This is a big book, but not quite big enough to adequately cover 3000 years of history. Ancient Greece is covered in twenty pages, the Roman Empire in forty. However, the later chapters on the hegemonic years of Europe, when Europe was the center of power, culture, and civilization in the world, are quite interesting. …
Category: History
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/04/12/a-history-of-europe-by-j-m-roberts/
Mar 28 2010
Mugabe: Teacher, Revolutionary, and Tyrant by Andrew Norman
This book reminds me that biographies are often the best source of history. I recently read a book on the history of Zimbabwe, but it wasn’t nearly as informative as this book. The arc of Mugabe’s life reads almost like a Greek tragedy. He had very promising beginnings indeed. A brilliant scholar, a dedicated teacher, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/03/28/mugabe-teacher-revolutionary-and-tyrant-by-andrew-norman/
Feb 21 2010
Truman by David McCullough
This book is a case study in how extraordinary an ordinary man can be. Unlike his predecessor in the White House, Harry Truman was not a brilliant man, but he possessed character and fortitude that ultimately made him a successful president. At times the author seems to revel a little too much in how ordinary …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/02/21/truman-by-david-mccullough/
Jan 27 2010
The Discovery of France by Graham Robb
Mostly in lieu of a proper review, excerpts from The Discovery of France by Graham Robb, the best non-fiction book I read in 2009. (Tough competition, too: In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak, Gold and Iron by Fritz Stern and To the Castle and Back by Vaclav Havel were all top …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/01/27/the-discovery-of-france-by-graham-robb/
Dec 17 2009
The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius
Suetonius writes more like a gossip columnist than a historian. In this brief work we learn that Augustus was a compulsive gambler, Tiberius was a pervert, Nero was in love with his mother, Galba was a passive homosexual, and most of the emperors liked boys as well as women. From the introduction we learn that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/12/17/the-twelve-caesars-by-suetonius/
Oct 27 2009
Rory the Tory?
File under “Who knew?” The Guardian reports that Rory Stewart has been selected as a candidate for the UK’s parliament from a safe (10,000 majority) Conservative seat. In one of those moves that makes me think that parliamentary systems are odd sometimes, one of his first actions will be to move so that he actually …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/10/27/rory-the-tory/
Aug 25 2009
A History of Warfare by John Keegan
This is Keegan’s best work. In most of his works he analyzes the science of warfare; in this book he also analyzes the psychology and culture of warfare. He takes exception from the beginning with Clausewitz’s dictum that war is politics by other means, and shows with ample evidence from history that war often is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/08/25/a-history-of-warfare-by-john-keegan-2/
Jul 08 2009
Gold and Iron, by Fritz Stern
“This is a book about Germans and Jews, about power and money. It is a book focused on Bismarck and Bleichröder, Junker and Jew, statesman and banker, collaborators for over thirty years. The setting is that of a Germany where two worlds clashed: the new world of capitalism and an earlier world with its ancient …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/07/08/gold-and-iron-by-fritz-stern/
May 12 2009
White Eagle, Red Star by Norman Davies
Just a few short weeks after the end of World War I on the Western Front, Poland and Soviet Russia started fighting again, skirmishing on their poorly defined border that built into full-scale invasions over the next year. Davies’ book White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919-1920 tells this complex story clearly and incisively. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/05/12/white-eagle-red-star-by-norman-davies/
Apr 20 2009
The Celts by Jean Markale
The author deserves credit for taking on such a difficult and ambitious project…yet it must be said that this book is full of unwarranted assertions and loose interpretations. Most of what we know about the Celts comes either from what their enemies wrote about them or from Celtic mythology, neither of which are very reliable …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/04/20/the-celts-by-jean-markale/
Al Singh
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Professor X
Robert Maedgen
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The Shire