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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: History books that have shaped us
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
First off, I’d like to apologise to anyone who felt offended by my recent posts. It was uncalled for and I’m sorry.
Some of the criticism was based around posts containing historical references I’d made and I started to think about how I’d acquired my knowledge of history. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be a nice idea to share the books that have given me that knowledge, so below is the list and a short line about my view of the book.
With the caveat that I can’t control the thread’s direction, it would be good if Shipmates added their own lists of books that have influenced their knowledge of history, rather than just critiquing my selection.
That way, we’ll be able to see where each other’s focus lays, where there is perhaps common ground, and to identify some good books to read ourselves. After all there is a great deal of discussions of historical events on the ship.
I know there is a thread about books, but that seems to be more about any books that we have read very recently, and I thought it might be useful to give a fuller list of just books about history.
I have excluded biographies and social commentaries such as those written by Bill Bryson, PJ O’Rourke, Jeremy Clarkson et al and only those books that have dealt with a specific time period or events in history have made the list.
A History of Britain Volumes 1-3 by Simon Schama
Cracking reads, full of information to give a broad-brush overview of British history. The Romans, The Norman Conquest, The Plague, Kings, Queens, wars, more wars, the Empire and the death of Princess Diana.
The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather
Really good. Covers the centuries that the empire looked to be stable and solid, but how it was corrupted from within, slowly decayed, and how the barbarians finally finished it off.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb (25th Anniversary Edition) by Richard Rhodes.
I’ve posted at length about this already
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
A great book detailing the history of science and a layman’s guide to some of the concepts. Again a bit gossipy but interesting insights into some the worlds greatest scientists and their works.
Mediaeval Europe, 400-1500 by H. Koenigsberger and Asa Briggs
A good overview from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance, covering the Vikings, the Crusades and so on. Very readable.
The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge
A good book detailing the history of the Crusades, from both European and Islamic perspectives.
The Origins of the Second World War by A.J.P. Taylor
Very controversial as it alleges that the war was a blunder by Hitler rather than a deliberate planned event by him. However, it does give a through critique of the events between the wars. Perhaps best read in conjunction with another book covering the same areas.
Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose
Brilliant. Covers one company of US Airborne troops from their inception in the UAS to the end of the war in Austria. A great review of the soldier’s war rather than the generals war.
The Pacific by Hugh Ambrose
A similar work to Band of Brothers, but a bit plodding in places unfortunately. It covers a more disparate group of Marines across the Pacific campaign.
The Boys of 67 by Andrew Wiest
Covers a group of conscripts from their lives in the US, through basic training and then into combat in the Vietnam war, spanning one year – 1967. Very good and gut wrenching at times. Again, a soldier’s view, not the politicians or generals.
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Covers the development of the early Mercury years of the American space program, and the rise of the Astronaut. Interesting for personal insights and gossip rather than the politics and policies.
All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
A classic. The book that detailed the fall of Nixon after the Watergate break in.
Moonshot: The Inside Story of Mankind's Greatest Adventure by Dan Parry
A look at the Apollo 11 lunar landings rather than the whole space program.
Skunk Works by Ben Rich and Leo Janos
The History of some of the most iconic military planes such as the U2, The SR-1 and the Stealth bombers. Some of the mission background is brilliant.
That’s my list. I’m sure there are others, but those are the ones that have stuck in my memory. Looking over it, it seems heavily weighted to Britain, Europe and post war America. I am currently looking a history of the origins of the First World War, and after that I might look at some US War of Independence and Civil War histories.
Over to you. What are the history books that have influenced other shipmates?
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Alaric the Goth
Shipmate
# 511
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Posted
When around 10-12 years old I used to read books on the history of World War II from the local library, mainly IIRC large general introductions with lots of pictures from the likes of Collins.
I went off that period when a teenager and started reading more archaeology-type tomes, like 'Roman Towns in Britain' by John Wacher, and 'Iron Age Communities in Britain' by Barry Cunliffe.
At University I got more into Dark Age history, and got 'the book of the series', "In search of the Dark Ages" by Michael Wood, which had a massive influence on me. Over the years I got several paperback books in a series 'Britain Before the Conquest' such as 'Celtic Britain' by Lloyd Laing.
Then I started reading (in the 'wrong' University library: I was doing a BSc!) about European Dark Age history, with 'A History of Mediaeval Europe, from Constantine to St Louis' by RHC Davis, an excellent book whcih I now own, and 'The Barbarian West' by Wallace-Hadrill (also own).
I have a translation of 'The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' and Campbell's book 'The Anglo-Saxons'. As a good citizen of Sunderland (in my youth) I have 'The Illustrated Bede'. Oh, and Dorothy Whitelock's 'Anglo-Saxon England' (paperback).
I have John Morris's 'The Age of Arthur' which has some interesting stuff in it, though he goes way over the top from the available evidece in concluding Arthur ruled a massive kind of empire that influenced things for hundreds of years after.
I have a good book on 'The Picts and the Scots' by Lloyd and Jennifer Laing.
I do have the first Simon Schama 'History of Britain' book.
Posts: 3322 | From: West Thriding | Registered: Jun 2001
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Edith
Shipmate
# 16978
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Posted
Anything by Hobsbawm, Lisa - Worldly Goods, John Guy -Tudor England, Christopher Hill - John Bunyan and his Church, Roy Hattersley writes well, try The Edwardians and William Hague on William Pitt, and for a chiller The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe by Brian Levac.
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Edith
Posts: 256 | From: UK | Registered: Mar 2012
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Edith
Shipmate
# 16978
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Posted
The Jardine got lost after 'Lisa'
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Edith
Posts: 256 | From: UK | Registered: Mar 2012
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I can't remember any of my school history texts being sizzling reads, but nevertheless I read shed loads of historical stories - Rosemary Sutcliffe and Geoffrey Trease and Mary Renault and Georgette Heyer and Vaughan Wilkins: basically everything in Belfast Central Library, children and adult fiction, that had anyone in armour/ a wolf skin/ farthingale/ powdered wig, and I was on to it.
I think the successor books today are the likes of Ian Mortimer's The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, Antonia's Fraser's The Weaker Vessel or Amanda Vickery's The Gentleman's Daughter.
From which you will see that I am drawn to social history and imaginative recreations of what it was like to inhabit particular eras.
But if there is one thing that really makes the synapses crackle, it is reading or seeing something produced at the time in the light of historical events both before and since. This is why Bram Dijkstra's Idols of Perversity or Marina Warner's Alone of All Her Sex are such stonking reads because, by studying the visual representations on a particular subject, they illuminate the springs of belief and action of other times.
[ 19. December 2012, 16:04: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
It's a novel, but James Michener's "The Source" was something I read as a child. It was one of my favourite books, though it's not a children's book. It's a story set in Israel that alternates between modern day (well, the 1960s) archaeologists digging up artifacts on one particular site, and a series of vividly told stories that go with the artifacts, one from each layer of Israel's history, all set in the town (or area) of what is now an archaeological site. It's a compelling read that really makes you think about the story of Israel and the Jews, from prehistoric times to the present day.
Peter Ackroyd's "Biography of London" isn't fiction, and is a book that can sweep the reader along, from early settlement and pre-Roman times, through those brawling, colourful medieval days, through the Regency era to Victorian and beyond to show how the city is subject to waves of immigration which enrich it, outbreaks of fire that destroy it, and spates of construction and reconstruction that keep the city going. Once you get into this book it sucks you in.
My third choice would be fiction again. I'm not going to mention Dorothy Dunnett's historical novels (the Lymond ones) in detail as I don't think this is really what this thread is about, but they are such a colourful, interesting, memorable read that they too are ones that I came back to again and again. Set in the Elizabethan era, but spanning an area from Scotland to Russia, with the Mediterranean and Near East in between: worth reading for the sumptuousness of her prose if nothing else.
[ 19. December 2012, 16:20: Message edited by: Ariel ]
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
In my early teens I read anything by Jean Plaidy and any biography I could lay my hands on. I wasn't discriminating at all.
In my late teens I read Virgins and Viragos; a History of Women in Scotland from 1080-1980 by Rosalind Marshall. This had a huge impact - it was my introduction to Women's History.
I like history books which look at events from a different angle, e.g The Crest of the Peacock; Non-European Roots of Mathematics by GG Joseph.
The Houses of History by Green and Troup gives examples of different approaches to history.
I also like very localised histories; the nearest to my desk at the moment being Women's Suffrage in Shetland by Marsali Taylor.
I'll probably return with a more coherent list later.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
It's a novel, but James Michener's "The Source" was something I read as a child. It was one of my favourite books, though it's not a children's book.
Same here!
I remember much prefering the bits set in ancient and mediaeval times to the modern-day padding between them.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alaric the Goth:
At University I got more into Dark Age history, and got 'the book of the series', "In search of the Dark Ages" by Michael Wood, which had a massive influence on me.
I was fascinated by "In search of the Dark Ages" as well when I was at school. Unfortunately it's about the only Michael Wood series that still isn't available on DVD. In my case it sent me off to the local public library to get a copy of Frank Stenton's "Anglo-Saxon England" (which was equally fascinating, except for the chapter on economics at the end) and thereafter to look for universities whose history courses covered mediaeval as well as modern.
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
I majored in History, and I could write a massive list- but here's a few of my favorites.
From my time at college:
Robin G. Collingwood, The Idea of History. Dry, dry, reading- but full of good stuff on how we study and write about history.
Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther. Luther is an interesting character, and I think Bainton does a decent job of relating that- warts and all.
From the rest of life:
Pat Reid, Escape From Colditz. Amazing stuff here; the sheer ingenuity of those men astounds me every time I read it- which I do every couple of years.
Yuri Suhl, They Fought Back. A collection of essays on the Jewish Resistance in WWII. It inspires and drives me to tears at the same time. Another one I've read more times than I can count.
William L. Shirer, The Sinking of the Bismarck. I've had this one since I was a young boy, and Ive read it a billion times, I think. It's probably the one book that put me on the track of being a WWII history nut.
Willie Sutton, Where The Money Was. Sutton has always fascinated me, and his autobiography is filled with interesting tales of how a man ends up in prison for bank robbery- and how he gets out again.
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
It's a novel, but James Michener's "The Source" was something I read as a child. It was one of my favourite books, though it's not a children's book.
Same here!
I remember much prefering the bits set in ancient and mediaeval times to the modern-day padding between them.
I had a history teacher who was thoughtful enough to only assign the really good parts of "Centennial," which is Michener's take on Colorado history. He knew that 7th graders were likely to enjoy the bits about the Arapahoe warrior and the French fur trapper, but not enjoy the other parts.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
One can often obtain some feeling for another era by reading fiction from the era: Austen, Twain, Sayers, Michener.
For those interested in military history, I recommend the works of Byron Farwell. I also recommend "What Everyone Should Know About War" by Chris Hedges.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
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Posted
Biography works well for me. I find it easier to take in historical facts when they have specific effects on someone.
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
Pat Reid, Escape From Colditz. Amazing stuff here; the sheer ingenuity of those men astounds me every time I read it- which I do every couple of years.
I loved these stories and indeed most of the books I came across about stories of how life was during the war, or in POW camps.
I wonder if you might find "The Road to Endor", by E.H. Jones interesting? It's a very readable account of how two ingenious, sharp-witted and resourceful POWs in Turkey during the First World War managed to make their escape. They did so by holding fake seances and getting "information they couldn't possibly know", at first by doing cold readings amongst fellow officers. This came to the attention of the Turkish camp commandant, who was intrigued... and gradually taken further and further in to the extent that he then asked their "spirit" to find a buried treasure.
The story is a quite extraordinary read of how incredibly convincing fake mediumship can be, but it doesn't end there. The two of them managed to manipulate the commandant into believing that they were both going mentally ill, were sent to a mental hospital in Constantinople, fooled the Turkish psychiatrists, and got repatriated to Britain, which was what they'd been angling for all along.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
That sounds like an amazing read. I'll have to check that out. Thanks!
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Edith:
Anything by Hobsbawm, Lisa - Worldly Goods, John Guy -Tudor England, Christopher Hill - John Bunyan and his Church, Roy Hattersley writes well, try The Edwardians and William Hague on William Pitt, and for a chiller The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe by Brian Levac.
I love Hobsbawm. Are you familiar with Eamonn Duffy?
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
The book that first switched me on to history was a book of Greek myths I read at primary school. I was an avid reader as a child and agree with the earlier post who said that reading generally transports you to other eras, whether it be Agatha Christie, Jane Austen or science fiction such as Asimov and Huxley. It fills you with a desire to know more about how other people live their lives which naturally leads to an interest in history.
I seldom read fiction now, I prefer to be absorbed in biographies. Alison Weir probably got me hooked on biographies and I love her books on Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the War of the Roses. My shelves now heave with books by Robert Bartlett, Roy Porter, Mary Beard, Julia Gardner, and I have a serious addiction to women's history, especially of medieval and early modern. I also like medical history which is how I was introduced to Porter's writings. I've just started 'Women in Early Modern England' by Mendelson and Crawford.
My interest is definitely of social history though, I think being a nurse has made me naturally nosey about people's lives. I'm just about to start the last module of a history degree with the Open University, looking at the 2 World Wars.
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'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
Technically it's a work of fiction, but Graves' I, Claudius (and its sequel, Claudius the God) educated me in a lot of Roman history, which itself defined the way Europe developed and hence shaped the world we live in today.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
I can't remember a time when I didn't read history, either fiction or non-fiction. Even one of my earliest school readers described making rush lights, and (weirdly) the window tax! I think it may have been the history of a house....
I moved on to the usual suspects - Rosemary Sutcliff, Geoffrey Trease, Henry Treece, Mary Renault, so that covered Romans, Ancient Greeks, Vikings, and odd bits of later stuff. (The nearer to the present day I come, the less interested I seem to get).
At university, I studied archaeology and medieval history, so that's my comfort zone, and since I moved to Wales I've got fascinated by Welsh history, and the best fiction about medieval Wales is by Sharon Penman (the Here Be Dragons trilogy) and Edith Pargeter's Brothers of Gwynnedd series. And Brother Cadfael.
Another special interest is women in history, and the book that set me off on that track is the marvellous Women in Anglo-Saxon England by Christine Fell.
So here are a few books from my shelves that I turn to again and again:
The Visual Culture of Wales: Medieval Vision by Peter Lord
The Norman Achievement by Richard F Cassady (Normans in Sicily as well as England and France)
The Medieval Machine - The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages by Jean Gimpel, which shows how the middle ages wasn't all primitive and covered in mud
and The Making of the English Landscape by WG Hoskins. I've got the original at the moment, but I used to have an annotated version where another writer re-visited all the places Hoskins mentioned and described what they looked like now.
Oh, and I'll listen to Michael Wood talking about anything - even periods and places that I had no previous interest in, because he makes it so fascinating!
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
I don't read much history, took a lot of it in college but the books back then were pretty dull and focused on male interests like on wars and kings. One prof said the academic history community was furious at Barbara Tuchman for her Guns of August, history is a serious academic subject and making it fun to read weakens the serious status of historians, they thought. He said the history books were dully written on purpose, to look serious.
What interests me these days is the life of normal people, not the rich or the high status or generals who in the past were the ones most written about. I'll bet that interest came from a high school teacher's comment that we all sometimes wish we had lived in the age of knights and their ladies but forget most of us would have been servants working in the kitchen or the fields.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
Anne Somerset's 'Queen Anne'.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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Cedd007
Shipmate
# 16180
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Posted
My teacher in Primary School, who looked just like 'Chalky' in the Giles cartoons, made me learn all the Kings and Queens of England and their dates. He also gave us the holiday task of going to a historical site. Mum took me to Verulamium/St Albans, where I touched a bit of Roman wall and got bitten by the History books bug.
So – 'Eagle of the 9th' by Rosemary Sutcliffe. I think I read that about 56 years ago.
My complete set of 'The Oxford History of England' – which I don't recommend – is so old it is a great source of information about what historians thought about History in the 1960's!
Quite a few of the books I really like have already been mentioned. But I am grateful for a good many new ones I hadn't heard of to add to my list of books to read.
My Top 10:
Colin McEvedy's 'The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History'. It's a series of maps (on the right) accompanied by text (on the left) at about 60-year intervals, and unlike many historical atlases it shows that frontiers constantly changed. He's done lots more historical atlases.
Winston Churchill's 'The Second World War' 6 volumes, a brilliant narrative, the War written in the first person as it were.
'A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars' by Esposito. Exactly what it says on the cover. It took a lot of lobbying to get my dad to buy me this, one Christmas, because it cost 7 guineas.
'A study in History' by Arnold Toynbee, covering the whole of History! Originally in numerous volumes, then contracted into two, and finally appearing in a large illustrated one-volume version. Toynbee saw patterns in History in the rise and fall of civilizations, and put forward the idea of 'Challenge and Response' as what makes History tick.
'The Scramble for Africa' by Thomas Pakenham. How a continent was brought kicking and screaming into the modern world, by us.
'The Battle A History of the Battle of Waterloo' by Alessandro Barbero. A surprisingly 'international' perspective on a 'British' battle.
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II', Vols 1 & 2 by Fernand Braudel. A panorama of a whole region over time.
Islamic World (Cambridge Illustrated History) Francis Robinson. Just amazingly relevant, and readable.
'The King's Peace', and 'The King's War' (about the struggle between King and Parliament in the 17th Century) by C.V.Wedgwood. A very detailed and shifting narrative. No conspiracies; no grand overall picture. Just one thing after another – what you might be described as the 'cock-up' theory of History.
'Henry Vlll' by J.J. Scarisbrick Includes an interesting chapter on how Henry's fixation on one verse in Leviticus brought ruin to the Church in England. (No change there then.)
Posts: 58 | From: Essex, United Kingdom | Registered: Jan 2011
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
I was gong to mention C V Wedgwood's great work but Cedd007 has beaten me to it. Whether or not if you agree with the classic Whig interpretation does not matter much. The case for it is extremely well argued.
For the same period, but a rather different interpretation of many of the same events, Hugh Trevor-Roper's Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans is a short book with great insight into the events and policies leading to the Restoration.
Schirrer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is not an academic work, but is a very readable account of the lead-up to WW II and then the ultimate Allied victory. Whether or not you accept the analyses, there is little doubt of the depth of the book's grounding in fact.
Heer's book on Medieval Europe was an eye-opener for me, in the manner in which the period was not discussed from an English perspective. Heer treats the period as starting with the fall of the Roman Empire in the West and finishing with the fall in the East. In between he writes (amongst other topics) of events then in the Balkans in such a manner to give an understanding of the events of the 1990s, despite the book having been written well before then.
Lastly, Elton's England under tbe Tudors , the book which above all others started me on reading history for pleasure.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Second Eigon's recommendation of The Medieval Machine, to disabuse anyone of the idea that the Middle Ages were a stagnant time when people were hostile to innovation.
A Medieval Family by Frances and Joseph Gies--the history of the Paston family of Norfolk, from their letters and other documents, a very intimate family portrait.
Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror.
For modern history, The Strange Death of Liberal England by George Dangerfield.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
In addition to The Source by Michener there's also Hawaii. Also the collection of Americn History source documents edited by Henry Steele Commager.
I tended to drift between Fiction, History of Technology and History since I think a lot is influenced by technical possibility. Mary Renault gave me a romanticised view of Classicl Greece. Gore Vidal did the same for post Revolution America.
In no particular order;
The identiry of France by Fernand Braudel Also his books on the Mediterranean in the age of Philip II.
Any number of books about the American Civil War and the weird magical time when technolgy was going underwater, underground and in the air.
The Peloponnesian War
My bound volume of "The Telegrapher" journal from the 1890's, A volume of the Proceedings of the Mechanics institute. the history of the Milling Machine
A whole collectionk of popular books on the Vikings I read in college.
My most recent technical history is the Encyclopedia of Past with detailed descriptions of hundreds of regional forms.
[URL for the Peloponnese tidied up.]
[ 22. December 2012, 05:36: Message edited by: Ariel ]
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Edith
Shipmate
# 16978
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by Edith:
Anything by Hobsbawm, Lisa - Worldly Goods, John Guy -Tudor England, Christopher Hill - John Bunyan and his Church, Roy Hattersley writes well, try The Edwardians and William Hague on William Pitt, and for a chiller The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe by Brian Levac.
I love Hobsbawm. Are you familiar with Eamonn Duffy?
Oh, yes, I can't imagine why I missed him off. The stripping of the altars is superb - and heart breaking. And The Story of Morbath is guarranteed to grip anyone for the sheer excellence of the writing.
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Edith
Posts: 256 | From: UK | Registered: Mar 2012
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Hilda of Whitby
Shipmate
# 7341
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Posted
I don't know that all of the books below "changed"me, but they all made the cut to be in my personal list of "best history books I've read":
The Age of Chivalry --a gorgeous National Geographic book that my parents got me when I was 13. I was obsessed with the Middle Ages because of movies like Becket and The Lion in Winter. I still have the book; it's wonderful.
A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. Another great book about the Middle Ages.
The Proud Tower, also by Barbara Tuchman. Wonderful book about the pre-World War I era.
Another look at that era is The Vertigo Years: Europe 1900-1914 by Philip Bloom. Bloom's thesis is that far from being 'a long golden afternoon', that era was full of change and stress. I liked it a lot. I am very interested in the era between about 1880 to 1930.
Highroad to the Stake by Michael Kunze. Fascinating book about a witchcraft trial in 16th century Bavaria.
Son of the Morning Star by Evan Connell. One of the best works of non-fiction I have ever read, period. It's a very idiosyncratic examination of Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn. Highly, highly recommended, but just don't expect a linear narrative. Connell is a poet and novelist. His Custer book is non-fiction and exhaustively researched, but written in a non-academic style. Just terrific.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. Heartbreaking (and groundbreaking) history of the treatment of American Indians by the U.S. government.
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian by Wallace Stegner. Terrific book about John Wesley Powell, an ethnologist and geologist who explored the American West, mapped it, and was treated like crap when he repeatedly warned Congress and anyone else who would listen of the dangers that economic exploitation would pose to the West. Highly recommended. Stegner, like Evan Connell, was a novelist and his writing style is eminently readable--not often the case with history written by academic historians.
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"Born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad."
Posts: 412 | From: Nickel City | Registered: Jun 2004
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Belle Ringer
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# 13379
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Posted
I'm curious whether as a percentage of the population UK folk are more into history than US or Australians. So much of Western history is British history. When I visit friends in UK we walk down the street and casually mention "this is where X happened in Y century." Lots of values for Y.
In USA, we don't have daily visual and tactile connections to past eras, no milestones that have been there since the Roman empire, no 11th century battle locations to view, no ruins from the 14th century. Western history is mostly about not-here. That would be true of Australia, too.
The connection to Western history is cultural only, not also about what happened right here where I live. (The events that happened right here are from a different culture, one that didn't leave many records or artifacts or buildings)
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Timothy the Obscure
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# 292
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I should also mention The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Iraq by Phillip Knightley. I haven't read the updated new edition--I didn't realize it existed until I looked it up to make sure I had the author's name spelled right--but the version I read, which only went through Vietnam, was a great history of war journalism and its pitfalls.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Palimpsest
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# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
I'm curious whether as a percentage of the population UK folk are more into history than US or Australians. So much of Western history is British history. When I visit friends in UK we walk down the street and casually mention "this is where X happened in Y century." Lots of values for Y.
In USA, we don't have daily visual and tactile connections to past eras, no milestones that have been there since the Roman empire, no 11th century battle locations to view, no ruins from the 14th century. Western history is mostly about not-here. That would be true of Australia, too.
The connection to Western history is cultural only, not also about what happened right here where I live. (The events that happened right here are from a different culture, one that didn't leave many records or artifacts or buildings)
I think the "Western History is about British History" may be a side effect of reading English Language History books. I've read enough French History in translation to realize that other views exist ;-)
As for the U.S., it's true that much of the culture, artifacts and work have disappeared.
Several years ago, I visited the musuem at the Neah Bay Indian Reservation. They have a large quanity of artifacts from a ocean front village that got buried under a mudslide 500 odd years ago and resurfaced in the late 1960's. It was off season and we had a nice long chat with the curator. He said he was trying to convince the town council to put up a sign: "Washington State's oldest continuously inhabited town.. since the year 1000". But I agree that most of the past is lost, we don't know much about Kennewick man or the Clovis culture. Have you read 1491 ?
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
Until very recently, the history taught here was eurocentric in general and anglocentric in particular. For example, I was in primary school in the 1950s when we taught about the Paston family mentioned above, and the life on their manor. While we were taught Australian history, that really was the history of Australia after the British settlement in 1788, with some very scant reference to earlier Dutch and French expeditions. There was virtually nothing of the history of the ancient peplos, on the basis that there was nothing in that which was written and therefore it was all myth.
I'm not sure how you would measure national interest in history. There certainly is great US interest in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and as tourists in the Eastern States we have been shown local battle sites and the like.
[ 23. December 2012, 06:15: Message edited by: Gee D ]
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Palimpsest
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# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I'm not sure how you would measure national interest in history. There certainly is great US interest in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and as tourists in the Eastern States we have been shown local battle sites and the like.
The interesting thing is that more history keeps turning up in these places with no interesting record.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I'm not sure how you would measure national interest in history. There certainly is great US interest in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and as tourists in the Eastern States we have been shown local battle sites and the like.
National interest in history might be analysed by looking at attendance levels at places of historical interest such as museums and stately homes, the numbers of historical dramas and documentaries being made and watched on TV, and participation in history societies, historical reenactments and family history research. There's also the commercial and critical successes of historical non-fiction and novels.
I think there's been something of a historical 'turn' in popular culture recently, certainly in the UK. Look at the success of Downton Abbey! Historical fiction, once frowned upon, is now big news. I think that in an age of great change, returning to historical themes is comforting to people, and it helps them to locate their identity, since it's usually their own national or ethnic history they're exploring.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Galloping Granny
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# 13814
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Posted
Looking at my bookshelves and my reading record, it's clear that my personal interest is in a broad sweep of history rather than a focus on my cultural/political background. For instance:
Johnson's Life of London. Boris Johnson is a lively writer, loves his city, and a vast amount of historical research has gone into the story of London through the lives of people who have been significant in its story from Boudicca on.
Jared Diamond's Collapse: how societies choose to fail or survive – Norse Greenland and Easter Island are particularly fascinating but the lessons are applicable today.
Ronald Wright's A Short History of Progress is on a somewhat similar theme.
Richard Hamblyn's Terra focuses on 'four events that changed the world': the Lisbon earthquake 1755, the European weather panic 1783, the eruption of Krakatau 1883, and the Hilo tsunami 1946 – or earth, air, fire and water.
Simon Winchester's Atlantic is a history of mankind's relationship with the Atlantic Ocean. His Bomb Book and Compass (US Title The Man who Loved China) – backgrounds research into Chinese inventions – there are several pages listing what the Chinese invented before the West. Among others there is The Map that changed the World (geology), and The Surgeon of Crowthorne (US title: The Professor and the Madman).
GG
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The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
Posts: 2629 | From: Matarangi | Registered: Jun 2008
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St. Gwladys
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# 14504
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Posted
Definitely "The Eagle of the Ninth" - I managed to find a copy of the trilogy in a library sell off.
A book called "in search of King Arthur", which I bought on a Cornish holiday in my teens, and got me interested in the Dark Ages.
And no-one has mentioned "1066 and all that" - which presents history as a Good Thing!
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"I say - are you a matelot?"
"Careful what you say sir, we're on board ship here"
From "New York Girls", Steeleye Span, Commoners Crown (Voiced by Peter Sellers)
Posts: 3333 | From: Rhymney Valley, South Wales | Registered: Jan 2009
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
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Agree with The Source by James Michener, above.
If you want a truly great and human autobiography, that of William Shirer is one of the best. it comes in 3 volumes:
20th Century Journey: The Start
The Nightmare Years
A Native's Return
Born in 1902 or something, his father was a lawyer in Chicago, where he met Clarence Darrow. After his father died he lived across the street in a small town from Grant Wood who painted American Gothic. Shirer spent the 1920s and 30s in Paris, where he worked for an English language newspaper, meeting and reporting on Ernest Hemingway, Isadora Duncan, Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sinclair Lewis etc. He went to India and reported on Gandhi; if you've seen the movie, the American reporter within it is based on Shirer.
During the rise of Hitler, he lived in Vienna and Berlin, was CBS reporter under Edgar Murrow. He covered the German invasion of France as an embedded reported with the Germans. After the war, he wrote the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, was blacklisted as a potential communist (absolute nonsens), and he also wrote about the betrayal by Murrow, who was much less saintly than modern history would suggest. His writing is superb and easy. Shirer made me realize that neanderthal reactionary right wing nuts are available in any age, as are progressive and reasonable people.
[ 31. December 2012, 23:43: Message edited by: no prophet ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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