I love history but am not good at sitting down and reading books. I'm a history major and understand I need to read many more books. I specialize in creepy and mysterious parts of history because it's exiting and there for, easy to read about but I want to broaden my knowledge.
I like western history as well as American history pre 1900's. I'd like your help to find books that have sparked your interest as well as books that take grip of your interest and are well writen. I'm ENFJ and it's hard to keep focused on books that arn't I teresting or well writen but I NEED to readore history books. Please help recomended books along with a short discription of why you like them and what they're about please and thank you so much.
One of my favourite history monographs (single-author books) on the 19th century is Daniel Howe's What Hath God Wrought. It's quite thick, but the chapters are very self-contained, so you can pick it up, read 15-20 pages at a time and set it down without losing track of the argument.
It covers the period from 1815, after the War of 1812, to 1848 and the end of the US-Mexican War. It discusses westward migration, the development of the cotton-slavery economy in the south, the rise of railways and the telegraph and, of course, the US-Mexican war including the infamous battle of the Alamo. It is extremely engaging (like a popular history) and very well researched (like an academic one), and I recommend it to all my students studying the run-up to the Civil War.