History? Who likes history here?

[KateHolzDoKunoichi]

US, World, European or any other type of history. What kind of history do you like?

My fav. one is European History, its so facinating and at the same time, funny and sad. People back then all they liked to do was fight -_-, eh they still do.

[nicodemus]

I majored in it, so I clearly like it as you can't make crap for money with a degree in it.

[Chesco United]

Seconded.

[nicephoras]

Don't be so short sighted, gentlemen. I majored in two supposedly useless disciplines. And you know what? The law pays just fine.

[Danks81]

History rules, I'd already have a minor in it if my overpriced school would let me apply AP credits towards it. But the bastards would rather I take more classes.

[nicodemus]

Don't be so short sighted, gentlemen. I majored in two supposedly useless disciplines. And you know what? The law pays just fine.
Ewwwwwwwww. A lawyer?

[comme]

I've got a history degree and am doing postgraduate study in the Ancient World. I specialise in percpetions of ancient Greek poleis.

[Gordon EF]

I'd love to do a course in Scottish History course or a European History course but it's difficult to fit that in witha science degree.

[nicephoras]

Ewwwwwwwww. A lawyer?

Its OK - the slime washes off just fine.
If it makes you feel any better, I just spent part of my vacation rereading parts of Gruen's "The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome".

[nicodemus]

Its OK - the slime washes off just fine.I'm just kidding really. My dad used to be a lawyer, and one of my best friends is too and I like them both just fine :p
If it makes you feel any better, I just spent part of my vacation rereading parts of Gruen's "The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome". That does make me feel better. :D

[nicephoras]

I'm just kidding really. My dad used to be a lawyer, and one of my best friends is too and I like them both just fine :p
That does make me feel better. :D

Well, gotta keep up with the field, I suppose. I've been reading on some of the newer scholarship these days, with mixed results. Certain books that I've read keep convincing me that a PhD might have been even easier. Ah well - c'est la vie.

[CrewDust]

I like all of it. I majored in it. You can make money with the degree but you will have to be in an industry that doesn't have anything to do with it, outside a nice interview ice breaker.

[MikeLastort2]

I consider myself an amateur historian. I LOVE history.

[Dr. Wankler]

I sucked at it in high school and college, mainly because my brain came unequipped with that part where dates are stored. However, I've since found certain histories that I like reading quite a bit. E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, for instance, and old-school Americans like Walter Prescott Webb and Bernard DeVoto. One of these days I hope to read the classical greek historians, and one of my favorite books is by the Roman "historian" Suetonius, whose Twelve Caesars is must reading whenever one thinks that ones own republic is going down the toilet. We're quite a long way away, I hope, from dissenting senators having their heads cut off and displayed on pikes outside the Capitol Building. I hope. I hope. Anyway, Twelve Caesars is gossipy and gruesome. If it was assigned in high school history classes, the number of college history majors would triple nationwide.

[needs]

I sucked at it in high school and college, mainly because my brain came unequipped with that part where dates are stored. However, I've since found certain histories that I like reading quite a bit. E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, for instance, and old-school Americans like Walter Prescott Webb and Bernard DeVoto.

Which Webb? The Great Plains?

If you like Webb, you should read Don Worster's Rivers of Empire; it has Webb's stress on the limits of regional environment without all the emphasis of Anglo-American racial superiority that infuses Webb's work.

[needs]

In general, how do you guys choose what books to read? Once you choose a book, how do you evaluate it as a history? What do you look for to evaluate whether it's good or bad?

I ask as an academic historian who's interested in how books capture the interest of the wider public (and which subjects especially do that).

[Dr. Wankler]

In general, how do you guys choose what books to read? Once you choose a book, how do you evaluate it as a history? What do you look for to evaluate whether it's good or bad?

I ask as an academic historian who's interested in how books capture the interest of the wider public (and which subjects especially do that).

For me, there are a variety of factors. Usually, I pick up histories and historians whose work touches upon other interests of mine. E.P. Thompson I came across in graduate school when I was learning about Cultural Studies. DeVoto and Webb influenced American poets whose work I like, and I think I came across references to Suetonius in essays by Gore Vidal. So choice tends to come down to whether it will deepen my understanding of something I already know, and evaluation comes down to the good old fashion subjective one of "liking" it, bearing in mind that I spent a good number of years in graduate school, so I have some sense of what academic standards are (and Suetonius would be a best seller today, but he'd have a hard time getting refereed journals to publish his work, and tenure would be difficult).

Does that get at your question?

[elainemichelle]

I like history but right now I really really hate Latin American history, probably b/c the class is so hard for me. (The links b/t what happens there and what happens in Europe don't really jump at me yet.) I'm sure I'll end up loving it as soon as I'm out of that class b/c that's what happened with Euro hist. Never really took to American history b/c it didn't get interesting for me until WWI.

[MikeLastort2]

In general, how do you guys choose what books to read? Once you choose a book, how do you evaluate it as a history? What do you look for to evaluate whether it's good or bad?

I ask as an academic historian who's interested in how books capture the interest of the wider public (and which subjects especially do that).I base a lot of what I read on places I travel to. For instance, my wife and I just went to London and France. Prior to leaving, I bought these books:

http://www.capital-books.com/images/covers/1892123320_cf150.jpg - The Amateur Historian's Guide to Medieval and Tudor London

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0679642668.01._PE30_PI_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg London: A History

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0385497717.01._PE_PIdp-schmoo2,TopRight,7,-26_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg - London: The Biography

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0192880063.01._PE_PIdp-schmooS,TopRight,7,-26_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg - Southern France: An Oxford Archaeological Guide

We took a trip to Florence and Rome one year, and before we left I read a history of the Medici and The Oxford Archaeological Guide to Rome. When we went to Venice, I read John Julius Norwich's "A History Of Venice" before we left.

I like to have historical context of the things I'm seeing when we go somewhere. Now with the exception of Norwich's book, the books above aren't exactly what I'd consider "hard core" history. But they serve a purpose for me in that they help me learn something new about the world I live in.

[Smiley321]

I like reading history, mainly of europe and the ancient middle east.

I also highly recommend studying science, because most of that is really just the history of people figuring things out about how the world works.

Learning math and physics gives you an appreciation for the resourcefulness of the ancients like the Greeks. We think that we are so sophisticated and scoff at their silly myths, but they were starting from scratch and they did most of our heavy lifting for us.

Learning even a fraction of the body of scientific knowledge built up by 1800 makes you realize that we are standing on the shoulders of giants and we should be extremely grateful to those people who had to figure things out under more more adversity than we can imagine.

So go back and learn that algebra and geometry and calculus, and when you're through your ignorance will be comparable to someone in the year 1800.