Easley Library Bookworms discussion

History is another academic discipline the study of which is very book-dependent; and again, the size of our collection in this field reflects that. Since my undergraduate major was History, it's not surprising that it's a field where I've read quite a bit. As usual, many of the books I've read, I haven't reviewed; but several of those I have reviewed are in Easley Library's collection.

Two of these have a special relevance to our local history: Bluefield West Virginia, 1889-1989: A Centennial History (written by a former BC faculty member, C. Stuart McGehee, with whom I was personally acquainted), and Battle of Blair Mountain by Robert Shogan, which delves into the violent history of southern West Virginia's coal mining industry. Here are the blinks to my reviews: www.goodreads.com/review/show/251318347 and www.goodreads.com/review/show/28192860 .

Three more of the books in this group belong to the broader story of American history. Timothy Smith's Revivalism and Social Reform: is an outstanding study of Church history in America in the decades before the Civil War. The Coastal War: Chesapeake Bay to Rio Grande is part of a major Time-Life series on the Civil War. And finally, while we have four volumes of Theodore H. White's massive Making of the President series, the only one I've reviewed is The Making of the President 1964. My reviews:
www.goodreads.com/review/show/18019978
www.goodreads.com/review/show/225975187
www.goodreads.com/review/show/17582153

My previous post concentrated on linking to reviews of books dealing with U.S. history. The links in this post are to reviews of three books with a focus outside the U.S.: The Horizon Book of Lost Worlds; Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R. H. Tawney; and Jaime Suchlicki's definitive history of Cuba, Cuba: From Columbus to Castro and Beyond. My reviews: www.goodreads.com/review/show/65464194
www.goodreads.com/review/show/17749192
www.goodreads.com/review/show/17299864

Recently, I was surprised to find that I'd neglected to post a link here to my review of Kenneth Scott LaTourette's A History of Christianity, which is an outstanding one-volume treatment of church history that I'd highly recommend to any Christian reader. It's an older book (1953), but the information it provides doesn't date with time. www.goodreads.com/review/show/24669793 .

Normally, I don't think of this thread as a place to link reviews of fiction books. But I'm making an exception for Josephine Tey's classic "cold case" mystery, The Daughter of Time, which has her series sleuth Inspector Alan Grant bedridden and researching the 15th-century disappearance/possible murder of the "little princes in the Tower." This is really a work of historical investigation by a fiction writer, with a fictional veneer; I found it more educational than any work of nonfiction history I'd read on the subject! my review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West is a landmark work in American historiography, which I read back in the early 70s, but until today, I'd never reviewed it. I considered that it was about time I remedied that, so here (finally) is my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Since I'm currently reading a biography of 20th-century German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I was reminded of an earlier biography of Luther himself, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther by Roland Bainton, which I'd read in the early 70s (in a different edition than the one shown here, of course!), but never reviewed until today. Here's that review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... (which has theological content that might bore some readers :-) ).

Earlier today, I finished reading, and reviewed, the Bonhoeffer biography I mentioned in my previous post,
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by evangelical Goodreads author Eric Metaxas. That review is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . This was a common read in one of my other groups; this discussion thread there, https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , has more discussion, and links to reviews in several journals.

By working steadily at it ever since finishing the book, to my surprise, I completed my review (it's on the long side!), of The French Revolution: A Concise History by Norman Hampson a full week before I expected to, and posted it just now: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . Now, when I finally read The Scarlet Pimpernel (hopefully early next year), I'll have a much solider grasp of the historical background.

Like the book I reviewed last week, The Day Lincoln Was Shot by Jim Bishop was another much-liked work of non-fiction popular history that I read as a teen back in the 1960s, but didn't get around to reviewing until recently. That retrospective review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .