Grate Site's opinion on Best Authors

[sunday]

1 hour ago, 17thfabn said:

Another author that was gone too soon, James Hornfisher. His excellent Neptune's Inferno follows the critical Naval Campaign around Guadalcanal. It covers the importance of the logistical support which many times dictated how battles were fought. It also chronicols  the navel battles that feel like old west shoot outs. 

Add to that "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors".

[17thfabn]

I don't tend to read a lot of female authors. It looks like I'm not the only one!  

I think other than Stuart Galbraith mentioning  Agatha Christie I don't think any one has mentioned any of the ladies who write!

I'll mention a few excellent female authors here.

Barbara Tuchman. She wrote such great histories as The Guns of August, The First Salute and A Distant Mirror.

Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote Team of Rivals about Lincoln and his working with his cabinet during the U.S. Civil War. There was a lot of background stories on Abraham Lincoln I heard never heard in the book.  Lincoln is my favorite President. Goodwin's background stories showed more of his human side. Sadly it was not unusual in that era to have people die young, but he suffered a lot of personal losses. He lost his mother who he was very close to. He lost his true love. His second son died at the age of 4. His third son, Willie,  died at the age of 11. Willie from most accounts was Lincoln's favorite. He may well have been a casualty of the Civil War. He died of typhoid which may have been spread due to troop encampments near the White House.

A female prospective does tend to look at more human factors.  

Edited January 26, 2023 by 17thfabn

[sunday]

1 hour ago, 17thfabn said:

The Guns of August,

Famous first paragraph

Quote

SO GORGEOUS WAS THE SPECTACLE on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens—four dowager and three regnant—and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and of its kind the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.

Tuchman, Barbara (2014-06-04T23:58:59.000). The Guns of August . Penguin Books Ltd.

 

[Ssnake]

When it comes to 20th century American History, Robert A. Caro is probably one of the eminent writers.

[NickM]

2 hours ago, sunday said:

Famous first paragraph

 

I base my opinion of authors (especially if they're east coast Lie-beral heartland residents) by how they write about Nixon==and Operation Linebacker II (IE: the Christmas Bombings). If they go squealing in hysterics they're 'dead' to me. So no Tuchman and no William Manchester.

[Stuart Galbraith]

9 hours ago, 17thfabn said:

I don't tend to read a lot of female authors. It looks like I'm not the only one!  

I think other than Stuart Galbraith mentioning  Agatha Christie I don't think any one has mentioned any of the ladies who write!

I'll mention a few excellent female authors here.

Barbara Tuchman. She wrote such great histories as The Guns of August, The First Salute and A Distant Mirror.

Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote Team of Rivals about Lincoln and his working with his cabinet during the U.S. Civil War. There was a lot of background stories on Abraham Lincoln I heard never heard in the book.  Lincoln is my favorite President. Goodwin's background stories showed more of his human side. Sadly it was not unusual in that era to have people die young, but he suffered a lot of personal losses. He lost his mother who he was very close to. He lost his true love. His second son died at the age of 4. His third son, Willie,  died at the age of 11. Willie from most accounts was Lincoln's favorite. He may well have been a casualty of the Civil War. He died of typhoid which may have been spread due to troop encampments near the White House.

A female prospective does tend to look at more human factors.  

Yes, I should have mentioned Barbara Tuchman. It actually recreates that prewar world so damn well. That and through JFK who read Guns of August, she probably saved the world by convincing him not to rely to heavily on his Generals.

 

[Rick]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Yes, I should have mentioned Barbara Tuchman. It actually recreates that prewar world so damn well. That and through JFK who read Guns of August, she probably saved the world by convincing him not to rely to heavily on his Generals.

 

?

[Ssnake]

...the Cuban missile crisis.

[Rick]

1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

...the Cuban missile crisis.

Thank you Ssnake. Now that the coffee and work out is done, I finally understand. Disagree of course, as his assumption is false, but...

[sunday]

8 hours ago, NickM said:

I base my opinion of authors (especially if they're east coast Lie-beral heartland residents) by how they write about Nixon==and Operation Linebacker II (IE: the Christmas Bombings). If they go squealing in hysterics they're 'dead' to me. So no Tuchman and no William Manchester.

From her, I've read The Guns of August, and A Distant Mirror, a historical chronicle of the 14th century. Liked both, despite some, let's call Protestantism, seeping into the second.

I did not notice any rabid Progressivism in her.

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, Rick said:

Thank you Ssnake. Now that the coffee and work out is done, I finally understand. Disagree of course, as his assumption is false, but...

I respectfully suggest you go and read the Cuban Missile Crisis transcripts and prepare to be astonished. Its not the story you think it is.

Kennedy cited 'The Guns of August' many, many times, both before and after the Crisis. Yes, they do overplay it in the movie '13 days'. But that it was an influence on his relations with the Joint Chiefs (and you can hear Le May Joking with the other Joint Chiefs about breaking Kennedys balls on the tapes when Kennedy is out of the room)is fairly clear I think.  He was clearly entirely justified in distrusting the joint Chiefs. Because they didnt know what the hell they were talking about.

In fact one of our  late lamented bretherhen, Old Tanker, cited Kennedy's actions as primarily the reason why he enjoyed over 40 years of life. There was Luna missiles waiting for them on the Cuban beaches, and he would have been the first to get an instant suntan. Neither the Joint Chiefs or the CIA knew they were there till 2002, when Castro finally announced it at a seminar. McNamara nearly fell out of his chair.

Reminds me of another author I had forgotten. Seri Plokhy, mainly on the basis of his Book 'The Gates of Europe', but also 'The man with the Poison gun', 'Chernobyl' and not least 'Nuclear Folly, A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis'. His explanation of the near use of nuclear torpedos on Submarine B59 is by turns terrifying and absolutely hilarious. But I have a strange sense of humour about such things as armagedon.

 

[Steven P Allen]

20 hours ago, 17thfabn said:

Seems like you guys are mostly going with highbrow stuff. I've read some of it and enjoyed some and felt like some was pure torture. War and Peace was enjoyable. The Iliad and the Odysse drug on.

 

I wouldn't call OE poetry, especially the elegies and the battle accounts, highbrow, if you meant to include them in this category.  Most folks have to read them in translation, but you won't find a more engaging account of a command blunder and the price paid for it than "The Battle of Maldon."  I suggest that you also read Tolkien's commentary on it ("The Homecoming of Beorthnoth, Beorthhelm's Son" in The Tolkien Reader.  Very accessible and on-point, if also very Tolkienesque, commentary.

[17thfabn]

4 hours ago, sunday said:

From her, I've read The Guns of August, and A Distant Mirror, a historical chronicle of the 14th century. Liked both, despite some, let's call Protestantism, seeping into the second.

I did not notice any rabid Progressivism in her.

I've read Guns of August, A Distant Mirror and The First Salute.  All of them at least 30 years ago. I don't remember any thing overly political in any of them.

 Sunday, if I remember you are very pro catholic church. For me from the era of A Distant Mirror, I see the papacy as a force of repression.

[sunday]

33 minutes ago, 17thfabn said:

Sunday, if I remember you are very pro catholic church. For me from the era of A Distant Mirror, I see the papacy as a force of repression.

Well, this is the late Middle Ages, on one hand. So feudal society, little to nothing social mobility, and Church in the side of establishment.

On the other, repression of evil things is a good thing.