That’s the first month of the year done and dusted. Six books read, four history, two science fiction:
The Wages of Destruction — Adam Tooze
Brilliantly written book putting the evolution of nazi politics on war and genocide in the economic context in which they took place. Tooze makes it clear the nazis and Hitler read the economic situation in which Germany found itself in the 1920ties and wanted escape from what they saw as a trap by creating lebensraum for the German people, only to keep finding themselves still trapped with each new solution, ultimately ending in genocide.
Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West 376-568 — Guy Halsall
I saw this in the library and read it largely because Peter Heather had slagged Halsall off in his Empires and Barbarians for wrongthink on the Fall of Rome. Judging by this book the differences between Halsall and Heather are about ten percent real and ninety percent hype. They largely agree on the facts, are fairly close in how to interpret them. Halsall is leaning slightly more towards the idea that it was the internal fights for supremacy in the western empire opened opportunities for the barbarians, rather than the barbarian invasions creating the political unrest as Heather has it.
The Making of Late Antiquity — Peter Brown
Peter Brown is the historian who first made the idea of Late Antiquity fashionable. This is not the book which with he did it, but the closest I could get to it and it’s very strange. No politics, barbarians invasions and Roman collapse here, but a description of the evolution of the “pagan” mindset of yer average Roman during the second century Common Era, into the Christians of the fourth century. Interesting, but not quite for me.
The Goths — Peter Heather
Heather so far is the historian I trust the most on the Late Roman Empire and his speciality is the Goths. Here he tries to write their history, from very meager sources attempting to reconstruct their prehistory up until the time they first enter centre stage in 376 CE, then following them up until the dissolution of the two kingdoms they founded in Italy and Spain, as well as their heritage. Good one volume history, best read in context with e.g. Heather’s other books, or something like the Halsall book above.
The Left Hand of Darkness — Ursula K. LeGuin
Classic science fiction novel and winner of both the Nebula and Hugo Awards, not a feminist novel, but profitable to read it within this context.
Absorption — John Meaney
Part space opera in the tradition of Banks, Baxter, MacLeod, Reynolds et all set in the same universe as Meaney’s earlier novels, part epic fantasy following people at various points in time, from 777 AD until well after the main sequence’s 2603 AD. Not surpringly, part one of a trilogy. Decent book, need to wait for the next volumes to see if it was worth it.