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/lit/ - Literature

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869539 No.869539 [Reply] [Original]

Hello /lit/

What are some good history books?

>> No.869542

all of them i fukken love history

>> No.869547

>>869542
Any specific author or series that I should keep a lookout for? I'd prefer one where it went through a country's entire history.

>> No.869548

What do you want to read about? What period of history?

>> No.869562

wikipedia

>> No.869566

>>869548
Anything with an interesting history, I don't know much about asian history in general.

Any period is fine.

>> No.869571

>>869566

Well, I don't specific "this is what happened" history books, but a good general view of ancient China is "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Or, for Ancient Japan, "Tales of Genji".

>> No.869605

>>869571
Thanks, I see several volumes of them are they a series?

>> No.869614

I just read destiny disrupted: a history of the world through islamic eyes. It's pretty good, and not dry (my biggest qualm with nonfiction.)

>> No.869617

General or about specific events/people?

Well, I'm just going to recommend you books about explorers:

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone
Over the Edge of the World
Captain Cook by Alistair, MacLean
Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs
A Voyage Long and Strange
The Worst Journey in The World

>> No.869655

>>869614
>>869617
Thanks, I've written all these down and will check them out more in-depth later on.

>> No.869656

Niall Ferguson, Tom Holland, Mark Urban. Specifically and respectively: Empire, Millennium, Generals. Empire and Generals are anglocentric (britcentric?), Millennium is about Europe at the turn of the first millennium, and is pretty interesting in explaining the origins of the holy roman empire. also by Tom Holland: Rubicon.
Colossus by Niall Ferguson is a continuation of Empire, depicting the USA as a successor to the British Empire, but it's more of a political book and deals with contemporary matters rather than history. It's 7 years old though so the parts about Iraq are rather optimistic.

>> No.869666

and if you're interested in British political history then a History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr. Thatcher comes out of it very well.

>> No.869765

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

>> No.869811

Based on what I kept from college and have on the bookshelf next to me, here are my recommendations:
Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale
Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall
The Age of Improvement by Asa Briggs
The World and William Walker by Albert Carr

>> No.869818
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869818

>ctrl+f decline and fall
>0 results

>> No.869853

Not OP, but lately I've been really into European history 1750-1850, especially the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Anybody got anything on those?

>> No.869878

if you just want an all purpose history book to catch up on anything important you might not know, I recommend HG Well's Outline of History

it's two volumes (about 1500 pages) that give a summary of every important major event that has ever happened in human history since the dawn of civilization (actually it begins by explaining abiogenisis and our evolution, too)

of course it was written in the 30s so it only goes up until around WWI, and some of the stuff may need to be checked for accuracy due to discoveries since its publication

overall it's pretty good for the layman

>> No.869911

gulag by applebaum
washington's crossing

>> No.869962

>>869853
Napoleon's Russian Campaign by Count Philippe-Paul de Ségur, J. David Townsend, tr. Eyewitness account.

>> No.870170

David Starkey is really good.
Anything by Eric Hobsbawm is gold, and the same goes for Christopher Hill imo (although these are SERIOUS HISTORIANS, they're nice to read).
Richard Holmes' 'Age of Wonder' has gained recent and just praise.
I really liked 'Vive Le Revolution' by English comic Mark Steel.

>> No.870444

>>869911
Skip Applebaum. She unquestioningly cites Solzhenzyn and Conquest, who have have no academic credibility.
Conquest's claims of 30 million imprisoned and Solzhenitsyn's figure of 60 million deaths in labor camps (the Soviet Union under Stalin must've had no economy at all with so few people left).

Khlevniuk's History of the Gulag is far more reliable.

>> No.870636

>>870444
Didn't the Soviet Union have about a billion citizens?

>> No.870642

Can some Historyfag tell me clearly whether or not Niall Ferguson is good or not?

I keep getting mixed and ambiguous review like "this is a piece of shit from a great scholar" or "this is a masterpiece written by a neo-imperialist"

>> No.870651

>>870636
No. It had about 275-320 million at most (depends on who you ask).

>> No.870665

>>870651
So with what you said about Solzhenitsyn, would you recommend I not read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich?

>> No.870678

>>870665
I'm not that guy. Sorry.

>> No.870776

>>870665

I'm not him, but I read 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch' about a month ago myself. It doesn't actually reference any historical figures or events, and is more about the conditions of the Gulag itself, which Solzhenitsyn had first-hand experience with, having been a prisoner for in one for eight years. It's still an amazing read, however, not only in a historical context, but also in a literary context.

>> No.871386

bumpage

>> No.871509
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871509

pic related

>> No.871586
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871586

H.G. Wells - The Outline of History

>> No.871711
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871711

WITHOUT a doubt, the most accurate history book i have ever read.