I'm asking as my History education focused largely on isolated periods and locations with little focus on any other subjects. I only found out about the English Anarchy last week through chance!
How do I find out about the larger narrative so that I can use other sources to fill in the specifics?
This sound's condescending, but I don't mean it to. A Child's History of the World: http://books.google.com/books/about/A_Child_s_History_of_the_World.html?id=q5TynQEACAAJ
is really good for an overview of history, really well written, and pretty interesting.
you could buy a world history textbook and read that...
older versions of this one can be had for under ten dollars, i assigned it to my students. https://www.worldcat.org/title/worlds-together-worlds-apart-volume-1-beginnings-through-the-fifteenth-century/oclc/868066949&referer=brief_results