The best Regional Geography books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

I also recommend this field guide:

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0691120722/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_El7CFb86H2X7A

In addition to all the info it contains, it even lists the sharks in evolutionary order and has full color illustrations in one section.

>I'm currently reading A Short History of Reconstruction by Eric Foner to work on actively learn more about an era I was taught almost nothing about in school and how the attitudes of reconstruction still are present in our modern society

This was actually the topic of my capstone sociology class. There we read American Apartheid by Massey and Denton. Despite it being an academic text, its actually quite accessible, and it paints a vast picture of how segregation bled into American life from the Civil War to today in many different ways that are rarely -- if ever -- discussed in our schools (e.g. migrations of black southerners to northern states after factories hired them as strike breakers, how the northern states were actually worse w/r/t segregation than the south).

Yes actually. Even non-slaveholding whites participated in upholding the slave state directly as part of slave patrols.

One of my all-time favorites is Africa: Biography of a Continent by John Reeder (https://www.amazon.com/Africa-Biography-Continent-John-Reader/dp/067973869X/ref=sr_1_16?keywords=Africa&qid=1665177175&qu=eyJxc2MiOiI1LjkxIiwicXNhIjoiNi4zNSIsInFzcCI6IjMuNzcifQ%3D%3D&sr=8-16). It's very comprehensive, but very readable.

I have not, but thank you for the recommendation I'll look into it.

All of my knowledge on China comes from miscellaneous articles and mainly the book <em>Mao's Last Revolution</em> which was quite enjoyable.

I didn't particularly like the writing in this one. Too much trying to turn a clever phrase and was poetic, while being so meta as to not be specific about the who ('el presidente' - Well, which one?; the Allan Dulles - ok, sure, but the relationship between Allan and his brother John Foster Dulles, the CIA, the State Department - it's not presented sufficiently clearly here.

If you want a very readable, detailed, well-sourced look at the UFC & CIA's nefarious activities in Guatemala, the touchstone book is Schlesinger, et al's "Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala"

https://www.amazon.com/Bitter-Fruit-American-Guatemala-Expanded/dp/067401930X

LOL you obviously don't know the difference between north and south.. I said down south, i.e. below Canada is the United States ("Americans"). Take a look at this, it'll help you out in the future... Here ya go bud - Geography For Dummies https://www.amazon.com/dp/0764516221/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_NTZTPWD602A19NRTYMJE

> but calling it a caste system is a huge misuse of the word.

Reasons Critical Race Theory is needed number 2#: the convenient erasure of post-slavery segregation, apartheid and racial violence.

Turns out, if you live in a system that determines you are worth less because of the circumstances of your birth-- like skin color-- you, in fact, live in a caste system by definition..

If you haven't, I highly recommend reading a classical chinese book, written in English. I used https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Literary-Chinese-Revised-Monographs/dp/0674017269 and liked it, although it's not great for self study. English academics usually treat the language with a bottom-up approach, deconstructing full sentences to axiomatic grammatical principles, while Chinese approaches are more about covering lots of texts and explaining their meaning. If you have experience studying lots of languages, especially ancient languages, with complex grammar, it is very interesting to peek into the nuts and bolts of how Old Chinese worked and compare it with the modern language. It's very different, and definitely has an internal structure which is not the "any character can mean anything" explanation that modern teachers use to cover texts more quickly.

Hi, Thank you for taking your time to answer. I'm looking for the Zhou-Qing Periods. I know that is "pretty much the entire history", but I am more interested in chronicles or annals that would give a good well rounded understanding on each dynasty. I have been eyeing The Cambridge History of China for awhile , but the book seems to be quite old in publishing, and the reviews online on websites seem mixed? Is it a valuable resource and not outtdated? They are quite expensive on Amazon!!

Have you ever used History of Imperial China (Harvard Press release)

Are the official annals like Ming Shi not translated into English? I'm Chinese, but my ability to read is frustrating haha.

My personal project is creating a website on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean history for context when one travel. One of my planned pages on the website is a brief history summary for each dynasty.

You're in luck, there are entire books written about this very subject

Just a couple: https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/31/2/Articles/DavisVol31No2_Bogus.pdf Here's a book that goes into more detail about slave patrols that are the "militias" that the second amendment talks about https://www.amazon.com/Slave-Patrols-Violence-Carolinas-Historical/dp/0674012348/ Of course, second amendment supporters have tried (and somewhat successfully) distanced themselves from the grim origins of the amendment, claiming that it's for people to rise up against an oppressive government, but does anyone really think that a bunch of pistols, rifles, and even automatic weapons are any match whatsoever for the modern military's huge cache of tanks, missiles, air and sea support, nuclear weapons, unmanned drones, etc?

Just a couple:

https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/31/2/Articles/DavisVol31No2_Bogus.pdf

Here's a book that goes into more detail about slave patrols that are the "militias" that the second amendment talks about

https://www.amazon.com/Slave-Patrols-Violence-Carolinas-Historical/dp/0674012348/

Of course, second amendment supporters have tried (and somewhat successfully) distanced themselves from the grim origins of the amendment, claiming that it's for people to rise up against an oppressive government, but does anyone really think that a bunch of pistols, rifles, and even automatic weapons are any match whatsoever for the modern military's huge cache of tanks, missiles, air and sea support, nuclear weapons, unmanned drones, etc?

If you can afford it, and are looking to read classical Chinese texts, the Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese dictionary plugin for Pleco is pretty good.

EDIT: This textbook is also a pretty good intro to classical Chinese, and uses mostly philosophical examples as pedagogical fodder. https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Literary-Chinese-Revised-Monographs/dp/0674017269

this is required reading for you: http://www.amazon.com/American-Apartheid-Segregation-Making-Underclass/dp/0674018214?ie=UTF8&amp;keywords=American%20Apartheid&amp;qid=1462765389&amp;ref_=sr_1_1&amp;sr=8-1

Also, this is the textbook they started us off with in my second year of university http://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Literary-Chinese-Monographs-Paperback/dp/0674017269/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1460721033&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=literary+chinese+textbook As I remember, it was quite good.

An excellent look into these subjects were part of the subject for the book, Slave Patrols. Really solid look (according to this non-historian) into the world of slave relations.

Plenty information in this book - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maos-Last-Revolution-Roderick-MacFarquhar/dp/0674027485/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1429817040&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=mao%27s+last+revolution. As /u/stonewallbanyan says, was pretty common in urban areas, though of course some (with more revolutionary fervour) were worse than others.

Can highly recommend.

This series is as "broad" an overview as I am familiar with - granted, I have a specialist interest in Chinese history, language, and culture, and have an undergraduate degree in history which makes me shy away from really broad histories as inaccurate, so YMMV. I did listen to a teaching company audio lecture series called "From Yao to Mao: 5000 years of Chinese History" which might be of interest to you; I found frustratingly general, but he was treating major facets of time/themes in 30 min lectures.

I haven't read the Three Kingdoms yet - been hoping to do that in the original. :) Sorry I can't be more helpful on that score.

I'll just leave this right here: Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks

>What level are you at?

I'm currently reading 野草 and （中国人应知的）国学常识.

>Do you understand newscasts?

I listen often to 法国国际广播电台, in part because I think the reporting is better, and you don't get propaganda. I get it most of the time, although every now and then there are economic pieces that I just don't get, although I'm not sure I'd understand in English either.

>相声？

Love it. The listing gags sometimes lose me, but that's kind of part of the joke.

>Do you know enough literary Chinese to read books like 红楼梦？

Yes, but none from RS. I cut my chops on Classical Chinese with An Introduction to Literary Chinese.

>Your sentiment about how easy Chinese is is one I often hear among beginners, who are really happy about Chinese having a very simple morphology, i.e. "no need to conjugate any verbs and no gendered nouns." However, they make up for it in very subtle syntactical differences that learners often mangle completely without even realizing it, and grammatical particles that are equally subtle.

I completely understand this, and see it happen a lot. That's not what I'm saying.

>For example, understanding 了 fully is definitely not easy

Which one? There is a pretty good argument that there are at least two, if not 3 polysemous 了.

>Learning idiomatically and grammatically correct Mandarin is in fact incredibly hard.

No more so that learning idiomatically and grammatically correct anything in an unrelated language family. I would argue that learning grammatically correct Chinese is much, much easier than learning grammatically correct Arabic...but that to speak either well will require the same amount (that is, a ton) of work.

Africa: A Biography of the Continent is a good place to start for a general overview, and its bibliography is invaluable for tracking down top-notch books on particular regions, time periods, and events.

Bill Berkeley is also a noted author on the modern history of the region, so some of his books might be well-worth picking up. I have The Graves Are Not Yet Full, but haven't gotten around to reading it. Looks like it's selling for ridiculously cheap on Amazon at the moment, so it might be worth snatching up now even if it sits on the shelf for a while before you get to it.