eHead

Decent book about somewhat overlooked historical events. There is an emphasis on military campaign details with a bit of geopolitical analysis. At the end there is a comparison with recent events which is rather simplistic and amounts to little more than a childish vent against capitalism, but don't let that put you off... the book makes for an enjoyable read. You could in fact just skip this concluding chapter and read “Black Wave” instead, which offers a much more sophisticated and nuanced account of the trajectory of the Middle East post WWII.

Not sure why all the negative reviews. Super interesting peek into the Yakuza and Tokyo. Jake has led quite the life, and yeah, he does tell you about what position he is having sex in at one point, but why not? The title has Vice in it after all. Sometimes little details like that get remembered for some reason, and I see no reason not to write it down. Overall very readable and interesting.

Haven't finished this book yet, but so far I'm finding it really engaging. I read Rady's Hapsburg book, which was really good, but I feel like with this book Rady has really upped his game and is now in the ranks of Tom Holland or Crowley with regards to just how engaging the book is. Not being an expert, I can't comment on the scholarship.

As an added bonus, if you decide to listen to it, the wise decision was made to get the brilliant narrator John Curless for this book. When it comes to historical audiobooks he is one of the best narrators in my opinion.

I think this book succeeds as an intellectual history of emotions. Charting how various thinkers around the world have thought about emotions over the ages. It's not as successful in convincing me that the prevailing attitudes about emotions actually were pivotal in shaping the various historical episodes mentioned throughout the book.

As other reviewers have pointed out, a central thesis is the vast cultural and temperamental differences between east Germany (Prussia/Saxony), and west Germany. The author depicts the difference as similar to the north/south divide in the U.S., with the east German's being like southerners both historically (the Prussians were colonizers and ran huge agricultural estates), and politically, being dangerously nationalistic and anti NATO and EU. The blame for 20th century German aggression in the two world wars is put squarely on Prussia.

I don't know enough about the history of Germany to comment on the accuracy of this picture, but I won't fault the author for putting forth a thesis that may or may not be true (to the extent abstract historical reasoning like this can be “true”). I'm from the US south and am pretty used to the rest of the country dissing on the south and stereotyping it, and I'll be the first to admit the stereotype isn't entirely inaccurate. You shouldn't take it personally, of course, cause all stereotypes fall apart when applied to certain individuals and more information comes in. But, they can be meaningful statistically, and that is what he tries to demonstrate via voting patterns.

I enjoyed the earlier parts of the book more, up to WWI. The unification of Germany was particularly interesting. The parts on Germany's modern day politics I found less interesting. Overall a pretty good intro to German history. Only wish it went into more detail on medieval and early modern Germany.