Yes, the dreaded history book.

Honestly, most true history books are actually really fun to read, unfortunately, most people tend to experience the textbook version first, which is like reading cliffnotes, rather dry and lacking the full depth. Because of this lots of people are turned off to the genre sadly.

With that said, how many of you got into some actual history books and if so whos your favorite historians or specific history books?

For me, I like Martin Gilbert (he tends to focus on the modern era)

Terry Dreary from the horrible histories series. Fun series if you ever get a chance to read one. If you know or have been studying the period/theme of a book it's even funnier to read.

Barbara Tuchman (know for things like "the guns of August.")

Ian mortimer (from the time traveler's guide)

I have a lot of fun with history books, and historical books, but my definitions are maybe not very accurate. For instance, "The Worldly Philosophers; the Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers" by Robert L Heilbroner. Is that actually a history book? Or is it a themed collection of biographies in one volume?

I do like Barbara Tuchman.

I also like the pop-science version of history books, though.
Like "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, & Scropion Bombs; Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World", by Adrienne Mayor.
Or "Signor Marconi's Magic Box; The Most Remarkable Invention of the 19th Century & the Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked a Revolution", by Gavin Weightman
Or even books that give history as a byproduct of their main aim! For instance, the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (edited by Iona and Peter Opie) has a lot of history riddled all through it as it traces the origins and permutations of common nursery rhymes.

Ah! I do love history though! And what about things like geology books? And books on fossils? Are those history books? They certainly tell me a lot about history, but it's not human history...

I honestly tend to view biographies as a subset of history. Most history books tend to have an aspect of biographies in them to give some background to the events it's about to talk about. One of the definitions of history is "the whole series of past events connected with someone or something" so that would fit the definition of a biography.

As far as fossils and geology goes I tend to view them as science because it falls under categories more closely associated with science. History tends to be concerned with the events of humans whereas once you get before the introduction of man it just falls under the science category. But you are right, it's a bit of a gray area.
Anthropology I would file under "history" tho.

I'll have to look into the books you mention, especially the Oxford dictionary of nursery rhymes. It's interesting to see how references to the past will be carried on in odd ways.

My book enabling habits lead me to give you this link

It is fun! It's amazing how little things can carry forward, or linger to influence us even when we don't know the origin of the influence (until we look).


For instance have you read Bill Bryson's "At Home; A Short History of Private Life"?

I haven't read that but I have read a few other household books (mostly about the Victorian era tho)

Thanks for the link. :) I will have to buy it.

It is also interesting when you are learning a new language to see how the history pops up.

Like in French:
"quand on parle de loup on en voit la queue"
the exact translation is "when one speaks about the wolf one sees his tail." and is a direct reference to the world's most well-documented cryptid; la bête du gévaudan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudan
they use this expression as a "speak of the devil" equivalent.

And speaking of that creature. there is a historical book that was a compilation of the actual gendarmerie reports and historical reference. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/161 ... f_Gevaudan

I heard about that after reading a blog by an author team I follow:
http://www.patriciabriggs.com/articles/ ... lets.shtml
one of them decided to do some home-brew Mythbusting and see about the creation and efficacy of a literal silver bullet, and there's a series on the process. The first blog post mentions that, and of course I had to go look it up!

Neat. I briefly looked over it and I will have to read it in more depth in the next

That poor horse btw. the one with the swayback. O.o

Oh gosh yes! I keep trying to convince myself it's surely a photoshop job....