Category: History

110825 • Thrift Store Finds

Both Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920 and Our Enemies Will Vanish were published in 2024, and in perfect condition. Enemies Will Vanish is my first book on the Russo-Ukraine war, something I’ve been anticipating.

The Bridge at Remagen was something I read about in Stephen Ambroses’ The Victors, so I picked this up although I’ve never been too impressed with older war movies. If I remember from The Victors, a lot of the extras in this movie were actually at the battle. I’m probably just remembering that because it happened in more than one production so soon after the war.

The Proud Tower is one of four recent books by Barbara W. Tuchman I’ve aquired recently, this paperback was at the thrift two weeks ago but at full price ($3.99). It wasn’t there last week, but showed up this week. It is amazing that I’ve never run across this, or the The First Salute / March of Folly before. I used to pass on paperbacks, but they are small and cheap.

This two book set of Reporting World War II in special editions by The Library of America were a great find, and in perfect shape.

Fateful Choices by Ian Kershaw was a nice find, I’m halfway through his Hitler biography and would like to have all of his books.

Version 1.0.0
Version 1.0.0
Version 1.0.0

102525 • Thrift Store Finds

Four of these books published in the past year, and were originally $35 or more new, wheras I procured them for a fraction of that! This also means that I beat the online-resellers that go over each book with their scanners, they would have picked them up before me. Always nice to get a win. I am two books away from having all six Jack Carr books now, so that was also a win. His books aren’t at the thrifts very often.

Version 1.0.0

Winston Churchill’s Take On The World Wars

I’ve come across many books by Winston Churchill, who wrote a lot of volumes, but up to now I haven’t purchased many of them. Considering his involvement in both World Wars, I should have been reading his works long ago.

These aren’t the super-expensive, leather-bound Easton Press reprints (that I would prefer), but rather are the Folio Society versions that are still of a higher quality than the average new book. I’m very glad to have these, although at some point I’d like to get the leather-bound Easton Press versions.

092725 • Thrift Store Finds

Picked these up today, a dollar apiece. What a deal! I actually picked them out on Tuesday, but they weren’t half-off, but they were exactly where I left them, and today were now half-off. The two Mozart CDs by BIZ sound great. It is difficult for me to find classical I don’t have already at a thrift store, but it can still happen.

The Dr. Seuss book is substantial and is very detailed into his life and work. The World War II book appeared pretty standard, but the illustrations are terrific. Vikings and the Patton book are great additions to the library as well.

They were real people…

This is some amazing restoration of film that is a hundred and ten years old. It better puts into perspective how these were real people, all of which had no idea how horrible the war was going to be. The original black-and-white footage, which was usually shown at too fast a rate of speed, lost the impact that these were actual human beings and not just some old, beat-up footage of random, long-since dead people.

This kind of footage also helps to make real in my mind the reality of what was going on, the little human interactions in the film cements to me that these are actual people. It would have been wonderful if motion cameras had been around for the Civil or Crimean wars, or even farther back to the Napoleonic or Revoutionary wars, because the paintings and drawings of those times gives them a more cartoonish and unrealistic feel as opposed to footage like this.

Saving Private Ryan had the same effect on me, except it had authentic sounds and battle recreation, all of which gave the black-and-white World War II footage that I saw after the film far more of an impact as my brain automatically filled in the lack of color and sound with a new understanding of what was actually happening in front of those black-and-white cameras.

It is a tragedy that people are more interested in overrated celebrities and bad cinema than they are about truly fascinating things like this.