Can't find Gibbon's series in stores, so decided to settle for something lighter. Is this any good? I'm reluctant to read a book on history wrote by a woman.
Jow Forums-approved books
Anthony James
Other urls found in this thread:
gnxp.com
gutenberg.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
amazon.ca
amazon.ca
youtube.com
en.wikipedia.org
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stoa.org
anyforums.com
twitter.com
Levi Wood
Mary Beard is completely insufferable on TV (and obviously a massive lefty, like 90% of historians). Can't speak of her writing.
Razib Khan has good reccommendations on history: gnxp.com
I've read the Fall of Rome which was enlightening about the extent to which Roman society collapsed post 5th century, but it's not an overview.
Isaiah Cooper
Have this book, not too far in yet, but first chapter is all about Cicero which I take as a good sign. Julius Caesar by Philip Freeman I liked if you want more Rome.
Henry Martin
Oh, and just use project gutenberg for anything pre-1920ish gutenberg.org
Juan Hernandez
Thanks. But still, would like some physical book on history of Rome. SPQR is a newer one, at least it's in stock.
Wyatt Moore
You can find DaFotRE on YouTube
Nothing else compares, especially when talking about the rise of the early Christian church.
Alexander Davis
Jack Gray
I wanted to buy it but as soon as I started reading a preview I could tell by the tone that it would be Ancient Rome as seen by an leftist
Hard pass
Isaac Adams
Anthony Everitt's "Rise of Rome" is a superior introduction. Beard is a bit judgy, although she makes excellent use of archaeological evidence.
Would highly recommend Erich Gruen's "The Last Generation of the Roman Republic" and Harriet Flower's "Roman Republics." Flower is much more accessible than Gruen.
Finally, I suggest reading Eric Voegelin if you want to truly understand history and philosophy in general, not just in Rome.
t. Classical studies PhD candidate
Thomas Martinez
Is your uni crazy liberal these days? ur dept, professors?
Jace Edwards
dell me huuwat to read pol
ibcant think without fashisto
hivemind input...
Samuel Hill
That book is a feminist piece of trash. Spends half the time complaining women didn't have any power in Rome.
Michael Taylor
Which books on this chart are worth reading for brainlets?
Mason Ward
why wud you reed whn
rachl maddow tellss us the importint stuff
Noah Cooper
I don't know because I haven't read any of them but the idea of slogging through all of them for self improvement makes me shudder. Read more, read what you enjoy, push your own personal boundaries. The average number of books read per year is 12. The median is 4!
Cameron Carter
Yes, I'm at an Ivy League school. Thankfully Classics profs are usually more conservative. If I can't get a tenure track position afterwards, I'll go to the various Protestant homeschool associations. They are conservative and almost more Catholic than I am, believe it or not.
Zachary Powell
Joseph Davis
This.
Evan Morgan
Zachary Reyes
I think this book was written before she went completely fucking insane
Oliver Nguyen
I dont know how people can read e-books, can't beat the smell of a new book
You cant sniff a pixel
Logan Roberts
pretty sure she brings up gender identity in this
Elijah Cruz
I think you just have to make up your own mind about Rome. For example, I really like Hannibal from Cathridge en.wikipedia.org
And how he was defeated by;
>Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus
en.wikipedia.org
Both of them are fantastic characters who's flaws become strengths and then back to flaws depending on the circumstances they were in. Scipio Africanus was an incredible field general who held his integrity high and always behaved with honor.
Anyway, if you look into these two you're in for a good time, and that's before even looking at Julius Caeser and Augustus - both remarkable men who seemed to think they were doing the right thing.
Also the SPQR concept, the legions, public works, etc are still basically as they were back then too in many ways which is really worth paying attention to.
Aaron Robinson
Welp when I’m wrong, I’m wrong
Hudson Ross
>female historian
no thanks
Jacob Richardson
Mary Beard's book starts at the empire and never looks at the republic. Shes also boring as hell.
This was my uni text(early 2000s)
amazon.ca
This is a personal fav(on the republic)
amazon.ca
Any primary text is best though. nothing has changed since they were written and everything written today (and by Gibbon) is based on them.
Levi Williams
Brayden Reyes
She will tell you more about the lives of every day Romans or Roman art than actual Roman history and politics.
Nolan Brooks
Levi James
Has anyone read "sapiens"? Its written by a kike, but its interesting so far.
Chase Brooks
Andrew Roberts
Shit books
Gavin Barnes
This thread again?
Ayden Garcia
Mary beard is a fake historian who was debunked by Nassim Taleb on spreading fake history on whiteness on Roman Empire. To her, Roman Empire was a multietnical, multicultural open societies full of people of any shape and color while no, it was a white empire where people too pale or too dark was only employed as slave. All med countries were 100 percent white because Black Africans were not islamized so they were natural enemy of Phoenicians.
Liam Jones
sapiens is pretty dope but Yuval is a bit of a misanthrope. overly critical of 'us' at times.
but the point of the book is pretty wild. you can pay attention only to 150 people.
choose them wisely.
Jaxson Smith
>To her, Roman Empire was a multietnical
Which is kinda true especially when your empire consists of North Africa, the Medeteranian, Northen Europe the Middle East etc
That be a bit like denying the British Empire wasn't multi ethnical
Brayden Cook
What book-desert do you live in where you can't find Gibbons?
>90% of historians
The loud ones, maybe.
Gavin Parker
Will Durant's history books and Epistle of Peace aka Muslim Dante' Inferno.
Grayson Gutierrez
I read the whole thing soon after it was published.
After reading it, I didn't feel I had learned anything new about the Romans.
Beard is incapable of focusing on the bigger picture. The book is just a load of 'bits' of history that personally interest her, ignoring all the other 'bits' that don't interest her, put together in a quasi-feminist narrative that is neither compelling, nor original, nor even informative
4/10 would not stroke beard again
Hudson Wood
Never ever ever read Mary Beard. She's a radical feminist, most of what she says is bullshit.
Charles Ross
Aiden Rivera
Gabriel Ward
Yes. Ellul is a must read.
Nathaniel Flores
Most based fuckin book i've ever read.
calls bullshit on all the bullshitters in the world.
"the IYI(Intelectual Yet Idiot) have been wrong historically about stalinsim, maoism, GMOs, iraq, libya, syria, labotomies, urban planning, low carb diets, gym machines, behaviourism, trans fats, feudianism, portfolio theopry, linear regeression, high fructose corn syrup, gaussianism, salafism, dynamic stochastic equilibium modeling, housing projects, maraton running, selfish genes, election forecasting,Bernie Madoff an p-values. But he is still convinced he is right."
Ryan Parker
>Mary Beard
I do not recommend her work.
Learning ancient history is much easier if you start with having someone telling it to you, rather than reading it. It simply makes more sense and is easier to remember that way. If you know anyone who knows alot about Ancient Greece and Rome, ask them to tell you everything they know. Also watch alot of youtube lectures. Once you have a solid foundation of the general concepts and have some legitimate questions of your own, then you should read the original sources, such as Livy, Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius, etc. There are very few surviving sources from the ancient world, so it is easy to read them all. Gibbons is OK, but he simply uses the same sources I just mentioned, so you're better off reading the original sources. Once you read the original sources, you will be able to form your own opinions, and it will probably be surprising to you how many different interpretations there are of ancient events even though everyone is reading from the same sources.
t. Bachelors in Classics
Nathaniel Thompson
No cuck.
Roman Empire wasn't multietnical because there wasn't the technology to move ethnonasses around the empire. Presence of gauls, blacks or Arabs at Rome was not existent. The only real admixture was between italic people and Greeks but Greeks were already in Italy from centuries and they thought to be related culture by Troyan mithology.
Then there were a Roman garrison presence in Britannia, Lusitania and Dacia but only because those were a remote frontier to defend. But it was more like British Empire India, a dominion not a multietnical region.
Roman presence in Middle East was almost not existent. They did military campaigns there but that's all. Those regions were tributaries. Romans went into Jerusalem a bit of time to force taxation but that's all. You don't say Iraq is multiethnical because America invaded it, right cuck?
Matthew Reyes
Does he have anything worth reading? I see him mentioned but never any books or anything.
Nicholas Edwards
I meant Plutarch, not Pliny.
Michael Collins
>Mary Beard
Bad choice. Read the story of Taleb owning her on Twitter for being retarded and pushing SJW bullshit on historical television programs for the BBC.
If you want a good history book written by a woman, read Hideyoshi by Elizabeth Berry. Single best book on Hideyoshi in English, and I know because I've read all three.
Zachary James
Thanks friend
Jose Richardson
This book makes me so angry that I want to hatefuck mary beard
Isaac Anderson
>I'm reluctant to read a book on history wrote by a woman.
this was good and written by a woman. Stay away from Beard, I've heard bad things. Also, I was serendipitously listening to this alt-right podcast last night that talks about the same ancient history and peoples.
youtube.com
Matthew Thompson
>There are very few surviving sources from the ancient world
Not true, but most of them are very boring and technical primary sources, typically business and tax records, or other government documents. But there's tons of them and you typically need access to university or national archives (through a university) to get access. Almost none of it is digitized and it's typically very poorly sorted, and almost never summarized usefully.
t. History grad student
Owen Reed
Caesar Augustus banned interracial marriage specifically because the Romans were about to lose their majority due to immigration and intermarriage. He also outlawed adultery.
The Romans had a large presence in Asia minor and the Levant. There are lots of Roman ruins throughout this region. The Romans spread out throughout their empire and they were not heavily concentrated in the city of Rome. The high population of the city of Rome was mostly foreigners.
Robert Ross
For My Legionaries I heard is good, bought it
Brandon Gonzalez
My suggestion for everyone on this board.
Jeremiah Bailey
Anyone who isn't a history grad student and is interested in those kinds of sources should read Gibbons or other modern historians who include that kind of data in their work.
Evan Gomez
Has anyone here read this?
Jordan Hernandez
British historians are troublesome with Roman history because sometimes are blinded from their own odd kind of national history.
The best way to make a distinction is to understand differences between a Military Empire like the Roman one was and a Merchant Empire / Colonial Empire like the British one.
The difference isn't in the level of violence or the numbers of battles. Both are violent and willing to fight. The difference is about how the empire can resist time. What kind of good it provides to his dominions?
Military Empires provide peace and protection from external threats. Tributaries pay taxes to be protected by the garrison.
Merchant Empires provides commerce and therefore an higher quality of life. Tributaries pay taxes to extend and protect commerce and production. At the same time, they are politically frail because commerce is highly volatile while external menaces are not.
I.e. if you commerce wool your business can be shut down from new internal competitors dealing cottons, while if your menace is an horde of barbarians they are going to be quite persistent on history.
While is most common that a Colonial Empire is multiethnical, as traders are usually well accepted and larger markets means larger profits, Military Empire are not. Egytpians (which were greeks at some point) stayed under Rome MOSTLY because romans protected Egypt from blacks. Celtic peoples at some points allied with Romans because legions protected southern cities from germanic hordes (like Scots in Britannia). This can't be labeled as multietnical society because it's founded on preventing ethnomixtures.
Only the Mediterranean regions were multiethnical, mostly Greeks + Italic + Levantines but this startened 800 years before Christ and only because it was easier to travel in a closed sea than in whole Europe.
Austin Baker
fuck off retard
Eli Thomas
I have not heard her recommended by any historian who wasn't an undergraduate nu-feminist or a a social-climbing academic who wants to earn good-boy points.
She may be a perfectly passable academic, but there are better texts for sure.
This seems to be a problem. A lot of the Roman history debates right now need to have a point, not just to wander around giving interesting anecdotes that are ultimately irrelevant outside of a context.
>it was multiethnic
Only in the sense that there were many different ethnicities in the empire. Among certain classes and jobs there was a need to move people around and there is a great deal of evidence that latin was commonly used enough to have regional variations, but it is unlikely that it would have completely replaced local languages. The economic system encouraged the vast majority of people to stay where they lived, not to move around like some people seem to suggest. Many did need to as part of the military, political, and economic apparatus of the Republic and Empire, but by and large resettlement programs were ambitious and populist projects, not a fluid and organic process. They also would never happen in significant numbers.
Ryder Sullivan
This is the best guide I've seen so far. Mike Duncan's series is a very good and easy way to get a basic understanding of the whole timeline of Roman history.
Europa Barbarorum is a pretty great mod also.
Jackson Rogers
>The loud ones, maybe.
They're not anthropologists, but basically everything outside of STEM is 95% Democrat.
Xavier Thompson
>Celtic peoples at some points allied with Romans because legions protected southern cities from germanic hordes (like Scots in Britannia). This can't be labeled as multietnical society because it's founded on preventing ethnomixtures.
This kills the Mexi- I mean Barbarians
Carson Adams
No matter what the guide says all that isn't Rome is still barbarian filth desu.
Dominic White
>benjamin
>issac
What could go wrong?
Adrian Robinson
> What book-desert do you live in where you can't find Gibbons?
Russia, duh. There were some local prints (in 7 volumes) but all are sold out in stores.
Caleb Wood
This. Women are dumb cunts. As a general guideline discard everything ever written by a woman.
Brandon Turner
does anyone recommend any books on the byzantine empire?