What do you want from a book review thread?

brianthebard

I was thinking recently about suggestions made in a previous thread. I think in history its not enough to recommend or review a book, I thought perhaps every week/fortnight a user could suggest a book and we could have a discussion on it and its various qualities. If this is something you're interested in seeing in history please vote in the poll/comment in this thread. If there's enough interest then I'll start this up and sticky all relevant threads.

McArmalite

No review thread.

Something else I have thought we could do every week/fornight would be for probably you as the mod to nominate a subject from Newstalk's Talking History programme on a subject from the Listen Back section which relays the previous Sunday's discussion http://media.newstalk.ie/listenback/ or from the Pod Cast section where a topic from a few weeks or months ago can be picked from.

A particuliar topic could be chosen, the link added, people could listen and then give their views ? Just a thought.

brianthebard

No review thread.

That could be interesting, we'll see how this thread turns out though, I'd say at least a dozen votes would be needed to make these plans worthwhile.

walrusgumble

No review thread.

Although done to bits by various books and documentaries, the problems issue and reviews on subjects such as Tom Barry and the Coolacrease incident,opinion writers, blogs etc

Peter Hart v Media Ryan (On Cork and in particular Tom Barry) Strange, Hart has still to publically and convencingly repute or rebut Media Ryan's defence/argument from her book Tom Barry IRA Freedom Fighter as a response to his 1998 book.

revionists v writers telling traditional story: Do "Revionists" actually found new information/sources or are they just trying to repaint facts?

McArmalite

No review thread.

walrusgumble wrote: »

Although done to bits by various books and documentaries, the problems issue and reviews on subjects such as Tom Barry and the Coolacrease incident,opinion writers, blogs etc

Peter Hart v Media Ryan (On Cork and in particular Tom Barry) Strange, Hart has still to publically and convencingly repute or rebut Media Ryan's defence/argument from her book Tom Barry IRA Freedom Fighter as a response to his 1998 book.

revionists v writers telling traditional story: Do "Revionists" actually found new information/sources or are they just trying to repaint facts?

Well with these "Revisionists", ( who generally are usually comfortably paid anti nationalist and anti left politics writers, Meyers, Dudley Edwards etc ), I think it's that you have to question their underlying agenda/theme. Sure misleading and down right lies presented as ' facts ' have to be countered, but their's always a continual underlying theme to their writings -

Tone, 1916, Connolly etc - Al Quieda/Secterian murderers,
Unionists - the oppressed and misunderstood quaint 'tradition',
brits - the benign, benevolent well meaning keepers of the peace etc

Keep chipping at the underlying theme/agenda as it's only sh!t anyway as it doesn't fit the facts or pragmatic.

donaghs

No review thread.

McArmalite wrote: »

Well with these "Revisionists", ( who generally are usually comfortably paid anti nationalist and anti left politics writers, Meyers, Dudley Edwards etc ), I think it's that you have to question their underlying agenda/theme. Sure misleading and down right lies presented as ' facts ' have to be countered, but their's always a continual underlying theme to their writings -

Tone, 1916, Connolly etc - Al Quieda/Secterian murderers,
Unionists - the oppressed and misunderstood quaint 'tradition',
brits - the benign, benevolent well meaning keepers of the peace etc

Keep chipping at the underlying theme/agenda as it's only sh!t anyway as it doesn't fit the facts or pragmatic.

Is that what you want from a book review thread? I'd agree with the original post - someone nominates a book, then it gets discussed.

The revisionist issue was covered very well in a previous post. Such a narrow view is unfortunate. To pick one name listed above, Connolloy. He actually was a bit of a "revisionist" in his own time. Check out his "Labour in Irish History". It went against established views on a lot of issues. E.g. his revisionism on Daniel O'Connell, while overly negative, is still very interesting. He predates a similar boards discussion by highlighting the Tithe War (Carraigshock, etc) and its effect on the lower classes, and compared it with O'Connells lack of interest - and preferred pursuit of upper class Catholic goals. His revisionism of pre-feudal Ireland as a proto-socialist society was stretching things a bit. Unfortunately unlike modern historians he wasn't great with additional extras like info on sources, bibliography, footnotes etc.