bjornolf wrote:
What was book #1? What are you reading for book #2?
Did you see my joke in your honor over in your new moderator thread? I was hoping to hear what you thought of it.
![Clover %%-](./images/smilies/54.gif)
I did see the joke, and I appreciate it. That joke is one of my very favorites, and I think it's pretty darned funny aside from its other obvious merits.
As for books, the first for the day was
Strangers Within the Realm, an edited collection of essays about (quoting from the subtitle) "the cultural margins of the first British Empire." Brief explanation: The first British Empire is generally understood as lasting from roughly the mid-seventeenth century until about the American Revolution. As for "cultural margins," we're simply talking about geographical peripheries (colonies, Ireland, Scotland, etc.) and marginal peoples: Native Americans, slaves, servants, poor people, etc.
I should confess that it wasn't a complete reading of that book today. It's about 440 pages long, but I finished off the last 275 pages or so.
Book #2 will be
The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex, a study of the economic, social, and demographic particulars of plantation societies, particularly in the British context. Though a bit dense, it's shorter than
Strangers at 206 pages. Should be pretty easy to knock it out in the next three hours or so (just in time for the final 2/3 or so of the Braves game).
A ~650-page day is not a bad haul.