Basically, I wanna dedicate 2021 to gaining a high-level understanding of history, from Stone Age to the present. My school was meh at teaching history, and my self-education was really haphazard, so I've got these gaping holes.
For example, I still have no idea how 7 Year War is different from 30 Year War, wtf is Peace of Westphalia, how Early Middle Ages are different from High Middle Ages, who the hell were Sassanids and why did they lose to Muslims so easily, how the hell did Pannonian Avars magically became Hungarians, and all that crap.
I see smarty-pants talking about this stuff online, and it really intimidates me, but history in general sounds super interesting, so I wanna be able to have a meaningful conversation about some cool historical events one day.
In 2022 I'll start to specialize. My interests are Early Modern colonialism (specifically Dutch East India Company shenanigans in Indonesia) and the history of right-wing conspiracy nutjobism (ever since I've listened to that episode of Behind the Bastards on Phyllis Schlafly, I can't stop seeing how modern reactionaries from Jordie Peterson to QAnon can be traced to earlier iterations of the same shit). I'm also partial to Achaemenid Persia and history of early Buddhism (especially how it ended up in Sri Lanka and most of South-East Asia), but these are lesser priority.
But that's in the future. For now I just wanna gain a bird's eye view.
The way I envision it, is that I want a very low barrier to entry, low commitment book club: no deadlines, no pressure, read at any pace whatever the hell you want, just share your impressions and reviews every once in a while. Basically, if you're a “theory is hard, I'm a complete child” type person like me, you should feel most welcome.
In the past few months I've been listening to a lot of The Great Courses (no need to buy them on Audible, there are torrents available), and this year I plan to tackle /r/AskHistorians general reading list.
If that sounds like something you might be interested in, do comment below :).
Do you think it's realistic to have some kind of wiki or group document, where different participants contribute their own reviews/summaries/effortposts of what they've read or know?
The motivation of making a book club instead of just keeping plowing through books on my own is that I have this philosophy of learning, informed by my experience with spaced repetition and Anki, book Make It Stick, Peak by Anders Ericsson, Marty Lobdell's Study Less, Study Smart video, Stephen Chew from Samford University, and some others.
The philosophy is that reading a book from cover to cover just doesn't work. You don't remember anything, and even if you do, it lies deadweight in your brain, it's just pointless junk. You need to engage with the material, do a “dialectical” process if you will. This engagement can take many forms, recitation using Spaced Repetition Software, taking copious notes, connecting it somehow to already existing knowledge, and whatnot. And one such form of engagement is telling stuff that you've learned to other people. Maybe you just retell it in your own words, making sure you yourself understand what the hell you're talking about. Maybe the other person knows this stuff too, so you can ask them questions, argue with them, etc. But in any case, once you bounce what you've learned against other people, it stops being deadweight and becomes “integrated” kinda.
So I'm thinking, if people read a book, then write a summary in their own words (and the summary can include subjective and emotional perspectives as well), and other people read it and critique it, it could be an interesting exercise. Whatcha think?