My absolute favorite is A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman. Hard to find, but a great narrative story that paints a clear picture of.
I too had a great history teacher for American history in high school. His approach was to teach history by going over the biographies of each president. Because of him I majored in history in college and eventually became a teacher myself. I am 72 years old and still reminisce about those classes. As far as books go I recommend Ron Chernow’s biography of George Washington. It is so much more than a typical biography. It goes over the whole history of the era from around 1730 to 1800.
I recommend The Wager by David Grann. The 18th Century shipwreck of the HMS Wager and the ensing mutiny, murder and mayhem. Written more like a thriller. Lots of additional info and photos included. Everybody I know who has read it (including me) has thoroughly enjoyed it.
The wager has been on my list for a while. I read his other book, killers of the flower moon and as someone who never reads history, his writing was digestible and enjoyable.
In this vein, In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides. Tells the story of a ship's arctic exploration in the late 1870s. Absolutely riveting and terrifying and inspiring, with many details coming directly from the writings of those involved. Truly reads like a novel. It's so good that the only "problem" with it is resisting the urge to Google the event to find out the fate of everyone involved.
I have really great history teachers. One of my high school teachers was on the USS Indianapolis and one of the survivors. He was a fabulous teacher. I love history and reading history.
Thank you! I appreciate this video as I am planning on becoming a history teacher and am diving into every history book/documentary I see! Subscribed within the first minute!
I HIGHLY recommend A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage. This is a world history periodization book based on six different drinks that changed the world or essential in the time period. (I am a high school social studies teacher and this is a book I highly enjoy) Thanks for all the things you create. I am reading Game of Thrones and the Bloodsworn Saga because of you.
Michael Kist! I stumbled across your video entirely by accident, I’ve been a huge fan since Kist and Solack during your BGN days. Loved your Birds talk back in the day and your channel looks right up my alley.
Barbara Tuchman's _A Distant Mirror_ is a very readable classic. It is a great look not only into the history of 14th Century France, but the mindset of the people of the time. Her _The Guns of August_ is one of the premier books on the outbreak of WW1, but a little less readable.
I’m reading my first history book now and enjoying it after having listened to Dan Carlin’s King of Kings on your recommendation. Dan Jones’ Powers and Thrones is proving entertaining and certainly similar to the sample platter you mentioned; covering a long period of history and a wide selection of topics, I definitely think this will serve me well in helping me find a subject I want to look at closer
History of the world in 6 glasses, the secret history of the mongol queens, Isaac’s storm, the things they carried are just a few I have recommended to many people
10 Caesars by Barry Strauss is fantastic, it’s about 50 pages each on ten different emperors during Roman history. It’s easy to read, packed with knowledge and gives a good overview of each of the emperors within. While not deep, it is a great jumping off point for any future Rome enthusiasts.
Popular history authors I have enjoyed: Barbara Tuchman, G. J. Meyer, Andrew Roberts, and Niall Ferguson. Thomas Sowell’s Cultures trilogy is also great history.
A few I really enjoyed - Rats, Lice, and History; The Endurance; The Discovers; and The Big Oyster. Also, The Professor and the Madman (more a memoir but of historical interest.) Thanks for the recommendations. 🌻🍄
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant. Its 11 volumes are by far the best world history available for the general public. Page Smith wrote an excellent 8 volume history of the United States in a similar style. Also well worth reading are Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and Bill Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Both these works are easily accessible to the general public.
Great video! I came here from tik tok love your content. A great book I’m reading to get into the Viking age is The Wolf Age by Tore Skeie very informative and easy to follow
New subscriber here, so I don't know if you've covered these somewhere along the line... How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman; and of course, Killer Angels by Michael Shaara.
I've started SPQR a few days ago, and she just gets me hooked on the subject even if only 170 pages in and during the part of Roman Republic that I'll be honest isn't my biggest interest, but the fact you say that Dynasty Disrupted is even better at that than SPQR I'm pumped to read it. And it will fit nicely on my 2025 goal of expanding my history reading from eurocentric topics. One book I would recommend to everyone, it's not really casual history, but I just felt it was so fascinating is "The Untold History of Ramen" by George Solt.
The reasons in the US that history teachers are considers boring are twofold: look how many coaches are teaching history and look how teachers have to teach toward the EOI test.
The Storm Before The Storm by Mike Duncan was absolutely fantastic and I recommend it to anyone that has an interest but is fairly new to Roman history. Super easy reading.
Two Arctic Shipwreck books, ‘Labyrinth of Ice’ and ‘Empire of Ice and Stone’ by Buddy Levy were really fun reads. Incredible stories that are written in a way that makes you feel like you are there experiencing it first hand.
Great video!! Another amazing history book with no sugarcoating is The Great Evil: Christianity, the Bible, and the Native American Genocide by Professor Matu Nunpa. Definitely, worth checking out for people who want to know about real American history!
One of my favorites of all time is Three Kingdoms by Luo Guangzhong. But the Moss Roberts translation. Absolute insanity about the 3 Kingdoms era in Ancient China
Try Marcel Druon's The Accursed Kings series and my persnal favorite Robert Graves' The Golden Fleece Montefiore's The young Stalin + The Red Tsar both exceptional
Candice Millard is an entertaining and informative writer in the popular history genre. Well worth checking out, I am currently going through her catalogue and have not been disappointed yet.
'Ornament of the World' by Maria Rosa Menocal, 'House of Rain' by Craig Childs and 'The Perfect Heresy' by Stephen O'Shea are some of my favourites that haven't been mentioned yet.
Always have to recommend The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte and The Germans and Europe by Peter Millar. Destiny in the Desert by Jonathan Dimbleby is a good one for WW2 in north Africa, and for something a bit different The Ghosts of K2 by Mick Conefrey which is great account of the first ascent of the world's second highest mountain.
Great video I have some new books on my list now. I’d like to leave a good history recommendation that I just recently finished: ‘Sword and Scimitar’ by Raymond Ibrahim 👍🏻
Any WW1/WW2 recommendations? I read the grape of nanking recently and was horrified but fascinated. I’d like to read more about both wars but don’t know where to pivot after that book.
A World Undone by GJ Meyer is a great narrative history of WWI that provides background and context for those unfamiliar with the era. Well written and concise.
Mongolian Historical Fantasy that I enjoyed very much is Stephen Aryan’s The Nightingale & the Falcon: Judas Blossom, Blood Dimmed Tide and in coming out in 2025 The Sorrow & the Sea!
I know you are interested in the subject. Two books on popular Indian history that I can recommend are False Allies by Manu S. Pillai and Lords of the Deccan by Anirudh Kanisetti. Both incredible reads.
Currently reading Babylon, Mesopotamia the birth of civilization by Paul Kriwaczek highly recommend Another book I read early in my History endeavors was Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari Great video and appreciate your recommendations
Genghis Khan by Weatherford was actually the first biography I read and didn't love. I think the author writes really dryly and I don't appreciate how much he assumes the details from the contemporary sources are correct. Cleopatra by Schiff I think does a much better job at taking scant primary sources and writing a compelling story while still making it clear that a lot is unknown.
I have kind of love/Hate feeling towards Genghis Khan. On one hand he was a warmonger. He killed lots of people but that's how he grew up. I mean his family was killed. His wife was stolen and raped before it. Even technically got married. His own brother wanted to kill him. So he realized that power and strength. What gets the job done? On the other hand, after he conquered whatever land he learned the little people live as long as they didn't rise up against him. He didn't care about the religion. He didn't try to enforce their his religion and so bad for Conquering but at the same time also good as a leader
4 books come to mind for the history beginner reader 1. The Boy: A Holocaust Story by Dan Porat (Reads like a novel but is still the work of a serious historian) 2. March by Congressman John Lewis (It’s a series of Graphic Novels that detail his experiences during the Civil Rights Movement in 1960s) 3 Battle Lines by Ari Kelman (A history of the American Civil War written in the form of a Graphic Novel) 4. Liar Temptress Soldier Spy by Karen Abbott (A serious work of History however, it is readily accessible and reads like a novel. It follows four different women who undertake the roles mentioned in the title of the book during the American Civil War.) Rather Riveting read and also comes in audiobook format
I haven't read the one on Mongols but I have this to say : Any attempt to cast a positive light on the Mongol conquests and Genghis Khan risks trivializing the sheer scale of devastation they wrought. While the Mongols undeniably facilitated cultural exchange and advanced trade through the Silk Road, these outcomes were built on a foundation of unimaginable violence and destruction. Entire cities were razed, populations annihilated, and countless lives irreparably disrupted. The death toll from the Mongol campaigns is estimated in the tens of millions, leaving scars on civilizations that took centuries to heal. To focus on the administrative or economic benefits of their empire while minimizing the brutality of their expansion is to ignore the human cost and suffering that accompanied their rise to power. Celebrating such a legacy risks romanticizing a period of history defined by relentless bloodshed and oppression.
To the Mongols humans who didn't worship the sky father and ride horses weren't really people. That's the lesson history teaches. The greatest doomsday weapon is being able to other another human. "We aren't like them" is all you need to believe to burn down the world.
So you are saying invasion, raping, pillaging, murder and destruction are a bad thing? Let me try to wrap my head around such enlightened thinking. Thank you so much for sharing that.
Popular history authors I have enjoyed: Barbara Tuchman, G. J. Meyer, Andrew Roberts, and Niall Ferguson. Thomas Sowell’s Cultures trilogy is also great history.
My absolute favorite is A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman. Hard to find, but a great narrative story that paints a clear picture of.
This is my favorite book of all time.
Same! It's the first book I thought of when I saw this video.
I came to the comment section to recommend this one! Incredible book.
@joshsalwen Check out G. J. Meyer’s The Tudors and A World Undone. Both are very readable and enjoyable.
I too had a great history teacher for American history in high school. His approach was to teach history by going over the biographies of each president. Because of him I majored in history in college and eventually became a teacher myself. I am 72 years old and still reminisce about those classes. As far as books go I recommend Ron Chernow’s biography of George Washington. It is so much more than a typical biography. It goes over the whole history of the era from around 1730 to 1800.
That's awesome! I've heard Chernow's books are excellent
I recommend The Wager by David Grann. The 18th Century shipwreck of the HMS Wager and the ensing mutiny, murder and mayhem. Written more like a thriller. Lots of additional info and photos included. Everybody I know who has read it (including me) has thoroughly enjoyed it.
The wager has been on my list for a while. I read his other book, killers of the flower moon and as someone who never reads history, his writing was digestible and enjoyable.
@JerryThomas-c1w now this is your sign to read it! ☺
I listened to it on audio and really enjoyed it and I recently found it at a library book sale for a dollar so now I have my own copy📚!!
@@JerryThomas-c1w The Wager was so good
In this vein, In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides. Tells the story of a ship's arctic exploration in the late 1870s. Absolutely riveting and terrifying and inspiring, with many details coming directly from the writings of those involved. Truly reads like a novel. It's so good that the only "problem" with it is resisting the urge to Google the event to find out the fate of everyone involved.
Always excited for a new histroy books video. I've bought three books on your recommendation & I've loved all of them. Keep these videos coming!
Love hearing that! Glad they're hittin
I have really great history teachers. One of my high school teachers was on the USS Indianapolis and one of the survivors. He was a fabulous teacher. I love history and reading history.
Wow the story of the Indianapolis is a wild one
Thank you! I appreciate this video as I am planning on becoming a history teacher and am diving into every history book/documentary I see! Subscribed within the first minute!
I HIGHLY recommend A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage. This is a world history periodization book based on six different drinks that changed the world or essential in the time period. (I am a high school social studies teacher and this is a book I highly enjoy)
Thanks for all the things you create. I am reading Game of Thrones and the Bloodsworn Saga because of you.
Michael Kist! I stumbled across your video entirely by accident, I’ve been a huge fan since Kist and Solack during your BGN days. Loved your Birds talk back in the day and your channel looks right up my alley.
Welcome gentle listener! Go birds (tough L today but the point stands)
Empire of the Summer Moon by SC Gwynne. It's a history of the Comanches and their wars on the Texas frontier. Amazing book.
Barbara Tuchman's _A Distant Mirror_ is a very readable classic. It is a great look not only into the history of 14th Century France, but the mindset of the people of the time.
Her _The Guns of August_ is one of the premier books on the outbreak of WW1, but a little less readable.
😂 I just posted the same recommendation. It is so good.
always here to support you Michael! Proud of you for being a full time content creator
I’m reading my first history book now and enjoying it after having listened to Dan Carlin’s King of Kings on your recommendation. Dan Jones’ Powers and Thrones is proving entertaining and certainly similar to the sample platter you mentioned; covering a long period of history and a wide selection of topics, I definitely think this will serve me well in helping me find a subject I want to look at closer
History of the world in 6 glasses, the secret history of the mongol queens, Isaac’s storm, the things they carried are just a few I have recommended to many people
We need an office tour. So many cool nik nacs in the background
Loving the consistency brother
I’ll be honest I clicked because I saw the Borussia Dortmund jersey. I’m game for anyone that enjoys soccer/football.
Heja BVB
Longitude by Dava Soebel is BRILLIANT! Scholarly and accessible.
Great class on good history books to read!
10 Caesars by Barry Strauss is fantastic, it’s about 50 pages each on ten different emperors during Roman history. It’s easy to read, packed with knowledge and gives a good overview of each of the emperors within. While not deep, it is a great jumping off point for any future Rome enthusiasts.
Agreed!
Love history books and yes some can be very dry, thanks for the recommendations ☺️
Gosh, there is nothing like a great teacher!!
Popular history authors I have enjoyed: Barbara Tuchman, G. J. Meyer, Andrew Roberts, and Niall Ferguson. Thomas Sowell’s Cultures trilogy is also great history.
would love a video on the most difficult books you've ever read
A few I really enjoyed - Rats, Lice, and History; The Endurance; The Discovers; and The Big Oyster. Also, The Professor and the Madman (more a memoir but of historical interest.) Thanks for the recommendations. 🌻🍄
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant. Its 11 volumes are by far the best world history available for the general public. Page Smith wrote an excellent 8 volume history of the United States in a similar style. Also well worth reading are Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and Bill Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Both these works are easily accessible to the general public.
Great video! I came here from tik tok love your content. A great book I’m reading to get into the Viking age is The Wolf Age by Tore Skeie very informative and easy to follow
Great book, and welcome!
Interesting that in choice two, the Abasid Caliphate was destroyed by Hulagu, a Mongol.
New subscriber here, so I don't know if you've covered these somewhere along the line... How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman; and of course, Killer Angels by Michael Shaara.
I've started SPQR a few days ago, and she just gets me hooked on the subject even if only 170 pages in and during the part of Roman Republic that I'll be honest isn't my biggest interest, but the fact you say that Dynasty Disrupted is even better at that than SPQR I'm pumped to read it. And it will fit nicely on my 2025 goal of expanding my history reading from eurocentric topics. One book I would recommend to everyone, it's not really casual history, but I just felt it was so fascinating is "The Untold History of Ramen" by George Solt.
Yup I rate SPQR quite high too so I think you'll very much enjoy Destiny Disrupted.
Great video!
Appreciate ya!
The reasons in the US that history teachers are considers boring are twofold: look how many coaches are teaching history and look how teachers have to teach toward the EOI test.
The Storm Before The Storm by Mike Duncan was absolutely fantastic and I recommend it to anyone that has an interest but is fairly new to Roman history. Super easy reading.
Rec'd it on my Roman Republic in chronological order video, excellent book
Two Arctic Shipwreck books, ‘Labyrinth of Ice’ and ‘Empire of Ice and Stone’ by Buddy Levy were really fun reads. Incredible stories that are written in a way that makes you feel like you are there experiencing it first hand.
Great video!! Another amazing history book with no sugarcoating is The Great Evil: Christianity, the Bible, and the Native American Genocide by Professor Matu Nunpa. Definitely, worth checking out for people who want to know about real American history!
One of my favorites of all time is Three Kingdoms by Luo Guangzhong. But the Moss Roberts translation. Absolute insanity about the 3 Kingdoms era in Ancient China
Try Marcel Druon's The Accursed Kings series
and my persnal favorite Robert Graves' The Golden Fleece
Montefiore's The young Stalin + The Red Tsar both exceptional
I'll recommend 'Moscow 1812' by Adam Zamoyski, about Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia.
Candice Millard is an entertaining and informative writer in the popular history genre. Well worth checking out, I am currently going through her catalogue and have not been disappointed yet.
The Philip freeman trilogy of Alexander the Great, Hannibal and Julius Caesar. Great narrative introductions and got me personally hooked
Of those I've only read Hannibal but it was an excellent refresher
'Ornament of the World' by Maria Rosa Menocal, 'House of Rain' by Craig Childs and 'The Perfect Heresy' by Stephen O'Shea are some of my favourites that haven't been mentioned yet.
Always have to recommend The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte and The Germans and Europe by Peter Millar. Destiny in the Desert by Jonathan Dimbleby is a good one for WW2 in north Africa, and for something a bit different The Ghosts of K2 by Mick Conefrey which is great account of the first ascent of the world's second highest mountain.
Loved Brussate's dino book, have to read his book on the mammals and look into your recs, appreciate it!
From Dawn to Decadence by Barzun.
Great video I have some new books on my list now. I’d like to leave a good history recommendation that I just recently finished: ‘Sword and Scimitar’ by Raymond Ibrahim 👍🏻
Any WW1/WW2 recommendations? I read the grape of nanking recently and was horrified but fascinated. I’d like to read more about both wars but don’t know where to pivot after that book.
For WW1 The Last of the Doughboys (Rubin) is great. For WW2 I've recently read Bloodlands (Snyder) and Ordinary Men (Browning) and loved em both
A World Undone by GJ Meyer is a great narrative history of WWI that provides background and context for those unfamiliar with the era. Well written and concise.
The Guns of August is great, but more scholarly than easy history.
@@ltalbot41-h6sI agree. G. J. Meyer is a very readable popular historian.
Race of Aces by John Bruning was phenomenal
Mongolian Historical Fantasy that I enjoyed very much is Stephen Aryan’s The Nightingale & the Falcon: Judas Blossom, Blood Dimmed Tide and in coming out in 2025 The Sorrow & the Sea!
Will check that out!
I know you are interested in the subject. Two books on popular Indian history that I can recommend are False Allies by Manu S. Pillai and Lords of the Deccan by Anirudh Kanisetti. Both incredible reads.
Will look into those, thank you!
BVB jersey, hmmmm is it pulisic on the back?
Reus
In my Texas high school the history teachers were mostly disgruntled football coaches who were forced to also teach some classes.
There's a lot of that unfortunately
Currently reading Babylon, Mesopotamia the birth of civilization by Paul Kriwaczek highly recommend
Another book I read early in my History endeavors was Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Great video and appreciate your recommendations
The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
Genghis Khan by Weatherford was actually the first biography I read and didn't love. I think the author writes really dryly and I don't appreciate how much he assumes the details from the contemporary sources are correct. Cleopatra by Schiff I think does a much better job at taking scant primary sources and writing a compelling story while still making it clear that a lot is unknown.
That's interesting becsuse I was mixed on Cleopatra (talked about it on my Egyptian vid) but different strokes an' all
I have kind of love/Hate feeling towards Genghis Khan. On one hand he was a warmonger. He killed lots of people but that's how he grew up. I mean his family was killed. His wife was stolen and raped before it. Even technically got married. His own brother wanted to kill him. So he realized that power and strength. What gets the job done? On the other hand, after he conquered whatever land he learned the little people live as long as they didn't rise up against him. He didn't care about the religion. He didn't try to enforce their his religion and so bad for Conquering but at the same time also good as a leader
It does tend to be hard to find academicly neutral books in history
I would recommend Bury my Heart at wounded knee by Dee Brown and Ice Ghosts ( about the search for the Franklin expedition)
Empire of the summer moon is good too.
Genghis Khan - you pronounce this as jenghes khan . the first G is pronounced as J as in jug. Second G is g as in ghost. Hope this helps!
Historian and Dortmund !?!? Can’t subscribe faster !
Haha fan of history* but yeah heja BVB!
Almost anything by Shaara, father a bit more then son.
We are led by someone illiterate. His name is James Franklin
Lmfao
Anything by Dan Jones is great - the best writing I’ve come across.
For sure, I put a buncha books from him in the first video I did like this.
❤❤❤❤❤
4 books come to mind for the history beginner reader
1. The Boy: A Holocaust Story by Dan Porat (Reads like a novel but is still the work of a serious historian)
2. March by Congressman John Lewis (It’s a series of Graphic Novels that detail his experiences during the Civil Rights Movement in 1960s)
3 Battle Lines by Ari Kelman (A history of the American Civil War written in the form of a Graphic Novel)
4. Liar Temptress Soldier Spy by Karen Abbott (A serious work of History however, it is readily accessible and reads like a novel. It follows four different women who undertake the roles mentioned in the title of the book during the American Civil War.) Rather Riveting read and also comes in audiobook format
if history book can be a turn-off, clearly I see what can be…a turn-on😉
I haven't read the one on Mongols but I have this to say :
Any attempt to cast a positive light on the Mongol conquests and Genghis Khan risks trivializing the sheer scale of devastation they wrought. While the Mongols undeniably facilitated cultural exchange and advanced trade through the Silk Road, these outcomes were built on a foundation of unimaginable violence and destruction. Entire cities were razed, populations annihilated, and countless lives irreparably disrupted. The death toll from the Mongol campaigns is estimated in the tens of millions, leaving scars on civilizations that took centuries to heal. To focus on the administrative or economic benefits of their empire while minimizing the brutality of their expansion is to ignore the human cost and suffering that accompanied their rise to power. Celebrating such a legacy risks romanticizing a period of history defined by relentless bloodshed and oppression.
I don't entirely disagree, hence my heavy disclaimer on it which also mentioned the tens of million toll.
To the Mongols humans who didn't worship the sky father and ride horses weren't really people. That's the lesson history teaches. The greatest doomsday weapon is being able to other another human. "We aren't like them" is all you need to believe to burn down the world.
So you are saying invasion, raping, pillaging, murder and destruction are a bad thing? Let me try to wrap my head around such enlightened thinking. Thank you so much for sharing that.
It's pronounced Ching ghis Khan Ching not Ghing.
Popular history authors I have enjoyed: Barbara Tuchman, G. J. Meyer, Andrew Roberts, and Niall Ferguson. Thomas Sowell’s Cultures trilogy is also great history.