I understand that "history" is an immeasurable subject on its own, through all of time and all of the world. How can a lay person learn history. I'm mean breadth, not depth. I just find myself knowing nothing about anything historical, so I just want to know... things. Is there a resource that is just "everything you need to know about world history"? Or, I was thinking I could learn a fair amount of history of Poland, since I'm Polish, and then just branch out to other countries? Any ideas would help. Thanks.
An oldie but a goodie for the casual reader is E.H. Gombrich's Little History of the World. It's very difficult to write a book about world history without resorting to a certain amount of event-listing and time-lining, which is really boring. Don't settle for wikipedia, there are sites that are just as accessible with more reputable information. I'll provide you with a brief list of historical branches that will hopefully lead you off onto branches of your own discoveries:
For world history (and things in it):
(1) The World History Association
(2) British Museum, History of the World in 100 Objects
(3) "How the Potato Changed the World"
(4) The Edible Series from he University of Chicago Press
(5) Objekt also through University of Chicago Press
(6) Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (Viking, 2010)
(7) Tamin Ansary. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes. (2010)
(8) Mircea Eliade. A history of religious ideas (Univ. of Chicago, 1978)
(9) Dom David Knowles. The Evolution of Medieval Thought
For Polish history (apologies, I don't know Polish, but it should be fairly easy to access good Polish-language stuff from the sources below):
(1) The Past in the Present : the Construction of Polish History by Robert Traba (Peter Lang, 2014)
(2) Evoking Polish Memory : State, Self and the Communist Past in Transition by Anna Witeska-Mlynarczyk (Peter Lang, 2014)
(3) From the University of Buffalo
(4) General knowledge from the Polish History Museum
Hope this helps a little. Happy reading!
I learn a great deal of history through reading. On our wiki we have compiled an extensive book list of works recommended by the flaired users of /r/AskHistorians. Perhaps you would like to dive into the European section to see if anything appeals to you, or maybe you would like a more general history book to start with. Have fun, and feel free to ask questions for good recommendations!
Slovak here! I am glad that you are interested in History friend. As for learning it, I would definitely just suggest that you start reading on the history subjects that you like. Seeing as how you want to learn Polish history (I myself want to learn about Czech/Slovak history, though there are very few books focused on the topic sadly), here are a few books that I think would interest you.
The following Books (below) aren't 100% focused on Poland, but they are focused on Eastern Europe/Europe and have a good amount of commentary on Polish history in their own right:
Please keep in mind that I haven't read all of these myself, so I cannot personally attest to their quality, though I have read some and the rest are held in high regard by reviews, historians, and my friends. I definitely recommend all of them.
If you are interested in any other subjects and wish for more books, please let me know. The subreddit has a large selection of books, but I personally am a large fan of European history. If you're interested in books on German, French, Spanish, or Russian history, I have a list for each country.
I feel like this might be heresy in this sub to suggest this, but at least when you are starting out, just surf around on Wikipedia. There are a lot of really great historical articles (also a lot of terrible ones), but they can give you a broad understanding of the history of a period/region/people. When you find a topic you think is especially interesting, come back here and ask for books recommendations for laymen.
Thanks for all the responses everyone!