Just a few short weeks after the end of World War I on the Western Front, Poland and Soviet Russia started fighting again, skirmishing on their poorly defined border that built into full-scale invasions over the next year. Davies’ book White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919-1920 tells this complex story clearly and incisively. …
Category: History
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/05/12/white-eagle-red-star-by-norman-davies/
Apr 20 2009
The Celts by Jean Markale
The author deserves credit for taking on such a difficult and ambitious project…yet it must be said that this book is full of unwarranted assertions and loose interpretations. Most of what we know about the Celts comes either from what their enemies wrote about them or from Celtic mythology, neither of which are very reliable …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/04/20/the-celts-by-jean-markale/
Apr 12 2009
A History of Ethiopia by Harold Marcus
African history usually depresses me, but the history of Ethiopia is encouraging and inspiring. A lot of people in the West don’t know this, but Ethiopia is a mostly Christian country and has been for most of its history. It is, in fact, one of the oldest continuously Christian countries in the world. Furthermore, even …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/04/12/a-history-of-ethiopia-by-harold-marcus/
Mar 20 2009
Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection by John Man
The Mongol conquests are certainly impressive, but the Mongols contributed nothing to civilization and in fact destroyed civilization wherever they found it. The author reveals that Europe was spared a Mongol invasion only because the Mongols saw nothing to gain from such a venture, but they did overrun Hungary and Poland to give Europeans a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/03/20/genghis-khan-life-death-and-resurrection-by-john-man/
Mar 01 2009
Sentence of the Day
For a small break from Brussels and the economic crisis: Nothing fades so quickly or so tackily as a Soviet resort. One of the lighter observations (on p. 139) from The Spirit-Wrestlers by Philip Marsden, a journey across southern Russia and the Caucasus in search of various religious non-conformists who fell afoul of both Russian …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/03/01/sentence-of-the-day/
Feb 16 2009
Sentence of the Day
Describing some events in the last months of 1989: Meanwhile, an unknown KGB agent in Dresden, Vladimir Putin, had tried to pile so many documents into a burning stove that the thing exploded In Europe, by Geert Mak, p.718 I’m nearing the end of the book, and it’s living up to my initial impression. More, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/02/16/sentence-of-the-day-2/
Feb 03 2009
The Korean War 1950-1953 by Carter Malkasian
This was a more or less conventional history of the Korean War, focusing on Cold War strategies and policies. It notes that the Korean Was the first and only war in which the major powers…the Soviet Union, China, the United States, and its allies…actually engaged in direct armed conflict with each other. MacArthur is given …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/02/03/the-korean-war-1950-1953-by-carter-malkasian/
Jan 11 2009
The Middle Ages by Morris Bishop
This was a marvellous book, a concise introduction to a vast subject. There are many fascinating aspects to this period, all of which receive their due in this work. Yet I have to say that overall the Middle Ages were a low point in the history of Western Civilization, and I think the tendency to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/01/11/the-middle-ages-by-morris-bishop/
Dec 15 2008
Premature Evaluation: Sundown Towns
An important story, very badly told. Before and, more crucially, immediately after the American Civil War, African-Americans were widely dispersed throughout the country. By the 1940s, however, blacks living outside the South were concentrated in particular areas of the largest cities. In Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism James Loewen asks how that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2008/12/15/premature-evaluation-sundown-towns/
Dec 15 2008
City on Fire
On April 16, 1947, the SS Grandcamp exploded in the harbor of Texas City, Texas. The ship was carrying ammonium nitrate as part of Marshall Plan relief for post-war Europe. Ammonium nitrate is both an effective fertilizer and a potent explosive, and the Grandcamp was carrying more than 2300 tons of the substance when a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2008/12/15/city-on-fire/
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