history
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The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600
7475“Magic” was widely acknowledged in the old world. Is there any evidence or record of such magic being used in a public, verifiable setting at any point in history? Why did so many people buy into this idea?
Western Europeans were among the first, if not the first, to invent mechanical clocks, geometrically precise maps, double-entry bookkeeping, precise algebraic and musical notations, and perspective painting. More people in Western Europe thought quantitatively in the sixteenth century than in any other part of the world, enabling them to become the world’s leaders. With amusing detail and historical anecdote, Alfred Crosby discusses the shift from qualitative to quantitative perception that… more about book… -
A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness
1556It’s argued that Lincoln had Marfan’s Syndrome, what other important people of history had unusual, rare, or otherwise cool disorders/diseases?
This New York Times bestseller is a myth-shattering exploration of the powerful connections between mental illness and leadership. Historians have long puzzled over the apparent mental instability of great and terrible leaders alike: Napoleon, Lincoln, Churchill, Hitler, and others. In A First-Rate Madness, Nassir Ghaemi, director of the Mood Disorders Programme at Tufts Medical Center, offers and sets forth a controversial, compelling thesis: the very qualities that mark those with mood dis… more about book… -
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
1345Most misrepresented figures in human history?
The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans did in four hundred. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. From the story of his r… more about book… -
The Last Days of the Incas
1106
The epic story of the fall of the Inca Empire to Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro in the aftermath of a bloody civil war, and the recent discovery of the lost guerrilla capital of the Incas, Vilcabamba, by three American explorers.In 1532, the fifty-four-year-old Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro led a force of 167 men, including his four brothers, to the shores of Peru. Unbeknownst to the Spaniards, the Inca rulers of Peru had just fought a bloody civil war in which the emperor At… more about book… -
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
986
In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets… more about book… -
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
907
The shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews. more about book… -
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
870I was debating some holocaust deniers and I was reading up on it, and I was wondering to myself “has a historical event of this magnitude been believed in by a society and turned out to be false?” Well…………has one?
In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold Ii of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million–all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of… more about book… -
Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character
716Is there any information on Post-traumatic Stress in societies in which warfare was looked at in a more favorable light (e.g Sparta)?
An original and groundbreaking book that examines the psychological devastation of war by comparing the soldiers of Homer’s Iliad with Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorderIn this strikingly original and groundbreaking book, Dr. Shay examines the psychological devastation of war by comparing the soldiers of Homer’s Iliad with Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Although the Iliad was written twenty-seven centuries ago it has much to teach a… more about book… -
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerfu…
670What is the most interesting anecdote you know about Native American history?
In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all. S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to c… more about book…