Category: history
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The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch goes over an elaborate plot that if succeeded, likely would have changed the entire outcome and future of World War II. This is a great read, however, fair warning must be given. For many readers whom are…
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Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia focuses on four personal stories whose lives were affected by the liberation of Mao Zedong’s Red Army in Shanghai and other regions of China from around the 1930s to 1960s. The four stories selected gives us a broad range of perspective in that each story and life…
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Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson details one of the worst hurricane disasters in America’s history. Focusing on one man but telling the story through the lens of multiple other families and lives, it goes over a brutal hurricane that swept over the Galveston area of Texas. It was a truly sad and frightening retelling. Living…
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The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann goes over one of Britain history’s most brutal and ever forgotten shipwreck disaster during wartime. Having occurred in the mid 1700s, the author scours logbooks and journals that have been preserved through the times to brilliantly weave together a story that will scare…
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American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment by Shane Bauer is as pretty self-explanatory of a title as it gets. A brave journalist decides to voluntarily get a job inside a prison facility in Louisana to secretly document what goes on behind the walls. Shane Bauer’s work here is nothing short…
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Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages by Dan Jones is what I’d consider a “brief” tour of a period in civilization historians have coined the Middle Ages. Although this book consists of almost 650+ pages, it’s just nigh high impossible to fit every single detail of every single event that occurred…
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Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham retells the stunning and horrific nuclear accident, one of the worst ever in history, of Chernobyl. There are times when a non-fiction story or event in our world history manages to raise more goosebumps on our skin than any blockbuster horror movie by some Hollywood director. Unfortunately for the…
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Mao’s Great Famine by Frank Dikotter is book two in The People’s Trilogy. This is the original topic that got me interested in researching more about this so called worst man-made catastrophe of all time and not just in China but throughout the entire world. Chronologically, The Tragedy of Liberation precludes The Great Famine and…
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The Tragedy of Liberation by Frank Dikotter is chronologically book one of three in his People’s Trilogy set. After having read the history of China by John Keay, my interest was piqued at learning what exactly happened after imperial China ended in 1911 with its last emperor. The short answer? Not good. Not good at…
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China: A History by John Keay details the rich history of this mighty country from its beginning at around 2000 BC up to the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Although this could be considered your one stop shop for learning of China’s history spanning almost 5,000 years, I felt that many of the finer details were…
The Mindless Catalog 