Books are for nerds. (Jk) If you want to get a “non-academic”, as in actually interesting and not a chore, view of almost everything pertaining to culture, concurrent events, etc... Get the “Blueprint for Armageddon” series of podcasts by Dan Carlin (Hardcore History). It’s six episodes of around 4.5hrs each. But it’s audio so that sounds daunting, but Mr. Carlin is a journalist and not a historian (he says this at LEAST once a show for ever episode he puts out) so it’s very fact based narrative history. There’s a plot and through lines like any novel. I have every episode he’s put out (lots of single episode topics but also series of episodes dedicated to a single subject) and Blueprint for Armageddon is his magnum opus. No question.
Ok, books are cool too: (caveat: these are informative books, but not my favorites)
-“Guns of August”, B. Tuchman
-“A World Undone”, G.J. Meyer
-(I lied this is my favorite)the best, hands down, in every single way, no caveats WWI book is “Storm of Steel”, Ernst Junger. The prose and writing is GORGEOUS, his ability to relate what being shelled is like so vividly and easily understood by anyone over 10 years old, and most importantly: his actual life story is amazing and at times fucking hilarious to think about. A lil anecdote, paraphrased and modified for the post: he was getting drunk with his homies, went to go back to his own trench, got lost and was so hammered that he ended up a few yards from a heavily garrisoned English trench. Literally walked up to the enemy’s door by accident... his solution? “Fuck it.” Threw a few grenades into the Brit trench and fucking ran away laughing like he ding-dong-ditched someone. Lol, he was also 18. By 19 he was a decorated officer who led a unit. After the war he just... changed...
he decided bugs were fuckin’ rad so he became a respected entomologist.
War was boring to him... but beetles were exhilarating. I could almost write the book verbatim due to repetition of reading. But I have read it so many times because it’s SO readable. Calling it a “page turner” is an insult. You can’t put it down because there’s a cliffhanger, it’s impossible to put down because you are becoming spiritually intimate with what the kids call a “hard motherfucker”. He is a man of contrasts(😏). He liked war. He wrote and liked poetry. But the dude loved bugs...
Books are for nerds. (Jk) If you want to get a “non-academic”, as in actually interesting and not a chore, view of almost everything pertaining to culture, concurrent events, etc... Get the “Blueprint for Armageddon” series of podcasts by Dan Carlin (Hardcore History). It’s six episodes of around 4.5hrs each. But it’s audio so that sounds daunting, but Mr. Carlin is a journalist and not a historian (he says this at LEAST once a show for ever episode he puts out) so it’s very fact based narrative history. There’s a plot and through lines like any novel. I have every episode he’s put out (lots of single episode topics but also series of episodes dedicated to a single subject) and Blueprint for Armageddon is his magnum opus. No question.
Ok, books are cool too: (caveat: these are informative books, but not my favorites)
-“Guns of August”, B. Tuchman
-“A World Undone”, G.J. Meyer
-(I lied this is my favorite)the best, hands down, in every single way, no caveats WWI book is “Storm of Steel”, Ernst Junger. The prose and writing is GORGEOUS, his ability to relate what being shelled is like so vividly and easily understood by anyone over 10 years old, and most importantly: his actual life story is amazing and at times fucking hilarious to think about. A lil anecdote, paraphrased and modified for the post: he was getting drunk with his homies, went to go back to his own trench, got lost and was so hammered that he ended up a few yards from a heavily garrisoned English trench. Literally walked up to the enemy’s door by accident... his solution? “Fuck it.” Threw a few grenades into the Brit trench and fucking ran away laughing like he ding-dong-ditched someone. Lol, he was also 18. By 19 he was a decorated officer who led a unit. After the war he just... changed...
he decided bugs were fuckin’ rad so he became a respected entomologist.
War was boring to him... but beetles were exhilarating. I could almost write the book verbatim due to repetition of reading. But I have read it so many times because it’s SO readable. Calling it a “page turner” is an insult. You can’t put it down because there’s a cliffhanger, it’s impossible to put down because you are becoming spiritually intimate with what the kids call a “hard motherfucker”. He is a man of contrasts(😏). He liked war. He wrote and liked poetry. But the dude loved bugs...