The History Book Club discussion

Christine,

If you haven't already, take a gander at:

by Wallace Stegner

and, or course Stegner's:

Hi Martin,
I did see that author's books on the listopia list and added them to my TBR list because they do sound good.

Christine wrote: "Thank you Bryan and Kathy.[post what in AH general topic?The last post is about a totally different era!]

..."

This American History Introduction thread is for all periods of American history. It is a start and there actually might be other books on your topic there. Visit the topic and scroll down on the right and you will see "books mentioned in this topic."

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Any history teachers out there? Please, we hope this does not count as self promotion, but we would like to extend an invite to an addition group for professional development purposes: A group for Social Studies Educators.

Please join here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

Well, a question and a suggestion. I don't know where else to ask a question. Are we not group reading a book this month? Is the India challenge meant to cover it?

Every year in the fall/winter semester, MSSU has a themed semester, covering another country. This year's country will be Turkey. I know nothing about Turkey, and am searching the discussion posts for a good book(s) to check out tonight before another double whammy of weather hits this week and coming weekend .

Ah, I see I should have looked under Ottoman Empire. Thanks for the ideas.

Anyhow, my suggestion is to make some Turkey challenges/monthly reads.

Thanks,
Theresa

Bentley wrote: "Here is a thread to post any of your suggestions. ... Bentley"

Theresa......the group reads have been delayed as we are very short of moderators right now and our group's leader is temporarily not available. We hope to get started again soon....thanks so much for your questions and participation.

Rory:

I moved your comment to "Looking for a Book On.." topic:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Thanks Jill.

I know the feeling. I haven't done much reading this past month; seemed like one thing after another.

I'm glad I didn't miss something. I have some catching up to do, including a couple of Civil War books. I found some nice Turkish books, as mentioned earlier, but turned them back in when I ran out of time. Hopefully I can contribute as I read.

Thanks again - hope things get better,
Theresa

Hey Theresa......we will be starting a new group read on April 7th, to be moderated by Kathy. A very interesting book on an interesting topic.


by Kim MacQuarrie

I have come across the book The Sleepwalkers - how Europe went to war in 1914 by Christopher Clark, which seems a good book. Considering the anniversary of the start of WWI I think it would be very topical.

Great Marcella, thank you for the recommendation.

Don't forget the citation, so we can take a look at a book you talk about :-)

by Christopher Munro Clark (no photo)

Hello! I want to propose a few changes on this forum. After trying to search books about
Al-Andaluz and the Medieval Iberian Peninsula I discovered that we don’t have much about the Middle Ages [although that is a label that is suited only to Western Europe, I use this term here to represent the period between 476 (although in my opinion it should start in 641, but that is another story) and 1453) and what we have isn’t (in my opinion) very well organized. For example, the topics about the Eastern Roman Empire are in Ancient History but, although this age of the Roman Empire started in the Late Antiquity, I think that it’s wrong to post books about that empire that refer to parts of its history that are clearly in the Middle Ages like a book about the empresses between 1025 and 1204. I think therefore that we should create a folder dedicated to the Middle Ages and move the content that we have spread about the Middle Ages (except the topics that are in the military history topics, although we could recommend the books about medieval warfare in the Middle Ages folder as well) and find new contents about that age. I found some books about Al-Andaluz and the Reconquista while I was searching here on Goodreads. I hope that my message is well received on this forum because I just want to improve it and I feel that the Middle Ages don’t receive here the obvious importance that it has in World History. Thank you very much for reading my post.

We always like to entertain any ideas that the members have for prospective and constructive changes. Your post will be forwarded to our forum founder, Bentley, since only he has the authority for making changes. Currently,he is traveling in the Far East,so we will get a response to you when he returns later in the month. Thanks for your interest and comments.

Thank you Jose - I will be reaching out to you in the next couple of weeks after Labor Day.

Hello,
I've been looking for a thread discussing world geography here but couldn't find one.It is cumbersome to go through all the threads to find books on the subject.

Since,the group has already been discussing a diverse range of topics,I think it'd be beneficial for me and also others interested in geography if there's a thread on the geography of the world.

Thank you.

José Luís Pinto wrote (message 230): "... I discovered that we don’t have much about the Middle Ages [a..."

I have just joined this group, Jose, and have a similar interest as yourself, I suspect: about the early middle-ages. In recent work I've been doing I came across the Etymologiae of St Isadore of Seville. You are probably well aware of this old sage but I mention him for his international influence. Although I've only trawled the internet to glean what I can of him, I would have thought him a good starting point for research.

Thanks, Noorilhuda, we have changed the map.

Thanks for correcting it Bryan and for your suggestion

Suggestion: Create a Russian Maritime and Navy Topic in the Navy discussion folder

Reason: Russian Navy's role in world events is an important topic. There are old Russian forts on the USA West Coast, the navy played important role in many wars including Russo-Turkish wars, Crimean war, and WWI.

Russian maritime fleet sailed all over the world.

On internal waterways, due to the bad state of the roads and existence of an extensive river system with several man-made canals that connected them, goods were delivered by water from south to north and from east to west. There were navy flotillas that controlled these river-ways.

Due to a peculiar Russian setup, the freight/passenger ships were to a significant degree under the navy control due to a combined government/private company ROPiT.

I will get to it this weekend Laura - thank you for the suggestion.

To say nothing of Mudder Russia's quest for a warm water port, its recent shenanigans in Swedish waters, and then there was that thing at Tsushima.

Folks I have not forgotten about you - I have been busy with the free book offer. Will get to the above.

Thank you.

Russia had several warm water ports (Sevastopol, Odessa, etc), but the ultimate goal was Constantinople. Re "thing of Tsushima" (and I presume Port Arthur): absolutely.

Thanks Laura - have not forgotten you.

Hey! What happened to Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt? I thought we were doing that in January!

by Michael Lewis

We are. But the start date is February 16th

Oh good!

Hello James:

Remember one of our rules and guidelines are that proper citations must be done - we do not allow the links because they do not utilize the goodreads software when populating our site. I know we have reminded you of this in the last few minutes but all such postings are deleted and added correctly.

Thank you for your understanding and I would head to the Mechanics of the Board thread if I were you (smile)

Your post has been deleted because this is the suggestion box thread and nothing to do with the subject matter whatsoever and you have posed these links elsewhere.

Hello Bentley,

I just had a quick suggestion concerning the Medieval History subfolders. It's currently ordered chronologically and by discipline, but I thought it might be nice to have some more thematic topics and cross different time periods. This would allow for books that don't fit neatly into Early/High/Late Middle Ages, but that aren't really concerned with disciplines like art or literature either.

I was thinking of two in particular - perhaps on on Medieval Religion and one on Medieval Societies & Economies?

Thanks for taking the time to consider it.

Katie, I am sorry but right now we do not have the manpower to add more threads to that area. However if you are inclined to help out as a trainee as an admin maybe we can consider it at a later time. Thank you so much for the adds that you have already done.

Additionally, it does not have to be an exact science in terms of placement and the timeline does fit well with 99.9% of the books. There is not an abundant demand for the Medieval folder although Jose has expressed interest and has done a great job of building up the threads that we have that have been dormant for awhile. I am delighted that Birgitta and you have joined him on those threads and I will continue to watch to see how much traffic that area demands and adjust accordingly. What happens when we build up a topic area inordinately without sufficient demand is that the person who is interested moves on and then we are left maintaining the threads. I have great hope for the Medieval area but I think right now the threads we now have need still some more development and more traffic.

That's fine, I just wanted to toss out the suggestion.

And yes, if you ever need more admins, I'd be happy to help.

Thank you Katie - I appreciate all suggestions, I listen and I queue up and add a majority of them but right now the Medieval folder is in a "build" stage and I plan to add additional threads and test the waters slowly so that we are not left with a maintenance problem.

Right now I am tied up with a bunch of clean up and set up for the new year but I will reach out to you via PM to discuss further.

Great!

Katie we did reach out to you already via PM on the 17th and we still not heard back from you (smile).

Is it possible for the Second World War Folder to be organized by campaigns (Atlantic, Pacific, North Africa, Balkans, Eastern Front, Western Front, Middle Eastern, China-Burma-India, etc)? In similar fashion to the First World War folder?

I've been looking for maps as I think they are very helpful when you read history , is there any map section in the folders?

Some of the folders have maps, usually in the introduction to the thread but there is not a specific topic for them. An interesting suggestion. Our group founder, Bentley makes the decisions, so you will hear from him regarding this issue. Thanks, Arantxa.

Jill wrote: "Some of the folders have maps, usually in the introduction to the thread but there is not a specific topic for them. An interesting suggestion. Our group founder, Bentley makes the decisions, so yo..."
Thank you Jill

Thank you Jerome for your suggestion and it is an excellent one if the folders themselves had sub folders which the moderators have asked for - for years now actually. They were promised initially but then nothing happened. Unfortunately we have a shortage of folders so we cannot set up a separate folder for each campaign although we wanted to and would if goodreads came up with sub folders which they have not done even though requested.

Arantxa wrote: "Jill wrote: "Some of the folders have maps, usually in the introduction to the thread but there is not a specific topic for them. An interesting suggestion. Our group founder, Bentley makes the dec..."

An excellent suggestion and we do try to add them when we can. Especially for the books we are discussing in group reads. Normally most books have a map section in their books although many times not good ones I agree.

Hmmm. We have many listed but they are under a variety of subjects and you have to read through the topical thread under the threads or folders title and then read through those threads.

You have named two and these fall under the Intelligence Community - we do not have any self promotion and your profile is private so I am unsure your frame of reference - I have sent you a friend request.

We do have an NSA thread where NSAarchive can be placed and we also have a CIA thread and FBI thread where the other could be placed. Look under American Government.

However I have set up the thread and added your interest areas.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

You are welcome and yes that is true (smile) - glad you are happy

Not sure if you've already added this to a subset or not. I absolutely loved this book during my graduate studies. It teaches a lot about the political climate of the united states alongside the movie industry, cold war topics, etc.

by Lary May

I have a film studies/screenwriting masters, and my focus was on social justice and politics.

K.....that book should probably be noted in the American Politics thread. I will move it there for you. BTW, don't forget to add (no photo) after the author's name since he does not have an image.. Go to our link to book citations for instructions.


www.goodreads.com/topic/show/287892

Hi, I'm not terribly active in this group but I just finished a book that may be of interest to some members:

by Nathaniel Philbrick


It could be considered American history I suppose, due to the link with Nantucket, I read it for interest in the maritime history aspect, and my review is here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Also, for those interested in maritime history, this book was made more vivid for me by having had the chance to visit the Notorius earlier this year, some might find this link interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notorio...

Hi, Deborah. Sounds like an interesting book. Could you please go back and correct your book citation? We put the book image, author's picture, and author's link. Your citation should look like this:

by Nathaniel Philbrick

Thanks.

Francie wrote: "Hi, Deborah. Sounds like an interesting book. Could you please go back and correct your book citation?

Ok Francie, I have done my best, I can't line them up like that however. I don't know why but whenever I try the author addition deletes the cover that I first linked.

This posting format is in fact the reason I so rarely post in this group, is there any chance you could relax the requirement a little?

Deborah wrote: "Francie wrote: "Hi, Deborah. Sounds like an interesting book. Could you please go back and correct your book citation?

Ok Francie, I have done my best, I can't line them up like that however. I d..."

Deborah, I understand your frustration, but it gets easier with practice. Below is the link to the Mechanics of the Board, which has step-by-step instructions.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Let me know how that works. We will work with you until you are comfortable with it.

You will get the hang of it very soon Deborah before you know it and will wonder why it seemed so hard at first.

Thanks for the kind words guys, I guess like anything it comes with practice...

Hmmm... well it looks different now, but still not quite what you are after I think? You don't want the title to appear at all?