History is Not Boring discussion
What are the great history books that need to be written?
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Lisa
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Aug 26, 2008 07:08AM
What's missing, in your opinion? What are the stories that are begging to be told? If you had a roomful of laid-off journalists, where would you put them to work?
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well from my own biaswomen in the wilds-i was surprised to find out that among the early mountaineers there were a good number of women who co-ascended peaks but didn't get the creds because they were girlfriends and wives, sisters and fiances or just co explorers
in maine there were a number of women guides in the early 1900's
in the 1990's i worked with a number of women river guides and know that this century has a few that have been as adventurous as their male counterparts but go unrecognized
women's stories just don't seem to get the same press
does anyone know that einstein's first wife was brilliant and contributed greatly to his thinking?
I have always been curious about native American history. Yes, many tribes have their own myths and origins passed down generation through generation, but I would be very curious about actual histories of how some tribes became succesful and others disappeared. I want to know more about individual leaders or key people in their societies.
Until very recently, I was one of those people who fell for the line that all native Americans were "ONE" with nature and never upset the ecological balance and harmony of their enviroment or with each other. We now know that all humans have huge impacts on the ecology of their homes.
I guess I want to know more about who were the first people to cross the Bering Straights and what compelled their decendants to keep going South all the way to Tierra Del Fuego.
Manuel, concerning individual leaders, "A Sorrow in Our Heart" by Daniel Eckert, is a very good book about Tecumseh, a great leader of the Shawnee. The book I just realized I would like to read concerns the Basque. They have always been interesting to me. They were ruled by countless peoples, but were never asborbed into another culture, and their language has yet to even be classified in a language family. Not to mention that some believe they were the first to discover the American continent. So I would like to read a good history of the Basque people.
associated with the gypsies i believe if i remember the gypsies of europe history i readthe theory or the gypsy origin goes back to northern india
that is a fascinating history of a marginalized people that little is known about
I would want to know more about remote or smaller parts of the world during world war 2.
Note to Pumpkin:Time-Life books did a series of books about WWII sometime in the late 70's. One of the volumns deals with "The Neutrals" showing life and the political tight rope walked by Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, Turkey etc etc.
One of the volumns deals with life in the colonies. I always thought it must have been very chaotic to be a French colonial during the war. Who would you support......the government in France (Vichy) or the rebel govt in exile (DeGaulle)?
Not to be difficult, Lisa (this is a great question btw), but I don't think most journalists do a good job with history. They generally aren't objective enough, nor have a good enough background to put events into perspective, nor to interpret evidence. At least not in the obscure and distanct areas. But if you had a room full of eager historians, I'd like to see a good write up on what happened to the Cahokian culture and it's predecessors and replacements.
A few years ago I read Jarred Diamond's book Collapse. He described various civilizations that flourished for a while then for a variety of reasons floundered.One of the chapters mentioned the Norse settlements in Greenland. I never realized they actually lived there for about 700-800 years. I remember in school we might mention Greenland in passing, but only in regards to Leif Ericson. Jarred's book mentioned that they considered themselves Europeans and that they actually collected money to raise armies for the Crusades.
I would love to read a more definitive history about this remote outpost. Who were their leaders and the conflicts with each other and the natives, and I would also like to hear more about the early thriving days of farming when the name Greenland was actually a descriptive term for this island.
I think there's an entire chapter of American history--sort of post-Pilgrims and pre-Revolution--that gets short shrift. How many of us have an accurate picture of what America was like in, say, 1720? That's the book I'd like to read (or someday write).
Hi Manuel"The Greenlanders" by Janae Smiley is a novel but she did a lot of research & lived in Greenland for a year. It is about the last years of the Viking settlement there. I remember that they had to use ground-up seaweed for Communion Wafers - she has a lot of good details.
I wish we knew enough about pre-history to write history books on.
Does anyone know any good books dealing with the food rationing and scarcity in Britain after WWII?I had always heard that food scarcities got worse after the war, when America suddenly stopped sending supplies.
I was recently reading a book about the Mountbattens in India. Their daughter describes how on arriving in India, Lady Mountbatten sent for some dog food for her lapdog.
When a chicken breast arrived on a silver platter, Lady Mountbatten quickly took it into the bathroom and devoured it.
I was shocked to see that even the Brit Aristocracy was suffering from the shortages
Interesting point, Pam. Are you thinking of any specific journalists? I'm particularly interested in this kind of feedback because I'd been a journalist for years up until getting laid off in April. I had already decided to go back to school (had had my fill of business journalism in the technology field) a week before I got laid off. Now here I am, mapping out what the course of my MFA work will take, planning to train myself to do extremely different research and writing than what I was doing as a journalist. Hence I'm looking closely at the work of (history) writers who can both write engaging narratives and whose research is in-depth and impeccable--David McCullough, Erik Larson, etc. Any feedback on where you think journalists fall short would be very helpful--specific examples would be great--because I'm going to try hard not to commit any similar sins... Appreciate your input!
Manuel, that is a great anecdote about the chicken breast, and a good potential area for a history book.
Thank you Lisa,I was kind of shocked when I read it. Yes
the Mountbattens had just arrived in New Delhi in Spring 1947. Lady Mountbatten had insisted she be allowed to bring her beloved dog, because he was getting old and she was affraid he would die while she and her husband took on their roles as the last Viceroy and Vicereine of India.
On arriving at Government House, she sent for some dog food. Apparently the cooked chicken breast was too much of a temptation to resist.
The other part that was eye opening was the reaction of Britons returning to England after lifetimes in India. While in India they had been on top the the social and political heap, enjoying all the priveleges of the British Raj.
In India they had been able to rise way above their social ranks in England. On returning to their island home, they found a country mired in food and fuel shortages and all their elevated ranks forgotten or ignored and forced to face the realities of a dull middle and lower middle class existence.
Has anyone written anything about the genocide of the Armenians in WWI?Its sort of one of those subjects that come up when they talk about Turkey. The Turks say it didnt happen.
the internet is a marvelous thingi googled armenian genocide
here's a bibliography
and this was just the first site that came up
there were more
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/dadr...
Thank you Elizabeth,I saw those sites too.
I meant to ask people's oppinion of books they have read or could recommend.
Sorry, I wasnt very clear. But very thoughtful of you to look it up.
no i thought after i posted that you were probably looking for reccomendations from peoplei just hadn't read any so was looking out of curiosity myself
it's an interesting topic
ooo, good one, Kelley. I'm of German descent but never heard of my father's family being subjected to such measures. Dad served in the U.S. army during WWII... he didn't care for the soldier's life at all, but he never said anything about being singled out because he was of German descent... But then again, he was 1st or 2nd generation, so it was probably difficult to see him as other than American born and bred...
Its only just recently I discovered how Italian-Americans were also put in special detention centers. Or if they were not interned, they were closely monitored for suspicious activities. Usually these were people who had only recently come to our shores, often they hadnt had a chance to complete their citizenship process.Ironically, as with the Japanese; many of these people had sons fighing for the USA.
Fear always seems to divide many people who should stand by each other and make them careless about sticking to their principles and protecting their freedoms and the rule of law. It brings out the bullies, too.America saw the same thing during and after World War I, when people were deeply suspicious of anything German (they renamed saurkraut "liberty cabbage" - ring any bells, Freedom Fries eaters? - and some people went around kicking Dachshunds because they were German dogs (no reports of them kicking German Shepherds... kind of like the way some activists throw paint at women wearing furs but never mess with bikers dressed in leather from head to toe. But I digress.) During the last weeks of the war and just after, during the influenza pandemic that killed more people than the war had, people (and newspapers) started rumors that the flu was being deliberately spread in America by German agents, and at least one German-American was murdered based on those rumors. Kind of like the way people blamed the Black Death on Jews and killed them in Europe in the 14th century.
Then after WWI there was the Red Scare, when people lined up like sheep behind the government while it illegally rounded up thousands, and deported hundreds, of recent immigrants from Eastern Europe.
Then after WW2 there was another Red Scare, ushered in by Joseph McCarthy, with more people's lives ruined by government actions that were illegal and reprehensible. Following that we had Hoover's FBI going nuts about the anti-war and civil rights movements in the 60s, doing things like trying to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. into suicide with threats to send his wife info on his affairs.
Just after 9/11, our government summarily locked up hundreds of Americans of middle eastern descent without evidence or due process, and ended up letting them go and never charging even one of them with any offense related to terrorism or conspiracy.
The good news is that each time so far, in the years afterward (too soon to say in the case of 9/11 and the Bush administration's blitzkrieg against civil liberties) there has been a public backlash, and the checks and balances of the legal system have been strengthened. The bad news is that when a new wave of hysteria hits, too many are ready to ignore the laws no matter what they say.
Wonderful post, James, thank you. After reading Naomi Wolf's "An End to America," I worry that post-9/11, the pendulum has swung so far toward totalitarianism and contempt for human rights/the Constitution that we might never see it swing fully back.
Just a thought... German hysteria was so bad that after wwI parents told them to be good or the Germans would get them......I guess we all are bogey men in someone's eyes. I go this first hand from my mother. My father has German ancestry and my grandfather asked my mother was she sure she wanted to marry a German.
I think that more history books need to be written about the Founding Mothers and the First Ladies. They are a very important part of history.
Not least because they were compilers and documenters and journalists, and frequently wrote letters back and forth to their husbands overseas or in Philadelphia; it is all those written documents compiled, written and carefully stacked by Abigail Adams, Dolly Madison, Deborah Read, and passed down via the "presidential libraries" that all presidents wind up building now, that we know so much about the early days.
I agree. These letters are indeed national treasures and from them we learn about the past.
