10 most important history books:
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1Urquhart
10 most important books that shaped your view of history.
So often threads can be very distant and anonymous. This thread will allow people to get a bit more up front and personal, if they choose.
The 10 books that started and formed my reading and understanding of history are:
Andersonville MacKinlay Kantor 1994
Andersonville is a novel by MacKinlay Kantor concerning the Confederate prisoner of war camp, Andersonville prison, during the American Civil War (1861–1865). The novel was originally published in 1955, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year.
As a young teenager in ’55, I found this book of blood and gore and Civil War just fascinating. Needless to say it jump started my interest in Civil War history. Also the 750 pages was a real challenge for a young high school boy who knew nothing of history.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
I read this for the first time in college. The last portion of the book dealt with history, causation and the big man theory of history. It got me thinking of causation in history for the first time.
Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America David Hackett Fischer
It showed me history was all around me: past and present and why things happen the way they do. Was suggested to me during a visit to Williamsburg, Va.
What Is History? Edward Hallet Carr
Showed me that it is all about context.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Dee Brown
A totally devastating experience to read; and shocking still.
The Iliad Homer trans. By Robert Fagels
No one knows exactly when or by whom this was written, but it still encapsulates both the horror and beauty of the ‘eternal present’ and human nature in a way that no other written word document does for me. Nothing short of fantastic. A book to grow old with.
History of Greek Culture Jacob Burckhardt
This long out dated cultural historian is a real love of mine.
The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 1) Robert A. Caro
Taught me of LBJ in his school days and how it foretold the man he became. The LBJ series plus the Power Broker are wonderful.
The Hindus: An Alternative History Wendy Doniger
A truly brilliant historian who shows how important the past is to understand the present. And why the people in the present are distorting the past. And who taught me to read the bibliography first in a history book, before all else.
Mao: The Unknown Story Jung Chang
Incredible cruelty and ruthlessness on an immense scale. Had no idea that Nixon was that dumb. Seriously.
2DinadansFriend
Well a list that even Buzzfeed might carry! (sarcasm)
Francis Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe",
taught me that history counts even today.
Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall .." taught me that you read the whole book, and not summaries. otherwise, you don't get the fun repetitions and salacious details. Besides it's all I know of Hume's philosophy.
Will and Ariel Durant's "Story of Civilization", because it's so good on the Western European and American History, from a cultural point of view. (Admittedly, I could do without Volume one "Our Oriental Heritage"as it covers too much compared to the scale of the rest of the book.)
"A Study of History", all twelve volumes by Arnold Toynbee. All of it, even the maps, because Somerville's precis was just misleading. Perhaps everything I've read in the field since is just testing AJT's thesis?
"A History of the Crusades" by Sir Stephen Runciman, for it reads like a novel, especially volume two. Historical writing at its finest!
"History" by Herodotus, for showing me that the analytical was present in historical writing from very early on.
"Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail, 1968", by Hunter s. Thompson. "It's a Mad house, a madhouse..." Pierre Bouille. Showing me that history isn't over, it's got no chance to finish, ever!
"The Campaigns of Napoleon", by David Chandler. Showing that military history isn't just violence porn.
It gets harder as I get to the end of the list....but....
"War and Peace" especially if you admit that's it's about the Crimea not the Napoleonic invasion, as far as the people side of the novel goes.
I was going to include "Catch Twenty-two", but I've already got "Fear and Loathing" so I'll go with "1066 and all that" because it instills a sense of proportion, and is mercifully, short.
Francis Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe",
taught me that history counts even today.
Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall .." taught me that you read the whole book, and not summaries. otherwise, you don't get the fun repetitions and salacious details. Besides it's all I know of Hume's philosophy.
Will and Ariel Durant's "Story of Civilization", because it's so good on the Western European and American History, from a cultural point of view. (Admittedly, I could do without Volume one "Our Oriental Heritage"as it covers too much compared to the scale of the rest of the book.)
"A Study of History", all twelve volumes by Arnold Toynbee. All of it, even the maps, because Somerville's precis was just misleading. Perhaps everything I've read in the field since is just testing AJT's thesis?
"A History of the Crusades" by Sir Stephen Runciman, for it reads like a novel, especially volume two. Historical writing at its finest!
"History" by Herodotus, for showing me that the analytical was present in historical writing from very early on.
"Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail, 1968", by Hunter s. Thompson. "It's a Mad house, a madhouse..." Pierre Bouille. Showing me that history isn't over, it's got no chance to finish, ever!
"The Campaigns of Napoleon", by David Chandler. Showing that military history isn't just violence porn.
It gets harder as I get to the end of the list....but....
"War and Peace" especially if you admit that's it's about the Crimea not the Napoleonic invasion, as far as the people side of the novel goes.
I was going to include "Catch Twenty-two", but I've already got "Fear and Loathing" so I'll go with "1066 and all that" because it instills a sense of proportion, and is mercifully, short.
3dajashby
Crikey, someone who has actually read A Study of History in its entirety! I have always made do with the 1972 revised and abridged (and illustrated) one volume edition by Toynbee and Jane Caplan. Please don't tell me it's misleading!
Like Urquhart, my interest in history began with historical novels, but I started at a much earlier age. OUP published wonderful books for children in the 1960s, and I like to say that I spent a fair bit of my childhood in Roman Britain.
I've been reading adult histories for about 50 years, and I've had to think hard about the works that have contributed to my intellectual formation. They seem to fall into early period, mostly in my teens, and late period being the last 20 years or so. I must not have been doing so much serious reading in the interim.
At 16 I read the aforementioned What Is History? which introduced me to the concept of historiography. At the same age I read other memorable books, because I was doing Renaissance and Reformation History as a subject in my final year of school.
The Reformation by Will Durant seriously disillusioned me about the stories they told us in Sunday School. I had no idea John Knox was such a nasty bastard.
Religion and The Rise of Capitalism by R H Tawney gave me some idea of the way one element of culture influences others.
I think I would still have been at school when I read The Tyranny of Distance by Geoffrey Blainey which gave me, and a lot of other people, the idea that perhaps Australian history wasn't all boring explorers and colonial governors. This was of course long before the History Wars in which poor old Blainey found himself entangled as a darling of the Right, bracketed with the likes of Keith Windschuttle.
At university British Constitutional History was compulsory for first year law students and we saved our sanity by turning to 1066 and All That, a merciful relief from the Revolution Settlement and the Reform Acts.
I would like to say that my abiding interest in historical biographies was begun at about this time with Paul Murray Kendall's excellent biography of Richard III, but actually I think I was set on the path by The Sun King, a sumptuously illustrated but definitely populist work by Nancy Mitford.
In recent years I have developed my interest in social history, which covers all sorts of topics.
I'm not sure who got me started on culinary history, it may have been Margaret Visser, who isn't a historian but can certainly write, in nice bite-sized portions. I would nominate the impressively scholarly Food in England by Dorothy Hartley as my benchmark for judging works in this area.
Consider The Fork by Bee Wilson is a fascinating exploration of how we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us - I think McLuhan originally said that, but I'm prepared to be corrected. This segues into my next choice...
Double Entry by Jane Gleeson-White is one of the most memorable histories I have read in recent years. Who would have thought that double entry book-keeping could have had such a profound influence on history?
How about that, I made it to 10! I have the horrible suspicion that I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night wanting to revise my list...
Like Urquhart, my interest in history began with historical novels, but I started at a much earlier age. OUP published wonderful books for children in the 1960s, and I like to say that I spent a fair bit of my childhood in Roman Britain.
I've been reading adult histories for about 50 years, and I've had to think hard about the works that have contributed to my intellectual formation. They seem to fall into early period, mostly in my teens, and late period being the last 20 years or so. I must not have been doing so much serious reading in the interim.
At 16 I read the aforementioned What Is History? which introduced me to the concept of historiography. At the same age I read other memorable books, because I was doing Renaissance and Reformation History as a subject in my final year of school.
The Reformation by Will Durant seriously disillusioned me about the stories they told us in Sunday School. I had no idea John Knox was such a nasty bastard.
Religion and The Rise of Capitalism by R H Tawney gave me some idea of the way one element of culture influences others.
I think I would still have been at school when I read The Tyranny of Distance by Geoffrey Blainey which gave me, and a lot of other people, the idea that perhaps Australian history wasn't all boring explorers and colonial governors. This was of course long before the History Wars in which poor old Blainey found himself entangled as a darling of the Right, bracketed with the likes of Keith Windschuttle.
At university British Constitutional History was compulsory for first year law students and we saved our sanity by turning to 1066 and All That, a merciful relief from the Revolution Settlement and the Reform Acts.
I would like to say that my abiding interest in historical biographies was begun at about this time with Paul Murray Kendall's excellent biography of Richard III, but actually I think I was set on the path by The Sun King, a sumptuously illustrated but definitely populist work by Nancy Mitford.
In recent years I have developed my interest in social history, which covers all sorts of topics.
I'm not sure who got me started on culinary history, it may have been Margaret Visser, who isn't a historian but can certainly write, in nice bite-sized portions. I would nominate the impressively scholarly Food in England by Dorothy Hartley as my benchmark for judging works in this area.
Consider The Fork by Bee Wilson is a fascinating exploration of how we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us - I think McLuhan originally said that, but I'm prepared to be corrected. This segues into my next choice...
Double Entry by Jane Gleeson-White is one of the most memorable histories I have read in recent years. Who would have thought that double entry book-keeping could have had such a profound influence on history?
How about that, I made it to 10! I have the horrible suspicion that I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night wanting to revise my list...
4TLCrawford
Ok, I will try.
Carr's What is History? is great but I would put a couple other historiographies on my list.
Silencing the Past by Michel=Ralph Troulllot
The Houses of History by Anna Green and Kathleen Troup
Historians' fallacies by David Hackett Fischer
For tying history and science together.
Cholera: the biography by Christopher Hamlin
Bones in the Basement by Robert Blakely
Meteorology in America, 1800-1870 by James Rodger Fleming
Seeds of Change by Henry Hobhouse
Some eyeopeners,
Over-the-Rhine: When Beer Was King by Michael D. Morgan, I have read some primary accounts of a few 19th century Cincinnati riots. The accounts make no sense. The secondary accounts of them make no sense. Morgan looked at the German language newspapers and made sense of what happened.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown and
Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington both expose the problems with being a minority in the United States.
Carr's What is History? is great but I would put a couple other historiographies on my list.
Silencing the Past by Michel=Ralph Troulllot
The Houses of History by Anna Green and Kathleen Troup
Historians' fallacies by David Hackett Fischer
For tying history and science together.
Cholera: the biography by Christopher Hamlin
Bones in the Basement by Robert Blakely
Meteorology in America, 1800-1870 by James Rodger Fleming
Seeds of Change by Henry Hobhouse
Some eyeopeners,
Over-the-Rhine: When Beer Was King by Michael D. Morgan, I have read some primary accounts of a few 19th century Cincinnati riots. The accounts make no sense. The secondary accounts of them make no sense. Morgan looked at the German language newspapers and made sense of what happened.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown and
Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington both expose the problems with being a minority in the United States.
5Cecrow
>2 DinadansFriend:, >3 dajashby:, I'd been talked out of tackling the Durants' civilization series ("he's got a slanted view", "his work is dated now"), but you leave me wondering. I will certainly read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee eventually, I've heard that title again and again.
I read my first-year university world history text cover to cover, whatever it was called, and everything since has been "oh yeah, that's where that goes" on its timeline in my head.
I read my first-year university world history text cover to cover, whatever it was called, and everything since has been "oh yeah, that's where that goes" on its timeline in my head.
6DinadansFriend
>5 Cecrow: Cecrow The Durants' books are time well spent with well stocked minds, even if you disagree with them, if nothing else for the epigram buried on each page. The first volume can be skipped, but starting with Volume two, the "Life of Greece", there is no better introduction to the complexity of the life created in Europe and the Mediterranean basin.
"Dating" in history books is an interesting topic, worthy of its own thread. The "Datedness" of a history is a part of the awareness created by historical investigation, and makes the book an historical artifact in its own right, and thus historically interesting.
If we read history for more than a narrative of events, and start to analyze the thought processes and motives of the historians, then the picture of the past becomes even fuller and richer. In short, "Go for it, Cecrow! You have more to gain than the loss of your reputation for being trendy!"
"Dating" in history books is an interesting topic, worthy of its own thread. The "Datedness" of a history is a part of the awareness created by historical investigation, and makes the book an historical artifact in its own right, and thus historically interesting.
If we read history for more than a narrative of events, and start to analyze the thought processes and motives of the historians, then the picture of the past becomes even fuller and richer. In short, "Go for it, Cecrow! You have more to gain than the loss of your reputation for being trendy!"
8aulsmith
I added my books to Theo's list.
I can see my books are a little over concentrated on World War II. I'm still looking for a history of China that I can get all the way through. I usually bog down somewhere in the Tang. I'd also like to know a whole bunch more about Central Asia, but I get the impression that, like my explorations into neolithic Europe, I'm going to find out more about what isn't known than what is.
I can see my books are a little over concentrated on World War II. I'm still looking for a history of China that I can get all the way through. I usually bog down somewhere in the Tang. I'd also like to know a whole bunch more about Central Asia, but I get the impression that, like my explorations into neolithic Europe, I'm going to find out more about what isn't known than what is.
9DinadansFriend
> AULSMITH:
Central Asia may seem to be place with a small population, but it is a very, very, big place. Because the inhabitants are usually only noticed when they band together to bully the neighbours, it's hard to find a coherent account. If you have the time (and access to a university library), I do recommend "the Cambridge History of Central Asia", Vol. i that will get you up to the Mongols.
Peter B. Golden has written "Central Asia in World History", another stab at it. "Empires of the Silk Road", by Beckworth, is also coherent.
Central Asia may seem to be place with a small population, but it is a very, very, big place. Because the inhabitants are usually only noticed when they band together to bully the neighbours, it's hard to find a coherent account. If you have the time (and access to a university library), I do recommend "the Cambridge History of Central Asia", Vol. i that will get you up to the Mongols.
Peter B. Golden has written "Central Asia in World History", another stab at it. "Empires of the Silk Road", by Beckworth, is also coherent.
11chagonz
I must say my early school years did not connect me with any outstanding or influential historical writing-ended up studying it in college for no other reason than I had a curiosity for the past and enjoyed reading about great men and events.....as I got older and escaped the professorial reading list, well things got more interesting:
1. Barbara Tuchman - all things Tuchman, but especially the Guns of August and Stillwell and the American Experience in China...
2. de Tocqueville - for a 20 something who thought he knew America and American history, this Frenchman was amazing
3. Taylor Branch - the entire trilogy, but especially the opening Parting the Waters and #2 Pillar of Fire; an amazing record of our recent, all too easily forgotten history
4. Neill Sheehan - Bright and Shining Lie; the book that I always name as the one best book in my library....it had that kind of impact on me
5. Solzhenitzen - The Gulag Archipelago - it was overpowering in its simple and powerful language and made him a hero to me when I was discovering the world
6. Most recently trying to recover from the absence of the Greeks during my first 50 years, I have been captivated and entertained by Tacitus, Plutarch and Thuycididies.
1. Barbara Tuchman - all things Tuchman, but especially the Guns of August and Stillwell and the American Experience in China...
2. de Tocqueville - for a 20 something who thought he knew America and American history, this Frenchman was amazing
3. Taylor Branch - the entire trilogy, but especially the opening Parting the Waters and #2 Pillar of Fire; an amazing record of our recent, all too easily forgotten history
4. Neill Sheehan - Bright and Shining Lie; the book that I always name as the one best book in my library....it had that kind of impact on me
5. Solzhenitzen - The Gulag Archipelago - it was overpowering in its simple and powerful language and made him a hero to me when I was discovering the world
6. Most recently trying to recover from the absence of the Greeks during my first 50 years, I have been captivated and entertained by Tacitus, Plutarch and Thuycididies.
12LamSon
>11 chagonz:. Totally agree on Bright Shining Lie. When asked about recommendations for the Vietnam War, I always suggest it as the one to start with.
