History Newbie - What books should I read?

[randomfresh]

Hi, I never took history at high school but now that i've started travelling I really would like to get myself a basic understanding of our history.

In particular, I'd love to learn about the history of Europe...including all the Romans, Greeks and that sort of stuff (sorry...me=newb) , but also possibly history of other parts of the globe (America? Canada? Everywhere else?)

Can anyone reccomend me a good, interesting all-round history book to get me going? Perhaps a good European history book?

Or other alternatives/suggetions maybe? ... a video perhaps?

Thanks!

 

[Shimmer.Fade]

Watch the history channel non-stop for a few months.

 

[PlurredChemistry]

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (a bit more america-centric, but still good)

good starting points...

 

[johnmortons]

most books that give historical overviews tend to be rather dry and sometimes boring, because they summarize a lot of information in an abstract way, without all the human and interesting details. if i were you, i'd pick a specific topic you're interested in and read something about that rather than trying to understand the grand picture right away.

an important historical book (if not a classic "history" book) is Primo Levi's "If this is Man", which are his memoirs from Auschwitz. a book you wont be able to put down. highly recommended.

 

[vegan]

wikipedia.com

 

[Belisarius]

For late Roman and early European history: Peter Brown's "The World of Late Antiquity." Not easy to read, but informative and to the point.

For Byzantine history: John Julius Norwich's "A Short History of Byzantium"; not a deep book, but a fun one.

Really though, as JM wrote, this question is so broad; the number of good history overview books out there is simply enormous. If I wanted to learn the basics of world history, I'd either:

--Buy an old world history textbook at a used bookstore.
--Buy an atlas of world history. (These are everywhere, and can be had cheaply.)
--Buy one of the several small, but very thick paperbacks that claim to be about world history. There are lots of these out there, as well.

For what it's worth, I've heard good things about H.G. Wells's "A Short History of the World", and his two-volume "The Outline of History". The latter is very expensive new, but can be bought used relatively cheaply. They're old books, as you might have guessed, but apparently timeless.

 

[Pander Bear]

Picking up where Bel gracefully left off:

Europe and the Middle Ages by Edward Peters

Read this cover to cover and you'll have a better understanding of Europe than 98% of History Majors. I was assigned small sections of it for a medieval Art history class, and It's been one of my bathroom reading books for like 4 years now.

 

[Pander Bear]

incidentally, how does one not take any history in high school? In my school system, a diploma was only issued after you had taken a year of geography, a year of world history, a year of american history, and a semester of american government.

 

[Mariposa]

dianetics has it all: a vampire AND an explosion

Are you fucking joking?! This isn't the lounge.

The guy asked a serious question and you're feeding him sensationalist, quasi-religious propaganda. What an insult. How Dianetics presents anything other than L.Ron Hubbard's psychoses exacerbated by shitty acid is completely beyond me. And yes, I've read it in its excruciatingly long entirety (had to for a seminar on cults).

Not to mention: L. Ron Hubbard was an AMERICAN.

randomfresh - I'd recommend you find an opportunity to take a class/course in European History. You'll be exposed to a variety of experiences, literature and historical texts. That said, I learned a lot more by travelling than I ever learned in books. Pick some places to which you want to travel, prepare through books written by natives/adopted natives, and GO and learn! History is fascinating when accurately written, but you'll learn so much from seeing sights, interacting with natives, and experiencing the sense of wonder you can only get from seeing something about which you've read for the first time.

Happy trails!

 

[goatofthenever]

incidentally, how does one not take any history in high school? In my school system, a diploma was only issued after you had taken a year of geography, a year of world history, a year of american history, and a semester of american government.

Not all classes are up to par. My american history class was "taught" by a replacement, none history teacher.

As someone said the history channel is a very good start. Obviously it's not reading, but good for someone who doesn't know much about history since it doesn't go too in depth without a good explanation.

 

[Pander Bear]

I watch a lot of the history channel, but I'd never reccomend it to anybody who actually expressed an interest in learning history. They run fluff about the Nazi's relationships with Saddam Hussein and UFO paranoia.

 

[Able Danger]

This book covers all the ancient civilizations, and a lot more. The Martyrdom of Man was a history of the world from an entirely new viewpoint, and was a prominent freethinking text of the late Nineteenth century. It is not an exaggeration to say that it provided a view of History as revolutionary as Darwin's view of Science - an entirely new and non-religious way of looking at the subject. It was very popular and influential on publication in the 1860's and long after - Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells and George Orwell were all heavily influenced.
Even Sherlock Holmes said "Let me recommend this book, -- one of the most remarkable ever penned. It is Winwood Reade's 'Martyrdom of Man.'"
http://www.exclassics.com/martyrdom/martcnts.htm

 

[Belisarius]

Another history book I enjoyed was Eugene Rice and Anthony Grafton's "The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559". An excellent overview of a fascinating time period.

 

[dr seuss]

yeah, avoid history programmes on television. other than possibly sparking an interest in an unknown subject they're basically useless.

i'd second the early recommendation about an historical atlas; it's an excellent starting point. by the time you get back to even late medieval europe the continent is in many ways unrecognisable.

overviews are great, but the worst tend towards a kind of necessary breathlessness which results in simplification as the authors struggle to condense the historical record into 900 pages; so heed the excellent recommendations in this thread already. generally i find the best historical writing which seeks to encapsulate an entire period relies more on giving an overall impression along with specific focal points to try and allow the reader to start thinking about an era; the best will likely form a springboard from which you can really get into the interesting details.

 

[goatofthenever]

Why avoide history on tv? Are you saying they are inaccurate?

 

[dr seuss]

sort of.

the problem is that history deals in extremely complex happenings; even a simple event requires so much contextual background that a tv program just doesn't have time to represent it properly, let alone the various historiographical approaches which will constitute the historical record.

an hour documentary about hitler's life may contain many accurate facts, but history isn't just about facts; it's about how and why we endeavour to reconstruct the past, and what methods and principles we carry with us when trying to place it into a larger explanatory framework. and the collaborative, evolutionary nature of historical discourse means that no historian works in a vacuum delineated by something as rigid as 'fact'.

it's kind of like watching ER and then attempting surgery television simply doesn't have the time to really deal with historical issues in the necessary depth or breadth to which historians are accustomed. oversimplification is unavoidable.

 

[McLaren]

but history isn't just about facts; it's about how and why we endeavour to reconstruct the past, and what methods and principles we carry with us when trying to place it into a larger explanatory framework.

well history is about facts... facts of chronological events in the past. i have been studying, in depth, ancient historical civilizations like Egypt, Rome, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, etc. for about 15 years now, and i have never heard of anyone referring to history in the way you do. i mean, you're sounding like a diluted history enthusiast talking to someone who is just getting interested in history, like some kind of after school special. "methods and principles we carry with us..." what? what does that even mean? not to mention what does it have to do with history? all i see is a bunch of 25 cent words attempting to cover up a lack of knowledge on the subject.

history isn't about how or why we make an earnest attempt to reconstruct the past. it's about the actual events that took place some time ago and how we are today because of such events.

it's kind of like watching ER and then attempting surgery

i don't think anyone was implying that you can become a historian by watching a few history shows. history doesn't have to contain the depth you are referring to, as in books, especially if all the original poster wants is some basic knowledge of general history. he said he wants an "interesting all-round history book to get me going." he never said he wants intimate knowledge of "how and why we endeavour to reconstruct the past."


so go ahead, original poster, watch some history channel or other related shows if you want to. despite some other's beliefs, you really can learn quite a bit. my local county library has numerous history programs on dvd and vhs. you could always check out your library, it's a good place to start since it's free.

 

[Able Danger]

This book covers all the ancient civilizations, and a lot more. The Martyrdom of Man was a history of the world from an entirely new viewpoint, and was a prominent freethinking text of the late Nineteenth century. It is not an exaggeration to say that it provided a view of History as revolutionary as Darwin's view of Science - an entirely new and non-religious way of looking at the subject. It was very popular and influential on publication in the 1860's and long after - Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells and George Orwell were all heavily influenced.
Even Sherlock Holmes said "Let me recommend this book, -- one of the most remarkable ever penned. It is Winwood Reade's 'Martyrdom of Man.'"
http://www.exclassics.com/martyrdom/martcnts.htm

This is the best history book ever written, and barely anyone has read it.

 

[dr seuss]

well history is about facts... facts of chronological events in the past.

yes, but like i said it's not just about facts - otherwise surely there would be just one piece of historical writing, called 'History: The Facts'.

i have been studying, in depth, ancient historical civilizations like Egypt, Rome, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, etc. for about 15 years now, and i have never heard of anyone referring to history in the way you do.

your area of specialty is beyond my own (medieval Western European religious history), so i can't comment on specifics with any real authority. however i'm almost certain that the study of ancient history is also concerned with methodological and historiographical enquiry...

i definitely don't have 15 years worth of experience to draw from.

i mean, you're sounding like a diluted history enthusiast talking to someone who is just getting interested in history, like some kind of after school special. "methods and principles we carry with us..." what? what does that even mean? not to mention what does it have to do with history?

a diluted history enthusiast? i feel shameful! :D

what i said was that

but history isn't just about facts; it's about how and why we endeavour to reconstruct the past, and what methods and principles we carry with us when trying to place it into a larger explanatory framework.

are you proposing that historical study is uniform? that the way historians go about writing history is unaffected by the methods they use and the ideological approaches they implement, subconsciously or otherwise? really?

all i see is a bunch of 25 cent words attempting to cover up a lack of knowledge on the subject.

i respectfully beg to differ firstly, i can't write about history in any other fashion; it's who i am. this is something i have discussed in the College & University forum thread about essay tips.

secondly, if there are two things in the world i would consider myself knowledgable about, historiography would be one. it's something i am passionate about and have done a lot of work on. the study of the practice of history formed the bulk of my undergraduate degree and is a major part of my postgraduate work, which begins in September. i'm sorry if you got the impression that i am lacking knowledge - i'm not a historian yet, but i'm well on the way. as of September i'll be working in arguably the best history department in the world, with some of the most eminent medievalists alive; so i must know something

history isn't about how or why we make an earnest attempt to reconstruct the past. it's about the actual events that took place some time ago and how we are today because of such events.

the events that took place are obviously the fundamental basis of historical study; but not all historical discussion is focussed on ‘how we are today’ as a result; that’s an offshoot, an exercise in comparative history which seeks to draw inferences from ‘the past’ to the present. but an equally important element of historical work is how we constructed that ‘past’, what shaped our methods of retelling events, what informed our historical judgements. and it’s this referential approach which, especially in an era of increasing knowledge and specialisation, can bear the most innovative and historically useful fruit… no historian works in isolation from their forebears. historical study has always been linked to grand narratives, to bigger social and intellectual issues; from 1960s gender history to 1890s Prussian historiography, from cold-war era value judgements to 1920s fascist revisionism, from representation to post-modernism to deconstruction.

what actually happened in the past is the basis of historical study; how and why we constructed the past is equally important, especially when you’re dealing with limited sources and vast time spans.

i don't think anyone was implying that you can become a historian by watching a few history shows. history doesn't have to contain the depth you are referring to, as in books, especially if all the original poster wants is some basic knowledge of general history. he said he wants an "interesting all-round history book to get me going." he never said he wants intimate knowledge of "how and why we endeavour to reconstruct the past."

i know what he said – which is why my first post contains my recommendations talking about tv shows is another direction this thread has taken.

additionally I referred to what I consider to be the main benefit of history programs: to spark an interest in an unknown subject, injecting someone with the desire to find out more. it looks to me like the OP is already at that stage. I take your point; history doesn’t have to be as in-depth - but then I never said that it did. my comments about tv shows were made in the context of a discussion about their worth. i’d already spoken about historical overviews providing a springboard into more detail.

so go ahead, original poster, watch some history channel or other related shows if you want to. despite some other's beliefs, you really can learn quite a bit. my local county library has numerous history programs on dvd and vhs. you could always check out your library, it's a good place to start since it's free.

for something like ‘The Nazis: A Warning From History’, which relies on lots of archive footage and interviews with those involved in the events it describes, then yes – it’s a great starting point. you can learn quite a lot from them, but if you really wanted to know more you’d have to bounce off into the realm of written history, as the original poster said they wanted to.

but for something like early medieval history, where we have no living witnesses, precious little textual material, and a lot of debate amongst historians – well I’m sorry, but the value of the knowledge you acquire from watching can vary enormously. there are great, classic, academic documentary series which are well-researched and carefully thought out, then there are shitty commercial history programs which oversimplify, romanticise, and often mislead. this isn’t snobbery, it’s just the reality of television

 

[McLaren]

i am not questioning your intelligence. i am certainly not saying i am more intelligent than anyone else. i'm sure you'll find my grammar trying at times. i have just studied a lot on ancient history for many, many years. thats all.

but you still seem to be trying to sell someone a $400 smartphone, when all they really wanted was a pager.

i re-read the original post. nowhere does it say he wanted to learn 'more.' he said he wanted something "to get me going." he also says he wants to "get myself a basic understanding of our history." the keyword that i picked out of that sentence is 'basic.' that can best be achieved, in my opinion, by simply watching some historical programs or documentaries. then when he comes across things that he would like to know 'more' about, he can go get a book on that specific subject matter.

about a year ago, i saw the show on barbarians on the history channel. i thought to myself how that was a great way to get a basic knowledge of the different tribes in an easy to understand, chronological order. it even re-sparked my interest in the goths and visigoths, so i decided to get a book to delve deeper into that specific subject.

so that is pretty much my opinion. watch some programs until you find something that is really interesting to you, then get a book about that subject.