I am seriously into history and have been doing a lot of reading on the subject of modern Japanese history - essentially from the Edo period through the Mei Restoration ultimately to WW2. Two books that fall into this general category include the following:
"Shogun-The Life and Times of Tokugawa Ieyasu" by A.L. Sadler a biographical account of the rise of this great leader and;
"Government by Assassination" by Hugh Byas The latter describes the post WW1 period in Japan which was a period marked by assassinations, attempted assassinations and attempted military coups in that country, not to mention some highly aggressive foreign affairs policy and several wars - including the big one.
I have also been reading about other historical subjects and personages:
"Winston Churchill - The Struggle for Survival" by Lord Moran. Moran was Churchill's personal physician and accompanied him throughout the war and hence was in a good position to give a more intimate view of the man
and also;
"Monash - The Outsider who Won a War." A biographical account of this great Australian leader who was widely acknowledged as the best allied general on the Western Front in WW1. I have previously read another biography of Monash and it is always good to compare the interpretations and judgments made by different writers.
When reading history, when the going gets heavy I will often swap from one book to another as the mood takes me. The fact of the matter is that it is sometimes difficult to maintain high levels of interest in biographies as certain events and periods can be more or less inherently interesting, so interest levels wax and wane.
Many other books await me as I tend to pick up promising books second hand and tuck them away for future reading when the opportunity affords itself. All of which reminds me that I am also 2/3 the way through "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" by Herbert Bix. One risk of doing as I suggested above of reading a few books at a time is that occasionally a book can be forgotten about and not picked up again. I must get back into this one so I can find out who won the war in the Pacific. 😆😆
