#Sean McMeekin

[dipnotski]

Sean McMeekin – Rus Devrimi (2024)

On dokuzuncu yüzyılın sonlarında Rus ekonomisi yılda yaklaşık yüzde 10 büyümekteydi ve nüfusu 150 milyona ulaşmıştı. 1920’li yıllarda ülke vahim mali darboğazlar içindeydi ve 20 milyonu aşkın Rus yaşamını yitirmişti. 1950’lilere doğruysa, yerkürenin üçte biri komünizmi benimsemişti. Ünlü tarihçi Sean McMeekin, Rus Devrimi’nde Romanov Hanedanlığı’nı sona erdiren, Bolşevikleri iktidara getiren ve…

[mariacallous]

To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the world was certain that Communism was dead. Today, three decades later, it is clear that it was not. While Russia may no longer be Communist, Communism and sympathy for Communist ideas have proliferated across the globe.

In To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism (Basic Books, 2024), Sean McMeekin investigates the evolution of Communism from a seductive ideal of a classless society into the ruling doctrine of tyrannical regimes. Tracing Communism's ascent from theory to practice, McMeekin ranges from Karl Marx's writings to the rise and fall of the USSR under Stalin to Mao's rise to power in China to the acceleration of Communist or Communist-inspired policies around the world in the twenty-first century. McMeekin argues, however, that despite the endurance of Communism, it remains deeply unpopular as a political form. Where it has arisen, it has always arisen by force.

Blending historical narrative with cutting-edge scholarship, To Overthrow the World revolutionizes our understanding of the evolution of Communism--an idea that seemingly cannot die.

[regina-bithyniae]

Watching this series of lectures by Sean McMeekin - IR history and rise of the west. Interesting stuff. Veers into cultural history musings more often than not, and not much is novel to me, but it's fun enough to listen to while painting.

What I can't help but notice is the complete apathy of the class. Constantly he has to remind and nag them to do the readings, turn up for class, etc. Nobody participates or asks questions. They all bomb their first test on questions like "who was Cardinal Richelieu?" which anyone with a pulse should be able to answer. Depressing parallel for my own teaching experience.

"The majority of students are apathetic, don't care about the subject, and don't want to learn," should be where any discussion on expanding post-secondary education access starts, with fairly obvious implications about whether we want to add students at the margin.

[darkmaga-returns]

Today, Santiago & Josh interview Sean McMeekin, Professor of European History and Culture and Author of Stalin's War, to discuss the origins of Communism, the influence and impact of Lenin and Stalin, World War II Revisionism, and applications to modern day US politics.

[spaghetti-academia]

My name is Spaghetti! My pronouns are he/they, and I'm 22 years old. TERFs and bigots are not welcome here.

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

I graduated from college, so now what does one do with their studyblr?

On this blog, you'll find: book reviews, book memes, and other book-related stuff! I may also post stuff related to movies and TV shows, but most of my posts are going to do with reading.

Important note: I like to read non-fiction. I do not agree with every author I read. Reading their book is not an endorsement.

Currently reading

Before She Sleeps by Bina Shah

The Bible (English Standard Version)

The Death of Democracy by Benjamin Carter Hett

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

Homestuck by Andrew Hussie (look for my Homestuck liveblogging)

July 1914 by Sean McMeekin

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

Lightlark by Alex Aster

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Secret City by James Kirchick

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

key: fiction non-fiction webcomic

yes i'm aware that this is a lot of books

What genres do I like to read?

Fantasy & Sci-Fi - always been a huge fan of these genres. I'm a huge sucker for interesting worldbuilding, and I'd like to read more about soft/social science fiction

History - Learning about history is super important! It reveals a lot of about why things are the way they are

Society & Politics - I studied sociology and political science in college, and I want to keep learning.

What are some of my favorite books?

The Warriors series by Erin Hunter

Wolves of the Beyond series by Kathryn Lasky

World War Z by Max Brooks

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

I'm also participating in The Hardest Reading Challenge You'll Ever Do (HRCYED) by Qwordy!

Books I've read so far in 2024

[markganek]

BOOKS: The Russian Revolution: A New History - Sean McMeekin & October: The Story of the Russian Revolution - China Mieville

The Russian Revolution is one of those events almost totally obscured by its interpretations. From the intentional mythmaking of the Soviet period, to Cold War propaganda, to Western Marxist historians, to the inevitable anti-Marxist backlash, the agendas here are complex and opposed. I had hoped to get around this by reading books from conflicting points of views and triangulating toward truth, but…it mostly didn’t work.

McMeekin sets out to cleanse history of any Marxist taint, but in his attempt to de-mythologize the causes of the Russian Revolution – the war wasn’t going that badly, there were few food shortages, military mutiny was uncommon until much later in the revolution – he manages to create a revolution without any causes whatsoever.

For instance, he claims the overthrow of the tsar was caused by the weather. There was an International Women’s Day march that came just after a cold snap. The day was warmer than usual, so many more people than expected came out, things got out of hand…and the tsar was overthrown. Okay.

On the other side, Mieville’s narrative certainly makes dramatic sense. He’s taken by the idealism of the revolution while still conscious of the historical evils of the USSR lurking a bit down the timestream, but the focus on personalities and in-fighting didn’t give me the general historical sweep I wanted.

I suppose I’ll have to read one more.

Dang it.

[bookloversofbath]

The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power, 1898-1918 :: Sean McMeekin

The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power, 1898-1918 :: Sean McMeekin

The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power, 1898-1918 :: Sean McMeekin soon to be presented for sale on the wonderful BookLovers of Bath web site! London: Allen Lane, 2010, Hardback in dust wrapper. Includes: Black & white photographs; Maps (6); List of abbreviations; From the cover: The Berlin Baghdad Express explores one of the most important but least…

[zenobiaofbyzantium]

*babbling and fighting back tears of joy*

Tis the day! Finally here!

Yesterday, the first book I have ever translated has been published.

It's authored by Sean McMeekin, an award-winning American historian working on the history of 20th century who is currently continuing his academic works in Bard College in the US.

I translated Prof. McMeekin's recent work Stalin's War, published by Basic Books over a month ago in the United States, to Turkish from its original in English. Hope I've done justice to his hard & sensational work.

In his study, McMeekin brings a new perspective in the literature of the history of World War II and centers the war around Stalin, unlike most of works regarding this conflict that is Hitler-centered.

Author also shows that, basing his claims on the work he conducted in American, Russian, Bulgarian, Polish, German, English and French archives, how Anglo-Saxon powers' overtly generous assistance to Soviets helped Stalin expand his empire.

The match that burned the world in between 1939 and 1945 might have been lit by Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany, however he was not at the height of his power when the first bullet had been fired in Sino-Japan conflict and he was not alive when the last shot had been fired. And it wasn't him to expand the limits of his own domain.

Like I said, it's a highly controversial, thoroughly researched narrative of the war the world mostly considered Hitler's.

Now we read the Stalin's War. Published in Turkish by Kronik Kitap. Translated by yours truly.

Laters, my fellow brethren.

[devientdeco]

I’ve compiled a list of my books which may interest yall, due to things relating to murder, history, or other interesting things:

The Murder Of The Century by Paul Collins; Fascinating and, at the time, famous murder case in 1890s New York. The over-the-top and theatrical lawyer William Howe would make a fascinating walk-on role if a lawyer is ever required given his penchant for the dramatic and unusual. (in unrelated cases, he once had a witness move to Japan, and successfully convinced a jury that a trigger finger “slipped” four times)

Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum; An excellent and quite readable analysis of the mass starvation known as the Holodomor, in the Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s, told alongside the Soviet campaign to destroy Ukrainian identity and religion.

The Vampire: A New History, by Nick Groom; An interesting account of the history of the vampire and associated folklore prior to Dracula. Focuses mostly on England, but still an interesting book.

The Ghosts of Eden Park by Karen Abbott; An interesting Jazz Age murder coupled with bootlegging and madness.

The Berlin-Baghdad Express by Sean McMeekin: Detailing Imperial Germany’s attempts at courting the Ottoman Empire and trying to weaponize the concept of Jihad against the British, it also delves briefly into German spy-archeologists who wouldn’t be out of place in Imprisoned With The Pharaohs, like the scandalous Baron Max Von Oppenheim.

The Wolf; The Mystery Raider That Terrorized The Seas During WW1 by Richard Gulliat: In Dagon, a German “sea-raider” captures the narrator. I’m assuming it was one of the cargo ships converted into lethal raiding vessels, like the SMS Wolf; which spent 15 months at sea. I also wrote a paper for my history methods class, all about differences in newspaper accounts between the New York Times and the London Times, with regards to the fascinating SMS Mowe, which operated in the Atlantic, so I have other books about the raiding vessels if anyone is interested by them.

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore; Tells the tale of radioactive paint and the girls who licked the paintbrushes to get them fine enough for the number painting; and their inevitable horrible deaths and the lawsuits and struggles of the longest living ones.

Issac’s Storm by Erik Larson; Pretty much everything by Larson is fantastic; it’s non-fiction, but it’s thrilling and reads like a novel. This one tells the story of Issac Cline, a metrologist working in Galveston Texas, and the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, the deadliest in US history. A tale of hubris and storms.

In The Garden Of Beasts by Erik Larson; The story of the first US ambassador to Nazi Germany (from my state!), and his family in Berlin in the late 1930s. Politics, murder, and affairs with the head of the Gestapo and a Soviet agent (simultaneously!).

The Poisoners Handbook by Deborah Blum; A book about Jazz Age NYC and poisonings as well as the first Chief Medical Examiner (the corruption and sheer ineptitude of the last coroner before the position was abolished is almost comical; see the fact that he ruled a death as “assault or diabetes”). Explains in a understandable way how many poisons work, and provides fascinating cases as examples.

The Witches by Stacy Schiff; An account of the Salem Witch Trials, as well as an interesting overview of Puritan New England.

The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson; Another excellent book by Larson, juxtaposing the the 1893 Worlds Fair and the activities of serial killer H. H Holmes.

Dead Wake by Erik Larson; This one covers their sinking of the Lusitania and the activities of the U-Boat which sank it. Also covers the going’s-on of British Naval Intelligence and Woodrow Wilson.

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson; Another book of ships and serial killers and science, juxtaposing the invention of wireless by Marconi with the murder committed by George Crippen and how wireless led to a trans-Atlantic chase by Scotland Yard.

African Kaiser by Robert Gaudi; Tells the story of the fascinating Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck and his guerrilla campaign in Africa. Featuring recon on bikes, a British Intelligence nemesis/friend, and an airship resupply mission.

The American Plague by Molly Crosby: About Yellow Fever and it’s outbreak in Memphis, TN, in 1878, and the work of Walter Reed to discover its vector.

City of Light, City of Poison by Holly Tucker; A fascinating historical incident in 1670s France, where poisonings, murder, witchcraft, and corruption amongst the aristocracy led to scandalous trials and King Louis XIV ordering documents destroyed after a mistress was implicated. Witches, poison, and intrigue!

Black Death at The Golden Gate by David Randall; An interesting account of the 1900 outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco.

The Splendid And the Vile by Erik Larson; An excellent account of Churchill and London from 1940 to 1941, the brunt of The Blitz.

Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higgenbotham; An excellent and well-written account of Chernobyl. Very easy to understand and well-written, and also provides an interesting glimpse into Soviet culture.

And finally, a fiction book that I thought might intrigue y’all;

The Devil Aspect by Craig Russell; Set in 1930s Czechoslovakia, a psychologist interviews 6 serial killers at an asylum in an effort at discovering what he terms “The Devil Aspect”. Things take an unusual turn when he experiments with drugs to unlock the unconsciousness of his patients, as another serial killer stalks Vienna. Almost like a 1930s take on Silence Of The Lambs. Very well-written, in my opinion. Has a slightly Lovecraftian-ish twist, and the asylum overall/experiments make me think of Lovecraft a bit (don’t think Call of Cthulhu, think Thing On The Doorstep or Shadow Out of Time).

[dipnotski]

Sean McMeekin – Temmuz 1914 (2023)

Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nın patlak verişi “hiç aşılmayan bir dramdı”. Yüzyılı aşkın bir süredir, karakterlerin hiçbiri akıllardan silinmedi: Habsburg Hanedanı’nın kaygı içindeki varisi Arşidük Franz Ferdinand; ona suikastı planlayan fanatik Bosnalı Sırp komplocular; suikast sonrası yaşanan karmaşayı fırsat bilen Avusturyalı devlet adamları Conrad ve Berchtold; onlara arka çıkan Kayzer Wilhelm ve…

[uisbg1]

One of the first books I have physically ordered is Sean McMeekin's "History's Greatest Heist: the looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks"

Just absolutely shows how the West was allowing the Bolsheviks to thrive by trading.

[regina-bithyniae]

books

3

16

12

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3. What were your top five books of the year?

Know No Fear (Dan Abnett): A rare "good" Warhammer book. Tells the story of "Pearl Harbor in space." A rare good use of present-tense, the sections jump POV between a dozen different characters (albeit many who die rapidly) in time-stamped sections.

The Rules of the Game (Andrew Gordon). The dive into Victorian social customs dragged, but it's as good a defense of Admiral Beatty as you're likely to get. Still avoids talking about Dogger Bank, which undermines the "open command style Beatty" case. Adds nuance to the Beatty/Jellicoe debate.

Stalin's War (Sean McMeekin). A read-in-progress, it is LONG. But provides a good, extremely critical, read of Soviet foreign policy, pointing out Stalin as a primary instigator of the Second World War.

Tsukihime: I mean uh, visual "novel" right? Some routes are better than others but Hisui True Ending is a sort of masterpiece. The "worse than median AO3"-tier porn makes it impossible to recommend to friends IRL, which hurts badly.

The Naval Battle for Henderson's Airfield (Robert Lundgren). A close re-examination of the battle, plotting out stated locations and gunnery targets of every ship involved minute-by-minute, Lundgren reveals the latter part of the "battle" occurred while the IJN had withdrawn and the USN spent several minutes shooting and torpedoing each other. Highlights a total of 10 friendly fire incidents by the US task force alone. Everyone knew the battle was a shit show, but the extent was covered up.

16. What was the most over-hyped book you read this year?

Bad take: "Black Shoe Carrier Admiral" by John Lundstrom. A defense of Admiral Fletcher, who led the US carrier fleets through 3/4 of their main 1942 battles and won all three, yet got dumped on in post-war historiography for no reason in particular. This book did a vital job re-examining it and largely turned around the narrative on Fletcher.

But dear god is it boring! I'm not sure how aircraft carrier engagements can be made dull but Lundstrom managed it! I couldn't get further than Coral Sea before I gave up. Will give it another go.

@gpuzzle shoot me

12. Any books that disappointed you?

Warhammer books are not generally good, but many are almost good if not for the missed potential.

Take Vengeful Spirit, another part of my doomed Horus Heresy speedread. Prose quality good for Black Library (BL), and it did a great job at showing the obliteration of a planet in a short, brutal campaign, and the themes came together in a way BL fiction rarely does. But it's absolutely packed, with about five main plot threads in addition to the many doomed characters brought up to show various parts of the unfolding campaign. Many cool battle sequences get set up and then abrubtly dropped.

Several of these actually get picked up in the "Doom of Molech" Adeptus Titanicus supplement. One has an outnumbered Imperial titan force fighting a delaying action, the other has their knights desperately trying to stall an enemy force.

[xhxhxhx]

If I wanted to read more about the origins of the First World War, what should I read?

I read Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers a few years ago. Should I read Margaret MacMillan’s The War That Ended Peace, Sean McMeekin’s July 1914, or something else entirely?

[robhosking-blog]

Ain't no cure for the summertime muse

Ain’t no cure for the summertime muse

This ‘relaxation’ thing…its quite neat, isn’t it? Must remember to try it again sometime.

Sustenance and reward for writing words and things. Then deleting them and swearing a lot.

Napier has an establishment called the ‘Allergy Free Cafe’ – don’t get me wrong, it does good coffee, but I can’t help but think ‘surely, that depends what you’re allergic to’

Next door is the ‘Fat Latte Cafe’ which has…

[sonofhistory]

Any books on the history of Russia you would (highly) recommend?

All of these are Russian Revolution, pardon:

The Russian Revolution by Sean McMeekin

Lenin on the Train by Catherine Merridale

The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution by Robert Service

The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen Rappaport