In high school, history for me was like contemplating a great stone wall. Ultimately, the truth about things was fairly impenetrable. We had text books that dealt with subjects in a cursory manner, one at a time. Each item had a heading in big bold print. After that was another subject with another bold heading. Studying this stuff was a chore.
At the university I majored in the mathematical sciences. I took electives a lot and really liked them by and large. All kinds of stuff. I would never have thought to take a history course, certainly, but we had an American history requirement and I took a class in summer school at a city college, not my university. But that course was entirely different from high school. It covered IIRC, up to around the civil war. Somehow that course brought history to life. It may have been the teacher, I have to think so.
Anyway, now, many years later, I feel I should study history, I want to. I don't know where to start. I did go through a period a few decades ago where I studied WW II history, the holocaust in particular. I read several good books, but I didn't take that interest beyond that limited scope.
"Study history or the world's a mystery. Read or bleed, people, learn or burn." That's from the mouth of Dave Emory, who logged countless hours on radio in my vicinity. He studied history compulsively and obsessively and had very strong feelings about the forces that shaped the modern world and did a weekly program for many years, basically talk radio, mostly just him talking about the books he'd read and tying it all together in his interpretation of modern history.
Well, tonight I looked though my many books and am astonished to see that I have almost nothing in the nature of history. I have a historical novel of some great merit (I believe), in James Michener's Hawaii. Other than that, there's only a paperback of Winston Churchill's The Age of Revolution. I have read neither.
Please recommend some great history books. Books that will educate, will make me feel and know and understand the world as it was, how it became that way, how it is and how and why the world is what it is. Of course, I want to be fascinated, motivated to read on and expand my knowledge. Places to start and and further develop. I'm sure there are myriad great history books but have absolutely no idea where to start.
At the university I majored in the mathematical sciences. I took electives a lot and really liked them by and large. All kinds of stuff. I would never have thought to take a history course, certainly, but we had an American history requirement and I took a class in summer school at a city college, not my university. But that course was entirely different from high school. It covered IIRC, up to around the civil war. Somehow that course brought history to life. It may have been the teacher, I have to think so.
Anyway, now, many years later, I feel I should study history, I want to. I don't know where to start. I did go through a period a few decades ago where I studied WW II history, the holocaust in particular. I read several good books, but I didn't take that interest beyond that limited scope.
"Study history or the world's a mystery. Read or bleed, people, learn or burn." That's from the mouth of Dave Emory, who logged countless hours on radio in my vicinity. He studied history compulsively and obsessively and had very strong feelings about the forces that shaped the modern world and did a weekly program for many years, basically talk radio, mostly just him talking about the books he'd read and tying it all together in his interpretation of modern history.
Well, tonight I looked though my many books and am astonished to see that I have almost nothing in the nature of history. I have a historical novel of some great merit (I believe), in James Michener's Hawaii. Other than that, there's only a paperback of Winston Churchill's The Age of Revolution. I have read neither.
Please recommend some great history books. Books that will educate, will make me feel and know and understand the world as it was, how it became that way, how it is and how and why the world is what it is. Of course, I want to be fascinated, motivated to read on and expand my knowledge. Places to start and and further develop. I'm sure there are myriad great history books but have absolutely no idea where to start.
Last edited: