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What's your favorite non fiction history book
Rabid: A Cultural History covering the history of rabies was a great read
Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom. History of the Taiping rebellion. Found it very captivating.
From the Ashes of Empire. History of the 20th century from the view of the periphery. Very enlightening
The taiping rebellion was always really interesting to me. Some starts saying he’s jesus’ brother, starts a christianity-derived cult in china, and then fights a civil war against the government which kills 30 million people, and no one ever talks about it. Just this huge, really weird event that’s largely unknown in the west. I should learn about it more
Yeah, it's super bizarre and was hugely devastating.
Mao had an interesting take on it. He said it was a proto-revolutionary rebellion because it was carried out by landless, dispossessed people, and their primary policy focus was land redistribution
The Boxer Rebellion by Diana Preston is a good read if late stage Qing dynasty interests you
Annals of the Former World is a highlight to me! An overview of geologic features across the United States, with anecdotes strewn in from geologists,
simon schama's the story of the jews: finding the words - 1000 BCE-1492 CE. there's also a sequel covering 1492-1900, but i haven't read that yet
schama is a zionist and occasionally that comes through, but otherwise his writing is good and frankly you're unlikely to find many non-zionist jewish histories