What are you reading right now?

124,128 Views | 743 Replies | Last: 1 day ago by BigJim49 AustinNowDallas
Aggie1205
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AG
Recently read a couple of books recommended on the History board.

El Narco - history of cartels and drugs in Mexico. Interesting book but about a decade old so a bit dated on current happenings. Still a good read.

Skeletons of the Zahara - good survival story about a crew of American sailors who crashed in Western Africa. Didn't realize how common it was for Americans to end up in slavery there.
Smeghead4761
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Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb by George Feifer
BQ78
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Just finished A History of the Confederate Navy, the definitive history of the navy by an Italian college professor, Raimondo Luraghi. It was a best seller when it came out in Italian before being printed in English by the Naval Institute Press. HIghly recommended, he covers it all and well and talks engineering so a non-engineer gets it.

About to start Frank Vandiver's Ploughshares into Swords about Confederate industry and Josiah Gorgas.

Reading a lot of dead authors lately.
Windy City Ag
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AG
Roger Lowenstein's Ways and Means.

It profiles the financing of the Civil War and provides a lot of detail that is otherwise missed in analysis of the politics and military conflict. You really appreciate the nearly irrelevant nature of the Federal government prior to to Ft. Sumter and how many things changed or were instituted in response.

National Income Tax

Greatly expanded Federal Budget

Great innovation in marketing government securities to raise funds

The National Banking Act of 1853 basically killed the various alternatives to the U.S. dollar and made it the only appropriate means of exchange while instituting what is now considered the Federal Reserve System.

You also get a good look into the behavior of Lincoln's cabinet folks like Salmon Chase as well as a greater appreciation for Thaddeus Stevens.


Jabin
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Thanks for the recommendation. Historians usually are clueless when it comes to economics and, as a result, tend to ignore it. That's a mistake because economics either causes or greatly facilitates much of history.

By the way, my library has the book available as a Kindle download. The process to check it out was seamless and easy. Sometimes technology is truly great and amazing! (Sometimes the opposite, though.)
Windy City Ag
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AG
Lincoln was suprisingly well read on political economy, and you will get to his address to congress on Labor vs. Capital.

The book is very good about Whig party platform issues, which is a strange blend of progressive tactics (tariffs, federal infrastructure spending) and libertarian beliefs (small federal government and deference to congress, anti-expansion).

The confederate economic thought is hilariously bad when it is summed up.


Final funny point - The discussion of the total mistrust of confederate bills by Southern businessman delved into the how state banks would make their own currency as fall-back. The Bank of Louisiana's $10 "Dix Notes" (French word for ten ) were the most trusted form of exchange and became know as Dixie Notes and they were so prevelant that the South became known as "Dixie Land".


AGinHI
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AG
One of the benefits of visiting an actual book store is coming across a book I might not have otherwise discovered, regardless of all the recommendations available on Amazon.

After replacing a book about the Salem witch trials I turned around and to find this one directly across from me. I had no idea it's been 25 years since Columbine, the origin of the mass shooter era, as the author put it.

At the time of the shooting I was working for a glazier and driving around Houston, a little over a year and a half from embarking on a career in mental health, so my recollection of the event isn't the flashbulb memory of the Challenger and 9/11. I also don't recall absorbing all possible information as we might now do with innumerable media options. So, other than what was presented in local news I was ignorant of the event. Reading has brought to mind the popular stories and images, dispelling myths I was unaware of.

Currently halfway through, a very detailed account of events that reads like a story.


RPag
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Great book and audio book. Amazing how much information was available and not known by the public.
BigJim49 AustinNowDallas
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Just finished Agatha Christie's first book which introduced Hercule Poirot- The Misterious Affair at Styles.

She got 25 pounds for it. Her next book got her 500 pounds!

Going to try to read all her books in order !
 
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