Coming from Vietnam, I’ve always wanted to learn more about the history of my country, in particular the period when Vietnam was under French colonization and the Vietnam War. Yet a brief look at popular materials published in the country (e.g. textbooks, websites, popular history books for the public) would reveal many bias and propaganda. Yet I suppose, to an extent, the same could be said about books written by “outsiders”. Taking into consideration the inherent subjectivity of history books, what would be the best way (for members of the general public) to learn history?

Several other related, but minor questions:

- When I looked up books on ancient Greece’s history, I was surprised (perhaps naively) to find the most read ones were written by ancient authors. While they had the advantage of living closer to that period than modern readers, I believe their perspectives and methodologies would be vastly different than ours. What are the values of those books, and how are they compared to books written by modern authors?

- History lecturers often prescribe textbooks from popular university publishers, such as this one, yet they don’t seem to be very popular with the general audience. Why is it so and what’s the difference between those book series and other ones?