A few of the assigned books try to give a broad introduction to the entire time period (A Concise History of...). What am I supposed to do? I assume I should skim them to get a general sense of the facts and timeline, but what else? Do I take notes? What kind of notes?

These tend to be firehose approaches, that is, a whole lot of dense information conveyed in a reasonable but not incredibly interesting form. I like these much more for consultation than actually learning. As odd as it might sound at first, the best way to learn a lot about a topic isn't to start with an introductory overview and build up. It's to read just a bunch of stuff without worrying overtly about memorizing every last detail. After a few books, you'll find you know it!

Most are way more specific (Politics and Propaganda in...). Here, I assume I should read more closely, but there are just so many of them! What should I pay attention to when I read a history book?

There is a time-honored grad student strategy for reading all the books we have to: How to read an academic book. This will make your life SO much easier.

The notes. What do I write down? Is it best to organise notes by topic? By book? In chronological order? By which assignment the book belongs to? How should I even use them, like when do I look at my notes?

See above link, first of all. As for the rest, a lot of it is personal preference and style. I use one word processing file document per book and organize them subject-wise by folder, personally. I look at my notes...when I need them? (Is there another answer?) Like, sometimes when I'm writing an AH post I'll run a keyword search and a bunch of notes files will turn up; I'll skim through them and see what's up, maybe consult the original book if I have to. (I often write down page numbers with what I think are important details--even if a particular comment doesn't have a page number, I can use nearby ones to narrow down in the book where it is).

A few of the assigned books try to give a broad introduction to the entire time period (A Concise History of...). What am I supposed to do? I assume I should skim them to get a general sense of the facts and timeline, but what else? Do I take notes? What kind of notes?

These tend to be firehose approaches, that is, a whole lot of dense information conveyed in a reasonable but not incredibly interesting form. I like these much more for consultation than actually learning. As odd as it might sound at first, the best way to learn a lot about a topic isn't to start with an introductory overview and build up. It's to read just a bunch of stuff without worrying overtly about memorizing every last detail. After a few books, you'll find you know it!

Most are way more specific (Politics and Propaganda in...). Here, I assume I should read more closely, but there are just so many of them! What should I pay attention to when I read a history book?

There is a time-honored grad student strategy for reading all the books we have to: How to read an academic book. This will make your life SO much easier.

The notes. What do I write down? Is it best to organise notes by topic? By book? In chronological order? By which assignment the book belongs to? How should I even use them, like when do I look at my notes?

See above link, first of all. As for the rest, a lot of it is personal preference and style. I use one word processing file document per book and organize them subject-wise by folder, personally. I look at my notes...when I need them? (Is there another answer?) Like, sometimes when I'm writing an AH post I'll run a keyword search and a bunch of notes files will turn up; I'll skim through them and see what's up, maybe consult the original book if I have to. (I often write down page numbers with what I think are important details--even if a particular comment doesn't have a page number, I can use nearby ones to narrow down in the book where it is).

History is best approached as a detective story: it's all about drawing conclusions from evidence. It can be instructive to take a specific episode, acquire a few pieces of evidence (including a primary source, a secondary source, perhaps an analysis). Then, interrogate the sources: who wrote this? What knowledge did they have? For whom was it written, and could they have been seeking to elicit a certain reaction? and so on.

If you are studying periods, it's very useful to put a time line up on the wall so you can visually, quickly identify the order of events.

History isn't about learning a set of facts, it's about developing critical thinking skills. A history essay should read like a lawyer's court statement, marshalling evidence to produce a conclusion.

History is best approached as a detective story: it's all about drawing conclusions from evidence. It can be instructive to take a specific episode, acquire a few pieces of evidence (including a primary source, a secondary source, perhaps an analysis). Then, interrogate the sources: who wrote this? What knowledge did they have? For whom was it written, and could they have been seeking to elicit a certain reaction? and so on.

If you are studying periods, it's very useful to put a time line up on the wall so you can visually, quickly identify the order of events.

History isn't about learning a set of facts, it's about developing critical thinking skills. A history essay should read like a lawyer's court statement, marshalling evidence to produce a conclusion.

Well, is there a book that relates the 'history of the periods' history ' (meaning how the historians' approach to the subject at hand developed)? In Germany, there is a Series that gives great overviews on topics by first giving the factual history of what happened, followed by a chapter on "questions (as in unclear episodes) and directions of historians' approaches" and then providing a chapter on how to read the sources.

I've always found these incredibly helpful because they help someone not familiar with all the different approaches to a broad topic make sense of it all very quickly.

It might also be helpful to try and sort of group the reading lost into clusters according to what aspect of the Class' topic they discuss. This could rather quickly by reading the abstracts (in Papers) or introduction (in books). You will also find that the general books will mostly state the same stuff, but may have one or two shifts in focus on certain aspects - those are the interesting parts. So a look into the TOC should help you with that.

Also, what kind of class is this? A lecture class or a "seminar" (that's what germans call classes which require the students to hold presentations of their own on certain aspects of the class overal topic, and to participate in discussions with the professor as well as each other; not sure if this distinction is just a german thingy though)?

Well, is there a book that relates the 'history of the periods' history ' (meaning how the historians' approach to the subject at hand developed)? In Germany, there is a Series that gives great overviews on topics by first giving the factual history of what happened, followed by a chapter on "questions (as in unclear episodes) and directions of historians' approaches" and then providing a chapter on how to read the sources.

I've always found these incredibly helpful because they help someone not familiar with all the different approaches to a broad topic make sense of it all very quickly.

It might also be helpful to try and sort of group the reading lost into clusters according to what aspect of the Class' topic they discuss. This could rather quickly by reading the abstracts (in Papers) or introduction (in books). You will also find that the general books will mostly state the same stuff, but may have one or two shifts in focus on certain aspects - those are the interesting parts. So a look into the TOC should help you with that.

Also, what kind of class is this? A lecture class or a "seminar" (that's what germans call classes which require the students to hold presentations of their own on certain aspects of the class overal topic, and to participate in discussions with the professor as well as each other; not sure if this distinction is just a german thingy though)?