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But who buys all that stuff? Can't imagine anyone under 50 being interested in collecting endless histories about WW2 and english royalty.

There's so many incredibly interesting stories and events in history, it's a little sad that such a small part of it dominates popular non fiction. Maybe because nazis vs the rest has over time shaped so neatly into a 'good vs evil' narrative?

Last edited by Larssen (2020-12-04 07:05:01)

it’s people who browse bookstores. general history sections are endlessly renewed. it’s not necessarily a bad thing. a decent number of them in any english-language bookshop will have my name in the acknowledgments, so i’m certainly not complaining. i’m partially responsible for a good 20 or 30 such books.

new authors can bring new understandings and revisions to a topic. but, more often, it’s just a matter of churning up what’s available and selling it again on an important anniversary or according to what might be trending in the popular culture (e.g. because of a breakout film or tv show; this happened with chernobyl and soviet history books after your beloved series).

remember we’re talking about ‘trade’ nonfiction here, not specialist stuff and definitely not the academic discipline of history. general interest stuff. hitler is interesting to people, i guess? i mean you could write many books in-itself on the phenomenon of nazi hobbyists.

I'm glad I stumbled upon this topic. I wonder the thought process that led you to some of those conclusions.

That username is actually a Simpsons reference.

Nothing in my original post was related to her being transgender. I take exception to this bisexual insinuation, though. This is.... whatever the opposite of bi-erasure is!

Next I will read Max Hasting's 'Vietnam'.

While many modern militaries are still preparing for WW2-2 the Chinese have been adapting and winning since 1950.

I like watching former mob members on youtube. The infamous convicted mafia boss/snitch Sammy the Bull has a youtube channel now. After his video where he told a story about kidnapping some stoners finished, youtube autoplayed another video of some super small youtuber who was interviewing the mob boss about his new book. The guy interviewer was cursing a lot which is never a good sign. But what caught my attention was when the interviewer told the mob guy "Your book is the first book I ever read recreationally."
I closed the video right there. I don't want to hear a bad interview by a person who doesn't read.

Good movies?

i agree, we should stop reading shakespeare. hamlet, macbeth, king lear ... to say nothing of titus andronicus ... pure psychos.

let's all read books written by nazis instead.

i mean accusing mob movies, and the consumption thereof, of being somehow detrimental to human society whilst having a bookshelf full of nazi tomes is pretty fucking hilarious.

how many of those artistic psychopaths have been driven onto murderous holocausts because of the plot of Macbeth? meanwhile dilbert is interested in nazi military commanders.

you can't make this stuff up.

really? where? wasn't a major part of the sopranos, televised literally 20 years ago, a critique of the way italian-americans are portrayed by hollywood/tv, and an exploration of everyday italian family life???

where do you get these moronic generalizations from?

maybe you look at the world like a simpleton.

because people embark on lives of crime after seeing a scorsese movie. yup. not at all to do with any number of other socio-economic or purely sociological factors. nup. people see a netflix movie and they are gripped by a compulsion.

uziq wrote:

because people embark on lives of crime after seeing a scorsese movie. yup. not at all to do with any number of other socio-economic or purely sociological factors. nup. people see a netflix movie and they are gripped by a compulsion.

Strange, you're ranting about me buying one book by a german, generations of Italians lapping up portrayals of vicious crime families is harmless though.