What are some historians you find to be consistently engaging, interesting and whose books are well written?
I started reading history books lately, after a uni course held by an incredible professor. He put me on the school of the Annales, especially Marc Bloch (though I still have to read Feudal Society), and their conception of history as process and durations is astounding, but I really have to say Carlo Ginzburg is where these ideas were devoleped best. Pic related is, I think, his best.
Bump? Anybody wanna share authors and books about history they love?
This is a potentially good thread how come nobody replies.
Any good medieval historians?
Bump
I enjoyed Barbara Tuchman's "A Dark Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century". It's mostly about the Hundred Years War, also the Black Death and the papal schism, all that good medieval shit. I think she's better known for her WWI history though.
Marc Bloch, the one I've mentioned in the OP. I've only read his book about the thaumaturgical abilities of French and English Kings,the originale of the myth, it's underlying stratas and ita decadence, and I recommend it to anyone who has even a passing interest in the Middle Ages.
Aside from that, I've yet to read much.
Gavin Menzies
>1421
>history
It's fiction, nigga.
>Ginzburg
Based. The Cheese and the Worms is an incredible book
kys
Phd Canditate in Ancient History.
Procopius is my favorite Historian, even though I'm not a Byzantinist. There is no other guy who wrote an official history sponsored (and probably read and corrected and censored) by the state and who also wrote a history against the state that sponsored him. Moreover his Wars and Buildings are great reads as much if not more so than his Secret History.
I also fell for the Gibbon Meme.
Explain/summarize the Gibbon meme please.
menocchio did nothing wrong
Gibbon was a fag.
I really liked the concept of "The invention of traditions" by Hobsbawm/Ranger. Also Hobsbawms books about the long 19th and the short 20th century are really worth a read.
Bumperino
I'm starting to suspect that most of Veeky Forums knowledge comes from the total war series...
C'mon guy, great thread here! Come and provide
Problem is this is just a dead ass board.
He is jew, and marxist, not reading that shit.
It may be his most emotional book, weirdly. The latter half, his second arrest, renunciation, the isolation and poverty he fell in on the account of just trying to make sense of the world around him on his own made me feel dejected and hopeless. The Mark of good historical writing is the ability to make it feel to the reader like the incredible epic of coincidences and processes it is.
Didn't remember that, I really need to read him. My only knowledge of Byzantium was an abridged history, a very short manual, but it really made me feel like there's a lot to unpack and go through in there.
I was also interested in the Venetian activity and subtle treachery, though it may be because I am living and studying in Venice.
The Short Century I have to read for a course, I Remember the first hundred pages being fairly jnteresting in their culturale vagueness.
Never change Veeky Forums, never let actual interest for a subject come between you and your ideology. is right, but it's more of a site wide thing.
Bump
Is Will Durant worth my time?
He looks like the incestous son od Heidegger and Derrida
bomp
While I tend to personally disagree with this theses, John Dower has really thought provoking books on WWII and Japan.
Roy porter, John keegan, gibbon, grombridge,
Even the inquisitors seemed to have a degree of sympathy for him. If I recall correctly it wasn't their idea to burn him, but the pope himself called for it after he became a reoccurring troublemaker.
I loved most of this book but it turned into a reading of Coucy's day to day itinerary by the end. About 150 pgs too long