'Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms' and 'Massacre: Life & Death of the Paris Commune'

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Has anyone read either of these books? Any good?

They're both recent releases

Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms got a good review in NY Times

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Posting because it was originally yesterday so I dunno if anyone will see it if I just edit the OP:

Reviews for the two books -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-massacre-the-life-and-death-of-the-paris-commune-by-john-merriman/2015/01/02/fbfb6d30-7415-11e4-a589-1b102c2f81d0_story.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/books/review/heirs-to-forgotten-kingdoms-by-gerard-russell.html

[Art Vandelay]

I think 'Massacre: the life & death of the paris commune' sounds really interesting. I'll probably order it when I get paid next week.

[bricolage]

I've read a little bit of massacre, as the title suggests it focusses much more on the latter part of the Paris Commune so is perhaps not the best source if you want to know what political and social life was like during the Commune. That being said it looks well written (easy to read, not boring), the 'Dynamite' book the guy wrote before was also very good, it has some good biogs of people often not focussed on (i.e. Rigault) and I think looks very detailed in terms of Bloody Week and its aftermath. It's good that he begins to challenge how we got to the 30,000 number and whether that is accurate (I've always thought it was better to have the 'right' number as opposed to the commonly accepted one that paints Versailles in the worst light) but seems to conclude that we'll never know the answer - which is probably true. I read a press release which spoke about Bloody Week as 'foreshadowing' the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, which seemed to me the worst type of crass historical comparison but having read the chapter it concerns it's just one or two lines and he just says that the world didn't see such butchery again until then, which is a much less contentious argument. Anyway bit of a ramble, but long story short it looks like a good book.