While I agree with the list of recommended podcasts, you may be a reader. It is easier for me to make notes and backup and review when reading. A good history book is a story book as interesting as any novel, with the added benefit of being about real people and events. Fortunately, there are a lot of good popular history authors, but unfortunately there are a lot of bad ones too. I looked at Goodreads and this list is pretty good:
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, Revolutions + History of Rome, Land of Desire (a remarkably talented hobbyist show on French history), Patrick Wyman's Tides of History which is wrapping up soon after about a billion episodes, American History Tellers, History of India... there's a show for everything, but I think you have to try a few to get a feel for how granular you like and what sort of style calls to you.
And I find podcasts gradually lead me towards books. It's just harder to read a book while walking my dog.
My first BA was in history before I went into tech stuff.
It's honestly a hard question and depends on you. I think there's two core challenges:
1. What would be interesting to you and motivate you
2. Finding quality sources
The first one is easy but the second one is hard if you don't already know a fair amount of history, and there's tons of junk out there.
I'm admittedly pretty snobby on my sources but some recommendations (pick whatever works for you):
- The Revolutions podcast is excellent. Made by the same guy as History of Rome
- Unironically, the AskHistorians subreddit is a gem. It's hard to find questions with answers. Just search for their Sunday day of reflection posts. It's a compilation of interesting answers
- If you're able to get into textbooks (not everyone is), do a search for an intro level textbook that's a short survey of an area/time. For example you find smallish intros to most regions and times from Cambridge
What are you interested in and how do you think you'd enjoy learning?
Honestly, just start with Wikipedia. It's better than most popular books and completely free.
If you find yourself wanting something better, the next steps up are any of the numerous world history books from Oxford/Cambridge university presses. Beyond that you should really be picking more narrow areas/periods to go into.
Wikipedia is emphatically not the place to start for this field. For chemistry, physics, mathematics and parts of biology, sure - any field which has not (yet) been politicised generally is covered quite well on Wikipedia. History has always been politicised and coverage of historical subjects on Wikipedia reflects and is fully dependent on which faction has captured the subject at hand. Even the ('perennial') sources allowed to be used on Wikipedia have been heavily politicised. If you want something resembling an objective take keep away from Wikipedia for anything which is in any way politically sensitive no matter whether you happen to agree to the factions which rule the roost or whether you oppose them. If you're looking for confirmation of your biases, sure go there but keep in mind that what you're reading there is not history but ideologically biased historical fiction.
It is, but it is a useful question. What you really want is not resources by being able to meet a threshold for:
- logic
- critical thinking
After that, depending on your particular bent, you want some facility with languages ( some already dead ). In other words, it genuinely may not be for everyone.
For someone not wishing to be an expert or read source material, like the OC, facility in languages is absolutely not necessary. And history absolutely is valuable and can be accessible to everyone.
Sure they do, not on their own but they are often the ones who set in motion things which are later described in terms of 'making history'. When an orchestra plays a symphony it is often the conductor who receives the praise even though he is not the one actually playing the instruments. Without them he'd be standing there waving his baton without any results. Without the conductor the musicians would certainly be able to produce music but it is unlikely they'd be making history as an orchestra. The conductor gets the praise because he's the one who brings the musicians together to 'make history'. Battles aren't won single-handedly by generals but they are lost without them. Coaches do not win sports competitions but teams without good coaching are unlikely to win. This does not diminish the role of the individual musician, soldier or athlete but it does show that it often takes someone to gather these individuals into a coherent group and point them at a target to 'make history'.
Tangential, but what resources would you recommend for learning world history (preferably including the non-Western world as well)?
For someone who is not aiming to be an expert or work with source records, but wants to improve their general awareness and erudition.
While I agree with the list of recommended podcasts, you may be a reader. It is easier for me to make notes and backup and review when reading. A good history book is a story book as interesting as any novel, with the added benefit of being about real people and events. Fortunately, there are a lot of good popular history authors, but unfortunately there are a lot of bad ones too. I looked at Goodreads and this list is pretty good:
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/world-history
Wanting to learn world history is like wanting to create one's own programming language.
A more feasible start would be to ask, "What is my world? What trends brought us here? When did they begin and how did they evolve?"
There are so many good podcasts for this. Top of my list are Empire, Fall of Civilizations, The Age of Napoleon, The Rest is History, Saga Thing.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, Revolutions + History of Rome, Land of Desire (a remarkably talented hobbyist show on French history), Patrick Wyman's Tides of History which is wrapping up soon after about a billion episodes, American History Tellers, History of India... there's a show for everything, but I think you have to try a few to get a feel for how granular you like and what sort of style calls to you.
And I find podcasts gradually lead me towards books. It's just harder to read a book while walking my dog.
I really enjoy Age of Napoleon as well, it’s my only Patreon sub at the moment.
My first BA was in history before I went into tech stuff.
It's honestly a hard question and depends on you. I think there's two core challenges: 1. What would be interesting to you and motivate you 2. Finding quality sources
The first one is easy but the second one is hard if you don't already know a fair amount of history, and there's tons of junk out there.
I'm admittedly pretty snobby on my sources but some recommendations (pick whatever works for you): - The Revolutions podcast is excellent. Made by the same guy as History of Rome - Unironically, the AskHistorians subreddit is a gem. It's hard to find questions with answers. Just search for their Sunday day of reflection posts. It's a compilation of interesting answers - If you're able to get into textbooks (not everyone is), do a search for an intro level textbook that's a short survey of an area/time. For example you find smallish intros to most regions and times from Cambridge
What are you interested in and how do you think you'd enjoy learning?
Wikipedia and the CNN and BBC.
Honestly, just start with Wikipedia. It's better than most popular books and completely free.
If you find yourself wanting something better, the next steps up are any of the numerous world history books from Oxford/Cambridge university presses. Beyond that you should really be picking more narrow areas/periods to go into.
Wikipedia is emphatically not the place to start for this field. For chemistry, physics, mathematics and parts of biology, sure - any field which has not (yet) been politicised generally is covered quite well on Wikipedia. History has always been politicised and coverage of historical subjects on Wikipedia reflects and is fully dependent on which faction has captured the subject at hand. Even the ('perennial') sources allowed to be used on Wikipedia have been heavily politicised. If you want something resembling an objective take keep away from Wikipedia for anything which is in any way politically sensitive no matter whether you happen to agree to the factions which rule the roost or whether you oppose them. If you're looking for confirmation of your biases, sure go there but keep in mind that what you're reading there is not history but ideologically biased historical fiction.
It is, but it is a useful question. What you really want is not resources by being able to meet a threshold for:
- logic - critical thinking
After that, depending on your particular bent, you want some facility with languages ( some already dead ). In other words, it genuinely may not be for everyone.
For someone not wishing to be an expert or read source material, like the OC, facility in languages is absolutely not necessary. And history absolutely is valuable and can be accessible to everyone.
Those who can, make history
But do they? Study history and you'll learn about the Great Man theory of history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory) and its problems.
They do make history, but history makes them too.
Sure they do, not on their own but they are often the ones who set in motion things which are later described in terms of 'making history'. When an orchestra plays a symphony it is often the conductor who receives the praise even though he is not the one actually playing the instruments. Without them he'd be standing there waving his baton without any results. Without the conductor the musicians would certainly be able to produce music but it is unlikely they'd be making history as an orchestra. The conductor gets the praise because he's the one who brings the musicians together to 'make history'. Battles aren't won single-handedly by generals but they are lost without them. Coaches do not win sports competitions but teams without good coaching are unlikely to win. This does not diminish the role of the individual musician, soldier or athlete but it does show that it often takes someone to gather these individuals into a coherent group and point them at a target to 'make history'.