Books and Links page
Updated 19.12.2004
In order to understand the present, we must know the past. And I am particularly interested in details. I include both books and links I have found interesting.
First: The hardcopies - er - the books, I mean...Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel. Speculation why Eurasia has got historically a better deal in, for example, terms of technological development than the rest of the world.
Mary Beard and John North (ed): Pagan Priests. A collection of essays about the pre-Christian priesthood and how they were different from the Christian clergy
Anything by Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper
Oliver Dickinson: Aegean Bronze Age. Rather scholarly but still very good book about the archeology on Crete.
Anything by Swedish historian Peter Englund (though it seems that there is no English translations. There definitely should be)
Jonathan Glower: Humanity - although the book more or less describes those events that are usually categorized as being inhuman - the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, Stalin's Purges, My Lai massacre...
Guido Majno: The Healing Hand. Book about wound-treating methods of the ancient times and how bleeding became so popular. Author also diverges into hieroglyphics and stuff...
Else Roesdahl: The Vikings. General book about the Norsemen written by a Danish historian.
Hiroaki Sato: Legends of the Samurai. Chronicles of history and exploits of the japanese warriors, including contemporary comments about the famous incident of the 47 Samurai.
Gary Hyland & Anton Gill : Last Talons of the Eagle. Book about the various German WW2 aircraft projects (Me 163 Comet and others), some of which were rather fanciful and sometimes outright dangerous to a pilot.
Things do not go smoothly all the time.
Saul David: Military Blunders. Military histories do tend to tell about successes (unless they can describe glorious failures). Essays of how Custer had it coming, king Edward II's overconfidence and so on.
Geoffrey Regan: Military Plunders -series. These books describe, for example, incidents of friendly fire, mismanagement of Irish potato famine and unhealthy fashions. Maybe a bit more "popular" than Saul David but interesting nonetheless.
Books include: Air Force Blunders, Military Blunders, More Military Blunders, Naval Blunders, Historical Blunders and Royal Blunders.Note that these books do tell about some of the same incidents from various points of view...
The Websites:
Here's for starters...Ancient Greek World: Everything about the ancient Greece from gods and economy to daily life (maybe the most interesting from the roleplayer's point of view).
Lacus Curtius Homepage: Anything about ancient Rome from the Republic to Empire to Christians (and their contemporary rivals, Mithras).
Regia Anglorum: Extensive site about dark ages of celtic history. Includes experimental archeology about the contemporary crafts. Did you ever want to know how a cut a quill pen properly?
ANTIQUA MEDICINA: Ancient equivalent to medicine.
Castles on the Web: Not a historical site as such but an information source of existing castles in general.
The Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies: Yet another extensive source for Middle Ages. (You could also check Society for Creative Anarchonism...)
Medieval technology : A RPG player's collection of facts about medieval and renaissance techniques.
For more scientific version, try this.Viking Network: Now, Finns were not actually Vikings but part of the so-called Nordic sphere anyway. Familiarize yourself with the Norse subject through this Norwegian site.
Samurai Archives: Extensive site about medieval Japanese warriors.
Heritage of Great War: Site about the World War One (although it was primarily European affair). Not for too squemish, because it includes some rather realistic pictures.
It would be useless to point just some of the dozens of World War Two-related sites. Try the World War II links.
And here's a Timeline for Finland's fighting during the World War II - after the first Soviet attack and afterwards.
World War Two involved many people all over the world. Here's a list of some people known in other fields of life who were involved with the war.
Britain's Small Wars: What wars UK has been involved with after the World War Two.
This is Baader-Meinhoff: Detailed site about the German left-wing terrorist group, also known as Red Army Faction.
Historical Atlas of the 20th Century: Things did change all over the world in a single century - the one most of us lived in.
Some general history sites:
Do you really think there ever was such thing as an enlightened despot? Well, Joan's Royalty in History-site presents both few good, indifferent and the bad.
Who lived when and were contemporaries? Try WhoWhatWhen - Interactive Historical Timelines. Heavily Javaed...
Note: There are many of history-related sites but many of them are dedicated to somebody's version of history. The extreme examples are hate and ethnocentric pages. Therefore it is difficult to find really good ones.
An afternote:
History as we know it could have followed other paths in different circumstances (or even in the same circumstances since the fates could have deciced otherwise in various cases). Various people (including such luminaries as late Winston Churchill) have tried to imagine what could have happened.
Interested? Well, visit Uchronia, the Alternate History list for samples of more possibilities.