What are you currently reading ?

[KTravlos]

Finally finished Embree's "Radetzky's Marches". Like his other works this is a very detailed history of the First War of Italian Unification. But for some reason it was a very tough slog. It took me 3 years to finish it, as time and again I had to walk away from it. An excellent source for scenarios at all levels of strategy, but not a friendly introduction/overview of the war.

Read the first two chapters of Graeber and Sahlin "On Kings". Very dense but oh my are they interesting.  Sahlin's "The Original Political Society" had some  provocative stuff. Gives me a new way to consider our political world.

In the introduction the two postulate that a main conflict in the history of the development of human politics was that between divine kingship and scared kingship. The difference between the two was that in divine kingship, the king elevated himself to the powers of a god and acted as a god in every-day life, while sacred kingship the king was an avatar of the gods, in theory all powerful but in practice curtailed by ritual, taboo etc.

In one the king is sovereign at will. In the other the king is a locus of sovereignty which he/she cannot directly practice. In one he/she is a person. In the other a meta-person.

Fast forward. If there is one archetypal meta-person in human politics, it is "The People". Beyond some very small minorities (for example the writers of the Jacobite), and few political societies (Oman), almost all political societies and political movements claim to serve or represent this meta-person "The People". The debates on democracy thus could be constituted as a clash between the idea of Divine Kingship of "The People" vs. Sacred Kingship of "The People".

Essentially any democratic politics that seek to give as much unfettered sovereignty to the "The People" is politics of Divine Kingship. This is done by calls for the democratization of everything , democratic immidiency, illiberal democracy, direct democracy, and opposition to liberalism. Anything that seeks to restrict the sovereign power of "The People" via representation, liberalism, checks and balances etc.

Once you see things this way, a lot makes better sense.

Reading, "Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy" by Daniel Ziblatt. A book I strongly recommend you read if you want to make some sense of what is going on in Turkey and the US.

"In Weimar-era Germany, the party stature of the loosely structured successor party that encompassed the heterogeneous strands of German Conservatism (German National People's Party) granted local or grass-roots regional associations, and not the national party leaders or national members of parliament, a majority of votes within the party congress to select the national party chairman. As a result, in 1928, an insurgent media magnate and industrialist, Alfred Hugenberg, could leverage his immense financial resources and access to outside pressure groups to capture the majority of local party associations to catapult himself into the position of party chairman, paving the way for the radicalization of Germany's right. "

[Leman]

The Roman Ring by Mark Richards. This is a book on a walking path that explores the country around Hadrian's Wall, consequently it covers pre-Roman, Medieval and modern history as well as the Roman period, eg it takes in castles, industrial heritage, and even a German prisoner of war camp. Preparation for next Spring's Northumbrian walking holiday.

[steve_holmes_11]

Joseph Conrad - The Secret Agent.

Early days yet, but I get the feeling there's a secret agent involved.

[FierceKitty]

Joseph Conrad - The Secret Agent.

Early days yet, but I get the feeling there's a secret agent involved.

One of his better books, for my money. James Bond it isn't.

[fsn]

I just read "Forever and a Day" by Anthony Horowitz in which 007 becomes 007.

I dunno.

I love the originals. John Gardener's were OK in a modernised sort of way. Hated the Raymond Benson books - so obviously written by an American who didn't really understand Britain.

Normally I like Anthony Horowitz. "Trigger Mortis" was so full of modern social mores that it became almost unreadable. in "Forever and a Day" Horowitz seems to have gone back to the traditional Bond with all his faults and his 1950s sensitivities. The plot is standard, the twists somewhat predictable, and the fight that I wanted to read didn't happen. The female lead is older than Bond, and not a shrinking violet - which I liked, and the ending was satisfactory.

6.5/10

[kipt]

Finished "Angels of Vengeance" by John Birmingham, an author I read before and liked (scenario was a UN battlegroup in the year 20xx was transported back to the Battle of Midway.  This book, however, is deceiving.  It looks like a picture of a Warthog attack plane on the cover, but has nothing to do with the story.

This story has to do with 3 different women in the aftermath of some sort of devastation of the US (a wave hit of some sort and dissolved everyone.  The women are an Endeavor (kind of like a multinational set of Seals), a smuggler and a young Mexican girl.  All the stories are intertwined (naturally) and as Birmingham tells a good story, I did finish the book.

Entertaining but not what I usually read - this book was a gift.

[Leman]

Just started reading for King and Parliament rules. Also having another look at the old  Virtue 'against Fury rules. I had forgotten that a) they are in fact a complete campaign and also include all sorts of elements like religion, recruitment and supply; b) for some odd reason there is a comprehensive English army list, but no Scots. I say odd because what did the English army achieve in France compared to Northumberland?

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Just finished Neul Gaimen's Anerican Gods, now stolen Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve from my daughter to read!

[Ithoriel]

Just finished Neul Gaimen's Anerican Gods, now stolen Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve from my daughter to read!

Looking forward to ..

[pierre the shy]

I just read "Forever and a Day" by Anthony Horowitz in which 007 becomes 007.

I dunno.

6.5/10

I picked this up and read the back cover in the bookshop at Auckland airport recently while I was waiting for a delayed flight.....seemed interesting but they wanted nearly $40 for the trade paperback version back so didn't get it - one to look out for in the local library though.   

[Westmarcher]

Just finished Ernst Junger's memoirs of his service in the German Army on the Western Front in WW1. Quite amazing how he endured and dodged death over four long years of almost constant frontline service interspersed with occasional leave and being placed in reserve, the odd training course which evolving weaponry and tactics demanded, and recovery in hospital from the numerous wounds he received. Apparently compiled from his own diaries and notes, it sometimes comes across as one long litany of incident or event after another - raiding parties, gas, snipers, incessant artillery bombardment, storming or defending trenches, rotting corpses and constant casualties on a scale that is hard to imagine. Although not as well written as other accounts from other conflicts, I nevertheless found it compelling. So, if you are a WW1 fan, and haven't read about Ernst Junger's experience of combat on the Western Front, you might want to try to get hold of a copy of Storm of Steel and if you do, try to get the English translation by Michael Hofmann (apparently there is another much earlier translation by Basil Creighton which Hofmann is very critical of in terms of Creighton's knowledge of the German language).

[kipt]

Finished volume 82, No. 2 of "The Journal of Military History".

As always full of articles:
Ivan IV's State Cossacks
Reconsidering the Wilderness's Role in Battle, 4-6 May 1864
The Crossing Challenge: The Suez Canal Crossing by the Israel Defense Forces during the Yom Kipper War of 1973

to name a few, as well as numerous book reviews.

The article on the Suez Canal was great.  It was done on a shoestring, nothing went right, no time for training (and the Israelis had not trained for this prior to the war).  An example of SNAFU and FUBAR but still pushing on to get the job done.  A prime example of the friction of war; bridges breaking down on the way (only one of the three ways they attempted made it to the canal bank), units intermixed, traffic jams, wrong intelligence on the location of the Saudi troops, etc.  The best article I have read on the Israeli wars,

[Chad]

Just finished Chuquet's 'Wars of the French Revolution: Volume 2 - Valmy'.

Never seen it mentioned anywhere else, but Clerfayt with Austrian and Hessian forces actually arrived just at the end of the battle due to a series of possibly avoidable delays. Would make an interesting 'what if' scenario if those delays had not happened.

For a change of genre have just started 'The Long Earth' swirlies by Pratchet and Baxter. So far very good read.

[Terry37]

"The Borrowed World" by Franklin Horton. There are basically two types of post apocalyptic literature - the far off mad Max type stuff, and the startling real as it could happen. This book, and I believe first in a series, is of the latter genre. I always enjoy them regardless, but sometimes the latter genre can be a little unsettling when you realize  what the domino affect can be if it ever happened.

Terry

[Leman]

Probably time I dug out my copy of Storm of Steel and read it again - fortunately the Hofman translation.