Suggestion For History Books

[Jenny A]

I quite like my history in fiction form.

So I like the Sharpe books that take the facts and weave a compelling story around them , explaining when liberties are taken with the facts for narrative reasons.

Much better to learn this way than by lists of dry dates and accounts.

Caveat don't watch any American films based in history. Everything done by anyone especially during wars was done by the USA U571 I'm looking at you.

I like historical fiction, but I can't stand the Sharp books. They read like fan fiction, or Bond goes gets his Napoleon on to me. To each his own own of course. For the nautical end of that time period, I much prefer Patrick O'Brien's Jack Aubry series (it reads like a rich complicated multi-volume novel) or even C.S. Forester, though the later is rather anti-woman.

I also love George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series. Same time period and not so nautical, but much funnier and footnoted where it deviates from the historical events. Flashman is one of the very best and funniest anti-heros. He is the most decorated British soldier because he is one of the few survivors of most British war disasters of the 1800s and even one American one, Custer's Last Stand. He is a survivor because he is an opportunistic womanizing coward willing to sell his comrades for an expensive cigar. Told first person.

[downbeatplumb]

I quite like my history in fiction form.

So I like the Sharpe books that take the facts and weave a compelling story around them , explaining when liberties are taken with the facts for narrative reasons.

Much better to learn this way than by lists of dry dates and accounts.

Caveat don't watch any American films based in history. Everything done by anyone especially during wars was done by the USA U571 I'm looking at you.

I like historical fiction, but I can't stand the Sharp books. They read like fan fiction, or Bond goes gets his Napoleon on to me. To each his own own of course. For the nautical end of that time period, I much prefer Patrick O'Brien's Jack Aubry series (it reads like a rich complicated multi-volume novel) or even C.S. Forester, though the later is rather anti-woman.

I also love George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series. Same time period and not so nautical, but much funnier and footnoted where it deviates from the historical events. Flashman is one of the very best and funniest anti-heros. He is the most decorated British soldier because he is one of the few survivors of most British war disasters of the 1800s and even one American one, Custer's Last Stand. He is a survivor because he is an opportunistic womanizing coward willing to sell his comrades for an expensive cigar. Told first person.

I read the Custer one.

The bit I remember is a conversation where he asked "why was it right for the states to secede from the empire but wrong for the south to secede from the union"

Good question really.

[watchamadoodle]

I also can't read books unless the writing style is lively. I don't know if the subject matter would be interesting, but I like this book:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17568..._1840_1842

I don't buy anything unless it has the "look inside" feature on Amazon, so I can see the style of writing. I am a slow reader, so I need to choose carefully.

[Rev. Rye]

Honestly, I don't read history books all that often (mostly because when I go to Half Price Books, I'm more focused on honing my craft with the fiction section), but, for what it's worth, here are a few I really found myself absorbed in:

• The Brilliant Disaster by Jim Rasenberger. It's a book about the clusterfuck that was the Bay of Pigs invasion. Someone should really make a Tora! Tora! Tora!-style movie about it, but I know that doing so would likely require a level of cooperation between the US and Cuba that's not only unprecedented, but also likely illegal.
  
• The Great Big Book of Horrible Things (aka Atrocities) by Matthew White: a very witty historian guides us through the 100 bloodiest events in History from the Second Persian War to the Second Congo War. Surprisingly, he doesn't have a section on the Holocaust, primarily because he thinks it's too tied up in WW2 and if he devoted an entire chapter to every single event in WW2 that could have qualified on its own. To counter this, he does include a sizable section on why Holocaust Denial is idiotic.
  
• The Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson. It's the definitive chronicle of the American Civil War, having several one-ups on Shelby Foote's Civil War Trilogy, including: 1) It's less ungainly. 2) It's by an actual historian. 3) It spends a lot of time going over the various events that made the war inevitable. 4) It doesn't have any of the Pro-Confederacy bias that occasionally slips through Foote's fingers.
  
• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. Do I really have to explain it?
  
• The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler. When I was in college, this book really fascinated me. It's been a while since I read it, but I remember reading about how much more perceptive its historiography was than one would expect from a book almost 100 years old.
  
• Popular Crime by Bill James. The famous baseball analyst turns his eye to true crime and explains his ideas behind various infamous crime stories.
  
• Vive La Revolution by Mark Steel. Mark Steel gives a revisionist account of the French Revolution, about how it started with good intentions, but ended horribly.
  

[Ravenshire]

---

I am currently reading Dan Jones book, The Plantagenets. It is a light read, with lots of little tidbits of information. After I finish it, I will be looking for similar history books. Any suggestions will be appreciated

Because I am probably just of average intelligence, my attention will wander if any book is just dates and facts. LOL I like chatty, gossipy history books that have more of a narrative approach to history but aren't fiction books.

All time periods interest me but lately I have been watching a series on Netflix called Monarchy about the history of English kings and queens. Many historical events mentioned on that program make me want to learn more about those events but as long as a book is about history, I don't really care what period or country it covers.

---

If you have any ideas of books that I can put on my to read book list, I would appreciate it if any of you could provide a suggestion

Take it with a grain of salt and research before quoting:

It's a fun read, especially for a history book.

[Thumpalumpacus]

One of the best history books I ever read was a little gem called "The Rising Sun" by John Toland. WWII in the Pacific but based largely on Japanese sources.

Great book indeed.

His biography of Hitler also has one hell of a lot of information that is presented in a very readable manner.

Another writer who has a flair with words and a healthy density of information is John Keegan. A historian par excellence.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Since Cato got to Bill Bryson first (helluva good pick, by the way), I'll recommend Stephen Dando-Collins.

He focuses mainly on military history, but has a terrific knack for putting military exploits into a larger social context. Extremely readable.

Boru

[Nope]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I really appreciate them

One interesting thing about the book The Plantagenets is that it is way darker and more troubling than Game of Thrones.

[Mudhammam]

I can think of no better historian in terms of making its characters and events really come alive than Eileen Powers in her book "Medieval People," which I found through Bertrand Russell's recommendation in an essay he wrote on the Dark Ages. It chronicles the lives of six individuals who lived between (If I remember correctly) the 9th century and the 16th. The one notable is Marco Polo but the rest are pretty obscure, just everyday, ordinary figures of their times. If I understand what you mean by a gossipy narrative, I think you'll love it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Also, Daniel Boorstein's books The Discoverers and The Creators are excellent histories, the first a history of inventions, the second a history of the arts, essentially.