Hey Historians! I have zero educational background in history (am all science and education), but I find myself often gravitating towards history for non-fiction reading or podcast listening. My absolute favorite Podcast was The History of Rome Podcast, and I have loved books like Guns, Germs, and Steel and 1491. I also love Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. Aside from that I have not read much historical non-fiction and I want to start reading more.
But I specifically want interesting, gripping, well-written reads. I am open to any time-period, on any subject, I love things gruesome, I enjoy war, and medicine, and really anything interesting to learn about. It can be dense, broad, or detailed, or anything, I am looking for just the "best of" most interesting historical reads to sink my teeth in to.
Thanks!
Hi there, those interested in recommending things to OP! While you might have a title to share, this is still a thread on AskHistorians, and we still want the replies here to be to an /r/AskHistorians standard - presumably OP would have asked at /r/history or /r/askreddit if they wanted non-specialist opinion. So give us some indication why the thing you're recommending is valuable, trustworthy or applicable! Posts that provide no context for why you're recommending a particular podcast/book/novel/documentary/etc, and which aren't backed up by a historian-level knowledge on the accuracy and stance of the piece, will be removed.
If you want war, medicine and gruesome, you can do no better than early medical texts. Early medicine was not for the squeamish, here are a few titles that may whet your appetite (or put a more sensitive reader off their breakfast):
The navy surgeon's chest: surgical instruments of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic War
Genitourinary medicine and surgery in Nelson’s navy
and for sheer unpleasantness, the operation on Louis XIV's anal fistula (without anesthesia) comes to mind described in many places, here's a good summary of all the medical references in a memoire of life at Versailles
The Medical Aspects of Saint-Simon's " Memoires"
and extending back to classical times
ROMAN SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE
. . . the history of medicine included quite a lot of ingenuity, and a helluva a lot more pain.