Quest for Fun! Bruce Heard and New Stories Fantasy Cafe Lynn’s Book Blog Sitrep Hex and Violence Grumble Jones Desperation Morale Banzai!! Dungeon Fantastic Gaming Ballistic Let’s GURPS The Collaborative GamerThis book gave me a bad impression early on when the introduction states, “All the land taken from Mexico, historians now acknowledge, could have been acquired peacefully through diplomacy and deliberate negotiation of financial recompense.” That’s a rather big pill[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
This book is two things in one. First, it is an art book showcasing Graham Turner’s art on the Wars of the Roses. Second, it is a light history of those wars, illustrated with Turner’s paintings, and a number of[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Written about two decades before starting his epic five-volume history of the Hundred Years War, Sumption’s history of the fall of southern France follows along the same general lines. In this case, the second chapter goes into a general long-term[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The third of Nick Holmes’ books on the end of the Roman Empire covers from the sacking of Rome in 410 through the death of Attila in 453, and then the end of Western Roman administration in 476. The good[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Holmes’ second book covers from the recovery of the Roman Empire from the Crisis of the Third Century to the sacking of Rome in 410. Well, mostly. While the second book in a series, it is meant to be a[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Nick Holmes is doing a very good job writing a clear beginning-level series on Roman history. This also has the advantage of being recent (2022), and so has access recent findings. There is one short chapter two-thirds of the way[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The Golem and the Jinni was a very good historical fantasy with a very character-driven focus. It also had a very intricate plot with a lot of moving parts that don’t come into alignment until the end. That is still[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I haven’t read Tom Holland’s Rubicon, but I also know the civil wars period better than the Julio-Claudians (I have to admit that the BBC production of I, Claudius is still the bedrock of my knowledge of the period). This[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The subtitle “James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent” is on point. This primarily about Polk, and takes the view from the White House for the bulk of the book. After that in importance[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Platt’s book is really about the relationship between Britain and China before the Opium War, and shows why a conflict was unexpected, almost right up to when it did happen. The two had a stable trading relationship for about two[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…