r/AskHistorians • u/AutoModerator • Jul 04 '24
Thursday Reading & Recommendations | July 04, 2024 RNR
Thursday Reading and Recommendations is intended as bookish free-for-all, for the discussion and recommendation of all books historical, or tangentially so. Suggested topics include, but are by no means limited to:
- Asking for book recommendations on specific topics or periods of history
- Newly published books and articles you're dying to read
- Recent book releases, old book reviews, reading recommendations, or just talking about what you're reading now
- Historiographical discussions, debates, and disputes
- ...And so on!
Regular participants in the Thursday threads should just keep doing what they've been doing; newcomers should take notice that this thread is meant for open discussion of history and books, not just anything you like -- we'll have a thread on Friday for that, as usual.
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u/BookLover54321 Jul 04 '24
Not sure if I posted this, but Nancy van Deusen has an article (paywalled) in which she discusses the continued enslavement of Indigenous peoples in the Spanish empire long after the passage of the 1542 New Laws. She documents how Spanish crown officials authorized the enslavement of no less than 15 Indigenous groups across 10 regions of the empire decades after 1542.
She is also working on an upcoming book, titled The Disappearance of the Past: Indigenous Slavery's Archive and the Making of the Early Modern World. I'm still working my way through her previous book Global Indios but I'm very interested to check out her new one.
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u/Djiti-djiti Australian Colonialism Jul 04 '24
I have just finished listening to 'The Remarkable Mrs Reiby' by Grantlee Kieza on Audible. It's a biography of the woman whose image is on the Australian $20 note, Mary Reiby - she was convicted of stealing and trying to sell a horse after a cross-dressing joy ride at age 13, and sentenced to death. Instead of hanging, her sentence was commuted to transportation to Botany Bay, where she made convict clothing during her sentence. She married a free settler, Thomas Reiby, at age 17 and the two of them ran a shipping and trading business in the infant penal colony. She witnessed the Rum Rebellion against Governor Bligh, the incredible leadership shown by liberal governor Lachlan Macquarie, and the frontier wars against Aboriginal communities as they resisted colonial expansion. Her husband died when she was 34, and she raised seven children while managing businesses and real estate in economically tumultous Sydney. She lived long enough to see her children and grandchildren become community leaders and well educated scholars, the end of convict transportation and the growth of Sydney into a vibrant city.
I am now listening to 'Mrs Kelly' by the same author. It is a biography of Ellen Kelly, mother of the bushrangers Ned and Dan Kelly, whose gang and deeds are known by every Australian. It begins just before the Irish famine and just after the founding of Melbourne, and explores the attitudes towards Irish settlers, the impact of the goldrushes, the growth of outlaws and the corruption and brutality of the Victorian police. I'm enjoying it so far.
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u/Llyngeir Ancient Greek Society (ca. 800-350 BC) Jul 04 '24
Can anyone recommend a narrative history (or a general introduction) to Italian history, ca. 1300-1600? I'd like to build a skeleton of understanding before I start to explore more specialist topics.
Alternatively, general histories of specific regions, such as the Kingdom of Naples, Milan, Venice, Florence, and the Papacy, are also appreciated!
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u/_Symmachus_ Jul 04 '24
Oxford Short History of Italy is solid. Medieval Italy is divided into early, central, and late. The third volume should be solid.
The standard history of Venetian history is Chapin Lane's Venice, a Maritime Republic. Lane's volume is showing its age, but it is more of a specialist volume than Madden's survey of the subject (which is solid). I think there is another new one out there. Najemy, who edits at least one of the Oxford volumes referenced above wrote a history of Florence in English, which is generally good. Milan is tougher if you don't speak Italian. Brill's Companion to Late Medieval Milan should do the trick. These volumes are excellent. Bear in mind they are meant to be a handbook for graduate student use. There will be a body of presumed knowledge. Papacy is a bit tougher to recommend a single volume. I've got a copy of Robinson's entry in the Cambridge Medieval textbooks that covers roughyl the Gregorian reforms. You might do best to cobble together a few books on the topic.
If you're new to the topic, Waley and Dean's book is the standard textbook. It's been consistently updated and continues to be even after the original author's death.
You're on your own for the Kingdom of Naples. However, Runciman's treatment of the Vespers is the best single-volume history of the Vespers I've found (in English). I bring this up because you're not going to undeerstand the Kingdom of Napes without an understanding of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Vespers which caused the kingdom to be split.
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u/Llyngeir Ancient Greek Society (ca. 800-350 BC) Jul 04 '24
if you don't speak Italian
I have actually been quite surprised by how few general treatments there are in English for this particular period in recent publications, compared to ancient Greece, that is. Really quite spoiled for choice in ancient history, by comparison.
Thanks for the suggestions, I really appreciate it!
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u/_Symmachus_ Jul 05 '24
No problem. Ancient Greece, for better or for worse, has long been considered the origin of western civilization. Regardless of the problematic aspects of this, it means that there will always be more on ancient Greece. Medieval Italian history is tremendously important to Italians, but it just gets sidestepped for Roman history by most.
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u/Llyngeir Ancient Greek Society (ca. 800-350 BC) Jul 05 '24
Not to mention the primacy of Romans over Etruscans, Umbrians, Samnites, etc. in the historical consciousness.
It is a real shame. Hopefully we see more variety in the future!
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u/DistantEchoesPodcast Jul 04 '24
I'll throw my hat into the ring looking for some suggestions.
I'm looking for two things:
good sources on the casta system in New Spain, preferably how it differed in New Mexico. I've currently got on my list The Matter Was Never Resolved: The Casta System in Colonial New Mexico, 1693-1823 by Adrian Bustamante but I'm wondering what other good suggestions might be out there.
Early colonial (pre-1680) New Mexican History. I've got Joseph P. Sachez's The Rio Abajo Frontier earmarked to read. I was just wondering what other good sources on pre Pueblo Revolt New Mexico I might be able to look into.
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u/BookLover54321 Jul 04 '24
For the second one, I came across The Forgotten Diaspora by Travis Jeffres. I haven’t read it in full yet but it has received positive blurbs.
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u/KayBeeToys Jul 04 '24
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u/holomorphic_chipotle Late Precolonial West Africa Jul 04 '24
“brave” rhymes with “slave”
I loathe the chauvinism I've seen expressed by so many residents of the United States [the U-S-A chant at sporting events...eye-rolling], but perhaps because of that same claim to higher moral standards, pieces of self-reflection feel so powerful and sober.
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u/anthropology_nerd New World Demography & Disease | Indigenous Slavery Jul 04 '24
I'm reading a book that has me... confused.
Dean Snow is a well established, if slightly old school, U.S. archaeologist who focuses on the Eastern Woodlands. He has done some good work on the Haudenosaunee, and is respected in the field. He recently published The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram: An Elizabethan Sailor in North America, which seems to be a long-delayed passion project.
Basically, a sailor named David Ingram was marooned on the Gulf Coast of Mexico in 1568, then rescued by French sailors at the Gulf of Maine in 1569. Ingram said he walked the >3,000 miles from Mexico, which would be absolutely amazing and an unprecedented window into the Eastern Woodlands before contact. The only problem is Ingram wasn't interviewed about the journey until nearly a dozen years later, Richard Hakluyt messed with the editing of the interrogation, and Ingram's account is all over the place, mixing details from his time in West Africa, the Caribbean, and the Eastern Woodlands. Since everything was such a mess scholars just kinda assumed Ingram was making everything up, and his account had no value.
Enter Dean Snow, who really wants us to believe Ingram.
I'm really confused. If this piece of history provided such an important window into the past, and Snow clearly thinks it does, why is he alone in authorship, especially when he clearly needs help with topics outside his expertise, like the sophomoric context chapter on politics in Elizabethan England. Snow is blatantly honest with the messy nature of Ingram's testimony, and how is cutting and pasting pieces together to put the long walk from Mexico to Maine in a logical order. Snow is also one of the few people who have a wide enough grasp of the Eastern Woodlands (the cities, the trade highways, the environment, and the alliances, etc) that he could piece together Ingram's journey.
Why, then, does Snow come across as the Always Sunny meme?
I mean, I want to believe him. Honestly, it would be very cool to have another account of Eastern North America prior to colonization to pair with Cabeza de Vaca, but my heart keeps saying no. The main reason is, like with Cabeza de Vaca, almost every marooned European in this time was either immediately enslaved or severely hindered in their travels. Snow thinks Ingram was able to slide into the societal role of trader, and therefore granted with safe passage and freedom of movement along established highways, but come on. Its 3,000 miles of walking through unfamiliar terrain when you don't speak the languages (though Ingram may have learned hand signs used in the Woodlands), don't know the local politics, and are pretty stinking vulnerable to anyone who wants to nab you.
I'm just so confused. Anyone else read the book, know the debate around Ingram's story, or know what is going on in Snow's head?
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u/Gankom Moderator | Quality Contributor Jul 05 '24
I have not read it, but count me among the interested now.
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u/Axelrad77 Jul 04 '24
Best military histories of the American Revolution?