7 ms·
What should I read to learn more about history? I used to consider my knowledge of history better than at least 95% of the population, but while reading The De
by jackfoxy 15y ago
What should I read to learn more about history?
I used to consider my knowledge of history better than at least 95% of the population, but while reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire I realized how sketchy my view of history really was. So at the ripe old age of 35 I set off on a course of study centered on two series of books, The Story of Civilization, by Will and Ariel Durant, and Timeframe, a Time-Life series focusing on a timeframe in human history and what was going on in all parts of the world inhabited by man: lots of pictures and of course superficial, but it painted in a lot of gaps I othewise would have never covered. The Timeframe series starts much earlier than the Durant's, but once both series were in sync I would read the books in both series for an epoch, as well as at least two other books, either written in the era or about the era, drawing mostly from science, culture, and biography. For instance I read all the books of Euclid, Newton's Optiks and Principia (I slogged through the Motte transaltion before the first modern English translation became available), The Wealth of Nations, Shelby Foote's 3-volume history of the Civil War, and The Origen of Species. (It's real easy for me to spot folks who spoot-off about Wealth or Origen who have not actually read the books.) My program culminated with Tragedy and Hope, which being such an inflammatory work, I did not trust to read without the full background of history. The process was like watching Western Civilization unfolding.
Now for the unintended consequences: I became a bore at cocktail parties. I wanted to talk about the ideas in the fascinating book I was reading. I used to love arguing politics. Even with my prior knowledge it was hard enough finding opponents who would engage in rational discourse, now it is impossible. It's been so long my debating skills have totally gone down the tubes. The sad thing is I believe my problem is really society's. Political correctness (among other problems) in academia, has produced a generation of intellectually crippled intellectuals; and the entertainment industry, including the 24-hour news cycle as entertainment, has just stupefied people. I fear for democracy and republican government.
- zedshaw 15y agoThe force is strong with this one. I'd love to debate random topics with you. Assuming you've actually read everything you claim, I think you'd be a refreshing change from the vast majority of people who simply regurgitate whatever their heroes say. If you're interested, email me sometime: zedshaw at zedshaw.com.
- marcamillion 15y agoHrmm...while I haven't read all of those books - granted I am still relatively young (sub 30) - I too feel like I have no outlet to really debate various topics that I would love to. People really aren't interested. If there was some forum where people of like minds could get together and talk (verbally, not typing on a keyboard) say a Google Hangout or something, I think that would be awesome and definitely something I would be interested in. Provided it can be moderated and organized and not be chaos (and focused on content, learning, expanding knowledge, etc.).
- jackfoxy 15y agoZed, You are one of the interesting people I would like to meet someday. I will eventually get in touch. My job (among other distractons) is sapping me right now, but I hope to get back to real life by mid-November. Likewise I can be reached jacfoxy at gmail dot com.
- wyclif 15y agoI would add Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy to the book list. It appears to be a glaring omission.
- brndnhy 15y agoThis was one of my favorite college texts. I'm really disappointed that I'd forgotten about it until your comment. Thanks.
- wyclif 15y agoThanks. BTW, Caesar's _The Gallic Wars_ is available online from MIT: http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.html http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.html
- anatoly 15y agoThis is a good program. It reminds me of the curriculum of St. John's College: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_College_(United_States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_College_(United_St... Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but it seems plausible to me that there's a subreddit out there for people just like you.
- eavc 15y agoEither DepthHub or TheAgora, maybe.
- jackfoxy 15y agoI was contacted by St.John's as a high school senior, and thought their program looked really interesting, but my folks couldn't afford a private college for me. In those days a California resident could go to U.C. and it just cost living expenses and books.
- dave_sullivan 15y agoThis is interesting. Re: a generation of intellectually crippled intellectuals--One of the lessons I've drawn from history is that people have always been pretty ignorant about topics outside of their immediate need, and many people simply don't ask questions. I think what we're seeing today--news as entertainment, few people taking the time to read primary sources themselves, 4chan, etc--I think all of this is more of a spotlight that makes it harder to ignore just how many ignorant and/or unintelligent people are out there. It's not new, just more visible. But the flip side is there has always been the "smart and well read intellectual bore at cocktail parties who is convinced that this generation is by far the stupidest and society as we know it is going to collapse" type, every time has them, and the rationalization for their aloofness/smugness always seems to be the same (I'm surrounded by idiots and I've read a ton of books!) My point being--I enjoy intellectual masturbation as much as the next guy and share your opinion that a lot of people are ignorant about lots of stuff but I see that as an opportunity to educate rather than judge (and I'm entJ). You're probably not as rare a bird as you might think and I'd urge you to not write people off so quickly.
- mdiep 15y agoI'd love to see a full list of all the books you read and the order in which you read them. I recently started reading The Story of Civilization and augmenting it with other works seems like a wonderful idea.
- jackfoxy 15y agoI've meant to compile this list, so you just inspired me. I wish the Durants had had the stamina for one more volume. I don't know much about the European revolutions of 1848 and would have like to read about that time from them. I already had read a lot of ancient Greek literature in translation as well as The Pentateuch, all the historical books of the Old Testament and the Gospels. Western Civilization springs from intellectual roots in Athens and Jerusalem, so any survey has to include that heritage. My degree is in Comparative Literature, so I put a lot of stock in origninal source material. The only languages I read are English and German, so everything is in English or translation except Faust, which IMO would be a waste in translation. The books I read for my survey (this was my survey to fill in my personal Bildungslöcke) are not all classics, and not even all to be recommended. It may appear surprisingly heavy on 20th century, but a lot of intellectual threads I thought I should understand better got kicked off in that century. In more or less chronological order by authorship or content (and I've probably forgotten a few): Euclid The Elements Arrian The Campaigns of Alexander Garmonsway (trans.) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Komroff (ed.) The Travels of Marco Polo Haydn The Counter-Renaissance Braudel The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II, Vol I&II Pascal The Thoughts Spinoza The Ethics Christianson In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton & his Times Newton Opticks Newton Principia (get the modern English translation by U.C. Press) Hampson The Enlightenment Voltaire Candide Rousseau The Social Contract Boswell Life of Johnson Goethe Faust Phillips The Cousins' Wars Schom Napoleon Bonaparte Heidler & Heidler Old Hickory's War Babbage On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures de Toqueville Democracy in America Darwin On the Origen of Species Foote The Civil War: A Narrative Maurois Disraeli Twain Life on the Mississippi Spector Admiral of the New Empire, The Life and Career of George Dewey Cardwell The Norton History of Technology Abbott Flatland, A Romance of Many Dimensions Meyer & Brysac Tournament of Shaddows, The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia Doughty Travels in Arabia Deserta Lefevre The Golden Flood Massie Dreadnought, Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom Durant The Story of Philosophy Cardozo The Nature of the Judicial Process Schapiro The Communist Party of the Soviet Union Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery Kershaw Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris Blemenson (ed.) The Patton Papers (1940-1945) Hayek The Road to Serfdom von Mises Human Action Skinner Walden Two Chambers Witness Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Guevara Guerrilla Warfare Cleaver Soul on Ice Lacey The Kingdom, Arabia & the House of Saud Durant The Lessons of History Hackworth Lessons Learned, Vietnam Primer Quigley Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time EDIT: Just remembered two more Hobbes Leviathan Locke Two Treatises of Government
- Willwhatley 15y agoI've wondered about variants on democracy. The parliamentary and constitutional forms seem to me to incentivize (for those who want power) going along to get along. Sophists, flatterers, demagogues; there is no good incentive to vote, only the strong disincentive of some other party's bums overseeing you rather than ones you know. There's a Twain short story about folks who get more than the initial vote, in proportion to their accomplishments. So a propertied or moneyed man is so much more enfranchised, a doctor of philosophy has a couple more votes, and so forth. The incentive there for demagogues would seem to weight one even more firmly than presently in favor of the rich and the academic guild. I don't support any scheme that brings us closer to a plutocracy than we already are--merely mention this as a starting point. And then there is government by lot; the next dogcatcher, etc. to be selected in some randomized fashion, perhaps confine the pool to certified catchers of dogs, treason for tampering, and so forth. The incentive becomes enormous to raise the general quality of the citizens in proportion to how broad the pool of candidates is; and, of course, to monkey with the criteria for candidates to benefit oneself and disadvantage one's adversaries.
- Volpe 15y agoThere are democratic countries where it is compulsory to vote . This of course brings it's own set of problems...
- ra 15y agoIn Australia it is compulsory to vote. Having lived here through four general elections, I actually believe it has a negative effect on democracy. That is to say, compulsory voting forces the most disinterested and politically ignorant members of society into the polling booths. It usually favors the most conservative party. In Australia that translates to maintaining "old-fashioned" views on, most notably, processing of refugees.
- Volpe 15y agoIs that problem really caused by compulsory voting, or more Australian society in general? Australia was sporting the White Australia policy up until about 30 years ago, and still requires citizen applicants to pass an 'English' test. It's rather primitive and discriminative processing of refugees (arriving by boat only!?) seems to fall in line with that as well.
- derrida 15y ago"It's real easy for me to spot folks who spoot-off about Wealth or Origen who have not actually read the books." What is sad is that I recall realizing at University that certain graduate students had not read some of the books they were teaching! I think the humanities are vitally important, but the academic humanities, unfortunately, sometimes breed a certain kind of person who wants to get a job in academia for impure reasons.
- Alex3917 15y agoDo you find that at some point reading more history has diminishing returns in terms of your ability to understand current politics? It seems like having good political sense requires two things: having a solid understanding of the current state of people and assets, and having a good understanding of the impacts of policy. (As well as having some understanding of the whole human experience thing.) While history is obviously important for understanding this stuff, it seems like after a certain point one would get more insight from other places. I don't doubt that most people don't know enough of history to understand politics, but at the same time most people don't know enough of anything else to understand politics either.
- jackfoxy 15y agoDon't confuse knowledge with understanding. Almost all good things exhibit diminishing returns. One lesson of history is to gain deeper understanding of human nature. That is a big key to understanding politics in any age. Plenty of people become adept at politics knowing nothing of history. Another lesson of history is to understand the balance between conservatism and progressivism. Birds need left wings and right wings to fly. Healthy societies need conservatives and progressives, but the so-called left/right dynamic is only the most apparent dynamic in politics, the one with the most entertainment value; and so the entertainment industry exploits it and ends up devolving political discourse. Think of the carnival side-show 3 shell game. The shells moving around and the banter between the con-man and the shills distracts everyone and provides entertainment. Where the ball ends up is the libertarian/authoritarian dynamic of politics. Most people don't have a clue, but if you have gained understanding from history (which requires studying a balance of sources) you see it. History is only one course of study to gain understanding of human nature and balance.
- maw 15y agoNow for the unintended consequences: I became a bore at cocktail parties. I dunno, I think it'd be more interesting to talk with you than to talk with people about what they drank at the last party they went to--especially since "what" usually just means "how much".