Savoring the Past: New Kindle Books for History Buffs

History is a kind of introduction to more interesting people than we can possibly meet in our restricted lives; let us not neglect the opportunity. - Dexter Perkins.

The American philosopher George Santayana is quoted as saying that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. With more than 27,000 books in the Amazon Kindle bookstore "history" category, Kindle-owning history buffs will not run out of reading material any time soon. Recent history nonfiction includes:


L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of American's Most Seductive City, by John Buntin. Harmony. Amazon customer rating:4 stars (32 reviews). Kindle edition $14.30. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Midcentury Los Angeles. A city sold to the world as 'the white spot of America,' a land of sunshine and orange groves, wholesome Midwestern values and Hollywood stars, protected by the world’s most famous police force, the Dragnet-era LAPD. Behind this public image lies a hidden world of 'pleasure girls' and crooked cops, ruthless newspaper tycoons, corrupt politicians, and East Coast gangsters on the make. Into this underworld came two men - one L.A.’s most notorious gangster, the other its most famous police chief - each prepared to battle the other for the soul of the city." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: Hollywood's Celebrity Gangster, The Incredible Life and Times of Mickey Cohen, by Brad Lewis.

Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath, by Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (37 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The battle of Bataan in the Philippines in 1942 resulted in the Japanese taking about 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war, America's worst military defeat ever. The prisoners were transferred across the Philippines, and treated horrifically in the process, in what became known as the Bataan Death March. The authors conducted 400 interviews with survivors and have put together an exhaustive narrative. They focus chiefly on Ben Steele, who survived the Philippine battles, the march, and 41 months in the slave labor camps. As much as a military history, this is the biography of a Montana cowboy transformed by great events." - Edwin Burgess for Library Journal.

The Inheritance of Rome, by Chris Wickham. Viking. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $18.48. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"...Prizewinning historian Chris Wickham defies the conventional view of the Dark Ages in European history with a work of remarkable scope and rigorous yet accessible scholarship. Drawing on a wealth of new material and featuring a thoughtful synthesis of historical and archaeological approaches, Wickham argues that these centuries were critical in the formulation of European identity. Far from being a middle period between more significant epochs, this age has much to tell us in its own right about the progress of culture and the development of political thought. Sweeping in its breadth, Wickham's incisive history focuses on a world still profoundly shaped by Rome, which encompassed the remarkable Byzantine, Carolingian, and Ottonian empires, and peoples ranging from Goths, Franks, and Vandals to Arabs, Anglo- Saxons, and Vikings. Digging deep into each culture, Wickham constructs a vivid portrait of a vast and varied world stretching from Ireland to Constantinople, the Baltic to the Mediterranean..." - Amazon.
$9.99 or less alternative: Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered, by Peter S. Wells.

Major Farran's Hat: The Untold Story of the Struggle to Establish the Jewish State, by David Cesarani. Da Capo Press. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (1 review). Kindle edition $13.73. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In May 1947 a sixteen-year-old Jewish activist named Alexander Rubowitz was abducted in broad daylight from the streets of Jerusalem. At the abduction scene, a gray hat was found, purportedly belonging to Major Roy Farran, a decorated World War II officer who was in charge of British counterterrorism in Palestine. As evidence mounted against Farran, the Zionist underground swore vengeance. The episode precipitated a series of nail-biting twists and turns that had far-reaching consequences. An engaging mix of true crime and polemical narrative history, peopled by a cast of luminaries including Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Menachem Begin, and Golda Meir, Major Farran's Hat investigates shady violence, scandaluos cover-ups, and political expediency. It also explores why Britain lost Palestine, as well as how its counterinsurgency and diplomatic strategies collided so disastrously...David Cesarani, one of Britain’s leading historians, is Research Professor in History at Royal Holloway, London University, and author of the award-winning Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a "Desk Murderer".He has published widely on Jewish history and the history of Zionism.
$9.99 or less alternative: Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, by Gordon Thomas.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the 1960s, by Jonathan Leaf. Regnery Publishing. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (12 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In this blast from the past, critically acclaimed playwright and journalist Jonathan Leaf reveals the politically incorrect truth about one of the most controversial decades in history: the 1960s. Did you know that the civil rights movement did little to improve the lives of average African Americans or that most Americans actively supported the Vietnam War and the draft? The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Sixties proves the anti Vietnam War sentiment and free love slogans that supposedly defined the decade were just a small part of the leftist counterculture." - Amazon.

The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution: 1980-1989, by Steven F. Hayward. Crown Forum. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $19.25. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"...From Steven F. Hayward, the critically acclaimed author of The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, comes the first complete, true story of this misunderstood, controversial, and deeply consequential presidency. Hayward pierces the myths and media narratives, masterfully documenting exactly what transpired behind the scenes during Reagan’s landmark presidency and revealing his real legacy. What emerges is a compelling portrait of a man who arrived in office after thirty years of practical schooling in the ways of politics and power, possessing a clear vision of where he wanted to take the nation and a willingness to take firm charge of his own administration. His relentless drive to shrink government and lift the burdens of high taxation was born of a deep appreciation for the grander blessings of liberty. And it was this same outlook, extended to the world’s politically and economically enslaved nations, that shaped his foreign policy and lent his statecraft its great unifying power..." - randomhouse.com.
$9.99 or less alternative: Hayward's The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order: 1964-1980.

The Bonfire: The Seige and Burning of Atlanta, by Marc Wortman. Public Affairs. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $15.92. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"The destruction of Atlanta is an iconic moment in American history - it was the centerpiece of Gone with the Wind. But though the epic sieges of Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Berlin have all been explored in bestselling books, the one great American example has been treated only cursorily in more general histories. Marc Wortman remedies that conspicuous absence in grand fashion with The Bonfire, an absorbing narrative history told through the points of view of key participants both Confederate and Union. The Bonfire reveals an Atlanta of unexpected paradoxes: a new mercantile city dependent on the primitive institution of slavery; governed by a pro-Union mayor, James Calhoun, whose cousin was a famous defender of the South. When he surrendered the city to General Sherman after forty-four terrible days, Calhoun was accompanied by Bob Yancey, a black slave likely the son of Union advocate Daniel Webster. Atlanta was both the last of the medieval city sieges and the first modern urban devastation. From its ashes, a new South would arise.
$9.99 or less alternative: Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, by James M. McPherson.

In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan, by Seth G. Jones. Norton. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech:Enabled.
"Since 2001, RAND Corporation political scientist Jones...has been observing the reinvigorated insurgency in Afghanistan and weighing the potency of its threat to the country's future and American interests in the region. Jones finds the roots of the re-emergence in the expected areas: the deterioration of security after the ousting of the Taliban regime in 2002, the U.S.'s focus on Iraq as its foreign policy priority and Pakistan's role as a haven for insurgents. He revisits Afghan history, specifically the invasions by the British in the mid- and late-19th century and the Russians in the late-20th to rue how little the U.S. has learned from these two previous wars. He sheds light on why Pakistan - a consistent supporter of the Taliban - continues to be a key player in the region's future..." - Publishers Weekly.