Some Thoughts on Big Ideas in History

Ah, 42... The great answer to life, universe, and a lack of reading. 2016 is the first year I really made an effort to pursue reading books as a daily habit by reading just 50 pages/day, which works out to only ~1hr for most non-fiction books, and I'm both surprised and pleased by how easily achievable my original goal of reading at least 24 books for 2016 was. I guess this is what normal people feel like when they talk about how easy it is to get in the habit of exercising? That's definitely something I need to work on but running for the sake of running is one of the dullest activities for me... To anyone reading my blog, I encourage you to get out there some stale indoor-air and read as many things as possible! Manga, articles, journals, blogs, books, erotic fan-fiction! Life's too short to spend it on exercise, charity work, dating, praying to God, or raising a family. Surely, we can all agree that the warm embrace of a loved one is inferior to the smug satisfaction one can get from reading 17th century grain-price fluctuations across Europe, right?

Bad jokes aside, I saved the best for the last to conclude my series of posts for 2016 books. This post is dedicated to the Big Ideas in history. The kind of ideas that even normal people find fascinating but historians sometimes hesitate at because they don't want to seem too reductionist with grandiloquent ambitions of constructing historical formulae or metanarratives.

Some Thoughts on Books I read in 2016 - Part 5

I think that economics, like religion, is one of those topics that's seemingly a lot less interesting than it actually is. I think the best way for fellow history fans to get through the initial high entry barrier for these subjects, is to read books that uses them to explore a bigger question with greater appeal. For instance, the whole reason why I recommended books on the development of Jewish mythology, is not to be a douchebag but get people more interested in religion, especially how it helps shapes human cultures. That's why even though I fully admit I'm closer to being a scatter-brained dilettante than some intellectual (I'm just a dude who translates manga on the interwebz ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌ ), I'm still excited to recommend books that'll hopefully get people to leave their comfort zones and explore new ideas. With that said, here are 3 economic history books that I hope some weirdos people will have fun with.

Wombs v02 (complete)

At last, volume 2 is done! I'm not going to start on v3 until January, as I have a few things to wrap up before the end of the year.

Download:
Wombs v02:   Mega
Wombs c16:   Mega

Some Thoughts on Maks, Japs, and Yanks.

Christ, what a year we've had. Bloody Ramadan, Nice terror attack, Orlando shooting, Brexit, Trump, failed Turkish coup and Erdogan's purges, FARC referendum, Panama leaks, Korean shaman scandal, Brazilian presidential impeachment... That's not even mentioning all the other noteworthy events going on in Syria, Yemen, Baluchistan, and Philippines. Well, only one more month left in 2016 so let's just hope the year doesn't end in a literal bang from some surprise asteroid strike. In the meantime, I'm gonna try to wrap up my Some Thoughts on Books of 2016. This is Part 4 of 6.