What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

[Cancer]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

I am in the early stages of reading The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire by Edward Luttwak (Belknap Press, 2009), and I am going to say this: if you are a fantasy gamemaster who wants his game-world to have an empire that lasts a thousand years, then you unreservedly want this book. I don't have that ambition at the moment; I literally blundered across this book, sitting on a discount rack at the university bookstore, and I'll buy just about anything whose title starts with "The Grand Strategy of". In this case, I paid $17.50 for a hardbound book. I'm not convinced it's the best history book about the Empire, but it's great stuff for a world-making GM.

 

The Eastern Roman Empire lasted more than half a millenium past the fall of its western counterpart (the author considers the Byzantine Empire to have come to an end with the Fourth Crusade's sack of Constantinople in 1204; the entity with the same name that followed, and was finally overcome by the Ottomans in 1453, he dismisses as a "Greek kingdom"). The author contends that the Empire began, in an unconscious, evolutionary way, to develop a coherent strategy for its survival, beginning from the unprecedented challenge posed by the Huns led by Attila. The first chapter discusses the Huns and why they were so completely different from what came before and therefore so catastrophically dangerous: the first army of mounted archers.

 

Next comes a description of the physical circumstances of the Empire, including Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul itself. The description of the walls and the defenses of the city goes for ten pages, and before you design your next fortified city you absolutely want to read these.

 

Following these are recaps of the historical military fortunes of the Empire; the diplomatic practices and the development of a professional military; the Strategikon of Maurikos; and it closes with a two-page, seven bullet-point "operational code" suitable even for a Dilbertian corporate climber. All I've done is skim these parts so far.

[Clonus]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage

 

I was interested to learn that only a few months after the telegraph was opened for public use, they had their first online marriage ceremony. A father wanted to marry his daughter to someone so he sent his employee, her boyfriend, on a business trip, planning to have her married while he was away. So she sent him a message telling him to go to a telegraph office in New York with a magistrate, and while she was in Boston, they got married with the telegraph operators sending the responses. The marriage was ruled to be legal and binding. It was the marriage of the future-ure-ure!

 

Perhaps more substantive was the misplaced prescience of alarmed newspapermen who assumed that the telegraph would put them out of business. "The telegraph may not affect magazine literature, but the mere newspapers must succumb to destiny and go out of business." Truly, a man ahead of his time.

[L. Marcus]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

The Master Plan, by Heather Pringle. It's about Heinrich Himmler and the Ahnenerbe, the SS department of "science". Very disturbing in places, like the part about the Jewish skeleton collection.

[Guest Celt]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

The Devil Soldier, The American Soldier of Fortune Who Became a God in China by Caleb Carr, a biography of 19-century American mercenary Frederick Townsend Ward

[Nolgroth]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

Men to Master My Mountains - (I'll post the author' name later)

 

I haven't actually finished it, but the book is an account of the settlement of California. So far, while it has been easy enough to read, it lacks something. It is more of a commentary than a historical reference in presentation. I have been grappling with it one chapter at a time every few weeks. One day I hope to finish it.

 

Looking for a good "dummies" guide to forensic pathology. I like what is in Dark Champions, but just a bit more would be nice. Any suggestions?

[Escafarc]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

Looking for a good "dummies" guide to forensic pathology. I like what is in Dark Champions, but just a bit more would be nice. Any suggestions?

Have you seen these?(click on pic for link)

[Cancer]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

I'm not sure where this ought to go, so I'll put it here an several other places.

 

The National Academies Press put all their PDFs up as free downloads yesterday. Now, NAP isn't going to be a rich source of gaming material, but there may be stuff that HEROphiles would want to grab at that price.

[Enforcer84]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

I'm slogging through Windows Server 2008 Class manual.

I hates it.

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

I just finished re-reading "Neptune's Inferno" by James D. Hornfischer. It tells the story of the U.S. Navy's efforts to keep the Marines supplied on the island of Guadalcanal, and cut the Japanese supply lines.

Between 07 August 1942, and 31 December 1942, over 6000 USN and RAN sailors gave thier lives in navy battles near the island.

Less than 2000 Marines would die on the island.

[Cancer]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

Infantry Attacks (English translation) by Erwin Rommel.

 

Rommel relating his career as a line infantry officer in WW1, with lessons to be drawn from each action. Rommel was a player character.

 

One odd thing I noticed. In the index, there is an entry for "Iron Cross", of which he won both first and second classes in WW1. But there is no entry for Pour le Merite, which he also won in WW1, and which is a MUCH greater award. It is mentioned in the text, two pages before the end of the narrative, but not in the index.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

Rommel may have been a PC, but he was also a player. In Hitler's Germany, it was not cool to have won the Pour le Merite. So he made it didn't happen.

 

Find of the day: G. Tylden, Horses and Saddlery: An Account of the Animals Used By the British and Commonwealth Armies From the Seventeenth Century to the Present Day with a Description of Their Equipment. An interesting combination of well-grounded information and not so much. We're still waiting for a serious historian to assess the history of the military horse trade, but at least now I know that there were 32,000 riding horses in Egypt in 1914.

 

Rereading:

 

(From Amazon.)

[SatinKitty]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

I don't usually read True Crime, but if you read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, you will know why it is a classic. Also the book Zodiac is good. I forget the Authors name as OddHat gave my Zodiac books to a friend. There is a sequel to Zodiac called Zodiac Unmasked, but it is a lot longer and a lot duller.

[death tribble]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

Pacific by Hugh Ambrose. The 2nd World War against Japan seen from the American perspective. One of the people featured in the TV series of the same name is not featured but they link the start of the war to almost every major battle fought in the Pacific. From the surrender in the Phillipines and subsequent escape of one group to the people who join up to fight, it shows what happened to those involved. The narrative follows one pilot who was at Midway and his war, one of the soldiers serving in the Phillipines who was forced to surrener and then escaped, a guy who was a soldier before the war and loved the Phillipines and wanted to liberate those island, and two friends who joined up a year apart.

I really enjoyed the book as it shows the human side of these people who did not really set out to become great heroes. One did and then did a bond tour in the US but desperately wanted to rejoin his colleagues. Guadacanal seems more real as a result and then Cape Gloucester and the battles that followed.

I would have liked more about Iwo Jima but as only one of the people is there and dies you can understand why it goes no further.

 

MacArthur does not come out of the book well nor does the Helldiver. The Marines on the other hand come out very well. A very good read.

[Toadmaster]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. I think everyone's perception of World War I is horrific trench warfare, but I was not up to speed on the circumstances that led up to that situation. Tuchman's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, which details the first thirty days of the war, takes a truly dizzying amount of source material and turns it into a pretty gripping tale of interpersonal relations and high level European politics. It's a lot like watching a train wreck--the arbitrary German decision to invade, French personality conflicts, British hesitation to get involved, Winston Churchill the dangerous loose cannon, the hopelessly rotten Russian government, and a lot of dumb luck combine to create this inevitable and fascinating tragedy. I was surprised to learn just how close the Allies came to losing the war in those first thirty days.

 

The book is a bit dry; since it's a historical work, there are no conversations, just the occasional quote. And the experiences of the people actually doing the fighting are not really detailed here. It's beyond the scope of the book, true, but it would have helped to get a sense of what WWI non-trench warfare was like. As a work of history, though, it's incredible; the list of sources and references in the back is about as long as anything written by Steve Long. I give it four out of five stars.

 

The First World War by John Keegan, is a nice overall history of the war.

 

The Great War in Africa by Byron Farwell deals with a largely unknown part of the war and is a very interesting read (as well as a good source for game ideas).

[Toadmaster]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

Pacific by Hugh Ambrose.

 

MacArthur does not come out of the book well nor does the Helldiver. The Marines on the other hand come out very well. A very good read.

 

Is Hugh the son of Steven Ambrose? Ive read most of his WW2 books and found them quite good. All the personal stories help the books read like a novel, but they also cover their piece of history quite well.

 

The more I read about MacArthur the more I believe he was just a great media handler rather than a great general. He does seem to have done a good job post war with Japan, but his actions in WW2 and Korea seem more about him, than his troops or winning the war.

[Toadmaster]

Re: what non-fiction books have you read? please rate it ...

 

I've just finished The Boy who harnessed the wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. It is the story of a young man in Malawi (SE Africa) who has to drop out of school when his family can no longer afford his tuition, so he uses his time to build a windmill to provide his family with electricity using a library book about electrical production, a local scrapyard and a bicycle generator. I found it an amusing read, and it is nice to see a positive story like this coming from a poor 3rd world nation.

 

I also finished The Big Burn by Timothy Egan. In 1910 fires broke out in the forests of Montana, Idaho and Washington, on August 20th these fire combined into a fire storm burning more than 3 million acres in 2 days. It remains the largest singe fire in the US and largely shaped wildland fire policy in the US for the next 60 years.

It is theoretically the story of the 1910 forest fires in Montana/Idaho/Washington, but more than half of the book is committed to Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, the formation of the US Forest Service and the early conservation movement in the US.

Having been in the forestry business for the past 15 years and fairly familiar with the information presented I found that towards the end the author began to show some bias towards a particular style of forestry and he simplifies some current issues, but for most of the book he sticks to the established facts / history and presents the events in an entertaining and enjoyable way. The fires of 1910 are almost a mythology for forestry firefighters, but the reality makes a great tale and the book provides a solid history of the conservation movement in the early 20th century.

[Narf the Mouse]

What non-fiction book are you reading, and is it good?

 

Currently on "Calculus Made Easy", by Silvanus P. Thompson, updated last by Martin Gardner.

 

I'm on Chapter 6 and I'm actually understanding things. The title is not a lie!

[Cancer]

Re: What non-fiction book are you reading, and is it good?

 

I'm editing my course notes (classes start next week) so I am going through parts of Mary Boas's "Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences", 3rd ed, the textbook. Yeah, it's technical, so it's dry. Not as bad as some books I've had to teach (or learn) out of, but not great, either.

 

Just finished going though a collection of Bill Mauldin's comics, Willy & Joe, vols 1 & 2. Unreservedly recommend it.

[gewing]

Re: What non-fiction book are you reading, and is it good?

 

"After the Ice" some fictionalization of history last 20k years, but very interesting. NOT, however, something I can read through at a sitting.

[gewing]

Re: What non-fiction book are you reading, and is it good?

 

Currently on "Calculus Made Easy", by Silvanus P. Thompson, updated last by Martin Gardner.

 

I'm on Chapter 6 and I'm actually understanding things. The title is not a lie!

 

 

I may have to get that!

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: What non-fiction book are you reading, and is it good?

 

Stay away from "calculus" made easy books that eschew vector notation. They do more harm than good.

 

I'm reading this. Not quite state-of-the-art, but a good summary of make-or-break times.

 

(Amazon link: but use the Boards link to actually buy it!)

[Kaeto]

Re: What non-fiction book are you reading, and is it good?

 

I'm reading 'Hardtack and Coffee'. It's a first hand account of what it was like to be a Union soldier during the Civil War.

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: What non-fiction book are you reading, and is it good?

 

Scale of Universe - Webpage, not book, but non-fiction.

[Barwickian]

Re: What non-fiction book are you reading, and is it good?

 

David Crouch, The Normans.

 

It's superb. I've read Crouch's work before (his King Stephen is one of the best modern accounts of the 12th-century English civil war known as The Anarchy).

 

The Normans goes back to the beginning: Hrolf the Viking (better known as Rollo) and how he and his descendents turned piracy into feudal nobility and, eventually, monarchy. It's the fullest accessilble account of the origins of the Duchy of Normandy I've read - and I'm only on Chapter 4.

 

As a pirate, Jack Sparrow has a very great deal to learn from the Normans.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: What non-fiction book are you reading, and is it good?

 

If Rollo was a Viking.

 

I've my doubts. The hard facts of the matter are that we don't know how the Duchy of Normandy came to be. That's one heck of a red flag even in the "long 10th Century."I suspect dark deeds done by night, with the fingerprints of a prelate on the murder weapon.

 

He is most certainly not any "Rolfr," whether from Denmark or Norway, nor yet involved in the 885 siege of Paris. Nor is it likely that the first historian to give him a foreign origin (in "Dacia," which is only possibly Denmark) knew what he was talking about. We are left with a single authentic early source that describes him as the leader of the river pirates of the lower Seine, elected by lot. That's another red flag to me, suggesting that Rollo was in origin a patrician of the very important city of Rouen with an archbishop who was calling himself the Primate of Normandy long before the Duchy came into existence.

 

I will eat my own shorts if Rollo didn't turn out to be a close relative of one of the archbishops of Rouen.*

 

 

 

*Offer void if I turn out to be wrong.