Mike Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 I've long lamented my ignorance of history, so I've resolved (yes, a New Year's resolution) to start remedying this situation. I'd like to get your recommendations for books on world and U.S. history. Please note the following: I am ignorant and lazy. So, I need to find books that are manageable for one such as me. A little above the level of the "For Dummies" books would be great, but I'm a little too engaged with Facebook and Entertainment Tonight to devote my full time or meager intellectual capacity to this endeavor. I've decided to start with H.G. Wells' "A Short History of the World." I understand its shortcomings and it's Eurocentric bias, but it seems to be a manageable, if somewhat dated, book upon which to start building my soon-to-be-impressive command of history. Apart from general world history, I'd also be interested in focusing on our Revolutionary War, and on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, before moving on to the 20th and 21st centuries. I really would appreciate your informed opinions about what to read and what to avoid. I am truly tabula rasa when it comes to this field. Link to comment
Roadwolf Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 I would recommend Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States: Link Link to comment
Francois_Dumas Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 I love history now, hated it when in High School :-) My favorite part of history is WW2 and the Medieval times, in that order. One of my favorite books of all times is 'The Longest Day' by Cornelius Ryan, describing a very important part of US and European history, i.e. the Beginning of the End of WW2 by landing the allied troops in France. Link to comment
Fubar Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 I've long lamented my ignorance of history, so I've resolved (yes, a New Year's resolution) to start remedying this situation. I'd like to get your recommendations for books on world and U.S. history. If you are actually asking Americans for help with world history you need to be made aware of the fact that the overwhelming majority of us are completely ignorant that either history or the world even exist. Few of us can accurately inform you of more than the most basic facts of US history. Fewer still can tell you even the most obvious facts concerning the world outside the borders of the 48 contiguous states, such as, it exists or that it is round. If you doubt this, look at the US news programs. 24 hours a day to fill but if there wasn't the term "terrorist", "immigrant" or "oil" involved, the story was completely contained between the Pacific and Atlantic. If one of those words was involved, the story just concerned American interests and nothing of the rest of the globe. (But if a celebrity got drunk.....) Sadly, a random Google search performed by a dyslexic, drunken, one-armed, elderly, lice-infested gibbon would provide you with better information than a typical American's knowledge of history or the world at large. Or try an rerun of "Monty Python's Flying Circus". Fortunately, many on this board are not typical Americans. Some aren't even Americans at all. Good luck with all the suggestions received. (I'm going to try a few myself) Rant over. (Or is it? ) Link to comment
notacop Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 "1066 And All That" W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman. Concise coverage of what made modern England and lead to US. Anything at all by Harvard Lampoon. Don't request pertinent info from Florida, they're having a bad history day. Link to comment
Matts_12GS Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 Don't request pertinent info from Florida, they're having a bad history day. He ain't from here, it doesn't matter what he thinks... Link to comment
TyTass Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 I enjoyed Almost HIstory Thanks. I'm sure I'll enjoy this one! Looks fascinating. Link to comment
TyTass Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 Mike, Regarding the Revolutionary War and CW, would your focus be: the social, economic, & political aspects BUT WITH ONLY limited discussion of the military campaigns? the social, economic, & political issues WITH the details of the military campaigns? predominately military history? Link to comment
tallman Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 Anyplace where people live south of Ocala, w/few exceptions, isn't "Florida". Geographically, yes. More like God's Waiting Room. Link to comment
Mike Posted January 3, 2011 Author Share Posted January 3, 2011 Mike, Regarding the Revolutionary War and CW, would your focus be: the social, economic, & political aspects BUT WITH ONLY limited discussion of the military campaigns? the social, economic, & political issues WITH the details of the military campaigns? predominately military history? I'm primarily in the social, economic and political aspects, and not that focused on the particulars of the military campaigns. Thank you. Link to comment
Sailorlite Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 I really enjoyed Stephan Ambrose's 'Undaunted Courage' - Thos. Jefferson commissions Lewis and Clarke to check to check out the unmapped West. Link to comment
Redbrick Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 If you get interested specifically in WW II in the Pacific, focused on the Navy air war I can help and have a modest library of books and information on the subject..... The Journals of Lewis And Clark,edited by Bernard De Voto are a great insight to that first adventurous major exploration of the West....Recommended....That ties in directly with the previous post recommending "Undaunted Courage"...I have it too...... I too enjoy history......... Link to comment
Selden Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 The fall of Constantinople, 1453 by Steven Runciman The Arabs in History, by Bernard Lewis Link to comment
catattoo Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 Try Europe a History Its big but covers a LOT and is a pretty easy read, I have really enjoyed it. Link to comment
tallman Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 hijak Hey Chris, actually ran across your music disc from El Paseo IV on last Tuesday so I was thinking about you. /hyejak Link to comment
notacop Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 I just finished "All For The Regiment" by Prokopowicz. I wouldn't recommend it as light reading. Actually I'd only recommend it to the ravenous Civil War history buff. Not that it was drier than a popcorn fart or anything.... Link to comment
Rocer Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 I'm just starting to read " The Uses and Abuses of History" by Margaret MacMillan before starting out to read further into books of / on history so look forward to suggestions as well. Mike, this book is an easy read and maybe available at your library. Link to comment
TyTass Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 I'm primarily in the social, economic and political aspects, and not that focused on the particulars of the military campaigns. Thank you. Civil War: Well, I get what you're sayin' but I have to admit I'm not aware of any single volume histories of the CW that don't cover to some degree the fighting of the war itself. I've yet to find, much less read, any single-volume treatment of only the causes of the CW that are any sort of overview - instead being treatments of specific aspects of one of the factors leading up to the CW. That said, the only single-volume history of the Civil War I've read that I would recomend at all is Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson. I read this back in 1998 when it was first published and it served to heighten my interest in CW history and its causes. Dozens upon dozens of books later I now know I know very little (unlike historians/professors/grad students and the like). However, what I can do now after all that reading is to recognize an author's bias, to know when an author has been grossly unfair to the facts to make some point. That's not the case with this book. I heartily recommend this one! Revolutionary Period: I've read far less about this period, though still perhaps more than many college-educated Americans - heck, I don't know. Anyway, I find this a more difficult period to sort through the BS. There are just too many people writing about this period that have some axe to grind, where their bias is so strong it's cloying. Sometimes the bias amounts to deifying founders and other books portray founders as laughable hypocrites. Finding something both fair and accurate is often difficult. There are of course other books that don't even discuss the founders, and they're good to digest at some point, too. That said, I enjoyed Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis - a view of the Founding Fathers as a somewhat dysfuntional family. He makes a very good case for it, though at times his direction drifts a bit. Overall, very entertaining and informative. For a more concentrated, more focussed narrative on a key year in the Revolution, I recommend 1776 by David McCullough. Doesn't cover the why's and wherefores, but what a fantastic read! One book I haven't read that was recommended to me by someone I trust is A History fo the American Revolution by John R. Alden. If you read it soon, let me know what you think of it. Link to comment
Fubar Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Anyplace where people live south of Ocala, w/few exceptions, isn't "Florida". Geographically, yes. More like God's Waiting Room. Yeah, I figured that one out in about a week after moving down. The west side is just relocated midwesterners. The east coast is all NY/NJ and Cuba north. The middle is Central America and migrant workers. The north is parts of AL & GA that sagged down. Sorry if my humor before went a bit far, too many teacher friends and brain cells. As the late, great George Carlin would say, "I get pissed goddammit!". Personally looking for some good WWII info on fronts other than Pacific campaign and D-day to VE Day. Eastern Europe, Middle East, East Africa, Indian Ocean. Also, military info on Korean War. I just finished the "Coldest Winter" & it was just too politically based and quite dry. Link to comment
Pilgrim Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Founding Brothers, by Joseph J. Ellis. The name of the book is an obvious takeoff on the term Founding Fathers. While we see those individuals as "Fathers" of the United States their relationships at the time were more on the order of a brotherhood. Nearly all of them knew one another, quite well in many cases, and while they had differences in how things were to be accomplished, and even what the end product ought to precisely look like, they were all devoted to the same end: a country run by and for the people with rights granted by God, not man. The approach the author takes in this 250 page book is interesting and enlightening. Rather than a chronological recounting of events, he selects certain events in which major players of the era were involved and expands and explores them to illustrate what went into creating the initial, fragile structure that has become the most powerful force the earth has ever seen. For example, why did Aaron Burr, a sitting Vice-President, kill Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury and a leading financial mind of the era, in a duel in 1804? What made them fight? The factors that led to the duel echo even unto today. One is struck by how so many of the issues we agonize over today were built into the organizational structure defined by our Constitution. In some cases that was because the Founders did not intend to create a country that was easy to govern from the federal level, and in other cases the problems are rooted in the compromises that were necessary to have a government at all. The best example of that is the accommodations reached over slavery in the Constitution itself; most of us know about them. Less well known are the recurrent discussions that followed - to use the modern idiom, they just kicked the can down the road. By 1790 it was clear that the problem was insoluble; the Civil War was thus inevitable. Hamilton and Madison, for example, wanted a strong federal government run basically by and for the benefit of the monied interests, bankers and investors, who, they thought, would create a wealthy nation in which all would benefit. (Does that sound like "trickle-down" economics?) Jefferson, on the other hand, thought the guy in the field with a mule's butt in his face was where the power belonged. That argument continues now, albeit complicated by technology. Anyway, it's a short book but a good one. An indispensable reference (it's NOT something you sit down and read straight through) is a book, Mike, that you probably saw in law school but not since: The Federalist Papers. Written under a pseudonym by Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, it provides insight into the thinking that went into the constitutional deliberations. While I keep a copy close to my desk just because I like books to look stuff like that up, I think the handiest way to use it is on line. Look HERE for the Wikipedia article. Only by reading American history, but especially what went into the Revolution and creation of the Constitution, can one begin to appreciate what we seem to be throwing away in modern times. Pilgrim Link to comment
TyTass Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Great review, Kent, but ... Nee ner nee ner nah nah! I beat, I beat! (See above.) It truly IS a very fascinating perspective and is one that's well presented in an easily digestable chunks. I've also read American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Ellis and appreciate how ne neither engages in hero-worship nor puts a revisionist spin on his subjects. My next read by him will be American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of the Republic. Link to comment
philbytx Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 My favourite subject at school and I still devour anything about anyone's history One of my favourites : Patton Ordeal and Triumph, Ladislas Farago HERE is a link to an article and it mentions the diaries of John Rabe. An unsung "anti-hero" in China pre WWII, his diaries, now a book "The good man of Nanking" are a very good read. There is also a movie out "John Rabe" that does justice to the book. It's an extremely interesting and current story as, to this day,(and quite rightly!) the Nanjing massacre is still an extremely sore spot with the Chinese and the Japanese continue to pick the scab by not fessing up to it. Link to comment
leikam Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 For me at least, what keeps history from being just a list of dates and names is being able to trace a single thread through the years, be that a political idea or military campaign, the life of a person, a cultural trend or the evolution of a concept. "Learning About History" is a big, boring task. Learning about something you're already interested in is much easier. Things like Coffee, Masculinity and Public Spaces appeal to me. Start from the specific topics that light your fire and you'll find the time to learn about how they came to be. Link to comment
Kitsap Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 You might be interested in the early merchant trade leagues that resulted in the birth of well known places... http://www.historybookshop.com/articles/institution/hanseatic-league.asp Link to comment
BabyCow Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Europe Since 1815 Europe Since 1914 Both by Gordon A Craig. Ironically a Scottish immigrant to the US via Canada. These were high school texts for me in the 70's and were interesting, thoughtful and opinionated (in a positive way) Link to comment
Starfighter Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Any of David Mccullough's books. also.....I do not remember the author but the title is Don't Know Much About History. Link to comment
Danny caddyshack Noonan Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Very recent history in terms of history books and maybe containing a bit of hyperbole but, Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton. Horse Soldiers The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan Offers a unique perspective on what is still a very unfamiliar culture. Link to comment
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