Lately I've been reading so many ancient historians. One thing these all have in common is they are entertaining, fun to read, pretty much true at least most of the time, and I can't put them down. But they take a lot of liberty in pushing an agenda or glorifying great men.
Modern history books on the other hand make me want to yawn and fall asleep. They seem so darn focused on facts and dates.
As a computer programmer and mathematician (not a historian by any stretch of the imagination), I would like to know when the facts and dates became so important to historians?
All you need to know!http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo3614698.html
Poovey shows how facts emerged as a form of evidence and information over the course of the long eighteenth century.