How much history do you read? Or what else if not history?

[Specter Von Baren]

Back in my grade and high school days I always found that my best subject was always history and social studies (The later being rather ironic given my autism) but a lot of history came off as droll or focused too hard on numbers, dates, and locations rather than people which caused me to not realize my love of learning about the past.

Thanks to Hardcore History, my interest in history was kept alive long enough for me to to start buying books from Audible, and because of me being able to listen these long books during my work day I can learn quite a lot and enjoy doing it too, and no, this is not a plug for Audible.

But I'm curious to know how much history other people are actually aware of or seek out. For that matter, what do you read in general if you do not have much interest in history?

 

[Saelune]

I read up mostly about myth and ancient cultures, partly cause it is super interesting, and partly cause I am a DM who loves using real civilizations for inspiration. Today I was reading up a bit on the language of the Ancient Egyptians, and the origin of the name of their city of Memphis.

I also know a lot about Sengoku Japan and Three Kingdoms China...cause of Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors. I mean, I look up the truth to discern from the game's fiction, (though most of the fiction is based on real fiction of those eras), but having it be presented in video game form does a lot for memory. I would not be able to remember all those names, events and people if not for the games ingraining them.

And also US history, cause I am an American. (Everyone should familiarize yourself with your home country's history). It is very interesting to see where your country came from and why it is the way it is now. Go figure, history builds on itself. And also plenty of fact-checking when arguing US politics.

 

[EvilRoy]

I think NA school systems (can't speak to others) do a huge disservice to history studies by focusing on wrote memorization of banal facts. There's a lot of cool stuff to be learned out there, even outside of the more mainstream studies of ancient this or that, or great war of whatevers. Very little involves memorizing dates.

I read/listen/study the history of building and bridge design. Both architecture and structure, in particular the development of the two individually and the fissure that eventually developed and began to close more recently. There's a lot to learn about how systems work together by watching peoples understanding of aesthetics and structures morph, change, butt heads, and eventually converge again over time. If you want we can bust all the way back into Rome and start talking masonry/cement, but honestly you can take any 100 to 300 year period of recent history in just about any country and see some interesting stuff crop up. England's burning desire to modernize while still clinging to the images of traditional living and bucolic bungalows is particularly interesting.

Something I'm also getting into is the 'history of human interaction' which is my very poncy term for the different concepts that have developed over time in terms of business social theory - think all those books that purport to teach you how to interact with people, manage people, be a successful businessperson, etc. I only came interested in that when during one of my performance development meetings I was handed a book on how to improve my management abilities (in good nature, but message received). Digging back through the options for further reading I started to notice that the decades/eras of business starting in early industry through to today has consistently growing/changing/evolving concepts of what 'good' management is like. You can really get a feel for how the people on top felt about the people below them by reading those books.

Is hardcore history a military type history show? It kind of sounds like that, but the first antarctic settlement structures are also fairly badass, just throwing that out there.

 

[Squilookle]

I think NA school systems (can't speak to others) do a huge disservice to history studies by focusing on wrote memorization of banal facts. There's a lot of cool stuff to be learned out there, even outside of the more mainstream studies of ancient this or that, or great war of whatevers. Very little involves memorizing dates.

I'd go one step further and say NA school systems have done the whole world a disservice. McCarthyism in particular set it so backwards that to this day, there are still residents of the U.S. that think they won the War of Independence without French help or British indifference, that they won both World Wars singlehanded, with the Soviets doing nothing in Europe and the ANZACS doing nothing in the Pacific, that regularly mention 'The Civil War' on a worldwide internet and just expect everyone to know which among thousands of civil wars they are talking about, and worst of all: calling themselves and those within the United States only as 'Americans.' America is a continent, not just a fucking country. This disgusting arrogance rules out Mexicans being American, even though they are. Argentinians, Brazilians, Peruvians, Chileans, Colombians, Canadians... they're all American too. Hell there's a strong case you could say that even Greenland locals are American, being catergorised as still part of the larger continent. But no, if you live outside the U.S, no 'Murica for you. It's honestly fucked seeing how widespread this ignorance/arrogance is among U.S. nationals.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Read a lot of history as a kid, became an archaeologist, now mostly do historical fiction because I'm kind of living the real stuff now

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Is hardcore history a military type history show? It kind of sounds like that, but the first antarctic settlement structures are also fairly badass, just throwing that out there.

Dan Carlin, the man who does Hardcore History once used a quote about a book written by Winston Churchill to describe his podcast which is, "He could have also named it, 'Things in history which have interested me'."

He's talked about a wide range of topic from bombs (In a military sense) to the social and societal scars cause by WW2 to the death of the Roman republic. It's called Hardcore History because it doesn't skimp on the hard to deal with details of historical events.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Reading? Not all that much nowdays.

However, youtube has massive amounts of historical stuff, including primary sources starting just before the Second World War. The US military, in particular was totally incapable of doing anything in WW2 without getting Hollywood to make a short film explaining it. Lesser amounts of stuff from the UK or Australia, the odd German bit.

There's also some good documentaries and historical re-enactors, if you can find a good one.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

I think the hardest part of really getting into history is getting to the point where it's no longer as focused on incentivizing the rote memorization of dates and names and more commonly prioritizes actually discussing when and why things happened, what historical effects have resulted from significant events, etc. But once you get to that point in your education (for me, I'd say that point came in the beginning or middle of high school, which is probably too late but not terrible - though in some sense that can be a better age for actually beginning to be cognizant of particular historical events and their effects), it's where everything really opens up and genuine interest and passion begins to form.

Personally, I like reading about Russian history a lot. It's a ridiculous rollercoaster of suffering, definitely, but also a really interesting one, to be sure. And I can often get sucked into a Wikipedia history dive if I come across something on the internet that sparks that spontaneous interest. Though really diving into a non-fiction novel doesn't happen that much for me these days. I'm also getting into a lot of professional sports history recently, which comes with its own intriguing tangents and oddities.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I think the hardest part of really getting into history is getting to the point where it's no longer as focused on incentivizing the rote memorization of dates and names and more commonly prioritizes actually discussing when and why things happened, what historical effects have resulted from significant events, etc. But once you get to that point in your education (for me, I'd say that point came in the beginning or middle of high school, which is probably too late but not terrible - though in some sense that can be a better age for actually beginning to be cognizant of particular historical events and their effects), it's where everything really opens up and genuine interest and passion begins to form.

Formal education of history struggles with getting pointless rote learning all over it, yeah. Was talking to a woman in France and she said that it's all over her French university history course. As well as not being a native French speaker and dealing with young French people who loudly don't want to be learning and won't shut up when the lecturer is lecturing. Ended up drawing on my several years old history degree and explain the Persian Wars on FB chat, first time I've used it.

However, lots of people come back to history in later life and learn on their own and avoid all that.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Formal education of history struggles with getting pointless rote learning all over it, yeah. Was talking to a woman in France and she said that it's all over her French university history course. As well as not being a native French speaker and dealing with young French people who loudly don't want to be learning and won't shut up when the lecturer is lecturing. Ended up drawing on my several years old history degree and explain the Persian Wars on FB chat, first time I've used it.

As far as education's role in making history really hard to get into I guess I would also say in my personal experience that the kind of learning or thinking I was doing with regards to my AP US History courses in my junior year of high school was far removed from the kind I would be doing the next year in my regular US Government class I had to take since scheduling conflicts torpedoed any chance to take its AP equivalent. That trend would also continue in college in small "Honors" history courses with small class sizes that allowed for the kind of learning and discussion I believe way too many people are missing out on when they shouldn't. I'd say that in some respects that failure to generate interest or even just respect for the subject leads to the kinds of university courses where young students really don't internalize the importance of history and trivialize the benefits of learning and understanding it.

It's really hard to spark the interest in a subject when class structures and curriculums are actively designed to incite different standards and expectations of learning as well. I really think education of all levels should try its best not to really separate students in educational "castes," so to speak, even if that ideal will never realistically be wholly possible. Insofar as the actual information and the processing of that information goes, anyways.

 

[Agema]

It's really hard to spark the interest in a subject when class structures and curriculums are actively designed to incite different standards and expectations of learning as well.

Education is about different standards and expectations of learning - but that's the product of students. Things like class structure and curriculum are to a large extent attempts to cope with this, rather than the cause of it.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

I've been reading quite a bit of history. While I tend towards Untied States history [my area of study back in when I was a university student. . . . back when that new fangled things called fire was just coming into vogue. ], I try to check out anything that can catch my interest from any period or region. I enjoy haunting used book stores and just looking through all the books available.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Education is about different standards and expectations of learning - but that's the product of students. Things like class structure and curriculum are to a large extent attempts to cope with this, rather than the cause of it.

I suppose I would agree that the failures of curricula and class structure/environment could moreso be indicators or symptoms of a long-lasting greater underlying problem (or even an entirely permanent problem, I guess, depending on the student), or just the reality of an individual's willingness/aptitude or lack thereof to learn. I just like to optimistically think that at least particularly for the U.S. and its systems of education, a considerable greater amount of effort could be applied to improving or standardizing those factors of education outside of the individual in a highly effective manner. Or at least for them to be more effective than they are now; to be able to more successfully generate interest where previously none existed.

I certainly don't want to pass the buck for educational issues entirely to those responsible for the development and teaching of curricula and the logistical issues of classroom sizes and environments, in any case. I just feel like they are and have been things practically ignored in common American education at the moment, even if they are being noticed more often now.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I've read the occasional historical biography but I mostly prefer fiction.

 

[the December King]

I've read some historical works and historical fictions, but my bag is supernatural horror, mainly - and I read them like a fish.

I mean, I read, like a fish drinks.

...

Stupid alcoholic fish.

 

[Asita]

This is actually quite relevant to my interests right now.

While I'll admit that school kinda turned me off History for a long time, I remember someone tuning me in to Extra History - notably their series on Yi Sun Sin, Mary Seacole, and John Snow (the physician, not the Westeros character) - and wondering why the hell I never learned about them and why history classes couldn't be taught more like that.

Granted, I'm still not much of a history buff, but it's since inspired me to try to expand the repertoire of my history buff friends with history they'd probably been less exposed to (unsurprisingly, they're most familiar with US history). So I've gifted them the Imjin War as a crash course in Japan's invasion of Korea, Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean to touch on the age of piracy, and Citizens of London as a less advertised part of WWII. So right now I'm actually on the lookout for new history books and topics that they might enjoy.

 

[Drathnoxis]

The history of video games is pretty interesting. The rest, not so much.

 

[Marik2]

I think NA school systems (can't speak to others) do a huge disservice to history studies by focusing on wrote memorization of banal facts.

That pretty much applies to every subject taught in murican schools. They just want you to memorize banal facts, and not think or apply knowledge properly.

 

[Trunkage]

I think NA school systems (can't speak to others) do a huge disservice to history studies by focusing on wrote memorization of banal facts.

That pretty much applies to every subject taught in murican schools. They just want you to memorize banal facts, and not think or apply knowledge properly.

Could you imagine an Extra History or History Guy or John Greene or The Great War or Cynical Historian or anything from Praeger U being taught in schools? If you focus on anything other than dates, you get criticised for being 'too political'. You can't have opinions in school or talk impacts from events becuase that makes you biased.

 

[Marik2]

I think NA school systems (can't speak to others) do a huge disservice to history studies by focusing on wrote memorization of banal facts.

That pretty much applies to every subject taught in murican schools. They just want you to memorize banal facts, and not think or apply knowledge properly.

Could you imagine an Extra History or History Guy or John Greene or The Great War or Cynical Historian or anything from Praeger U being taught in schools? If you focus on anything other than dates, you get criticised for being 'too political'. You can't have opinions in school or talk impacts from events becuase that makes you biased.

My brother and sister told me that some of the teachers would put Ted talks and John Green as a substitution for class. It just makes school redundant, when you can teach yourself in a faster rate.