Until a few days ago, I thought this book by Christopher Othen was the only academic work on international volunteers for nationalist side of the Spanish Civil War. It turns out there is at least one other one, as I found this book by Judith Keene entitled "Fighting for Franco".
I wasnt able to give it thorough read, but my impression is that Kenne's book is more driven by chacter studies and personal bios of these more eccentric right-wing types that fought on nationalist side; whereas Othens book seems to have more of a genral approach that doesn't
really drill down deep into the bios of any single one volunteer. Hes also good for discovering some more obscure dyanmics within the right, like the fact that Mosley and certain other more modernist/technocratic left-leaning fascist types
However, there seems to be a couple figures that Keene highlights that I dont remember Othen discussing. Like this fascinating young man Vincent Patriarca,
who was born in America to Italian immigrant parents, but ended up serving as a military pilot for Spain in the Spanish Civil War and Italy in the Ethiopia campaign and even WWII, I beleive. There is a ton of literature on the
other side of this subject of international volunteers in the Spanish Civil War (i.e. the side of the reds and libs). I remember watching a pretty good documentary on Lincoln Brigades, but cannot remeber the name. However, the only book I read on the subject was
Hochschild's "Spain in our Hearts" which focuses on Amerian volunteers (possibly other English speakers as well, but cannot remeber). It also focuses on a number of more obscure phenomena, like the fact that there were a number of wealthy right-wing types in US who financially
gave to Franco and nationalist side, even though it was illegal under "Neutrality Laws". I bought it in an airport when I forgot to pack a book for a flight, and wasnt dispointed as, at the very least, Hochschild's a decent writer stylistically, which is nice because stylistic
writing is almost non-existent within academic history. He also wrote "King Leopold's Ghosts"which, from an empirical/academic perspective, is flawed (I think someone in our sphere has documented this, I think @Sean__Last or his collaborator whose name I cannot remember did this)
Btw, I found this article about relationship between American Nazi Party and "Patriarca" crime family in Rhode Island, I have no idea if this Patriarca family has anything to do with the man I posted about with same last name, but that would certainly be an interesting story.
Heather Cox Richardson wrote an interesting book where she argued that part of the failure of reconstruction was the inability for some republicans, even radicals (many of which were laissez-faire libs) who steadfastly championed "free labor" ideology as cure to all the
problems of backwards south, to understand contradictions inherent in its application to black ex-slaves . The actual real world economic conditions of black sharecroppers were radically out of sync with Repub "free labor" "laissez faire" ideology.
When blacks seem to sour on or even rebel against these social/economic arrangements that just seem like a continuation of slavery in some sense, traditional "free labor" repubs lose interest in their cause (they are more concerned with the universal application of
I think I found patient zero or the missing link for Fonerite reconstruction historiography. James G. Blaine's memoir of his time as a Republican congressional rep for Maine and eventually a senator from 1861 to 1881. This memoir contains a large amount of political/
historical analysis of reconstruction and its shocking how much it resembles all the post 1960's/70's reconstruction literature in its extreme radical liberal political views and even loud virtue signaling about the downtrodden freedmen. Especially during the time of
reconstruction itself, historians like Claude Bowers were quick to point out, that most radical Republican politicians that loudly proclaimed themselves to be crusaders for the rights and dignity of the freedmen were usually just anti-southern and vindictive as when these
Goody is less known, but this book is really important for understanding the leftist critique of "western civ" and "Eurocentrism" (I don't know if it was written before Said's book, but if it was, then Said ripped alot of his framing from Goody, because its identical
in certain areas). Basically "Theft of History" was a critique of "Eurocentric" history in that it looked at the claims of traditional European writers and historians in terms identifying the west as having originated or invented certain types of science or philosophy or even
certain concepts like "love", "romance, "chivalry", "honor", "liberty", etc. While it easy to pick apart some of the chauvinistic European writers from eighteenth century, they were sort of right in a number of areas and Goody's book is not particularly convincing in its .
I was reading Meyers book on the "final solution" and he brought up an interesting moment in early Nazi German relations with outside world, specifically international Jewish community. In response to the international Jewish boycott of German goods, Hitler and others arranged a
boycott of Jewish businesses domestically (I think internationally as well). At that moment Rabbi Stephen Wise organizes rallies across US and a meeting at Madison Square Garden to step up, not only boycotts, but international trade sanctions on Germany. Hitler personally
responded with a statement arguing that "Jewish Marxism" in USSR claimed millions of lives but our German "national revolution" has claimed hardly any lives and most Nazis's have not harmed any Jews. Goering organized a meeting of four representatives of different communities
Purchased this last night, have been looking for something like this for quite awhile. There was a French historian named de Rougemont that wrote a book like this with the same name. Tony Judt also has something similar and there other essays on the subject (and other books).
Padgen is just the editor, this is a collection of essays digging into to antiquity, middle ages, but primarily the last 300-400 years documenting different ways Europe as a single entity, political unit, civilization, or culture has been conceptualized. I know from Judt, Padgen,
and some of these other people you might be getting modern cosmopolitan EU propaganda. However, I am kind of obsessed with trying to understand why Europe develops in a decentralized manner and why it ultimately resisted the temptation in such a small geographical location
This is a great thread of, to my knowledge, one of the better single volume US economic histories. This issue of the development of "Sunbelt" and south's post-war economic and political modernization is an important body of literature that many probably aren't aware of.
A number of good books, but Schulman’s “From Cotton-Belt to Sunbelt” is the best. What initially spurred this was Roosevelt's insistence on “modernizing” the south, referring to it in 1938 as Americas “economic problem no.1”. The primary way the federal govt accomplished this
was by awarding disproportionate number of military contracts to southern states which spurred development of heavier industry as well as growth of white-collar jobs related to science, engineering, technology,etc.