A colorful but tangled history
590712
An unwieldy  cast of characters drifts in and out of this book's chapters making it hard to keep track of them all, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the book once I adopted a more relaxed attitude.  It's packed with 100 years of turbulent history told through up close and personal accounts of several prominent families, making the book as entertaining as a well written gossip magazine.  I didn't know much about the Italian Renaissance before so the book was an eye opener for me.  Italy at this time was a collection of independent kingdoms each with its own distinct culture and set of wealthy nobles who schemed  among themselves for power.

Women are the focus of the book and though they didn't officially have a lot of political clout they  managed to influence events anyway. One of the most dramatic examples came near the beginning of the book when Caterina Sforza, Countess of Forli, tricked her husband's assassins into allowing her to take refuge in a strategically placed fortress, giving her the means to run them off. When the mob threatened to kill her son if she didn't surrender Caterina  stood on a high balcony and lifted her skirts to show them in the most graphic way that murdering her older children would be futile because she already had another on the way.  The mob that hoped to overthrow her family fled.  While all the women profiled had fascinating  lives, that story stuck in my mind and every time Caterina came back into the narrative I sat up and paid special attention.
690173
Charles Townshend has written a fairly good book on the Irish Easter Rebellion of 1916.  Meticulously researched, and quite informative; any reader interested by the events will enjoy it.

And yet on a higher level this book won't completely satisfy its readers, because it is essentially a political and military history of events that were far more than simple matter of politics and military science.  What brought men and women to stage an uprising that they knew couldn't succeed, and would lead to their leaders' executions?  Was it patriotism?  Was it idealism?  Was it  frustration with their lot?  Such questions make it clear that the events of that Easter week are not the exclusive domain of historians, but also the domain of dramatists and psychologists.

These clear gaps brought to mind Macaulay's writing about the Irish: "The Irish were distinguished by qualities which tend to make men interesting rather than prosperous. They were an ardent and impetuous race, easily moved to tears or to laughter, to fury or to love. Alone among the nations of northern Europe they had the susceptibility, the vivacity, the natural turn for acting and rhetoric, which are indigenous on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea...The genius, with which her aboriginal inhabitants were largely endowed showed itself as yet only in ballads which wild and rugged as they were, seemed to the judging eye of Spenser to contain a portion of the pure gold of poetry."

A book that would adequately capture this element of Irish culture would almost certainly be an amazing book, as it is, this is "only" a good book.
3206064
This is a charming book - well written and engaging, and wonderful in how it pulls together so many diverse threads, from geology to military history to environmental policy to art history to economics. And although my eyes glazed over a little when the book discusses intricacies of the Dutch poltroon families upstate (my main interest as a New Yorker is recognizing them as Manhattan street names) I think the work is broad in its appeal. Lewis's argument that the Hudson river has been central to shaping American history and culture is compelling and evocatively set forth.

My main criticism is the lack of visual accompaniment. This river has inspired extraordinary maps, documents, photographs, and paintings - a whole "school" of art for goodness sake - giving us just handful of postage stamp black and white reproductions in the book is a missed opportunity. The paucity of imagery is really a demerit.
1540684
Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a prolific writer and poet who wrote an extensive four-volume history of Scotland in 1900-1907.  In 1911 he wrote this "short" history.  In distilling his work, he created a fast-paced but hard to follow history.

I found the first 25% to be confounding - a litany of murders, treacheries and religious squabbles that are extremely hard to follow.  The rest of the book smoothed out as more detail was supplied.  Still, however, it was to me too much of an outline than a history.

I did learn quite a bit, regardless.  I may have learned more had I a more thorough knowledge of Scottish history and geography.  Lang refers to people, events and geography of which he assumes the reader is familiar.  I don't regret the time spent reading this not-too-short "short" history, since it has aroused my curiosity and gave me some avenues for further study.

An unexpected revelation came from Lang's discourse on the religious conflicts of the period.  Today we find ourselves perplexed by the fanaticism of Islamic extremists, who cannot hold a candle to those Scottish radicals.  We would probably not be here today if the likes of Knox had had nuclear weapons!

This book is worth reading, but only for one who does not mind tedious dredging for interesting tidbits.  For others, this would be mightily boring.  Had I not been in a reflective mood when I started "A Short History of Scotland" I could easily have given it only one star.
1359892
For over half a century, readers have turned to Amy Kelly's book for an exciting look at a broad swath of European history. From 1137 through her death in 1204, Eleanor was a principal player on the stage of history. She was married to two kings -- the mediocre Louis VII and the hot-tempered Henry II -- and mother to two other kings -- Richard the Lion-Hearted and King John the chicken-hearted. She had travelled to Constantinople, Jerusalem, Germany, and all around England and France.

Among the characters that pass through this history are St Bernard of Clairvaux, the Abbot Segur, the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus, Saladin, King Philip Augustus of France, Thomas Becket, Popes Celestine III and Innocent III, and hundreds of nobles, knights, clerics, and others. This history is a pageant, but one played for keeps. Excommunications and interdicts were bandied about as frequently as harsh words; and every fight had an ecclesiastical dimension.

Is your wife getting long in the tooth? Just get the clergy to declare that the marriage should be annulled because of consanguinity (which consanguinity was of course known by the kings who married their cousins). Just as he is about to wed Ingeborg of Denmark, Philip Augustus has second thoughts; and the outraged Dane betook herself to a nunnery and began a years-long letter-writing campaign that finally got the attention of Innocent III.

After the Norman Conquest of 1066, the Normans held both England and a large part of France. The Capetian kings vainly tried to take pieces of France back from the Angevin kings Henry II and Richard, but only under John Lackland (appropriately named) did they begin to have any measure of success.

Where was Eleanor in all this? To her 83rd year, she was a player. Although the chronicles tended to follow the kings, Eleanor was never far away. While Richard was being held for ransom in Germany, it was she who held the country together while John vainly attempted to forge an alliance with the enemy of his dynasty. Although Kelly's work is scholarly, she keeps her sources in unobtrusive endnotes that do not interrupt the flow of the text. If you want to read a history that is a real page-turner, I heartily recommend this book.

One of the main things I learned from the book is that Richard the Lion-Hearted was not the great hero of the English as he has been portrayed. For one thing, he bankrupted the country twice, first with his crusade and then with his ransome, and he didn't even speak a word of English. And he preferred to spend his time in Normandy.
245317
This children's book about Galileo has very beautiful illustrations, but the history leaves much to be desired.  It's a perfect example though of how myths about the past take on a life of their own independent of historical evidence or historical context.  Sis offers another variation on the "warfare" of science versus religion  with Galileo representing the modern rational scientist (which he was not) and his opponents in the Church representing ignorant, dogmatic tradition.  Of course the reality was much more complex, especially considering that Galileo did not have proof that the earth moved.  This book shows why children are so often misinformed from an early age for the sake of telling a good story.
3391110
The history and the personal reflection are intertwined, often making it hard to trace the story. The interviews create a good picture of the important players but make the volume seem like it can't make up its mnd as to whether it is a cohesive tale or a collection of reflective columns. It will touch each reader differently and for some it will also be a personal journey.
3326104
Part history, part memoir, part travelogue and part natural science, this book jumbles everything together. Readers learn about wagon styles, mule behavior, historical figures of the Oregon Trail. It's just not an easy book to classify because it covers so much.

Rinker Buck admits that his childhood in New Jersey, with a just as "crazyass" father who taught him how to travel America the slow way, makes him a perfect candidate for a 20-mile-a-day trip from Missouri to Oregon. His brother Nick is more laid-back, though, and together with a Jack Russell Terrier they take the backroads across the country.

This narrative isn't quite as engaging as Least Halfmoon's "Blue Highways," but the concept is the same: travel the backroads, stop to discover things along the way, and describe the experience. Buck at times gets very involved with the history of the Oregon Trail, but he does it with a "crazyass" passion that will delight history buffs.
3551775
No doubt about it, Sea of Lentils is an unusual and in places quite difficult read, but I found it fascinating.  Antonio Benitez tells a number of historical accounts, spanning different times and places, in a disjointed read which nonetheless manages to link together fascinating historical realities.  His account of the final weeks of Philip II of Spain was for me the most interesting although I imagine it depends on his reader knowing a fair bit about Philip's father, the Emperor Charles V and his wife, Queen Mary Tudor of England.  Sufffering is a major theme and there are some horrorific parts which make for shameful reading of the realities of global conquest, war and slavery.
2203189
Sparing on details and overflowing with imagined scenarios, this was more tour-bus spiel than history, but it did offer a glimpse at what one group of townspeople sorted out in choosing sides and how they fared after the battle. The John Clapp mentioned in the book was the nephew of one of my ancestors and I spent several years reviewing the history of towns where relatives lived in Devonshire. As a result, my desire for footnotes and details is greater than most.  If your sole interest is in a broad introduction to a little known slice of English history, this book was unfailingly interesting as a narrative.
3766104
Too much verbiage between events and answers to questions or next detail but a gripping historical account of early America
4830550
HISTORY THROUGH THE EYES OF THOSE WHO LIVED SHARED IT
1146096
A Top Timeline book of  World History. A beautifully designed coffee table book;  and an impressive one it is; and one you can pick up to INDULGE IN--, anytime. However you register with THIS  story of HUMANKIND, it IS rather depressing, especially when one discovers that yes, INDEED, HISTORY DOES repeat itself--READING THE ENTIRE book at one's own pace can be an excitingly informative adventure for sure, but to recall any of it later would be a miracle in itself, because all stories here are just as short as a volume of this SIZE COULD PERMIT....TO CONTAIN any MORE would make it TOO HEAVY to hold! It seems like an endless trek THROUGH FACTS AND NAMES-- AND DATES AND COUNTRIES .  This is MORE THAN A TIMELINE, IT IS A BIG AND BEAUTIFUL BOOK, and a treasure for anybody who has an interest in World History.
2618960
Slow moving, but worth reading especially if you are a history and art fan.
77824
I have mixed feelings about this work. On the one hand, its a very crafty and entertaining, almost sprawling, history of the Persian Empire. Olmstead is carefully to use the (then newly-minted) archaeological findings and compare them with the existing counts of remnant written histories from the ancient world. On the other hand, the size of the work and the fact that it was organized post-mortem have resulted in a history that is rather disorganized and in some places unbalanced. I'd also like to note that this isn't exclusively a Persian history, as I was expecting. There's plenty in this work on contemporary developments in Egypt, Judah and Caria (and, of course, Greece). I would have like to see a more careful consideration of Persian society and culture, politics and daily life. There are also a lot of a lengthy, tedious quotations on things like astronomical measurements, which simply aren't interesting enough to hold the readers attention. It's a mixed bag, mostly because it's such a large bag, and I don't regret reading it.
273153
Amy McGrath's Satan's Kingdom is full of history not only about Australia but also about the period of the late 17th century and early 19th century European history in which there was much change and war from Ireland to Germany.  Unfortunately, some of the drama and majesty of the events is lost due to reference to obscure historical people and events. The book has good focus and flow but sometimes characters are abruptly introduced without adequate lead in and often in fact not having been previously referenced at all.  There are badly written sentences which are  non-grammatical and  confusing.  The latter two defects required a second or third reading and a flipping back of pages to try to find out where this new character came from.  The book gave interesting insights into an area of history-the early settlement of Sydney, Australia-that is not well-known or written about and that makes the book worthwhile.  Plus, the characters are well-drawn and appealing to follow through their lives.  But it is sad to have to wade through the badly written text and confusing references which could have been fixed with good editing.
2781132
I purchased this book on the basis of newspaper reviews and the author's considerable reputation as an historian. I expected a readable history of the main currents in politics, society and the economy in Europe over the century covered. The book does not disappoint. But the author over reaches by also trying to cover the major developments in art, music, literature and the frontiers of science. That treatment is too often superficial and not related to the book's main focus. His treatment often comes off as no more than name dropping. Do we need to know that the French Symbolists and Impressionist paintings may have influenced the music of Debussy and Ravel? To show the spread of science, on pages 497 to 498 Evans rattles off a list of scientists and their achievements, but  without drawing connections to their work or the impact on the further advancement of science. For example, the significance of the work of the Curries, Rontgen and Rutherford (mentioned) and Max Planck (not mentioned) ushered in the exploration of the atom, which would dominate the physical sciences in the 20th century. The book is organized into sections and subsections in which Evans explores various themes. Information and facts can come from all directions to prove a generalization. That can sometimes  be interesting, but also disconcerting. In discussing the changing concept of modern time Evans brings in racing tea clippers, the sinking of the Titanic, the depiction of time and motion in early 20th century paintings, experiments in the French cinema and Einstein's theory of special relativity (pages 393-394). The facts don't always integrate and the generalizations don't entirely convince. The narration is aided by 20 special maps and a lovely midsection of glossy color reproductions of art related to historical events. There is a 10 page guide to further reading. The book is directed at the general reader, so there are no scholarly notes. Even with its shortcomings and excesses, that only take up only a small part of the book,  Evans has written a fascinating, readable narrative history of the European century before it plunged into world war.