kimble

""My boyfriend knows a lot about military history, he owns a few of the books mentioned in this thread. He doesn't read much nowadays though he has read more books in the past. A lot of his military books are about ie. tanks or planes of a specific country in a specific time frame or something like that."" The first man, presumably, would have some conflicts over resources, then about 10,000 years ago in Pakistan and Iraq the first villages appeared as agriculture began supporting a fixed population. Next walls and forts as surplus agricultural were available, and the first classes who did not work in ag. Once man became fixed and had something desirable he had to stand and defend it. He would have to fight mobile raiders. In a town artisans arise and military products are produced as being a necessity as much as food production and preparing, storing. A leader/managerial class would evolve - ones who then had intellectual time and resources to run this community. Virtually all archaeology is going to have defense/offense, religion, and burial as a core. With a professional artisans, some professional soldiers, priests, and leaders man became us. And military was foremost. Reverse entropy, defend or revert to warring pastoral tribes. You have a walled city and inside professional soldiers, Priests, and rulers as the top of a pyramid supported by an agricultural base. This is the thing which allowed intellectual advancing - the top people were going to be the exceptional ones and they could think, innovate, and direct resources as they were freed from constant labour of producing their needs directly. War was the biggest issue always. Use it or lose it. If you are interested in what man is, in societies and governing, politics, technology, industry, philosophy, science, architecture, military is the foundation of it all. This need to produce the innovation which defeated the Generals who were always fighting the last war again, and thus losing, drove man forward - where peace typically was the period between when commerce and the ideas learned from war were stored up to be spent on the next burst of fighting. Paradigm shifts in war are the landmarks in human advancement. Castles in the medieval age everywhere, then cannons in the 1300's and they were obsolete. Henry V and his long bow. The first tanks and aircraft, aircraft carriers, in WWI, and then being the main issue in WWII, you got with the times or lost. Societies with their politics and philosophy are military - Assyrian, Mongol, Roman, Germanic, Viking, Aztec, Zulu, Shogunate, Persian, each had a huge war industry, one which drove production and innovation - in materials, strategy, governance, and the philosophy of their societies. Without war we would be digging in the ground with digging sticks and driving goats with some rudimentary oral tradition of superstition and ancestors. War is the imperative which drove us to innovate and industry. The surplus from this gave more and more people freedom from endless toil in agriculture to higher works - including thought. War is man's greatest achievement, unintentionally, but actually. It forces a complex society to form, and then to use that society to innovate and produce the most it can. War destroys an indolent and slothful and static society. The other side is ethics. In the absence of structured fighting Nobility almost cannot exist. Our ideals of bravery leading us to sacrifice ourselves in fighting for your people. Ethics and military - one of the most fascinating things to think on. Take Nagasaki - it is realistic to say it saved 6 million lives at the cost of 120,000. (includes radiation poisoning deaths) But even if it saved none - it would fascinating in that way too, military ethics holds evil and good in its span. And it is the base of all we are. Manichaeism in effect.

I make fruit pies a couple times a week - always have one in the refrigerator, always have whipping cream too. Now in the fridge is blackberry, strawberry, blueberry, and apple as a mix. Not bad, the strawberry comes through very well. Main pie - blackberry, because I grow them. Next - something with blackberry Micemeat/apple anything fruit, mixed or strait coconut, lemon meringue, chocolate meringue, I have gotten out of the savory pie habit but back at my parents fish pie is a main staple.

I did like 'Band of Brothers' a lot, and found out Ambrose lived right near me. Good movie as well and Sobel is wonderful, played by the Friends actor Schwimmer I have to run off and do some work - "The Longest Day" was the Movie of the Invasion - good movies.

"55% into When Paris Went Dark. " Sounds very interesting, I have always been amazed at France in WWII, like they were on some national self destruction course, and almost managed it except for Britain and the allies. I think they are doing it again now......... I just read one complete book in Feb, on the Japan occupation, really about MacArthur's work on those 5+ years. Now I wonder what to pick up next - I picked up, and read abut 1/3 of "A History of Private Life" 'From Pagan Rome to Byzantium' 'Paul Veyne' a week ago but it annoyed me in so many ways I had to stop - I may try to get going on it again but the constant Grrrrrrr it evokes in me may not allow it. I have a book on 'The Twelve Caesars' that is all heavy, glossy, big, hardback and will look through it as the next possible. It does look like it will be a bit heavy going, still, Roman Emperors and all - got to be interesting if you blot out the endless names and places/dates that will fill the pages but only of use to a proper Roman history buff.

I also forget books almost immediately, as someone mentioned, but as I read non-fiction I kind of retain the gist of it, and maybe one or two useful bits. More like it gives me a feel for the thing, like say a day in Italy long ago gave a kind of Italian memory/feel. I suppose I read about ten in 2016 so far. Most military, and a PG Wodehouse, 'Aunts aren't Gentlemen'. I have a capacity of re-reading favorites from the past over and over through the years and PG is in that group - such beautiful sentences.

Is there an edit function once posted? I hurried, (just got a job on the phone wile typing the above) - and am error prone anyway. Bold all over place and other things. The obvious thing on war is suffering and I suppose, like an ambulance tech, I block that out pretty much. The saying through the great wars of the modern times, and back through antiquity, has been that the generals are always fighting the last war again - to the losses of their troops and success. This is how fast our societies move forward. Or you could say; societies are shoved forward by war.

Military/political has become my favorite type of book, I finished 'Supreme Commander' 'MacArthur's Triumph in Japan' Seymour Morris Jr this morning. The Reconstruction of Japan being one of the most amazing events in world history. Two days ago I read 'The Fall of Japan' 'William Craig' A dry, more technical, history of the military and political events leading to Japan's surrender. And days prior, 'The Last Lion' 'Winston Spencer Churchill' 'ALONE' William Manche ster' You may guess I have been at a library used book sale - 25 big paperback or hardback books $20! Just the week prior I had finished installing 120 lineal foot of bookshelves so have been unpacking books, and buying as this luck allowed. I am a carpenter, but a very avid reader. Military runs in my family, but all civilization, all which lifted us above animals, has war and the defenses from it as the cause.