I will offset this by stating that I am by no mean an academic in history or any subject related to humanities. But, this does not mean I am not deeply fascinated by it. I am very interested in doing some casual reading and I would really appreciate guidance from a group of qualified individuals such as your community.
I will give a short explanation of my academic background and what it's ties with history were. If you are not interested or think that it would be irrelevant to the answer you would provide, free free to skip to the next paragraph. Throughout my education I have come into contact with history in multiple occasion as it was mandatory in my schools curriculum. Needless to say I enjoyed most of and I was fairly successful at my studies. Although I do have to admit that the formula became a little tiring. For anyone wondering historic studies consisted of 3 "cycles" in my 12 years of education. The cycle always begun with studies about various civilizations none of which dated before 3000 B.C. and ended with the fall of the Roman Empire. The second part of each cycle consisted of extensive studies of the Byzantine Empire and finally, the last part consisted of "Modern" history. Naturally, every time the "cycle" was repeated every period was studied at greater depth and more focus was given on the political scene of the period and the tensions and stances of neighboring civilizations rather than focus only one as we had done before.
Not much time has passed since I graduated and now slowly but steadily my ties with history are being severed. This is exactly why I am directing the topic question to you. I will follow up with a little something which shows my thought process and approach to the matter.
Let's say I wanted to expand my knowledge of the time period between 800A.D and 100A.D. How do I start?
I assume I have to limit myself in one particular region, it seems highly improbable and and unrealistic to study all civilizations that existed on this planet during that period.
So lets assume I limit myself to Greece, which I assume is a logical step considering Greece's importance to the time period and region.
Is Greece too big of a region?
Should I limit myself to only one city, or maybe two or three at most?
Assume I do limit myself to only one, or two or three cities, where do I start reading
Is Wikipedia a good place to start?
Should I buy books with historical texts from Xenophon and Thucydides or other relevant historians?
How do I tell apart a book that contains accurate information from an "ancient aliens" kind of of book that is full of speculation, historical inaccuracies and incredible mental gymnastics.
If I have the ability, which I do to an extent, should I read the untranslated originals of the works of Xenophon and Thucydides?
These are just few of the numerous questions that pop into my heard every time I think about this and it really stops me from even starting.
I hope I have not tired you and I certainly hope all those questions offered a little bit of insight into my thought process and have given you a good understanding of the kind of advice that would help me. I am sorry if this does not comply with the rules, but as far as I can tell it should not be a problem, although I have to admit I just skimmed through them.
Honestly, I think you're way overthinking this. Just start somewhere and you'll naturally gravitate towards a more specific area/time period. Or you won't and you'll want to study everything. Just pick up the first history book you find and start reading. Or, say "Wow, Ancient Rome sounds pretty cool" (it is) and find a book about it. Then if the text mentions the Caesar assassination and you're like "Wow, that sounds interesting," try to find something about the Caesar assassination.
If you want to study history as an amateur, it's for pleasure. So find things you like and read them. It's as simple as that.
Hello, lowly History major slaving hours away into every essay, all the while procrastinating, here. It's important to know what sort of history you're interested in learning. From the looks of it you want to explore the specific history of a single entity, but I may be wrong. If we take Greece, for example, there are multiple subjects in its past to study; arts(Cultural history), philosophers(History of ideas), wars(Military History), etc... These are all great subjects, and each of them can be as extensive in learning as, say, a general history of Greece. It's important to note that there's nothing wrong with general history, in fact it's often recommended to learn that before moving on to the more specific subjects. For example, I prefer to study the grand picture of things. I like to do research on world history, which is why the more cosmopolitan modern history fascinates me. Then with that worldly knowledge in place I can then proceed to learn the specifics like biographies, social history, and municipal history. You'll have others, however, that prefer to narrow their field of research to very specific historical events or even people. These people will be able to tell you everything about Greece, and it's inhabitants, etcc.., but will be lacking in other historical events.
Here are some examples of books that vary in scope. This is only a small sample and should be treated as such.
Grandest History: Chua, Amy. Day of Empire. OR Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of Great Powers.
Grand history: Price, Simon and Peter Thonemann. The Birth of Classical Europe. OR Remini, Robert V. A Short History of the United States. OR Clendinnen, Inga. Aztecs.
More Narrow: Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. OR Menzies, Gavin. 1421(HAHAHA okay kidding, this is a joke. Laugh with me.)
Narrowest: Fox, Robin Lane. Alexander the Great. OR Gessen, Masha. The Man Without a Face. The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.
Precise and Slender history: Bradbury, Bettina. Working Families: Age, Gender, and Daily Survival in Industrializing Montreal. (shudder) OR Guy, Some. Jewish Dogwalkers of Inner City New York at the age of 24
So choose the scale, location, and period in which you want to study. It's impossible to learn it all, but as long as you aren't limited to a select time period, for research or scheduling reasons, then you might as well learn as much as you can in the widest scope possible. I recommend starting from the very beginning. Example: Mesopotamian History -> Mediterranean History -> General Greece history -> Greek Art -> Greek Philosophers -> etc..
In fact, as a very beginning tool to inspire yourself to learn I recommend [Crash Course and its various series on History] (https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/crash-course1/crash-course-world-history)
I hope you become inspired in your new acquired knowledge of History!
In addition to all the methods mentioned, may I recommend my favourite pastime: open up a large article on Wikipedia (e.g. "Roman Empire", "Capet Dynasty", "The Crusades" etc) and read it. While reading it, whenever you see something/someone you don't know about (or do, but don't really remember much), open its link in a new tab. Once you've reached the end of the big-ass article, move on to the ~50 articles you've opened and opening interesting links in them as well. You might need multiple browser windows open in the end but you'll have built a general historical context database in your head in no time. Just remember that on Wikipedia, facts = (mostly) good, everything else = meh.
OR just start ticking off r/AskHistorians and r/History book lists, whatever floats yo' goat.
The best way to study history is to take several different perspectives/writing on the same subject matter and compare/contrast what you find in each one.
Best case scenario look into some academic journals or any books that actually does footnoting and you generally will get "valid" information.
