Just getting into the 6th of 7 books in the Extinction Cycle series titled "Aftermath". Nicholas Salisbury is a very superb author and his books are both believable and well written. They are Post Apocalyptic genre.

Terry

Cheery stuff then, but with Trump in charge, who knows.

Yeah, post apocalyptic stories can get a little more than grim - in fact some have been down right scary! I also realized I gave hte author's name incorrectly. His name is Nicholas Sansbury Smith. Sorry abut that.

As for the last comment, I am beyond comment! I just pray for all of us.

Terry

An artilleryman in Stalingrad by Jason D Mark

Take care

Andy

I've just tried some Paul Theroux. What is his reputation based on?

1970s and 80s journalism from places no one else would go, saying things no one else would dare say.

Dark Star Safari is good though.

Nobody called Richard Burton a great novelist!

Quote from: FierceKitty on 31 January 2018, 09:23:20 AM
Nobody called Richard Burton a great novelist!

Which one - actor or explorer ?

Either. Take your pick.

Finished "At the Sign of the Triumph" by David Weber, a novel of the "Safehold" series.

This is a novel set in the far future, on a colonized planet, Safehold.  Earth had fought a loosing war against a species called the Gabba, and were all but wiped out.

The Gabba are drawn to planets radiating the evidence of high technology, so the colonists on Safehold have been proscripted from developing any, through the laws of the Church.  However, the Church has been in the power of its Grand Inquisitor, and has trampled the rights of the people.

To make it interesting there is the presence of a long dead female warship commander, whose being had been kept in stasis for centuries.  She awakes and occupies the body of an avatar but rouses the people to fight against the Church.  Previous novels in the series are about the combats and the increasing tech base used by these rebels.  Essentially early firearms against bows and swords, increasing in each book to muzzle loading rifles and then breach loaders.  Ships to ironclads and eventually a dreadnought type, with the Church always behind.

Very good combat descriptions as well as story, but long.  This last book is 738 pages.  There are 8 earlier books and all are good.  Weber wrote the Honor Harrington series (Space fighting etc. which is also vary good if one likes that type of story).  Highly recommended for some escapist reading.

Just downloaded "Fallen Giants: The Combat Debut of the T-35A Tank" (Francis Pulham) and the first of the "Hammer's Slammers" volumes.

Can't decide which to read first. 

Partly read Murat Akan's book "The politics of secularism" a comparative account of the politics surrounding questions of secularization in the French Third Republic, current French politics, the Kemalist Turkish Republic 1945-1980s, and the AKP period of dominance.

This is a very dense book, and due to time constraints I only focused on the introduction, literature review and the French Third Republic and Kemalist Turkish cases. It is dense because Akan does something really cool. He makes his argument by using directly the words of political decision makers during crucial institutional debates (parliamentary speeches). He lets the politicians speech for themselves, which is really cool.

While in general very interesting, it validate some suspicions I had for Turkish politics. Essentially a true laicism period only existed in the 30s. Out of it the state always tried to control the Muslim faith, via state support for institutions. This entanglement became much higher in the Cold WAR, when Islam was seen as a tool to be used against the Left and Communism (A similar argument was made by civil-religionists in the Thrid Republic vs. Socialism and Anarchism).This culminates in the 1980 Kemalist Army coup that essentially renders Islam a tool of the state and integrates religious leaders into the system (for example Fettulah Gulen). I wish I had the time to delve in his Fifth Republic and AKP period cases. A hard book to read but well worth reading.

finished Justin McCarthy's "Death and Exile".

The good: 1) This is very readable. I read all 368 pages in a couple of days.

2) None of the everybody lived in peace and love propaganda you read in other books looking at events from the Ottoman Part. A more proper localist perspective, which brings forth a lot of areas (like Zeytun) were Christian vs. Muslim violence was endemic from at least the 1820s, and probably before. Considering how much of a pro-Ottoman McCarthy is (based on his other work and meeting him personally) this was pretty cool.

3) The story he tells is staggering in amount and one that one does not usually hear. He claims at least 5 million Muslim deaths from the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1923. Now I have serious reasons to doubt his number, but even if you take a 30% over-count, that is still a formidable and terrible figure.

4) I know have a better understanding of the defense policies of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkan War. If the prime goal was population protection then the defend everything strategy make sense.

5) I knew the Armenians killed a lot of Muslims in their attempt to create an Armenian state, but even with my 30% over-count cut, the numbers are still very bad, even if they are probably dwarfed by Armenian deaths.

The bad:

1) You know how if you grow up in Greece you learn that all Greek crimes in war were reprisals (like the sack of Tripolitsa) for earlier attacks ? Well for McCarthy all Muslim massacres and crimes were reprisals. And I mean literally all. I just do not buy it. I can buy it at a local level, but at other localities I am sure the first action might had been Muslim. This is the case with Greeks, Serbs, Armenians, Bulgarians etc. Some of their crimes were the result of reprisals for previous crimes. But others were probably motivated by other factors.

2) Just like Greek books discount any Ottoman sources and only count Greek, McCarthy discounts most non-Ottoman, non-Turkish sources, and heavily trust Turkish Nationalist and Ottoman sources. At some point even claiming that the Turks are not capable of using propaganda....

3) I just felt he played fast and loose with numbers. I just do not trust goverment sources of any kind enough to be able to say that the difference between pre-war censi and post-war censi give any inclination of population loss. My guess is that a good number of people survived but where never counted. Not enough to eradicate the huge population loss.

4) He bloody plays with his own numbers in disingenuous ways. In page 164, he notes that there are 642408 potential(my word) Muslim dead from the 1st and 2nd Balkan Wars. But in Table 30, page 339, he lists 1450000 potential (my word) Muslim dead from the 1st and 2nd Balkan Wars. Were the frack does this huge difference come from?

End Point: I can see why this study was ground-breaking when it came out. And it would not be unfair to state that 3 to 4 million muslims died as a result of the wars of Ottoman Disintegration between 1820 and 1923. But I can also see why he received criticism, and in no way can you get a fair picture of the human costs of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire by adding his work to the work of Greek, Serbian ,Armenian, Bulgarian etc scholars. The definitive and holistic work would have to be fair and look at the costs of the Creation, Maintenance and Destruction of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th to 20th centuries (probably including the Cyprus and Kurdish conflicts). It is yet to be written. But this book is a good book in order to keep in mind the potential human toll paid by Muslims for the imperialism of distant ancestors and the nationalism of once subject peoples.

PS: Using his system of counting I came to the following numbers of Greek and Muslim civilians potentially dead due to Greek-Ottoman/Turkish conflicts 1821-1923

Totals 1821-1923
Greeks: Low:550000
Muslims: Low: 612000

Greeks: High:750000
Muslims: High: 852000

Finished Volume 81, number 4 of"the Journal of Military History".  Comes out quarterly.

Articles include:
"The Real Controller of the battle: The Importance of Studying Tactical Battalion Command-A Case Study"
"Coco Solo Submarines: Protecting the Panama Canal, 1941-1942"
"The Formation of the Commonwealth Division, 1950-1951"

Also many book reviews.

Quote from: kipt on 08 February 2018, 01:56:11 AM
"The Real Controller of the battle: The Importance of Studying Tactical Battalion Command-A Case Study"

I'm guessing its not the Fat Controller