Blood and Ruins
A reassessment of World War II as the "last imperial war" and a call for a more global perspective on the war.
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2023–2024years
100% recommend
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What Hacker News says
- I think "Blood and Ruins" by Richard Overy is a great piece of work and a good account of the confusing history of the 1930s.
Munich was an "alliance" of Great Britain und Germany (and sort of Poland).
Then Germany and the Soviet Union allied against Poland.
Then Great Britain and The Soviet Union allied.
>The Russian paranoia hasn't changed much since Ivan The Terrible, long before neocons.
Prisoners of Geography is pop science but I like the chapter about Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_Geography
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/106335/blood-and-ruins-by-ov...
- First, take some basic, low-cost precautions to protect your body. I bought a radiation dosimeter (GQ GMC-500Plus) as well as some iodine tablets. I also have several jugs of water, large bags of rice and beans, a few paper books and basic first aid supplies. I also happen to have some Tyvek coveralls, nitrile gloves and a 3M™ Versaflo™ Heavy Industry PAPR Kit (TR-300N+ HIK), but I use these items daily to protect myself from rock dust in craft projects. Everything but the PAPR is inexpensive and I highly recommend their purchase.
Second, read bravely to protect your mind. Since the second Iraq war, American media has become overtly pro-war, so if you're not really paying attention, you only get one side of the story. If you want to balance that out, I recommend the following sources:
Jeffrey Sachs, Professor at Columbia University. Sachs has extensive experience as an advisor to American and European leaders during the 1990s. He was sidelined by neoconservatives rooting for war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Sachs
John Mearsheimer, Professor at the University of Chicago. Mearsheimer famously predicted the present Ukraine war and authored "The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent" in a piece published in Foreign Affairs in 1993. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer
The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for this book when it was published in 1986. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_the_Atomic_Bomb
Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931–1945 by Richard Overy. His work is summarized well in this review recently published in The Atlantic: https://archive.is/BZ2OO
