History Newbie - What books should I read?

[ChemicalBeauty]

^ Agreed. I watch a lot of Discovery, History, Animal Kingdom and BBC documentaries and find them to be very beneficial and interesting, to say the least.

 

[dr seuss]

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.

vs.

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.

i think we're broadly on the same page, we just differ with regards to televisual history. and i gave my reasons, you yours, it's not our place to decide any further.

^ Agreed. I watch a lot of Discovery, History, Animal Kingdom and BBC documentaries and find them to be very beneficial and interesting, to say the least.

that's good. documentaries are often necessarily vastly better than the shit i seem to end up watching and BBC documentaries are often classics. but just be aware, and think about what you're seeing - because tv is a really powerful medium, and thus the shitty historical programs are powerfully shitty

 

[osb2010]

The Martyrdom of Man

Wow!
I just completed reading the The Martyrdom of Man and must agree that it takes a different, revolutionary view of History. I didn't know that the ideas in the book were even present at the time. I also wonder what happened in history to not make this one of the most popular texts of all time. The only thing I question is a lack of sources for some of the interpretations but I read an open source copy on the internet.

 

[Ravr]

Great post WII book on European History:

Urwin, Derek. A Political History of Western Europe Since 1945. London: Longman, 1997


And yes the History Channell rocks

 

[Arzi]

Underworld

Graham Hancock