I actually read Fitzpatrick's book on the Russian Revolution first. Her view was a lot different from that of Pipes, and I didn't feel well-positioned to adjud

I actually read Fitzpatrick's book on the Russian Revolution first. Her view was a lot different from that of Pipes, and I didn't feel well-positioned to adjudicate. That's where my issue comes from. I don't think reading a 3rd book would solve it. Pipes' account resonated better with my view of human nature, but maybe that's just my bias creeping in ;-) Maybe the trick is to initially focus on well-studied areas of history where there is very little controversy, to calibrate your BS detector. Then once you're calibrated, you can be more judicious learning about the controversial stuff. Thoughts on that strategy? If it seems good, I'd love to get some recs on specific "authoritative" history books which could be good for calibration purposes :-)