Best Historical Book you have read?

[FDRrocks]

I would prefer a singular answer (as I plan on making a history reading list), but if you cannot do that, I am game.

I imagine many answers will mirror mine, so please rule it out:

A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn

The latter part of the second to last chapter (in the version I have) "The Bipartisan Consensus" and the last chapter "The Coming Revolt of the Guard", had me thinking more than any book I have ever read.

[BigMcLargehuge]

1. is this restricted to US history?

The best historical book I ever read was:

The Good Man of Nanking, the Diary of John Rabe.

Rabe was a German living in Nanking when the Japanese took the city in 1937. He and several other westerners worked together to establish the International Safety Zone and protect several hundred thousand Chinese refugees from the Imperial Japanese Army. Although the Rape of Nanking occured, his couragous defense of the Chinese people saved countless lives.

An amazing diary.

[FDRrocks]

2. No not at all.

I am very interested in world history. Although completely understanding it would require 3 or 4 lifetimes, at best.

[flamingyouth]

3. An amazing, chilling book

Glad someone mentioned it

I'd also nominate King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochschild (sp?) I think that is the author's last name...

[BigMcLargehuge]

12. I would also include Iris Chang's

The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of WW2.
and Testamony by Hal Gold.

I want on a Japanese war attrocities kick 2 years ago... I saw a still from a film and could not believe that with a baccalaureate degree in history I'd never heard much about the Sino-Japanese war.

[billbuckhead]

4. Gore Vidal's "Golden Years"

"Burr". "Lincoln", "1876", "Centennial", are also quite good.

[FDRrocks]

8. NVM

Search answered my own question: Are all those books written by Vidal?

Thanks.

[FauxNewsBlues]

26. You forgot Vidal's best (IMHO)

Julian. Wonderful historical novel. Have read it about 10 times at least.

[BurtWorm]

5. American Aurora, by Richard Rosenfeld

On the most radical newspaper in America in 1798 and how it lost many battles before winning the war for freedom of the press and democracy. It opened my eyes about the whole revolutionary era.

Also recommend: The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand and Cicero by Anthony Everitt.

[RandomKoolzip]

6. "Hard Times" by Studs Terkel

An Oral History of the Great Depression. Very enlightening, and as a member of the working class, very uplifting...people always get through the hardest of times if they can afford to build a community for each other and help each other out. Also, it's intersting to hear the same smears used aginst the left today are the same ones used back in the 30's. Terkel interviews both sides, and the rich conservatives of the USA have always outed themselves as greedy pigs as soon as they open their mouths.

[Catshrink]

7. " A World Lit Only By Fire"

by William Manchester. It may not be the best book, but it is a good and easy-ish read. He covers a lot of ground. His last section is about heros, mainly Magellan.

[lazarus]

9. a unique one

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. It's a brilliant thesis on how cultures develop based on various things, such as indigenous flora and fauna.

[electricmonk]

21. That was going to be my choice

But since you beat me to it I'll say War by Gwynne Dyer an excellent history of mans fight with himself. I would love to read his other book "Ignorant Armies: Sliding into War in Iraq" and after I make my next credit card payment I might just order it.

[kodi]

10. "rise and fall of the 3rd reich" william shirer

its all there, buckaroo.

[Punkingal]

11. I really liked.....

Remembering America by Richard Goodwin. Very good book on the Kennedy and Johnson years.

[FDRrocks]

13. Thanks!

I've been taking all these down to a list. Forgot to mention: when the title doesn't suggest the subject matter, please let me know, as this poster did.

The list I've gotten right now is going to take me at least 2 months alone. Love you, DU!

[Rowdyboy]

14. An American Melodrama...The Presidential Campaign of 1968

by Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgeson and Bruce Page

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670119911/ref%3Dnosim/bridgebooks/104-5747727-2168715#product-details

[maggrwaggr]

15. "Peter the Great" by .... hell I can't remember

Awesome awesome book.

[Davis_X_Machina]

18. Robert Massie, IIRC

[Pert_UK]

16. Name of the Rose.....

OK, so it's fictional, but Umberto Eco manages to be so historically accurate that it made it onto the reading list for Theology and Philosophy in the Middle Ages at my university.

And it's one of the best books ever.

You could also try his Baudolino for an overview of more general crazy antics in Europe during the Middle Ages.

P.

[InkAddict]

31. The Nature of Spin

I had heard that Baudolino was "light-hearted," and I guess compared to Eco's previous works, it is. However, I had to stop reading it because the character's antics and self-spinning of history offered no "refreshment" from the current events in progress - Just couldn't stomach any more re-working of history. BTW, Eco is one of my favorite authors along with John Irving, S. Rushdie, and Michener for capturing the flavor of times past. I've tried some Pynchon (Mason&Dixon)and got through it eventually - maybe I'll try another one day.

[Davis_X_Machina]

17. A Savage War of Peace....

...Alistair Horne's study of France's Algerian war 1954-1962.

Timely as hell.

[MinnFats]

19. two biographies should make this list

sorry for breaking the rule...

1. "The Life of Mahatma Ghandi," by (I'll go downstairs and get the author in a minute...a very complimentary but compelling and complete biography. When I feel like punching somebody -- say, after listening to a Shrub speech -- I go and read just a few direct quotes from Ghandi about nonviolence and humility and I feel much better.
2. "Adolf Hitler" by John Toland.....chilling in its detail and documentation. and more than 1,200 pages, so it is a chore, but it provides great insight in WWII and how we got where we are today. Also, it's nice to read something in which the Americans really are the good guys.

kind of at the opposite ends of the spectrum, I guess....

Oh, you could include "The Rising Sun," also by Toland. The story of WWII in the Pacific, with an incredible amount of it written from the Japanese point of view. Fascinating, and the account of the Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be required reading for everyone...

[proud patriot]

20. Common Sense , Federalist Papers , Anti Federalist Papers

The Constitution , and the Declaration of Independance ..

[SPQR]

22. A Distant Mirror:

The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman.

[Aristus]

24. Damn, SPQR, you took my recommendation!

"A Distant Mirror" is an amazing book. Really puts you in the 14th Century. Tuchman talks about everything, including things you might not think about, like fashion and the climate of the times. Fascinating.

[SPQR]

33. Oddly

one of the things that stands out for me from that book are the pointy-toed shoes.

[Japhy_Ryder]

23. The Soviet Experiment

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195081056/qid=1063892514/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-7954576-0724814

an interesting read on how the USSR came about, ended and the cold war from the other side.

[Boudicea]

25. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century

Ya beat me to it!

[Aristus]

27. Okay, Boudicea. Don't go attacking SPQR. I know you've got

a bone in your nose about the Romans! Keep cool!

[arwalden]

28. Band of Brothers: E Company 506th Regiment 101st Airborne...

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest

As grippingly as any novelist, preeminent World War II historian Stephen Ambrose tells the horrifying, hallucinatory saga of Easy Company, whose 147 members he calls the nonpareil combat paratroopers on earth circa 1941-45.

Ambrose takes us along on Easy Company's trip from grueling basic training to Utah Beach on D-day, where a dozen of them turned German cannons into dynamited ruins resembling "half-peeled bananas," on to the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of part of the Dachau concentration camp, and a large party at Hitler's "Eagle's Nest," where they drank the madman's (surprisingly inferior) champagne.

Of Ambrose's main sources, three soldiers became rich civilians; at least eight became teachers; one became Albert Speer's jailer; one prosecuted Bobby Kennedy's assassin; another became a mountain recluse; the despised, sadistic C.O. who first trained Easy Company (and to whose strictness many soldiers attributed their survival of the war) wound up a suicidal loner whose own sons skipped his funeral.

[trof]

29. I liked his "Don't Know Much About History".

A lot of interesting "what you didn't learn" factoids.

[soupkitchen]

30. Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway

The truth and nuttin but the truth

[redhead1954]

32. Reading right now

American Scripture - Making the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier.

Excellent book in my opinion.

Cheers,
Red