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 :).

  • sailorfish [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Wow, thanks so much for the recs!!

    I picked up the Gombrich book after seeing it in the /r/AskHistorians post you linked in the OP! I've been listening to it for half an hour and I think it's not for me (it's a little too basic and I'm personally not into the tone) buuuut my friend is really excited about it. So thank you for that!! I hope she enjoys it, and if not we'll move on to the other recs :D Also I suddenly realised my parents have Gombrich's The Story of Art, which is a history of art for adults, so now I'm intrigued to check that out.

    I'm interested in your description of the Stearns course and the Kings & Generals channel for myself too. I'll check them out!

    the closer they get to the 20–21 centuries, the more toothlessly liberal they become

    I have that feeling about a lot of history books yup. :') Enjoyed the first half of The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan very much, enjoyed everything after colonialism markedly less. He kept using the line "It was a disaster" re US and UK policy being thwarted lmao. What a way to describe imperialist policy not working out for the imperialists

    A Discord server sounds fun, I'm in! :)