Thank you.
DU has been an area of interest for my inquiries for a while now.
Non-fiction for me has largely been history and biographies. A great comfort it has been, to seek a greater understanding of the past while the present/future has been so parlous.
Just a quick shout-out, "A World Lit only by Fire" by William Manchester. Purports to be a history of the circumnavigation of the Earth by Magellan. Instead it begins by presenting the world that he was a product of. Imagine...
In 205 pages, the author lays out in extremely accessible prose, what it meant for a Europe to endure "The Dark Ages" tm. and to undergo the upheavals of the Renaissance (co-current with ) a Reformation, leading to a Reaffirmation ( can we say Inquisition?) of Church Doctrine in the only places that were truly loyal to the Spanish Empire. And why that those places needed to by created by Ferdinand Magellen despite whatever reality was tossed his way. Or, vice-verse. All leading to the emergence of a European Modernity as a way of thought. Powerful, enlightening, and guiltily entertaining. Euro-centric? Perhaps. It is however, broad enough to give an inkling of what the rise of and crash of colonial empires would cost humanity. And, just good fun!
Brilliant and accessible writing by a gifted historian near his Prime. See "The Arms of Krupp" and "An American Caesar; Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, and for span try "The Last Lion, Winston Churchill". He also did a good one of Dwight Eisenhower. I believe that the author was unfailingly FAIR with his subjects.
Pure gold is "The Glory and the Dream; A Narrative Political History of the United States 1932-1972 (two volumes) . This happens to correspond to the "age of awareness" of my father growing up, especially Volume I. Vietnam was my Dad's third war. Very useful in understanding who we came from to be what we are today, or at least what we should be. Vol. II introduced me to the use by American media, pundit-ocracy, and certain brands of reactionary political types of the conjoined noun "Democrat Party" beginning in the 1950s. This lived on until by the mid '60s by which time any expression of racial intolerance would lead legislatures and governors to loudly condemn that the even the Students weren't stupid enough to bring back these odious planks, but
There is so much good reading out there, and so little time to get it done. Oh.
Choose well, get happy.
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