How - huh? How does historical fiction sensationalize an event? Well-written, well-researched HF can provide insight into the lives and experiences of those who didn't have a chance to tell their story. It shouldn't be used at the expense of factual and first-hand accounts, but it's a useful tool.

Edited to add: I also think historical fiction is extremely useful in elementary classroom settings. Depending on the era you're teaching, narrative nonfiction accounts might be scarce or nonexistent at that reading and maturity level. Telling the story of the event through the eyes of a character their age allows them to relate to the story and understand it. It's what made me fall in love with history as a child. Books like The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Steal Away Home and Fortune's Journey and all the diaries in the Dear America Series, the American Girl books, even my problematic-but-beloved Little House series - these are what introduced me to the specific realm of history I find most fascinating as an adult: the often mundane, day-to-day lives of ordinary girls and women who cooked and cleaned and taught school and got married and had relatable feelings and thoughts.

I've decided to try and clear out some of my spy history books as I've had some for years now.

Finished Hitler's Secret War: The Nazi Espionage Campaigns Against the Allies by Charles Whiting which was only £1 but I'm still annoyed about it.

>2/5 not worth reading due to poor sourcing. Feel like I've wasted my time. Writing style is ok I guess. The main problem is the sources, there is only a 1 page bibliography mostly of books from the 1960s and 70s (the book came out in 2000). The author relies a lot on interviews with the people involved but there is no proper notes or anything so it would be hard to verify. There is quite a few mentions of Canaris being homosexual but I can't seem to find anything about this online, which alone makes me doubt a lot of this book.

Yesterday I finished Agent Sonya: The True Story of WWII's Most Extraordinary Spy by Ben Macinytre Not a copy and paste review for once.

4.5/5 stars I really liked it and would recommend it. About a Jewish German woman who became a communist spy in the 1930s+40s and operated in China, Poland, Switzerland and the UK. Her biggest achievement was transmitting/transferring the British nuclear secrets stolen by Klaus Fuchs to the Soviets during WWII. In the end she got away with it but had to flee to East Germany where she became a children's author and survived the Cold War. The book is very well written and enjoyable to read.

This is just my opinion but the book was better than Double Cross and Agent Zigag, as good as The Spy and The Traitor but not as good as Operation Mincemeat or A Spy Among Friends all by the same author.

I've started but I think I'm going to give up on Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in History by Frank Close about Klaus Fuchs. It's just a bit too in-depth for me, especially on physics and how nuclear science works.

I went to look it up, as it sounds like something I'd like to read. Could it be by Leon Uris? I didn't see a Herman Wouk version...

I've read a lot of books on Lincoln both full biographies and more individualized books about individual events speeches,military commander etc.,and I think the optimum biography to start with is David Herbert Donald's biography it's exact perfect length and faces upto all the major issues you need to face in biography.

Posting links to “news sites” that people aren’t familiar with can have that effect

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Thanks for sharing

Hey everyone!

Just finished Bruno Mugnai's The Ottoman Army of the Napoleonic Wars, 1784-1815 and found it to be quite brilliant. It covers the challenges faced, and reforms undertaken, by the Ottoman military during the Napoleonic Wars. I quite enjoyed the analysis of the Ottoman Empire's most notable institution, second only to the High Porte.

Fascists will always make bad-faith arguments no matter how perfect the evidence is against them. Better to heed them no mind and just teach good critical thinking skills.

Hoping you're able to get a source on this! Your best bet may end up being an academic paper?

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Well, i have to admit that I wrote this slightly before reading the whole article. So yes, we know his stance, or his family’s stance.

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Welcome to Reddit. Get used to opinions without people actually reading the post 😂

I finally was able to get back to Jon Meacham's new Lincoln biography, And There Was Light. It's a little late, but this is a good "dad" book if you're looking for a gift. I've probably read about 10ish Lincoln biographies and a decent chunk of other period relevant books and papers. This probably isn't my favorite biography ever but it's good and it does a couple things that I think are important that other biographies didn't address or at least didn't do so as clearly.

Because of the whole "Actually, Lincoln was a racist" stuff that goes around, this book did a lot to contextualize it. It tries to put statements that are usually pulled out of any context to paint Lincoln one way or another, into context. Lincoln isn't absolved from racist sentiment or feelings, but is contextualized to show that he was progressive on the issue in a way that was practical. So you get these quotes about colonization or his statements to Horace Greely about freeing only as many slaves as needed, within the context of recent votes or elections or anticipation of the Emancipation Proclamation. It's all important context. It makes it clear that Lincoln wasn't the kind of autocrat who could dictate policy and have it followed. Lincoln was a politic player and bound by public opinion. He said some terrible stuff, but also did so to manage that opinion to reach highly commendable goals.

He also addressed the election of 1864 and its importance. It's hard not to read that section of the book as a rebuke on the modern GOP. But Lincoln made it clear that there would be elections, they would be on time, and he would step aside for McClellan (Who probably had a lock on the election up until Sherman took Atlanta). He also talked about the strides Lincoln took to make sure soldiers in the field could vote. Democratic states took pains to prevent troops in the field from voting and Lincoln used his powers to grant them furloughs and arrange transportation. It was to his advantage, but there's also an anecdote that Lincoln made sure a democrat that was being blocked was allowed on his train. And you can poo poo anecdotes like that, but you also have to remember how Lincoln used these things to his advantage with the press and I think it could just as easily be seen as a way for Lincoln to press his point about the importance of participatory democracy.

Overall I think it was a great biography and probably a good one if you're looking for a first biography of the man.

Edit: I'll add that this is also a really good example of how a work of history can indirectly address current issues without being didactic.

That's why I'm so excited about the improvements in AI. We have every increasing wide spectrum imagery and lidar for most of the planet, but trying to find a building in the Amazon is still a needle in a stack of needles. A pattern recognizing AI will be able to blitz through the mountains of data faster than any amount of human processing.

I may have misread the article but I think it said he and his family were risking their lives to hide Jews. So we can guess what his sympathies may have been.

Poland fought both evil Nazi Germany and Soviet union..The only country to do so..

Sonder Aktion 1005 from Germany own records shuts them up..

That's a different uprising. There were two, the Ghetto Uprising in 1943, and Warsaw Uprising in 1944.

My grandparents escaped from Lithuania Nazi occupation..

Thats indeed valuable! They show how the firemen and other first responders would see the uprising. We can’t know his stance towards jews and the ghetto, but as you state - they weren’t taken for propaganda reasons.

Amazing

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That’s the number of resistance fighters that were killed. The German casualty number is 110, with 17 killed, 93 wounded officially, although there is a decent chance it is higher.

I don’t know how to check, but if the majority of their casualties came in the initial ambush, it’s still plausible they waited them out after that.