I'm between high school and college, and I'm trying to self study history. My main goal is to establish a foundation of knowledge that I can build on later by reading more specific works. The problem is that I'm overwhelmed by the size of the historical body of knowledge. I'm hoping that someone might be able to make some recommendations as to a course of study.
I've been reading The Story of Civilization books by Durant. Do you think doing so is amongst the more efficient ways to develop a base knowledge? It's like exercise: if you want to put on muscle fast the best way to do it is to lift free weights. That doesn't account for what you might want to do with your body, but it's undoubtedly the fastest way. I want to know what the fastest way to build that foundation is. If you're just looking for facts it doesn’t matter much how you approach history. If I wanted to know the history of WWII I could easily just read about all the things that happened. But I want to know what caused WWII to happen (in this example).
I'm thinking maybe I need to better understand the philosophy of history. Such as how historians study history and what they expect to obtain by studying it in whatever ways they choose. Any good intro texts for this?
If it matters, what I want to do with what I learn is apply it to philosophy because political and ethical philosophy are my greatest interests.
So any suggestions for intro study of history in general and historiography?
Thanks
I strongly believe in following your own interests. I would pick an area you like or have questions about and then build your reading up from a broad base. Start with a general survey that gives the basics then follow with more specific works. The reading lists here will help and so will the bibliographies in other books. The Oxford Very Short Introduction series are variable but they can be good starting points.
Don't see history as a body of knowledge to be learned like anatomy - it's a way of thinking about the world.
As for historiography, John Tosh The Pursuit of History is one of the standard texts and will give you ideas for further reading.
One suggestion: break your "history" into different eras, and then try starting by looking at the reading list for intro/survey courses. As you go through and find more questions, jot the big ones down. Example: America 1763-1860. Then a question would be...what about that whole "natural rights" business in the Declaration of Independence? That leads to the Enlightmenment and European intellectual history, and so on
Hope this helps
If you want a short introduction to major historiographical waves over time and how they changed perspectives, Telling the Truth About History by Margaret Jacob, Joyce Appleby, and Lynn Hunt is a great starting point, although the book is now 20 years old (1994 release) and is beginning to show its age.