What you reading?

I second the recommendation of Fred Anderson. I like the way we can blame George Washington for everything that went wrong with the world in the 1750s.

Hermann Wouk. "Caine mutiny". MUCH better than the film of the same name.

Hermann Wouk??? Is that a guy who beat the Roamns in the Tetoburger Wald and then cooked Chinese to celebrate?

No. Rote Wedding is STILL Rote Wedding. That goes back to the days of Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht. It was a hot bed of Bolshevism and Socialism even in Bsmarcks days. We also have the "red triangle in Schöneberg. That was the workers quarters in this part of the city (West). Both areas were hit heavily by the S.A (Brown shirt) inspired riots, that eventualy lead to the Reichstag fire, and then to Hitlers siesure of power....(petty it was not just a siesure, in my opinion.) No, the "Rote Kapelle" were a spy ring. They may WELL have had a lot to do with the Bolshovik groups in Wedding and Schöneberg, but as I said, I will know more when I read it. The Rote Kapelle was also broadcasted as a TV serie in the early 1970's in the Netherlands and Germany. Very good, produced by Bavaria Film.

I've just finished Conn Iggulden's Ghengis Khan Trilogy (very good, a historical charachter I know next to nothing about) and I'm currently re-reading Hornblower (all the Omnibuses/Omnibi)

I've just finished Conn Iggulden's Ghengis Khan Trilogy (very good, a historical charachter I know next to nothing about) and I'm currently re-reading Hornblower (all the Omnibuses/Omnibi) Good as the Khan series is, its not a patch on his Ceaser books! ---------- Darkest Hour by James Holland, 2nd in a ww2 sharpe style series, good.

I've not tried those, I got £70 of Waterstone's voucher from my former colleagues when I was made redundant, spent most of it on books for mini-Orrible (baby books are more expensive than you may think!) and then decided to go for something I've not really got any knowledge of (BA Hons in Ancient istory and Archaeology, mainly on Western Roman Empire, I used to know a fair bit).

I've not tried those, I got £70 of Waterstone's voucher from my former colleagues when I was made redundant, spent most of it on books for mini-Orrible (baby books are more expensive than you may think!) and then decided to go for something I've not really got any knowledge of (BA Hons in Ancient istory and Archaeology, mainly on Western Roman Empire, I used to know a fair bit). I got onto his books from reading Simon Scarrow, so went in looking for something Roman, I highly reommend them, they are probably the kind of thing you can get for 1p plus postage on amazon.

I really enjoyed Conn Iggledon's Wowman series and the Genghis series, the former spawned a Wowman army and I sure that a Mongol horde will follow :eh: I'm wondering which famous leader he'll do next - I hope he does more

Been reading too much history recently so now re-reading V for Vendetta for the umpteenth time.

I've dropped everything other than my trousers to read Beevor's new D-Day book. I didn't know that Eisenhower smoked 20 packets of fags a day...

I've dropped everything other than my trousers to read Beevor's new D-Day book. I didn't know that Eisenhower smoked 20 packets of fags a day... I think it was lazy of Beevor to write this one, fair enough cash in on the anniversary but there are enough books about d-day.

He got a slapping for his comment about the Caen bombing being almost a war crime.

If I was being cynical, I'd suggest that the reason why historians do that now is to help sales in the wider European market. Hastings in his "Armageddon" book banged on at length about Dresden being a warcrime and it's now fashionable to accuse Churchill of warcrimes for ordering the sinking of the French fleet. Or maybe you just have to say something controversial - Beevor was slapped down by the Russians in respect of his last book, when he said the Red Army raped its way through Germany.

It seems like many authors have chosen to manufacture controversy (often with scant evidence) in order to sell books. Personally, I believe it's a poor substitute for writing talent and solid research. The mindset is "gotta sell books," even if maybe you should find a new line of work instead. btw, "smoking fags" has a dramatically different connotations over here.

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