom you have in mind?

I'd say the majority of popular history books are written by journalists.  They have a completely different methodology for how they do their work.  I appreciate a good narrative, but I also want better source work. 

[missmend]

I think I tend to like journalists writing history when they're actually writing memoirs that discuss now-historical topics (8 Pieces of Empire by Lawrence Scott Sheets comes first to mind), because the good ones don't pretend to be academics.

 

yea, i also cast doubt on Buruma coz of lack of references. btw, i saw your profile and i noticed you're interested in collective memory of post-war period, but what're good secondary sources of collective memory of European theater of the war? (coz my field of focus is on the memory of the Pacific War and atomic bombings as well as post-war nuclear culture and i want to expand my knowledge)

 

I've enjoyed Timothy Snyder's work, though admittedly I haven't cracked open my copy of Bloodlands yet. He does a fine job of presenting both statistics and records surrounding particular battles as well as larger cultural implications. He has one chapter in Memory and Power in Postwar Europe, which is a collection I also recommend, specifically about Poland and Lithuania that I found particularly excellent. Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe is another collection I'm going through now, and I've been recommended Wounds of Memory by Maja Zehfuss for close examination of memory in Germany immediately after 1945. Tony Judt's Postwar was also the bible for my European history classes in undergrad and even though it put me to sleep, it's worth a look. And although I agree with most other posters here about journalists writing as historians, I'll still recommend Hannah Arendt and Eichmann in Jerusalem, particularly if you're reading for her descriptions of reactions to the trials. 

[mvlchicago]

^^^ Arendt will always be relevant, I'd add The Origins of Totalitarianism for a fuller description of her thoughts regarding the development and aftermaths of the European experience in WWII

[twentysix]

Currently I am reading A Year in the South: 1865: The True Story of Four Ordinary People Who Lived Through the Most Tumultuous Twelve Months in American History by Stephen Ash.

Since then I have read:

Thinking the Unthinkable by Charles Lemert

Colfax Massacre by Leeanna Keith

Barry Commoner by Egan

Down to Earth by Ted Steinberg

Do (not) feed the bears by Wondrak Beil

And about half of Social Theory (5th ed) by Charles Lemert (selections, not straight through lol)

 

Currently I am reading a few books about the Civil War and a few other books about the gold rushes impact on Natives of the Great Plains....

I can't wait to get into some books that are more focused on my actual interest.

Edited April 27, 2015 by twentysix

[kotov]

I think I tend to like journalists writing history when they're actually writing memoirs that discuss now-historical topics (8 Pieces of Empire by Lawrence Scott Sheets comes first to mind), because the good ones don't pretend to be academics.

 

 

I've enjoyed Timothy Snyder's work, though admittedly I haven't cracked open my copy of Bloodlands yet. He does a fine job of presenting both statistics and records surrounding particular battles as well as larger cultural implications. He has one chapter in Memory and Power in Postwar Europe, which is a collection I also recommend, specifically about Poland and Lithuania that I found particularly excellent. Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe is another collection I'm going through now, and I've been recommended Wounds of Memory by Maja Zehfuss for close examination of memory in Germany immediately after 1945. Tony Judt's Postwar was also the bible for my European history classes in undergrad and even though it put me to sleep, it's worth a look. And although I agree with most other posters here about journalists writing as historians, I'll still recommend Hannah Arendt and Eichmann in Jerusalem, particularly if you're reading for her descriptions of reactions to the trials. 

 

My feelings about Bloodlands are...mixed...

 

It's an enjoyable enough read, but I wouldn't necessarily put all that much stock in his thesis or some of his material regarding the Holodomor. I got it to use it for my senior thesis in undergrad (not long after it came out) and ultimately ended up going mostly with other sources.

[Scaluni]

I just finished reading Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms, as well as David Bell's The First Total War.  Next on my list is Matt Matsuda's Empire of Love.  I'm really excited to read this one!

[lelick1234]

So here's my problem:

 

History is a manner of thinking, and the purpose of teaching people who will not become historians history is to train them to think historically. Thinking historically, at least as we conceive it today, is the process of understanding events on the small scale and then, if possible, weaving them together to form broader conclusions. This process requires specialists, but it does not preclude generalists. Generalist history, however, requires a substantial amount of effort to pull off correctly.

 

Being a generalist or writing to a lay audience are not valid excuses for sloppy work. Attempting to approach a subject on a larger scale puts more of a burden on the scholar, not less, because without the solid foundation in microhistory, you can't separate reality from your preconceived biases. If you find a generalist work that you agree with or think is useful which is not so grounded, all that tells you is that the work accords with your own preconceptions. It tells you nothing about the validity of those preconceptions.

 

Popular "historians" such as Diamond do not think historically. They do not write historically. However great their appeal, they are not useful to historians nor should they be encouraged because they are teaching a false approach to history. Diamond in particular promotes an entirely uncritical vision of Western exceptionalism which does much more damage than good.

 

Not all publicity is good publicity.

 

 

Not going to argue with that.  When I was working at dead end job  because I dropped out of community college for the third time, I read GGS and was completely enthralled by history because of it.  I do not think that I am the only one.  

[ToomuchLes]

This was a great thread back in the day that I'm hoping to revive. 

I just finished reading for the second time Talitha L. LeFlouria's Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South. I read and wrote a book review on it last semester. A very enjoyable read! It's so cool when you reread a book you notice small things you missed before. Today, I even spent some free time revising and adding a few points to my old paper haha. 

Also reading for fun Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey cause ... why not 

Tomorrow, Im going to start reading Marcia Chatelain's South Side Girls.

[Klonoa]

I'm currently skimming Christopher A. Reed's Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876-1937 (2004). This is a very boring read, I must say. Reed examines the mechanical and technological side of Shanghai's print industry. I'm also reading Gail Harris's A Woman's War: The Professional and Personal Journey of the Navy's First African American Female Intelligence Officer (2010). The title pretty much sums up the book. I'm about to start Michael B. Katz's The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State (2001).

[Neist]

I just finished Falling Upwards, and I've just started Rabid.

I'm a sucker for these sorts of books.  

[Neist]

On 3/22/2016 at 10:17 PM, Klonoa said:

I'm currently skimming Christopher A. Reed's Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876-1937 (2004). This is a very boring read, I must say. Reed examines the mechanical and technological side of Shanghai's print industry. I'm also reading Gail Harris's A Woman's War: The Professional and Personal Journey of the Navy's First African American Female Intelligence Officer (2010). The title pretty much sums up the book. I'm about to start Michael B. Katz's The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State (2001).

I actually think that sounds fascinating, but I'm a science and technology guy.  

Got through Rabid, now I'm starting Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science by Michael Brooks. I'm only about 40 pages in, but I think it's going to be pretty good, or at least better than I thought it might be before starting. 

I should post in here more. I burn through a lot of books.