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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2825 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for March 8, 2023

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Please reccomend me a generalist History book for dummies, something not woke or overly opinionated.

History is my weakest subject and as a result Im impotent when I get Eulered with references to the Mesopotamians and the Akadians and the Anglo Saxons and the Carthagians and the Kievan Rus or whatever and how something happeneed to them that disputes a statement I am making about modernity.

Im looking for something like a CIA handbook for history, something to get me upto speed quickly.

There is nothing that will get you to the point where you can't get tripped up by a specialist on Sumerian history or medieval guilds or Chinese secret societies. You could spend a decade on it and you still won't get all those things, it's just not possible.

If I were looking for a couple books that give you a complete vision for human history in the shortest time possible, I'd move from The Dawn of Everything to Hobsbawm's series on the 19th and 20th centuries. That will get you enough grounding to frame most everything you run into later.

I liked The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community by William McNeill, but that was back in 2009.

Susan Bauer's History of the Ancient World seems a pretty good overview of Antiquity up to the fall of Rome, although I'll admit I've read only parts of it. The Great Transformation is a wonderful primer on the origin of all major religions and philosophical traditions of Eurasia. In general Erenow's archive is full of gems (though I also notice a couple that are pretty much pseudohistory). I don't know if the site itself has any particular political bias, but the books are all over the place in that sense.

Initially considered recommending Bauer's book, so I guess I'll just second that.

I enjoyed Why The West Rules - For Now by Ian Morris a few years back, though I think it's not exactly what your looking for. It is a overview of global history, but it's in service of the titular topic with a focus on geography and environment. Recommended by /r/askhistorians, for what it's worth.

Seconded. It is both informative & an entertaining read.

It's certainly way below the level you want but I have a soft spot for Gombrich's A Little History of the World. Highly readable -- I picked it up in a bookstore and read half of while standing on that spot -- and a decent topical overview, though overly focused on Europe. It's not going to do everything you want but has extremely high return on investment if you're looking to get a basic picture. Perhaps will serve as a good jumping off point?

Really the book is a sweet little pleasure and I'll probably enjoy re-reading it myself soon.

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