I have my bachelor's in history and am starting my master's, but I think I can get you on the road here until someone with further experience comes in to reinforce, refute, or amend my words.

Don't be discouraged by not remembering what you read. It's certainly not about memorization. Simply put you don't remember what you don't use. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the concept of active recall, but I'll give a high level overview. Active recall is just what it sounds like: forcing our brains to actively recall information, rather than passively ingesting it. Active recall is the most powerful force in building better memory. You've probaly heard that you learn something better by teaching it? That's active recall at work. Instead of gliding your eyes down the page of a book, closing it, and going about your day, you're compelling your brain to tell you what you read. This is surprisingly difficult. A fun test is to read a page of a book, and then shut the book and ask yourself what you just read. Chances are you'll remember frustratingly little. However if you do ask yourself this question, perhaps at the end of each chapter, and then go back to fill in gaps in your recall, you're far more likely to remember the summary down the line.

Historians, as in those whose daily lives involve actively recalling what they've read and being able to articulate it (to their professors, to other students, in their writings) are naturally going to remember far more than someone who reads a history book for pleasure and doesn't engage in any active recall activities. That's not to say it isn't a skill to be honed, but don't feel frightened or intimidated as though you don't have this innate memory that others seem to. If you begin engaging in active recall activities you would notice an increase in what you're able to remember, and perhaps this would raise your confidence.

Now I would not advise you to do the old-fashioned highlight/underline and take notes method. Science has shown that these passive forms of intake, such as re-reading a list of highlighted terms or notes, does not help us remember information any better. And why would it? You're telling your brain, "Hey brain! Look at this information we have written down in front of us!" and you're brain is saying "Wow how handy! Good thing I don't have to waste time remembering it since you have it sitting right there in front of us!" We're not strengthening those pathways that tell the brain hey we're not always going to have this info I need you to be a pal and remember it for me. Asking questions is a great method for remembering concepts, as are certain forms of note taking, such as restating ideas you want to remember in your own words. I'd be happy to recommend some resources in this area if anyone is interested! There are a lot of great articles and YouTube videos that go far more into depth on learning how to learn.

So I promise there is nothing wrong with you, nor superhuman about academic historians. They're individuals who have a lot of practice acitvely recalling material, and utilitizing it daily. In doing so repeatedly and consistently, their brains have wired in a way that makes such information easily accessible, allowing them the appearance of walking libraries.

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Resources on Active Recall and how we learn:

This guy's channel is full of active recall advice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDbxPVn02VU

A summary of "Study Less Study Smart":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23Xqu0jXlfs

More about Feyman and the "Feynman Technique":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f-qkGJBPts&t=5s

Talk about a scientific perspective of how we learn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd2dtkMINIw&t=3076s

Finally a bit more 'advanced mode', but here is an article and a video on the idea of "Evergreen notes", an adaptation of the Zettelkasten note taking system. I'd recommend googling Zettelkasten if you're curious, but essentially it's a method of building out a 'second brain' of sorts and connecting your ideas versus siloing them into hierarchical categories that preclude making connections:
https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmGrK1YxUPM&t=32s

I think it depends on what information you think we retain, haha. I have a PhD in history and still find myself looking up dates. I’ll have a general idea, but not necessarily the exact dates memorized. Unless the events are relevant to my field, I rarely commit information like this to memory.

However, I do remember books I have read and what their main arguments are. I learned this skill in graduate school when you really need to be able to learn the historiography of your field. History PhDs will always tell you that they are never as smart as they were during their comps. I agree with that 100%. I read my comps and I barely remember any of it.

My retention got so much better when I started teaching. When you have to teach the material over and over again in a way that makes sense to students, you’ll be amazed at how much you retain.

I recommend u/sunagainstgold's How to Read an Academic Book for some strategies used to work through academic works on history. The TL:DR is that you skim a lot, focus your detailed reading strategically, and take notes for main ideas.

For me personally, when answering questions here, my superior brain absorbs and radiates all knowledge a Google doc I have with notes taken much like in the manner described in the link, plus the search function in Google Books of works I've read previously are key tools for writing answers.

One strategy that has not been mentioned: read more books.

You're not going to get everything on the first pass. But think about it: books you reread when you were little. Books in a series where you read a lot of them. Would you like me to recite large passages of Ender's Game off the top of my head? How about tell you the personal details of the girls from the Baby-Sitters Club books (and their families, and their town, and the kids they baby-sat, and...). I read those in first and second grade.

I went into my PhD comprehensive exams with approximately zero knowledge of medieval Mediterranean history. (I tend to leap off cliffs when it comes to academics.) Years later, I can write What kind of economic opportunities would a woman in Medieval Islamic World would have? and A lot of Andalusian architecture stayed after the Reconquista--did many Arabic designs survive after the Norman conquest of Sicily? and Heresy in medieval Islam, and most recently Were Africans responsible for bringing Europe out of the Dark Ages during the Renaissance?.

That's because (a) I read a whole bunch of books, with overlapping subject material, on Mediterranean history. And (b) what I've forgotten, I know where to look for the information...or I can consult my notes. Which, in fact, I have found to be extremely helpful.

If by retaining information you mean memorizing dates and specific names/titles of minor actors in historical events then I think you’re not alone. Studying history is less about memorizing facts and more about developing skills and proper methodology. The emphasis on memorizing specific dates etc. is pretty old-fashioned in my mind and it should never be the emphasis of any academic pursuit.

It's all about building additional levels of knowledge. When you read book, you probably have little to no context. When you start specializing in an area, you read way more than an book at the topic. You learn basic events that happened in specific age. Then you learn specific things. Then you learn very detailed stuff. It's repetition and continued work. For you this is new info. For historian 90% of the book is probably something they read many times, 5% is new take on well known topic, where they have countless books of context. And maybe 5% of stuff is something relatively new. It's not about their brains. It's about years of repetition.

Try narrowing your focus, It's about building and expanding knowledge. It's great to read loads of books but if you read 20 books spanning 1000 years you've absorbed little knowledge as opposed to reading 20 books on the civil war. Pick a staring point, learn all you can then branch out. Let's say you become a expert in civil war history, you could then begin on The Reconstruction as it would tie in nicely and reaffirm points you've previously learned.

I have a Master’s degree in History and am currently employed as a Historian, but tbh I still struggle with with my memory and retaining facts. At times I get the Imposter Syndrome feeling because I don’t feel like a real Historian since I can’t remember a lot of facts off hand. I believe that for most of the time (depending on the job) it’s more important to know how to find quality sources and information as opposed to memorization, because you’re never going to be able to remember everything. It took me a long time to realize it’s ok to say “I don’t know” to a question. I just wanted to let you know that there are others out there who struggle with their memory, but still have been able to have a career in the history field.

There have been lots of good words here. I wanna touch on a bit that kind of combines what /u/MySkinsRedditAcct and /u/Rittermeister were saying. In the United States, for example, there is a heavy focus on teaching factual information during one's time in the public education system and even in undergrad history classes. While historians are almost stereotypically known for espousing facts and rote prose, the reality is that many of us do not just sit around memorizing books (but I'm confident in saying that many of us do read a lot of books).

Being required to learn a compendium of facts is actually not helpful at all when it comes to learning how to "do" history. Studies have shown that students retain much more information when they are able to A.) explore topics they are interested in, B.) draw connection to historical information that is relevant to them, and C.) engage with the material in creative and novel ways. Though it does become more prominent as one progressed to higher levels of an education system, it should really be something we focus on in early stages because the emphasis on retaining facts is detrimental to both fostering an interest in history and discourages the development of what I'm trying to get at: historical thinking.

Historians are trained to engage with materials and sources so as to study them effectively and create our narratives about the past. This is often referred to as "historical thinking" or the application of the historical method. This concept involves, for example, how we look at sources, how we investigate them for details, and how we make sense of them in their proper context (and how to decipher, analyze, and understand that context to begin with). In Western methodology, it is understood that historical thinking does not necessarily come naturally. It is a skill that has to be cultivated and actively worked on because while there are many uses for it, it is not something necessary for everyday survival and is not constantly relevant to how we can make sense of our contemporary presence (I emphasis that this is particular to a Western understanding of it as I think this could change depending on different cultural frameworks and their understandings of history).

With this in mind, those who study history are not only actively engaging with the material they study, but how we study it is meant to help with our ability to recall the knowledge. But it is important to note that this doesn't mean we forget or know more than the average person in general. As noted earlier, we better retain information when it is interesting and relevant to us. I can give you the dates of several major laws passed in the United States that relate to Native Americans because I study federal Indian policy, an area in where I have a personal stake, being Native American. I use that information very often and knowing the dates are important because it intersects with other portions of my knowledge and creates the framework I need to make further interpretations and conclusions. But I have a hard time remembering things about the Founding Fathers of the United States. Why? I grew up in the U.S., I was patriotic as a kid (whole other story, don't get me started), was super interested in history... But it doesn't align with me culturally. So now, I know only as much as I care to remember and where it matters for my actual interests in history.

At the end of the day, it isn't really about memorizing everything you read. It is about developing the cognitive tools and mentality that allows you to explore your interests (and especially the "explore your interests" part). When you do this, you'll find that it is much easier to recall the information you learn and how to go about studying the material you want to learn.

When you do something as a job or as a very passionate hobby, you're immersed in it.

Also, just speaking for me I have a research diary where I try to tie facts to my emotional reactions for easier recall.

"I was surprised to learn that..." or "I was skeptical when Source A said this, but after Source B confirmed it I was convinced."

It's about the repetition and developing context. When I first learned about the Civil War in high school I basically remembered the election of Lincoln, Ft. Sumter, Gettysburg, Appomatox Court House. Somewhere in there McClellan was sucking, Grant was crushing it, and Sherman went to Atlanta.

In college after a couple classes I could contextualize what was going on in Vicksburg with what was happening in the East b/c I kept reading book after book on those topics. I knew about Stanton and Montgomery Meigs and why they were important.

Now I've read at least 20 to 30 books on it the war and the events leading up to it and stuff afterwards. I have a pretty good timeline and know more than most of the public but am in no way an expert.

There are these old retiree civil war hobbyists that just read civil war stuff every day all day and they'll know the difference between telegrams Lincoln sent to McClellan in the morning and the afternoon of the same day, b/c they've been reading this stuff everyday for 45 years.

With every new piece of information you get you can fit other pieces you already have into a bigger picture. And the smaller the pieces you're fitting together the stronger they hold together. Knowing about US Colored Troops lets you understand more about the Ft. Pillow battle and massacre. That lets you understand more about the Battle of the Crater, etc.

It's repeated and increasingly detailed reading and thinking on a subject that lets you gain mastery. Just like anything else.

Well, I do not think many academics are inherently that different than regular folks in terms of intellectual capability (though some of them would disagree). Undergraduate studies paint a broad picture of a chosen field of study. Graduate and doctoral level studies provide granular levels of research on specific topics. Since we live in an age of information, there’s a push to find/author an area of work that needs revision, further study, or has never been studied. The sponginess you see is most likely an accumulation of knowledge in a very niche area. My graduate degree is in higher education theory, and I could easily describe the historical evolution of and major players within student development theories, but I would struggle to name even famous Civil War battles or other common historical events. I think the sponginess is conditioned through years of granular research on niche topics and other administrative factors and I’d argue that academics or those with advanced degrees do not have super powers in terms of general history recollection.

I originally trained as a historian though life then took me in a different direction. One thing I found then - and still have since - is that it's much easier to "remember" stuff as you get into the details and the controversies. That's because different pieces of information then start to fit together. Remembering one piece of information then prompts what the next must be and so on.

For example, I don't know off the top of my head (taking the first example that comes to mind) what year Jo Grimond stopped being leader of the Liberal Party here in the UK. But thinking about it, I know he was succeeded by Jeremy Thorpe, who fought the 1970 election. So Grimond must have stood down after the previous one, which I know was 1966. But in those days leaders didn't quit as soon after elections as they do now. So, er..., 1967? Bingo. If you'd asked me, that would have whirled through my brain in a couple of seconds or less and it would have appeared that I just "knew" it.

In High School, I read a book on the Civil War. I probably retained 35-40% of it.

A few years later, I took a college class on US History 1865-Present. By then, my retention of the book I'd read had fallen, but that class reinforced a lot of that information, so I found myself remembering more things about that book. In addition, it added more facts onto the framework I already had.

I've since read several books on Civil War History, visited battlefields and museums, watched documentaries, and taken a class specifically on the US Civil War, as well as classes that covered that time period in addition to other eras. Each time, I'm adding more things onto the framework I had, rather than just absorbing everything like a sponge. When I recently read another Civil War book, I found that I already knew about a quarter of what was in there, and because of that, I knew where to put the other three-quarters of new information. The outline and a lot of the details were already there, and I just added more substance to what I knew, in addition to refreshing myself on what I'd learned.

It also helps to take notes, lots of notes. Depending on the quality of reading (is it densely packed with numbers and names, or is it more narrative-style writing?) I will sometimes write notes as I'm reading (in pencil, especially if I'm making notes in the book) or I will jam an index card in between the pages and go back to it after I finish the section. On e-readers I will highlight a sentence (rarely ever making a note at the time) and go back afterwards. This gets better with practice, especially once you become more familiar with certain eras/ subjects. If I'm doing this for a paper or project, I will spend ten or fifteen minutes at the end of the day typing the best parts of my notes (usually all of them) into an Evernote or Word document.

And you didn't ask this question, but the answer to whether you should go back to school for a history degree is YES.

Might be a bit late at this point and don't know how much this applies to others but any new history info I absorb goes into a 'mental model' of history, like fitting a new piece into a jigsaw puzzle. Ie some book or paper illuminates a region / event at some specific points in time and that informs other areas it connects to.

Something that I think hasn't been mentioned here, but the sort of archival and primary source research that you end up doing once you're into a graduate school program is very different from reading textbooks, history books, and the like.

The thing about a good history (or non-fiction in general) book is that it lays everything out on the table in a nice, easy to follow manner (and I say this not only as a published author, but as the owner of a small publishing company specializing in history books). So, you're not having to make any of the connections yourself - you might agree or disagree with the analysis, but you're considering the finished product.

With archival or primary source research, you are making the connections yourself from first principles. So, to take my own academic background (WW1, specifically British Cavalry doctrine), I read dozens, if not hundreds of articles in military journals by officers trying to figure out how to deal with trench warfare in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War. So, I was making the connections between what these people were saying and what was appearing in field manuals for myself. In the process, I realized that the entire idea that the strategic planners were using hyper-aggressive strategies because they were trying to fight a 19th century war made absolutely zero sense - it was crystal clear that they were desperate to avoid a trench war, and winning before the front could bog down was the only thing they came up with that could work. And, because I made these connections myself, I've retained far more of this knowledge than I would have otherwise.

I think it's really about the journey. Anybody can talk at length about the journey they went on themselves, and archival/primary source research is a journey for the researcher. It's a lot harder to remember somebody else's journey.

You are off the target a little bit. Why do you have to remember dates and events? Two main things to learn as a historian are themes/eras and sources readily available to look up specifics..... before you realize, dots get connected and the historical moments become dates such as your birthday or a major holiday...... very intuitive. Another thing as well. When someone is a historian, It usually means they are interested in one concentration. I "accidentally" become interested in Texas history. Now, I am a guru in the subject and have a large library and database that I created without even thinking about it.....

I am a History undergrad, so I hope I'm not breaking any mod policies by responding. Speaking for myself, I tend to think of things in cause/effect relationships. I don't spend much time worrying about specific dates or things like that, but rather I try to make sure I remember and understand how a particular event was made more likely by events that preceded it. I like this method because it connects relevant events together, and in my opinion makes it easier to recall a series of events from memory, even if you only consciously recall a single event, as that event is tied up with some causes in my memory.

Notes help too!!! Writing a couple of key notes after each chapter or so can be really helpful, especially if you want to cite it later.

Bachelor's in history here! I'm not sure, honestly. People are wired for different things. I breezed through my degree pretty easily, and am told I have a good head for trivia and remembering things of this nature, the subject appeals to me. That's not to brag though, math is very challenging to me, I have difficulty learning new languages, am not musically inclined, and have terrible short-term memory (memorizing number sequences and phone numbers is extremely difficult for me and I usually have to write it down and check several times to make sure I got it right). Different strokes for different folks I suppose. What other people said about using information to help retain it is also very relevant. For my bachelor's thesis I wrote about armored vehicle development and use on the Eastern Front of WW2. Due to my time spent repeatedly poring over sources and presenting the information to groups I can recall much of it easily, and while I'm not an expert on the subject by any means I know much more than an average person. if you want to retain information better, take physical, handwritten notes as you read and look them over afterwards. The act of physically writing something down helps the human brain retain information more easily.

I think a lot of people with good/photographic memories are drawn to fields such as history where there are lots of specific things to learn and memorize.

I don't have the best recall ability, but managed to compartmentalize short term vs long term memories fairly well. Things I didn't think I'd ever really need to know again (Chinese provinces for one) went directly into short term.

As many people have mentioned, knowledge retention is about repetition. One trick I sometimes use is, after reading a chapter, I stop, and repeat to myself out loud what I've learned. I do it out loud because the memory sticks better if there is a mind-body connection, so to actually articulate my thought is more effective than mentally repeating it. Also, I usually read book in english which is not my first language. When i rehearse what I've learned, I will articulate it in my native language, which is more mentally challenging, but I believe it forces me to learn better, since I have to understand what I'm learning, and not just repeat verbatim sentences.

It helps immensely to find little angles and fun side stories to compliment big events, bits and pieces of history from the ground perspective and not just the big, ambiguous numbers and overviews. I originally didn't find much interest in history and didn't have much of a memory for it until I got into high school and got good teachers who gave a better perspective and showed how those massive events could affect the people living in them, like how the Christmas truce of 1914 showed the outlook of those fighting the First World War on the ground level. Things that you find interesting naturally stay in your mind much better and its ultimately these small things that you remember most to put together the full event.

From my limited experience? We don't.

I've just finished up my own BA, and one big piece of advice my mentor gave in one of her courses was "If you forget a name, a date, or a place, you're probably safe to just look it up on Wikipedia." And that's what I do: if I can only half-remember something, I look it up and double-check the name of that one guy in that place with the thing.

What you can't look up online is the close reading, the critical thought, the theories and ideas hidden within the data (you can certainly find plenty of those sorts of ideas, but they won't be your ideas, so you're better off not adopting them until you've laid the groundwork for your own interpretation). Historians work with that much more than they simply just remember stuff. And I'm sure that, over time, you will remember the broad strokes of certain stories and events, which you can reliably talk about with a broad amount of familiarity. But somebody remembering all those specific dates, people, places, events, etc.? Human brains don't really work like that.

Maybe that's just my brain, though. I tend to get spotty on details for a lot of things, not just history, but that's why I keep notes and always double-check. So long as I know how to think critically about what I'm looking at, I can keep being a historian without needing to remember absolutely everything.

I just got a bachelor's in History and I applied for masters but I have been reading history since childhood, so the main facts are glued to my memory. It helps that I have a good memory and spend a lot of my time reading.

However, I used to read a whole lot of books and my retention was not so good, sort of like a speed running. After becoming a teacher I prioritized clarity and order, and thinking about how to make a subject clear to teenagers made me understand better the subjects I was teaching.

Right now I take my time when reading and try to read more slowly, and every once in a while reflect upon what I have read and try to put it in layman terms. It also helps to be critical and understand that some authors are more concise than others and some books were written in an overly obscure language.

This question gets into how knowledge is assimilated into the brain.

I have studied very heavily the battles of hong kong and normandy. I have visited normandy many times and could give you a tour. I have never been to hong kong.

You could memorize how a german counter attack smashed a canadian advance on the 7th of june 1944, how many people died and were wounded, what happened etc. For me though, I have visited where the attack happened, looked at what the canadians were trying to do and why the germans decided to attack how they did. It is stuck in my brain even and even though I couldnt list the esoteric 'facts' about what happened I can explain it better than 99% of historians.

I have the same knowledge about how Brigadier John K. Lawson was killed in Hong Kong but since I've never visited the site it is wired differently.

You could memorize that the churchill tanks mostly got stuck on the beach during the battle of dieppe and you would have 'information' but if you go to dieppe and you see the rock beach you will never forget not only what happened but why it happened and ho it influenced amphibious landings during ww2.

I am not sure for historians in particular but as a teach I'd say teach someone else the content. If you have a friend with an interest tell them bits you learn. Set up a blog journaling what you learn. By having to think about information and how you will explain it to someone else your brain seems to store it better for some reason.