What are your favorite history books (general or specific, from any place and time)? Mine are: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0143037757/ref=pd_aw_sims_1?pi=SL500_SY115&simLd=1# http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0465031471/ref=pd_aw_sims_5?pi=SL500_SY115&simLd=1# http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743270754/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1417141869&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SY200_QL40 http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1439112908/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1417142269&sr=8-1# Tony Judt is my favorite historian. I want to read everything he wrote. I added Team of Rivals to this list even though I'm about sixty percent through it. I just started it a couple days ago and I don't want stop reading it. It's about 750 pages and I wish it was twice as long. George McClellan is like an awesome mix of Jonah Ryan (Veep) and Dwight Schrute.
The River of Doubt. Unbroken. Battle Cry for Freedom. The Big Burn. The Bully Pulpit. No Ordinary Time.
Incredible books that are about so much more than LBJ. If you care about 20th century American history, Texas history and politics, these are must-reads. I hope Caro lives long enough to finish the 5th volume and that he gets over himself and allows for whatever he's finished on the last book to be published if he dies before it's finished.
Where to start? This is the best political biography I've ever read because it reads like a Greek tragedy. Early in his career you can see the good that can be done through politics and as his life progresses, you can see the corrupting influence of power. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. This one is a fascinating look at Lincoln's thinking and development as a person and politician. The best book at making Lincoln human and setting his thoughts and actions in his time and showing how they came to be part of the national consciousness. Miller constantly breaks the "fourth wall" of biography and talks to the reader about Lincoln. It's like you're having a conversation with a great professor. There is a companion book that covers Lincoln's years as president, but this one is simply great. Still the best one volume history of the Civil Rights movement. Compelling and easy to handle. Every American should read this. This is not so much a biography of Hitler as it is an intellectual history and historiography critiquing the basic views through which different groups see Hitler. Essentially, it grapples with how we have all tried to answer the question, Why? All that said, throughout the book you do learn a lot about Hitler. Fascinating. A heavy book in the sense that it takes an emotional toll while reading it. If you have any interest in WWII and the country we became afterwards, this is a must read. Pulitzer Prize winner and the best Terkel book, though his oral history of the Great Depression, Hard Times, is up there too. I'll stop for now.
Bob Hamman, the Best USA Bridge Player ever, writes an awesome history of the game, and how The Aces (memoralized by Bobby Wolff) finally beat Giorgio Belladonna and his Italian Blue Club. Must read for all card players, imo.
The lack of UofH's own Frank Holt is disturbing. His work on Alexander and post-Alexander Hellenism is unrivaled.
Nice suggestions, Rimrocker. That Huey Long biography is a classic. I thought of Ron Rosembaum's book, too.
some texas history... focuses on the military history...tactics and strategy. a fun one to read. this one has seriously pissed off the alamo historians like no other book, but i loved it. proof positive that history is not a static thing...it is always being rewritten. the central claim is that about 2/3rd's of the garrison made a run for it and were cut down by cavalry...the last stand myth is b.s. also that more than anything, the revolution was about slavery, which mexico had abolished. ive read a at least a dozen books on the alamo and this one forever changed the way i view the battle.
Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vince Bugliosi. Started my first job on night shift. Needed something to get me through the night. This book was the longest thing I could find on something I was remotely interested in. It was great. Took me three months of reading nearly six hours a night, but I read the whole thing. I think its about 1600 pages of fine print. He covers everything. Bugliosi is a very, very smart man.
