Inside GMT Flash of Steel Playing at the World Dyson’s Dodecahedron Quest for Fun! Bruce Heard and New Stories CRRPG Addict Fantasy Cafe Lynn’s Book Blog Sitrep Hex and Violence Grumble Jones Banzai!! Dungeon Fantastic Gaming Ballistic Ravens N’ Pennies Let’s GURPS The Collaborative Gamer Don’t Forget Your BootsI’ve long been interested in the ancient world. The Roman Empire, especially, gets a lot of my historical interest. In my reading, it’s very easy to find books on Rome (Empire and Republic), and on Alexander. The period right after[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The Life of Elizabeth I by Alison Weir, is more ‘the reign of Elizabeth I’, in that it only gives the bare essentials of background before starting with when succeeds to the throne of England at the age of 25.[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Ernle Bradford’s book on the Turkish siege of Malta in 1565 is not a detailed scholarly study of the subject, though the subject could use one. However, it is a fairly thorough look at the subject from the Hospitallar’s viewpoint.[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The Wars of the Roses is the second book by Alison Weir I’ve read, and it definitely tells me there’s no need to stop here. The writing is good, and gives a great overview of what is a legendarily confusing[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Tracy Borman’s book about Queen Matilda (William the Conqueror’s wife, if you’re not keeping score at home) does a very good job with tracing the live of a medieval woman (much better than Weir’s Eleanor of Aquitane, but it is[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The Five Battles of Kawanakajima are not that well known in the West, but they are one of the most celebrated incidents of the Warring States period in Japan (right behind those parts that are better known in the West,[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I was expecting Strauss’ The Trojan War: A New History to be a scholarly study of every detail we have about the Trojan world; basically an updated version of In Search of the Trojan War. Instead, it is a more scholarly[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Authoritative – adj. “having or showing impressive knowledge about a subject” Asbridge’s ‘authoritative history’ of the Crusades certainly does this. It is a very extensive look at the period in a single volume. There are problems; I think there is[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
First, a couple notes: The author is my dad; I’m trying to be evenhanded in this review, but that bias is there. This book is self-published through CreateSpace, and my copy started coming apart on my first read-through. A couple[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Lars Brownworth’s first book catapulted to success on the back of a related podcast, and he used the same formula this time. The Norman Centuries has been another good history podcast from him (though very slow, fourteen episodes in four[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…