Ringel05
Diamond Member
- Aug 5, 2009
- 63,134
- 20,658
Read it in college, it a good basis to move on from depending on which area one wants to study.The best book I have found for everyone to get up to speed is this one:You have to realize the vast majority of people never get past HS history, of those that do the vast majority take one or two generic college level history courses to satisfy curriculum requirements. There's a small minority of us that move beyond that and an even smaller minority that make history their life's work.
While the instructor in the videos has pretty much all facts correct (some are still contested) it's his approach that's suspect. Granted he's most likely taking the 20th/21st century mindset tact to make the material interesting though I suspect he's also unconsciously "politicizing" some, it's hard to escape one's bias when one doesn't recognize and try to suppress that bias.
History should be (but rarely is) neutral and studied within the context of the cultural norms of the time (Cultural Anthropology) to completely understand the whys. A background in psychology also comes in handy in understanding individual and group dynamics in historical context as human motivation and rationalization never changes.
Moral assessments/judgements of historical peoples and events are the realm of philosophy something that many historians themselves tend to forget.
J.M. Roberts, "History Of The World," Penguin Books.
He covers everything from prehistory to UBL and Muslim extremism.