Best History Books. Your recommendations

a reply to: Astyanax
Well the first book was up earlier. It is the "The Gulag Archipelago", by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn"


As far as the second book, "The Franklin Cover-up", is concerned, you are a bold faced liar. Please educate yourself so you don't come off so foolish and ignorant next time you post.
whatreallyhappened.com...

mapping the human journey the atlas of world history
I thank this is a good book for general history and it has a pretty good timeline that goes with maps.

The World Book Encyclopedia's 8 piece collection of the US vs the CS, The Civil War © 1986.

The 48 Laws of Power.

It's a fun book on what makes power and how it's been used and how these laws have been ignored and power lost.

Not specifically a "History" book but it really is a great History book. If nothing else it will give you many, many, many leads to research and people you've probably never heard of or never thought to study. Fascinating book.

Author Robert Greene. Who's other books 33 Strategies of War and Mastery are equally fascinating.

originally posted by: DeceptioVisus
Well the first book was up earlier. It is the "The Gulag Archipelago", by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn"

Solzhenitsyn is a much better historian than he is a novelist.
He conducts a thorough investigation into what was really happening out there (but I can't tell the difference between his fictional characters).

If you like disease history, then I recommend

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450903719&sr=1-2&keywords=the+great+influ enza+by+john+m.+barry

It's not only a good history of the plague itself from start to finish, but you pick up interesting tidbits about the history of times. It also provides good information about the race to discover how to treat it and how it affected history, including the treaties at the end of WWI.

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450903909&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Vanishi ng+Spoon

This one is Teikiatsu's recommendation. It's a sort of history of the periodic table of elements using anecdotes surrounding the different elements telling how it all came together.

It is not about history in the modern sense but it is a wonderful book for learners.

Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology

When I was younger I used to collect history books, in my library back in the states I probably had around 300 or so (on history). Way to many to list. But a few of the classics, which I'm sure you are familiar with:

Alexander the Great by Robin Lane Frost.

Really enjoyed the crisp writing style and fast pace.

The Twleve Ceasars by Suetonius.
Wow, some of those Caesars were so evil.

The Jewish War by Flavius Josephus.

This is a very enthralling reading as we get a firsthand account of the siege on Jerusalem and its destruction. It recounts Jewish history from the Maccabees up to the destruction of Jerusalem itself in 70 C. E. I really find it interesting because of the parallels in history between that time and today, especially the rise of "zealots" (radical extremists) and how Jesus' prophecies about Jerusalem's destruction were fulfilled to the letter.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon.

His prose is very flowery and verbose, and a lot of the words are dated, but it is a good read.

The following are just a list of the history books I enjoyed that I have in my epub library -

1492 The Year Our World Began - Felipe Fernandez
1776 - David Mccullough (already mentioned)
A Brave Vessel - (The True Tale of the castaways Who Rescued Jamestown)
A Distant Mirror - Barbara Tuchman
A Fiery Peace in a Cold War - Neil Sheehan
Absolute Monarchs - A History of the Papacy - John Norwich
Adventures of a Sea Hunter - In Search of Famous Shipwrecks (James Delgaedo)
Ancient Chinese Warfare - Raplh Sawyer
Armageddon - Max Hastings
Battle of Britain - Rcihard Overy
Behind the Berlin Wall - Patrick Major
Citizens A Chronicle of the French Revolution - Simon Schama
In the President's Secret Service - Ronald Kessler
John Adams - David Mcculough
Legacy of Ashes - The History of the CIA - Tim Weiner
Life in a Medieval Village - France Gies
Lost to the West - The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization - Lars Brownsworth
Lucerzia Borgia - Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy - Sarah Bradford
Mary Tudor - Anna Whhitelock
Napoleons Wars - An International History, 1803-1815 - CharlesEsdalie
Occult America - The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation - Mitch Horowitz
Rubicon - Tom Holland
Templars - History and Myth, From Solomon's Temple to the Freemason's - Michael Haag
The American Civil War - John Keegan
The American Revolution - A History - Gordon S. Wood
The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky
The Coming of the Third Reich - Richard J. Evans
The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 - Piers Brendon
The First World War - Hew Strachan
The Forge of Christendom - Tom Holland
The Great Depression - America, 1929-1941 - Robert S. McElvaine
The March of Folly, From Troy to Vietnam - Barbara Tuchman
The Marne, 1914 - The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World - Holder Herwig
The Monks Monks of War - Desmond Seward (a very dry reading, but a good history and the three main orders of the Crusades)
The Story of the Scrolls - The Miraculous Discovery and True Significance of the Dead Sea Scrols - Geza Vermes
The Tudors - The Complete History of England's Most Notorious Dyansty - G. J. Meyer
The Warmth of Other Suns - The Epic Story of America's Great Migration - Isabel Wilkerson
The Wars Against Napoleon - Debunking the Myth of the Napoleonic Wars - General Michel & Weider Franceschi
The Years of Extermination - Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 - Saul Friedlander
Ulysses S. Grant - Michael Korda
Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice
Waterloo - June 18, 1815 - The Battle for Modern Europe - Andrew Roberts
Why the West Rules - For Now - The Patterns of History and What They Reveal About the Future - Ian Morris

And some other good history books -

5000 Year Leap - A Miracle That Changed the World - W. Cleon Skousen
A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn
The Battle of Britain - Richard Overy
Boardwalk Empire - The Birth, High Times - Nelson Johnson
Disintegration - The Splintering of Black America - Eugune Robinson
A Short History of Myth - Karen Armstrong
The Swerve - How the World Became Modern - Stephen Greenblatt
The Better Angels of Our Nature - Steven Pinker

And of course you cannot forget to add the works of the first historian:

Herodotus - The Histories
These are very good. They also verify a lot of Bible prophecy, especially concerning Cyrus and how he freed the Jews in the 6th Century B. C. E.

A good read on the recent housing collapse and about one man who had seen it years ahead, and made hundreds of millions off of it: The Big Short.

Oh, and here are a few more I've also found of note:

1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod
A History of Zionism - Walter Laqueur
A World Lit Only by Fire - The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance - Portrait of an Age - William Manchester
Affection and Trust - Harry S. Truman
Bold Spirit - Linda Hunt
Carthage Must be Destroyed - The Rise and Fall of Ancient Civilization - Richard Miles
Challenge for the Pacific - Guadalcanal - The Turning Point of the War - Robert Leckie
Company - A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea - John Micklethwait
Confederates in the Attic - Tony Horwitz
Dark Water - Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces -Robert Clark
Edison and the Electric Chair - A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig
Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano
FDR - Jean Edward Smith
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World - Jack Weatherford
Hitler's Panzers - The Lightning Attacks that Revolutionized Warfare - Dennis Showalter
Life in a Medieval City - Joseph Gies
Lost and Found in Russia - Encounters Deep in the Heartland - Susan Richard
Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen
Okinawa - The Last Battle of World War II - Robert Leckie
Pirates of Barbary - Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the Seventeenth Mediterranean - Adrian Tinnisood
The Battle for Christmas -Stephen Nissenbuam
The Devil's Playground - A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square - James Traub
The Endurance - Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition - Caroline Alexander
The First Battle - Otto J. Lehrack
The First Tycoon - The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt - T. J. Stiles
The Forgotten 500 - The Untold Story of men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II - Gregory A. Freeman
The Great American Steamboat Race - Benton Rain Patterson
The Heart and the Fist - The Education of a Humanitarian, The Making of a Navy SEAL - Eric Greitens
The House of Rothschild - Money's Prophets, 1798-1848 - Niail Ferguson
The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara
The Killing of Crazy Horse - Thomas Powers
The Lost Chalice - The Epic Hunt for a Priceless Masterpiece - Vernon Silver
The President and the Assassin - Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century - Scott Miller
The Road to Disunion - Secessionists at Bay - 1776-1854 - William W. Freehling
The Road to Disunion - Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861 William W. Freehling
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien

Oh, I ran out of room.

a reply to: zazzafrazz

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

By William Shirer


A book over 1500 pages but so engrossing you could read it in a night


www.amazon.com...

One more "Washington. A Life" Great book, forget the author's name.

originally posted by: Willtell
a reply to: zazzafrazz

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

By William Shirer


A book over 1500 pages but so engrossing you could read it in a night


www.amazon.com...

Terribly out of date though so not to be heavily relied upon as a source, more of a collectors piece.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Lies My Teacher Told Me - James Loewen

Great book to read and learn about all the things you learned wrong in history class, and no this isn't a conspiracy theory/revisionist history book either. It unravels all the pro-American propaganda that has white-washed American history classes throughout the nation.

Yup, on my list as well.

The First World War by John Keegan (also on audio cassette somewhere)

The first chapter describes the international connections that had developed before WW1 and without governmental direction.

Science and medicine were internationally oriented
The various railroads had all adopted common standards
The telegraph system was integrated throughout the continent.
All money was convertible to gold and accepted everywhere.
Copyrights were respected internationally.
and more

The rest of the book is about the war itself.

Conceived in Liberty by Murray Rothbard (free copy here and audiobook too)

Rothbard wrote an easy to read revision of history concerning the Europe and the world during American Colonial times.

The first chapter alone describes the process of State control over the free market in Europe from 1300AD to the beginning of the English colonies in Virginia.

Found a brand new audio rendition by Floy Lilley

Audiobook download here www.learnoutloud.com...

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal by Robert P Murphy (audiobook available at Audible Books)

Hoover started the New Deal, FDR ran against it and got elected, and then FDR took credit for it.

The book is more about the specific parts of the New Deal and how none of the New Deal programs did what they were claimed to do.

The Sources of Invention by John Jewkes, David Sawers, and Richard Stillerman (have to make your own audiobook)

Corporations are good at developing existing products and making current production methods cheaper.
Almost all of the new, never-existed-before, items were invented by individuals and small companies.

If you want to know where the US is headed

The Great Betrayal: The Memoirs of Ian Douglas Smith


also:

Life in a Medieval Village

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

Rome by Robert Hughes

Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England

The Voyage of the Jeannette: The Ship and Ice Journals of George W. De Long, Lieutenant-commander U.S.N. and Commander of the Polar Expedition of 1879-1881, Volume I & II

Open Veins of Latin America

Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties

Meditations

Alexander the Great

Ancient Rome : from the earliest times down to 476 A. D

An Account of Egypt

The Negroes in Negroland - Pre Colonial Africa

and listen to all of Dan Carlin's podcasts

Dan Carlin - Hardcore History

Titus Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War (seven-volume) and Antiquities of the Jews (twenty-one volume)

In Copyright, but offered for free on a MHB post that interviews the publisher, so I assume it is ok to download.



memorygapdotorg.files.wordpress.com...

memoryholeblog.com...

'milestones of history, the pen and the sword Nr 6, Newsweek books, Europe, from 1628 to 1698' damn bloody in places. isbn 0-88225-068-X
'the Viking. Wahlstrom & Widtsrand isbn 91-46-1995-4' fantastic book, glad I bought it.
'The battle of Britain, James Holland' Corgi books, cannot find the isbn number.

Good grief, where to even start? I'm currently re-reading 'Defeat Into Victory' by William Slim. Superb.

a reply to: Kiwiberry

Ian Smith??? The last PM of Rhodesia??? The racist from Rhodesia? Seriously?

The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun
A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events
This is a different type of history book and hold little detail of events yet links them together by date or era. One of the best sources I've ever found to put together world events by date and a must for students.
Based on Kulturfahrplan by Werner Stein

Peoples History of the United States by Howard Zinn is often attacked for flaws but I have never read an unflawed history book. That Howard Zinn points out the spin put onto history by those in power is going to cause backlash.

That said I read history as though it were fiction and fiction as though it were history. A Tale of Two Cities is hard to beat as a good look at the early days of the French Revolution and The Grapes of Wrath clearly unfolds the dust bowl migration in America