History In Books -- Fiction and Non 2

[Zorral]

From what I have gathered over the years of non-scholarly reading in this matter, is the Temple and much, at least, of Jerusalem was destroyed is because the fire eaters rebelled against Rome -- and this wasn't the majority of the population of Syria Palaestina -- not all of whom by any means were even Jewish -- but Jewish extremists. Which is how Rome responded to any province in the Empire that hosted revolts.

Rather later too, the new religion of Christ, harbored some fire eaters, and they too refused certain demands of practice of Rome.  Many of these followers of this new religion were slaves.  Not only did Rome see Jews and Christians as separate groups, but any slaves who revolted were to be exterminated as a matter of course, which had been effect for centuries.

It seemed odd to me that Holland never mentioned this in his book, in which he (tries to?) makes a case that within at least the center of the Empire, within Roma herself, the Jewish populations of merchants and traders, were not viewed any differently than the diverse populations there from the many parts of the Empire, who all were there for the same reasons: to buy, to sell, to make and strengthen contacts within the financial, political and other useful segments of the rulers of the world.  It was the protest, uprisings, revolts and refusals of Roman religious customs (particularly when the Christians were making so many converts) that changed that.

I am not going to the mat on this, as I'm not a scholar of these matters! 

[Zorral]

Aitkinson, James. (2012) The Splintered Kingdom #2 of The Conquest series, set in 1070.

The protagonist, Tancred a Dinant is a Breton, who gratefully left the monastery at age 14, when showing he’s, of course! an extraordinary fighter because the protagonists of these sorts of fictions always are, because the fights and battles are the raison d'être for these sorts of books, and have been since at least Sir Conan Doyle's The White Company, who engaged in campaigns around the Med and Europe before enlisting with the Bastard for the Conquest. The Saxons are the baddies, so are the Welsh, and Harold is never called anything but the Usurper. The Sworn Sword (2013) is the first in the series; to my mind, it was a better read this second one. I will attempt the third though, Knights of the Hawk (2013), despite neither Tancred nor the invaders capturing my sympathies, because, perhaps, my first reading of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, formed my viewpoint. 

Also because I don't like invaders -- yet, of course so were the Saxons invaders bent on conquest when they came, just like the Norse, who are also baddies in this series. Ha!  

Harffy, Matthew (2022) Forest of Foes: Bernicia Chronicles #9. NYPL audio download.
Self-published, essentially, digital. Badly plotted – because why didn’t Our Strongest Hero Warrior from Alba, Lord Beobrand, go to Queen Balthild, or at least the convent where they left her, in the first place? If he had so many of his Black Shield Warriors would have lived.

~~~~~~~~~~

Set in 7th C (652) King Clovis II’s (639—657) kingdom Neustria and Burgundy. Haven’t read any of the previous in the series.

Amateur structure, because author believes ‘always keep them wanting to know the next thing’ is the way to go, except, the next thing is so obvious – as obvious as the oafish thick-headedness of Lord Beobrand, for hanging out in Paris and Leon instead of continuing on their mission to take a Saxon Queen’s favorite monk to Rome, not seeing the duplicity being practiced on him, and it never entering his head to go to the convent, founded by the Queen, and where they’d left her, once they figure out the duplicity and plot against the Queen, and, why yes, the King and their new born son -- and themselves!  We the reader see it all immediately.  Also quite thin in the actual plotting and narrative, much of which is repetitious narration of what has been said about all them many times already. Also so many tropes lifted from Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles, though in the attempts of this sort of fiction, Harffy’s far from the only one -- see Aitkinson above. This guy’s not ready for prime time, so not sure how he got on NYPL Overdrive.  But he is relentless in promotion, which does tend to pay off ever more as the legacy publishers do less and less and less of it, like doing less and less and less of everything else.

[Zorral]

Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction (2023), but the solid historian and talented writer, Fergus M. Bordewich. He's an independent scholar, not affiliated with an academic faculty.  This is increasingly the fate of those who wish to practice history, which is rapidly turning the profession back to what used to be, one that can only be practiced by independently well off, i.e. the ruling class.

[Zorral]

Spencer, Charles (2021) The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream.

Yes, the author is Diana’s brother.  But why o why did the PR insist it was a real life GOT?  It's a more pacey read, and covers more years.  It could have used better proof reading though.

I haven't gotten a picture of the young Henry I before he was enthroned, so just for that it's worth it. Becoming king of England wasn't a shoe in by any means, as he wasn't the oldest son in line, and his brothers and their cohorts treated him quite poorly. Spencer also give Geoffrey of Anjou a whole lot more credit than so many have, a Geoffrey that goes far beyond "Empress Matilda (who btw, as is famously known, was never crowned empress) didn't want to marry him and he was mean to her, but her dad made her do it." I enjoyed reading this one very much.  Some information new to me, particularly as mentioned, about the early years of Henry I (we all know he sired at least 22 bastards, so that's not new).

https://historymedieval.com/the-white-ship-conquest-anarchy-and-the-wrecking-of-henry-is-dream/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, The Wise King: A Christian Prince, Muslim Spain, and the Birth of the Renaissance (2016)by Simon R. Doubleday.  It's interesting so far, though the editors insisted way too hard for crediting him for Renaissance way, despite the disclaimers it's not the Italian Renaissance meant, way too hard.  I mean, for pete's sake, this is the 13th century!

~~~~~~~~~~

When it comes to historical fiction, I am checking out Harry Sidebottom's Warrior of Rome series, set in the third C A.D., beginning with the final volume, Wolves of the North (2012).  All backwards!  But this one's Scythians!
 

Edited November 27, 2023 by Zorral

[SeanF]

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

Spencer, Charles (2021) The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream.

Yes, the author is Diana’s brother.  But why o why did the PR insist it was a real life GOT?  It's a more pacey read, and covers more years.  It could have used better proof reading though.

I haven't gotten a picture of the young Henry I before he was enthroned, so just for that it's worth it. Becoming king of England wasn't a shoe in by any means, as he wasn't the oldest son in line, and his brothers and their cohorts treated him quite poorly. Spencer also give Geoffrey of Anjou a whole lot more credit than so many have, a Geoffrey that goes far beyond "Empress Matilda (who btw, as is famously known, was never crowned empress) didn't want to marry him and he was mean to her, but her dad made her do it." I enjoyed reading this one very much.  Some information new to me, particularly as mentioned, about the early years of Henry I (we all know he sired at least 22 bastards, so that's not new).

https://historymedieval.com/the-white-ship-conquest-anarchy-and-the-wrecking-of-henry-is-dream/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, The Wise King: A Christian Prince, Muslim Spain, and the Birth of the Renaissance (2016)by Simon R. Doubleday.  It's interesting so far, though the editors insisted way too hard for crediting him for Renaissance way, despite the disclaimers it's not the Italian Renaissance meant, way too hard.  I mean, for pete's sake, this is the 13th century!

~~~~~~~~~~

When it comes to historical fiction, I am checking out Harry Sidebottom's Warrior of Rome series, set in the third C A.D., beginning with the final volume, Wolves of the North (2012).  All backwards!  But this one's Scythians!
 

I think Harry Sidebottom is very good, especially his Throne of the Caesars series.

[Zorral]

I wasn't impressed with Harry Sidebottom's Wolves of the North (2012): final volume in his Warrior of Rome series, set in second half of the third century AD, during the joint reigns of Valerian (253-260) and his son Gallienus (253-268).  If I had read any of the previous books in the series, would I have had a different reaction?

His pov switches were clumsy without advancing exposition or plot. The worst were the switches to the  narration from an anonymous serial killing psychopath, who is a member of protagonist Ballista's company of soldiers, old friends, eunuch administrators, diplomats, slaves, etc., collectively referred to as his familia. This sideline subplot in which the killer picks off one-by-one these people was pointless.  All it did was contribute to the endless pile-up of the dead -- but why? In any case, Sidebottom was unable to make either the mission or any of the characters interesting.

I don't know enough of the culture of trying to perform a diplomatic mission for an emperor in the distant hinterlands filled with mutually antagonistic, rivalrous figures to say certainly, but it struck me a bit oddly how so many of this entourage were carrying along 'books' and reading histories and romances. Also it did strike me that Ballista wasn't particularly smart.  I mean, I saw everything coming long before he and others of members did, who so often are caught back-footed.

There were the endless siege-battles with many casualties from Alans, yet there are still always enough of Ballista's people to hold out and defend / attack again.  I wanted more of the Scythian culture, etc., which I'm not getting. These Herluni supposedly are of Germanic, Goth or Nordic heritage, like Ballista is, like the Alans are, yet have the same horse skills evidently as those Asian Steppe Scythian nomads of yore, written about by Herodotus hundreds of years previously.  Or -- are they the progenitors of the groups that burst into European territory, collectively known as the Huns? If they are, then ya, they would likely have the horse and archery skills of nomadic steppe people.   It's confusing and never made clear. Then he has a teenage slave from Ballista's group learn all these skills in about a week -- which people who study these matters, have always stressed cannot be done. You have to grow up doing this since about age 3. Sidebottom is an historian, who should have been able to do this for us.   But then serial killer picks him off and so what do we care? 

Coincidentally, after publishing many novels set among the classical Roman era, Sidebottom's just published a study, The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome (2023), which has received mixed reviews. The LRB’s review damned with faint praise. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n23/michael-kulikowski/monumental-folly : 

Quote

.... Elsewhere in the book, the balance of historian and novelist is less happy. Throughout, Sidebottom gives us two or three paragraphs of fiction straight from the Historia Augusta before telling us that none of it happened. The impulse is understandable, since the fiction is a lot more fun than Dio and Herodian, but readers are more likely to remember the fiction than the facts. The emperor began life as Varius Avitus Bassianus and reigned as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Dio and Herodian call him Antoninus, Pseudo-Antoninus, or one of several derogatory and scatological nicknames. Modern scholarship generally favours Elagabalus, after his god. The name Heliogabalus, which melds the Syrian Elagabal with the Greek sun god Helios, is yet another invention of the Historia Augusta which the emperor’s contemporaries would not have recognised. To choose Heliogabalus, as Sidebottom does, may be defensible as a reflection of early modern and modernist practice, but its aesthetic function is to distance the author from other scholars, something he is very keen to do. Sidebottom the novelist tells us time and again that the average historian would be doing things this or that way, whereas he will just cut to the chase. All the while, of course, Sidebottom the historian understands source criticism perfectly well and deploys the historian’s tools of inference and analogy to draw the invisible lines that connect glimpses from a vanished past. The disavowal of his own methodology is for the most part tiresome but harmless – Fergus Millar’s peerless Emperor in the Roman World will survive being set up as a strawman – but it can veer towards bad taste. One can be legitimately sceptical of Tony Honoré’s lifelong effort to distinguish linguistically among the sequence of imperial jurists; to introduce that project, its author unnamed, for the sole purpose of a dismissive quip, is schoolboy jeering. You can’t have this both ways. Either engage with the scholarship as a scholar would or inhabit the amateur pose with some conviction. Because it is a pose. Sidebottom has an expert’s command of the rebarbative source base for third-century Rome, and this is not amateur history. A whole scholarly architecture lies beneath and underpins his thoroughly convincing portrait of a failed emperor. His conclusions must be taken seriously by serious historians, but they might find themselves preferring his novels. 

And now, at the end of the year, doesn't Sidebottom lament, "Wouldn't you just know it!"

Mary Beard's Emperor of Rome is published now in the US, which employs the accounts of the short reign of the emperor Heliogabalus as a through line to explore what it meant to be the emperor of Rome, for the man, the elite, the local non-elite, and the people who lived in the empire's geographical vastness and culturally diverse, who were ruled, so to speak from a place most would never see, or even think about.  Again, as Beard did in her Twelve Caesars: Images of Power From the Ancient World (2021), she she supports her theses with matter(s) from the time, from histories, literature and jokes, to the  the material depictions of the emperor and being 'emperor' rather than a particular person, which were found in their thousands across the empire from coins to statues to proclamations.

As per usual, at least as far as I am by now in Emperor of Rome, she makes everything clear.  Note, btw, in keeping with her theme of the Roman emperor as emperor as opposed to a particular person in the minds of most, the title is Emperor of Rome, not Emperors of Rome.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Zorral

[Zorral]

I have too many Really Good Books going at once.   And they are all Big Books.

The latest to arrive is Nicola Griffith's Menewood, the continuation of the life and adventures of Saint Hilda, the abbess-founder of Whitby, whose early life Griffith described in Hild.  It's huge! 681 pp. with an Author's Note of additional  pp. in tiny print to describe and clarify her source materials, locations, pronunciation, etc., a glossary of names, which includes all the horses and ponies, as well as front matter of several maps and genealogy trees.  It's horrible.  From the reading of the first sentence I just don't want to put this down.  Hild (2013) was at the top of the novels I read in the last ten years or so, as The Best.  This one, so far, equals that.  This is the perfect winter read, but I don't want to wait that long!

 

[Wall Flower]

54 minutes ago, Zorral said:

I have too many Really Good Books going at once.   And they are all Big Books.

The latest to arrive is Nicola Griffith's Menewood, the continuation of the life and adventures of Saint Hilda, the abbess-founder of Whitby, whose early life Griffith described in Hild.  It's huge! 681 pp. with an Author's Note of additional  pp. in tiny print to describe and clarify her source materials, locations, pronunciation, etc., a glossary of names, which includes all the horses and ponies, as well as front matter of several maps and genealogy trees.  It's horrible.  From the reading of the first sentence I just don't want to put this down.  Hild (2013) was at the top of the novels I read in the last ten years or so, as The Best.  This one, so far, equals that.  This is the perfect winter read, but I don't want to wait that long!

 

I finally read Hild last month after having it on my shelves for quite a few years. I'd been put off by the length but decided to just go for it and absolutely loved it - to the point of obsession towards the end of the story. I might need a little break before tackling the sequel. Also, I'm a little afraid to find out what happens to characters and places I've become so invested in, even if I know the bare bones of Hild's own story.

[Zorral]

These two Griffith novels are just so ... solidly located in a real time and place even though it was so long ago, the reader feels immediately at home.   There isn't so much fiction like that.  Historical novels in particular, one so often feels without any effort one can punch through the past being presented to us, right back in this time and place.  But with these, it feels impossible to even come back here.

1 hour ago, Wall Flower said:

I know the bare bones of Hild's own story.

 

[SeanF]

On 12/9/2023 at 6:50 PM, Zorral said:

I wasn't impressed with Harry Sidebottom's Wolves of the North (2012): final volume in his Warrior of Rome series, set in second half of the third century AD, during the joint reigns of Valerian (253-260) and his son Gallienus (253-268).  If I had read any of the previous books in the series, would I have had a different reaction?

His pov switches were clumsy without advancing exposition or plot. The worst were the switches to the  narration from an anonymous serial killing psychopath, who is a member of protagonist Ballista's company of soldiers, old friends, eunuch administrators, diplomats, slaves, etc., collectively referred to as his familia. This sideline subplot in which the killer picks off one-by-one these people was pointless.  All it did was contribute to the endless pile-up of the dead -- but why? In any case, Sidebottom was unable to make either the mission or any of the characters interesting.

I don't know enough of the culture of trying to perform a diplomatic mission for an emperor in the distant hinterlands filled with mutually antagonistic, rivalrous figures to say certainly, but it struck me a bit oddly how so many of this entourage were carrying along 'books' and reading histories and romances. Also it did strike me that Ballista wasn't particularly smart.  I mean, I saw everything coming long before he and others of members did, who so often are caught back-footed.

There were the endless siege-battles with many casualties from Alans, yet there are still always enough of Ballista's people to hold out and defend / attack again.  I wanted more of the Scythian culture, etc., which I'm not getting. These Herluni supposedly are of Germanic, Goth or Nordic heritage, like Ballista is, like the Alans are, yet have the same horse skills evidently as those Asian Steppe Scythian nomads of yore, written about by Herodotus hundreds of years previously.  Or -- are they the progenitors of the groups that burst into European territory, collectively known as the Huns? If they are, then ya, they would likely have the horse and archery skills of nomadic steppe people.   It's confusing and never made clear. Then he has a teenage slave from Ballista's group learn all these skills in about a week -- which people who study these matters, have always stressed cannot be done. You have to grow up doing this since about age 3. Sidebottom is an historian, who should have been able to do this for us.   But then serial killer picks him off and so what do we care? 

Coincidentally, after publishing many novels set among the classical Roman era, Sidebottom's just published a study, The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome (2023), which has received mixed reviews. The LRB’s review damned with faint praise. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n23/michael-kulikowski/monumental-folly : 

And now, at the end of the year, doesn't Sidebottom lament, "Wouldn't you just know it!"

Mary Beard's Emperor of Rome is published now in the US, which employs the accounts of the short reign of the emperor Heliogabalus as a through line to explore what it meant to be the emperor of Rome, for the man, the elite, the local non-elite, and the people who lived in the empire's geographical vastness and culturally diverse, who were ruled, so to speak from a place most would never see, or even think about.  Again, as Beard did in her Twelve Caesars: Images of Power From the Ancient World (2021), she she supports her theses with matter(s) from the time, from histories, literature and jokes, to the  the material depictions of the emperor and being 'emperor' rather than a particular person, which were found in their thousands across the empire from coins to statues to proclamations.

As per usual, at least as far as I am by now in Emperor of Rome, she makes everything clear.  Note, btw, in keeping with her theme of the Roman emperor as emperor as opposed to a particular person in the minds of most, the title is Emperor of Rome, not Emperors of Rome.

Sorry you didn’t like it.  I found the series pretty solid, other than The Burning Road, a not very interesting tale of a slave revolt in Sicily.  The best two were The Caspian Gates, and The Last Hour, which was an outstanding thriller, IMHO.

Thrones of the Caesars is the better series, IMHO.

Edited December 22, 2023 by SeanF

[Jaxom 1974]

I realize there is likely strong thoughts from more learned folks on here but there is something, for some odd reason, soothing listening to the unabridged version of Doris Goodwin's Team of Rivals. It's certainly better than the recent Meachum Lincoln biography.  And it does what I need it to do: inform, yet make me seek additional confirmation from additional sources...

It's oddly something that's easy to listen to multiple times....

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I’m pushing through In The Spirit of Crazy Horse it’s dated but reading about the treatment of First Peoples always makes me angry.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

the recent Meachum Lincoln biography

He keeps churning them out, which by now really feel slovenly, written by the numbers and lack original aspects of insight or interpretation.  But that's a personal opinion. Ha!

Kearns's book is a great narrative, and an terrific listen in audio format too.  But not entirely, ah, shall we say accurate as to the whys and wherefores, about which people did complain a fair amount, but it was such a commercial success they gave up.  Ha!

Edited December 22, 2023 by Zorral

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

Sorry you didn’t like it.

Well, we win some and lose some.  Ha!

But lordessa am I admiring and enjoying Griffith's Menewood.  I go to bed earlier and earlier so I can get back to it and disappear out of this world and into Hild's company and her life. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Well, we win some and lose some.  Ha!

But lordessa am I admiring and enjoying Griffith's Menewood.  I go to bed earlier and earlier so I can get back to it and disappear out of this world and into Hild's company and her life. 

I’m reading H. W. Brands’ History of the American West its pretty generic…

Edited December 22, 2023 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Jaxom 1974]

36 minutes ago, Zorral said:

He keeps churning them out, which by now really feel slovenly, written by the numbers and lack original aspects of insight or interpretation.  But that's a personal opinion. Ha!

Kearns's book is a great narrative, and an terrific listen in audio format too.  But not entirely, ah, shall we say accurate as to the whys and wherefores, about which people did complain a fair amount, but it was such a commercial success they gave up.  Ha!

I don't dislike her conclusions, but I'm also of a mind that one, "trusts but verifies" when it comes to history and biographies. The book is also approaching 20 years old now, so it stands to reason there'd be nore and/or varied assertions/assumptions/conclusions by now. Thus, I keep reading...

[Zorral]

17 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

H. W. Brands’

Yeah -- he's never aspired to or claimed anything else.  You gotta hand it to him!  And, you know, when it comes to all these subjects, school kids, students, any non-professional who hasn't been studying for a long time -- everyone has to start somewhere, and his books are a good place, right?

[Zorral]

1 minute ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

I keep reading...

And it isn't as though one isn't learning things, particularly if one hasn't been spending some years in the weeds of Lincoln's complicated and fraught years of the Presidency.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Yeah -- he's never aspired to or claimed anything else.  You gotta hand it to him!  And, you know, when it comes to all these subjects, school kids, students, any non-professional who hasn't been studying for a long time -- everyone has to start somewhere, and his books are a good place, right?

He did an in depth history of Texas that I rather enjoyed.  And you’re right… this is a good starter book.  He’s going over stuff I’m already quite familiar with… I should have know better than to pick up what is essentially a “survey” book.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Larry of the Lawn]

Hey all.  Looking for some recommendations on Arctic and Antarctic exploration?  There are so many books out there and I'm looking to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Primary sources welcome.  Maybe not the best place to put this but seems like it might work?  

Eta: got Nansen's account of crossing Greenland and a book on Shackleton by Caroline Alexander requested at the library for next week.  

Edited January 7 by Larry of the Lawn