General history books?

[YouHaich]

What books are recommended as comprehensive overviews of the 18th - 21st century? :confused:

[ComradeOm]

All at once? Paul Kennedy's Rise & Fall of Great Powers is an interesting read (from a geostrategic perspective) while I've heard good things about Norman Davies' Europe but have not read it myself

Other than that you might be best breaking it down century by century. There are, for example, a host of general histories of the 19th C. Of these I found Hobsbawm's 'long century' trilogy (Age of Revolution, Age of Capital, Age of Empire) to be by far and away the best. For something shorter, Harry Hearder's Europe in the 19th C: 1830-1880 is a good introduction to that century

I can't actually recommend a single overarching volume for the 20th C. Hobsbawm's Age of Extremes is the obvious choice but I'd heard its not great. Other than that I can recommend many individual national histories (Russia, France, Germany, Mexico, etc) or event histories (World Wars, Russian Revolution, etc) but not many general histories covering European/world history during the period

Let me know what interests you and I'll try to narrow it down. As you might have noticed I'm not good on the 18th C at all ;)

[x359594]

I second the Hobawm histories recommended by ComradeOm. The relevant volumes from the Will and Ariel Durant Story of Civilization series are comprehensive and always interesting narratives. For the 19th century through the mid-20th century the volumes in The Rise of Modern Europe are good. After the mid-20th century you'll have to search out individual area studies.

For China, the best single volume history cover the 18th-20th centuries is The Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence. For Japan Early Modern Japan by Conrad Totman covers the island nation's history from the 17th to the 19th centuries. For the 20th century The Cambridge History of Japan volumes are good.

[YouHaich]

All at once? Paul Kennedy's Rise & Fall of Great Powers is an interesting read (from a geostrategic perspective) while I've heard good things about Norman Davies' Europe but have not read it myself

Other than that you might be best breaking it down century by century. There are, for example, a host of general histories of the 19th C. Of these I found Hobsbawm's 'long century' trilogy (Age of Revolution, Age of Capital, Age of Empire) to be by far and away the best. For something shorter, Harry Hearder's Europe in the 19th C: 1830-1880 is a good introduction to that century

I can't actually recommend a single overarching volume for the 20th C. Hobsbawm's Age of Extremes is the obvious choice but I'd heard its not great. Other than that I can recommend many individual national histories (Russia, France, Germany, Mexico, etc) or event histories (World Wars, Russian Revolution, etc) but not many general histories covering European/world history during the period

Let me know what interests you and I'll try to narrow it down. As you might have noticed I'm not good on the 18th C at all ;)


I second the Hobawm histories recommended by ComradeOm. The relevant volumes from the Will and Ariel Durant Story of Civilization series are comprehensive and always interesting narratives. For the 19th century through the mid-20th century the volumes in The Rise of Modern Europe are good. After the mid-20th century you'll have to search out individual area studies.

For China, the best single volume history cover the 18th-20th centuries is The Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence. For Japan Early Modern Japan by Conrad Totman covers the island nation's history from the 17th to the 19th centuries. For the 20th century The Cambridge History of Japan volumes are good.

Thanks you two.

I will look into each of these titles you have both listed.

Further to those that set out to cover a variety I would also like specifically recommendations for the best books dealing with the Russian Revolution, the Chinese revolution, the Mexican revolution and anything which touches on the building of American empire as I am only familiar with Zinn in this last field.

[ComradeOm]

Further to those that set out to cover a variety I would also like specifically recommendations for the best books dealing with the Russian Revolution, the Chinese revolution, the Mexican revolution and anything which touches on the building of American empire as I am only familiar with Zinn in this last field.Mexico I'm not great on. The Course of Mexican History is a very good general history that covers from pre-Columbus to the 21st C. Naturally the Revolution, and relations with the US, gets plenty of space but it still might be too broad from your interest. Other than that my only knowledge on the country comes from Will Fowler's pretty good biography of Santa Anna (imaginatively named Santa Anna of Mexico) which includes the wars with Texas and the US

For the Russian Revolution, I'm in the middle of drawing up a bibliography for this forum. I'll go ahead and recommend Rabinowitch's revolution trilogy (Prelude to Revolution, The Bolsheviks Come to Power, The Bolsheviks in Power) right off but let me know what level a read you're looking for (ie, introductory, or a specific field, etc) and I'll throw out some more names

With specific reference to the "American empire", I'd recommend Kennedy's work again. IIRC it has a chapter devoted to the US/USSR and it charts the rise of those "fringe powers" through the century. Plenty of charts and statistics to assess a Great Power's standing in the world (ironically enough he missed the collapse of the Soviet Bloc :lol:) but little social history in the Zinn model, ie its very 'top level' political and economic history

More modern works, which may lie outside your timeframe, would be Steve Coll's Ghost Wars (Afghanistan), Stan Goff's Full Spectrum Disorder (US military), and David Harvey's The New Imperialism. All these touch in subjects from the last decade of the 20th C but I'd hesitate to classify them as history

[x359594]

To ComradeOm's suggestion about Mexico I can add El Gran Pueblo by Colin MacLachlin and William Beezley that covers Mexican history from the era of Santa Anna down to the Zapatista uprising, very much in the Zinn people's history mode. For the Revolution there's Zapata and the Mexican Revolution by John Womack, The Mexican Revolution by Adolfo Gilly and Revolutionary Mexico by John Mason Hart. The three histories complement each other; Womack's book is a vivid narrative, Gilly's is a Marxist analytical account and Hart's traces the struggle against foreign capital and its counter-revolutionary impact.

For the Russian Revolution ditto for ComradeOm's recommendations with the addition of The Russian Revolution: A Study in Mass Mobilization by John Keep. Keep's book shows how the the Revolution developed among the peasant class in the countryside at a time when the peasantry constituted the majority of the population. There's also Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution written in his vivid polemical style.

On the Chinese Revolution there's China and Her Revolutions by Jonathan Spence, Anvil of Victory by Stephen Levine, and the classic account by William Hinton Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village.

About American empire, the volumes The Rise of Industrial America and America Enters the World by Page Smith from his 8 volume People's History of the United States are good. Gabriel Kolko's The Roots of American Foreign Policy gives an analytical account, and his other studies of US foreign policy during the WWII era and after are also good, especially Confronting the Third World.

[Invader Zim]

What books are recommended as comprehensive overviews of the 18th - 21st century? :confused:
You want books that attempt to 'comprehensively' provide an 'overview'. Sorry, but that is a contradiction in terms.

[The Idler]

A People's History of the World by Chris Harman.

[kalu]

I've heard wonderful things about Romila Thapar's History of India.

With regards to the States, can't go wrong with A People's History by Zinn.

The UNESCO General History of Africa, Vols. VII and VIII would be your standard reference, and Ali Mazrui is great. One might also look into Basil Davidson's works.

[Random Precision]

I've heard wonderful things about Romila Thapar's History of India.

No doubt Thapar is a great historian, but she only wrote one volume of Penguin's History of India, which ends with the foundation of the Mughal Empire in 1526. :(

[Bankotsu]

One of the best books on 20th century history would be Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope, a slightly edited version is available here:




The new Age of Expansion which made Napoleon's military-political victory of 1810 impossible to maintain had begun in England long before.

It appeared as the Agricultural Revolution about 1725 and as the Industrial Revolution about 1775, but it did not get started as a great burst of expansion until after 1820. Once started, it moved forward with an impetus such as the world had never seen before, and it looked as if Western Civilization might cover the whole globe.

The dates of this third Age of Expansion might be fixed at 1770-1929, following upon the second Age of Conflict of 1690-1815. The social organization which was at the center of this new development might be called "industrial capitalism."

In the course of the last decade of the nineteenth century, it began to become a structure of vested interests to which we might give the name "monopoly capitalism." As early, perhaps, as 1890, certain aspects of a new Age of Conflict, the third in Western Civilization, began to appear, especially in the core area, with a revival of imperialism, of class struggle, of violent warfare, and of irrationalities.
By 1930 it was clear that Western Civilization was again in an Age of Conflict; by 1942 a semi-peripheral state, Germany, had conquered much of the core of the civilization. That effort was defeated by calling into the fray a peripheral state (the United States) and another, outside civilization (the Soviet society).

It is not yet clear whether Western Civilization will continue along the path marked by so many earlier civilizations, or whether it will be able to reorganize itself sufficiently to enter upon a new, fourth, Age of Expansion. If the former occurs, this Age of Conflict will undoubtedly continue with the fourfold characteristics of class struggle, war, irrationality, and declining progress. In this case, we shall undoubtedly get a Universal Empire in which the United States will rule most of Western Civilization.

This will be followed, as in other civilizations, by a period of decay and ultimately, as the civilization grows weaker, by invasions and the total destruction of Western culture. On the other hand, if Western Civilization is able to reorganize itself and enters upon a fourth Age of Expansion, the ability of Western Civilization to survive and go on to increasing prosperity and power will be bright.

Leaving aside this hypothetical future, it would appear thus that Western Civilization, in approximately fifteen hundred years, has passed through eight periods, thus:



1. Mixture 350-700
2. Gestation, 700-970
3A. First Expansion, 970-1270
4A. First Conflict, 1270-1440
Core Empire: England, 1420
3B. Second Expansion, 1440-1690
4B. Second Conflict, 1690-1815
Core Empire: France, 1810
3C. Third Expansion, 1770-1929
4C. Third Conflict, 1893-
Core Empire: Germany, 1942

The two possibilities which lie in the future can be listed as follows:



Reorganization Continuation of the Process

3D. Fourth Expansion, 1944- 5. Universal Empire (the United States)
6. Decay
7. Invasion (end of the civilization)



http://real-world-news.org/bk-quigley/01.html


The political conditions of the latter half of the twentieth century will continue to be dominated by the weapons situation, for, while politics consists of much more than weapons, the nature, organization, and control of weapons is the most significant of the numerous factors that determine what happens in political life. Surely weapons will continue to be expensive and complex. This means that they will increasingly be the tools of professionalized, if not mercenary, forces. All of past history shows that the shift from a mass army of citizen-soldiers to a smaller army of professional fighters leads, in the long run, to a decline of democracy. When weapons are cheap and easy to obtain and to use, almost any man may obtain them, and the organized structure of the society, such as the state, can obtain no better weapons than the ordinary, industrious, private citizen. This very rare historical condition existed about 1880, but is now only a dim memory, since the weapons obtainable by the state today are far beyond the pocketbook, understanding, or competence of the ordinary citizen.

When weapons are of the "amateur" type of 1880, as they were in Greece in the fifth century B.C., they are widely possessed by citizens, power is similarly dispersed, and no minority can compel the majority to yield to its will. With such an "amateur weapons system" (if other conditions are not totally unfavorable), we are likely to find majority rule and a relatively democratic political system. But, on the contrary, when a period can be dominated by complex and expensive weapons that only a few persons can afford to possess or can learn to use, we have a situation where the minority who control such "specialist" weapons can dominate the majority who lack them. In such a society, sooner or later, an authoritarian political system that reflects the inequality in control of weapons will he established...


http://real-world-news.org/bk-quigley/20.html#74









After that you may carry on with
The Evolution of Civilizations - An Introduction to Historical Analysis
http://www.archive.org/details/CarrollQuigley-TheEvolutionOfCivilizations-AnIntroductionTo

[New Tet]

What books are recommended as comprehensive overviews of the 18th - 21st century? :confused:

"There is no Royal Road to science and only those willing to climb its steep path can reach its luminous summit" --Karl Marx

[Killfacer]

"There is no Royal Road to science and only those willing to climb its steep path can reach its luminous summit" --Karl Marx

Very helpful. :rolleyes:

For anyone interesting in British politics then a tough but certainly worth it read:

The making of the English working class.

I'm not gonna lie to you, i haven't read it all. It's a pretty daunting book.

[Killfacer]

i like history books

That's nice.:)