What Book Are You Currently Reading?

[MalaspinaGold]

Just finished:

[MalaspinaGold]

Just finished:


An excellent book, I was able to follow it even though I'm not overly familiar with the subject. I especially liked the extent Priestland explored the satellites and the third world Communist parties (I must say I was absolutely ignorant of African Marxism prior to reading this book). I wish it had spent more time going over Western communist parties; besides France and Italy, hardly any space was lent to Communist parties post WWII, though I suppose that's because they were mostly too small to be relevant.

[MalaspinaGold]

Some goodies I've finished reading:

[MalaspinaGold]

In retrospect, reading the first two in quick succession was a good idea, given that they dealt with similar subjects and characters, but set in two different locations (Judea v. Rome). Of course the third book was by far the most depressing.

[MalaspinaGold]

The first three I read as a mix of leisure and as background for a paper I was writing. Reds or Rackets? (on the split between the corrupt East Coast and radical West Coast longshoremen) is excellently written, and, more importantly, gives a convincing answer. Highly recommended.
The Ethnic Factor was pretty good, with a lot of details and figures, but was ultimately a little forgettable. Emerging Democratic Majority was a borderline DLC  hackjob. Making's of Modern Zionism is also a must-read.

[MalaspinaGold]

Well, among other things, they argued that West Virginia would lean Democratic, and that Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas would be Lean GOP/competitive. On the other hand, these predictions just ended up being incorrect; what they argue that is harder for me to swallow is the that the Emerging Democratic Majority is almost entirely the work of the DLC and Clinton.

[MalaspinaGold]

Binge read both of these over the last two weeks. Both were very well written, even if Agulhon has a habit of overusing exclamation marks. Of course they overlapped quite a bit in discussing French socialism and communism post 1900.

[MalaspinaGold]

Both good; the second one was particularly insightful as to the roadblocks set up by mixed mining centers (spoiler alert: businesses being businesses were more of an issue, especially in the early years).

[MalaspinaGold]