If you follow me on Twitter (@ASPertierra), you’re no doubt aware that I post what I read quite a bit. Probably too much. I do this mostly because I love sharing cool tidbits from what I reading with people and over the years people who follow me on there have shown interest in using what I’m reading to find new interesting things for them to read too. I’m really proud that my readings of Fernand Braudel have inspired around half a dozen or more people to get into his books over the years.
One thing people have repeatedly asked me for, in replies and via DMs, are my reading lists. While I don’t think a full reading list makes sense - I’ll come back to that in a second -, partial reading lists of the most interesting books I’ve gone through for research or for pleasure does seem like a fun idea. I started an Excel sheet for books I’m reading this year and with the end of January this seems like as good a time as any to review some of the more interesting texts from this past month.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of my reading this past month has been focused on my dissertation research, focusing it on Cuba in the 1990s as well as the Eastern Bloc and USSR. However, reading for pleasure and for the Cuban history podcast I also read pretty widely outside of just dissertation related works. Also, I plan to include cool podcasts here and there, even though they’re technically ‘listening’ and not reading, because many mini-series podcasts are basically free audiobooks and are often very good.
This will not, however, be an exhaustive list. This is for two reasons. First, not every book I read is worth commenting on. That would be boring and filler. Second, because I don’t want my lists to end up pissing off every author whose work I didn’t especially enjoy for whatever reason. This means that while I won’t only do books I liked, I won’t (normally) go out of my way to talk about books I strongly disliked unless there is a good reason to. Now, let’s get into it.
Emperor: A New Life of Charles V
Still technically making my way through this one, but I enjoy it and am finding it helpful for the podcast. Accessibly written, makes reference to important developments in the historiography here and there, lots of archival research.
It makes a strong case for how unwieldy Charles V’s vast domains were, something that was apparent even to Charles V fairly early on. I had always wondered if him splitting his empire between Philip (who got Spain + the Netherlands) and Fernando (Austria, a very reduced Hungary, and Bohemia, as well as the election to Holy Roman Emperor) was actually necessary. Not only does the answer seem to be ‘oh god yes’, but it seems like if anything Charles erred by not adding a separate Habsburg to sit on the throne of the Netherlands instead of having his son rule them from so far away.
Another interesting tidbit is how weak Habsburg rule was in the Netherlands even this early on. As someone who isn’t a student of its history, I knew that it would become locked in a decades long war of independence by the end of the 16th century, but didn’t really know about how strong the Habsburg dynasty was there before that. This makes clear that even when it was acquired in the 15th century, Habsburg control was a fragile thing and by Charles V’s rule there was already significant organized resistance at times (such as Ghent refusing to pay taxes until it was forced to by armed troops).
Super interesting book, while also not a classic in the same way that John Elliot’s biography of Olivares is. Cool book. Check it out if interested.
Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World
My feelings on this one are more mixed. I think parts of it are interesting, for sure, but also that it feels like several different projects sewn together inartfully instead of a single cohesive project. Any one of those projects on their own would have been cool, but this combination feels more disappointing. There is also a tendency to overexplain things through grain (especially early chapters) and some baffling errors (misattributes statement to Catherine the Great that was actually by academic writing in the 20th century about Catherine the Great). I think if you’re interested in the topic and a bibliophile, check it out, but otherwise you’ll be fine.
The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslovakia, 1988-1991
This is a genuinely cool book that I’d like to get back to at some point to read cover to cover (I read about half for the dissertation). It offers a really interesting narrative history of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia at the end of the Cold War. I especially appreciated the analysis of state actors as well as popular protests and the like, with lots of anecdotes livening it up. Fun read.
Cuba’s Military 1990-2005: Revolutionary Soldiers During Counter-Revolutionary Times
This is the first deep-dive I’ve read on Cuba’s military post-Cold War and it was definitely interesting. It goes into detail on a lot of key transformations during this period, especially the transition from a large fighting force in the 1980s to a military-economic conglomerate from the 1990s onwards. The book suffers from the obvious sourcing issues that this topic unsurprisingly runs into, given its sensitivity, but overall pleasantly surprised by the levels of access he got to the military’s perspective on this. That said, I do feel Klepak would have been better served by critically analyzing their arguments and perspectives more. The book is helpful but it feels like the analytical heavy lifting has been left to other future authors. Still useful.
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Have been making my way through the audiobook for this and am almost done. This is a classic I’ve been meaning to get around to for years, so I was glad that I got a chance to use my Audible credit on it.
The book is basically an attempt to use 1960s era Dependency Theory as a lens through which to offer a broad history of Africa’s relationship with Europe from the pre-colonial era all the way to the age of decolonization, in which it was written (published 1972).
My takeaway so far on the book is a bit mixed. I think the weakest points for the book are the pre-colonial era, plagued by both the underdeveloped state of historiography on that era when it was written and somewhat clumsy attempts to import Marxist concepts to describe African societies that poorly fit into its classical categories. Moving to the colonial era and beyond, the text is definitely a political tract as much as it is a work of scholarship, both for good and ill. However, as it gets into the 19th and 20th centuries I found the good outweighing the bad more and more, as he got into topics and problems in more detail and with more available sources.
I haven’t finished the book but I think it’s worth it if you’re interested and the above described problems don’t phase you. Its defects can and should be made up by reading more contemporary scholarship.
The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine
Another audiobook, this one started back in December. Really enjoyed it, even though, much like Rodney’s book, this is as much a political book as it is scholarly. I also read this one purely for pleasure and out of curiosity.
Plokhy’s is in some ways a very traditional history. It is a national history that focuses on the evolution of societies in and around the traditional national borders of Ukraine and its people. However, to someone like me with little background in Ukrainian history, this is exactly what I needed as an intro to the country’s history.
His political project is clear; to emphasize Ukraine’s distinctive identity and the many examples from its history of attempts to forge an independent Ukranian state, on the one hand, as well as the numerous connections which tied Ukraine not just to Russia but to Central Europe as well.
I certainly learned a lot about Ukraine’s history on its own terms and heartily recommend it to anyone interested in reading an accessible longer historical perspective on the contemporary Russo-Ukrainian War.
1989: A Global History of Eastern Europe
This is an important book. I don’t say that a lot. It was clearly so important that after reading the relevant sections of the library copy for my dissertation I immediately bought myself a copy. Mine is sitting in my ‘to read’ pile next to my reading chair so I can go through it cover to cover.
What does this book offer? One attraction for me is that Tobias Rupprecht worked on it. Rupprecht is the author behind the excellent Soviet Internationalism After Stalin: Interaction and Exchange between the USSR and Latin America during the Cold War, a great book that I strongly recommend both for historians of Cold War Eastern Europe and Cold War Latin America, and anyone else interested in either.
Another key attraction for me is that the book is a collaborative work. I’ve been pleading for a historical discipline that moves away from monographs and towards collaborative projects for years now. It makes no sense that multiple historians can’t collaborate on big complex projects and produce books that are better than anything they could have come up with on their own. This global history of Eastern Europe around the 1989 crisis is a great example of what can be achieved.
The project attempts to not just analyze the 1989 crisis in Eastern Europe on its own terms, in light of the massive amount of great scholarship produced over the past three decades, but also recontextualize it by connecting it economically, culturally, politically, and socially with the broader world in ways that left me going ‘WHAT?!’ after page or two. I will probably revisit this in a deeper review once I read it cover to cover, but suffice it to say I really liked it. Strong recommend for those interested.
A Short History of Revolutionary Cuba
Despite how much he has written on Cuba over the past few decades, I’ve never read Kapcia’s work before. My impression of this book, which I read select chapters from, is definitely positive enough that I want to read more. While, like Klepak, I sometimes feel like he pulls his punches, there’s enough substance here that I found it helpful in recontextualizing things I’d grown up knowing about but lacked a good framework for. Again, I haven’t read this cover to cover, but if read in combination with authors like Ada Ferrer’s great Cuba: An American History, who offer a more critical lens, it is definitely useful.
Two of my biggest issues with it were:
The sections I read did not cover the role of State Security. This does not mean they’re not present, but that at least what I read doesn’t get into their role in controlling society. Unsure if he addresses this elsewhere in the book, so YMMV.
Puzzling optimism about the potential role of the National Assembly, which continues even today to play the role of rubber stamp committee. I would also love it to play a bigger role, but even recent changes have yet to signal - to me anyway - that one is actually forthcoming.
Ooooh very nice list! My tbr just got a lot longer....
Have you read "Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana," by LeoGrande and Kornbluh?