Okay, title might seem weird but I did not know how else to put it. Basically, I've loved history all my life. I am currently studying Literature at university, and where I live there is no such things as majors and minors. So to study history I'd have to do a double major, but sadly I cannot. So, I want to learn as much as possible while being self-taught.
That being said, what are some books that are a must read? I'm open to all and every suggestion from all time periods and countries.
Every resource is appreciated! There's something I've done with literature that is searching some English major syllabus and just studying from that, and reading the books they add in the bibliography. However I have yet to find one for History. I don't even know if it's possible, or a good idea.
Thanks in advance!
What you should do is pick a topic--for example, the Romans--and look up the prominent scholars in the field and read their works. Popular history books--works written for the lay person--are excellent sources too, and they read very quickly compared to academic stuff. What you should understand too is that there's a book about history, and then there's a book about history. In the first sense there are works about the past that just present facts in a chronological order, and then there are in the second sense books (and these are usually academic works) that take the facts and seek to construct a thesis about a particular period in history with them. For example if you read Empires of the Silk Road, Chris Beckwith is arguing that Central Asia had a remarkable and widespread effect on world civilization, and is using facts and other data to support his hypothesis. This is why I'd also recommend book reviews before buying anything.
One last point. If you are serious about studying history you will eventually come across a term called historiography. That refers to how historians have seen an event over the time the discipline has been active. A good example here: Gibbon wrote The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire in the late 1700s and it set a way of viewing late Roman history as a period of decay and darkness that was used by historians for over 150 years. This is where the term Dark Ages comes from. This way of understanding the past wasn't really challenged until 1989 when Peter Brown publishes The World of Late Antiquity, which demonstrates that all was not doom and gloom. This changed the way historians viewed Roman history and medieval history, and spawned a new academic field--Late Antiquity. SO, when reason older works in any field, do a review first, and then read it not for information but for literature.
Hiya! It might help if you could clarify a little what sort of books and topics you're interested in here. If you'd like to learn about a particular historical topic - the history of Southern Africa, or the Silk Road, or so on, that's one sort of book, so to speak - a history book!
On the other hand, if I understand you right, you may also be asking about how to be a good historian - in that case, you may be interested in texts about the history of history, or about critical analysis, the historical method, and so on.
Thanks! :)
In addition to books, perhaps you can find recorded lectures from college professors online? Like free open yale courses, for example.