I love Mary Beard and highly recommend her SPQR, which is a Roman history more or less with the midpoint as the fall of the Republic and transition to Empire... a very apt piece of history in the current political climate.

I would be happy to hear suggestions of other historian writers to broaden my perspectives.

> it was the first time I realized that disagreement about historical method might be important (rather than something you dutifully nodded to at the beginning of an essay, before moving on regardless)

Now that is something that should be taken and applied everywhere. Realizing the value of disagreement respecting the differences of opinion, and taking action to not just have an obligatory sense of doing so but actually making the effort. These days it seems everybody is right and whoever disagrees is a fool or worse. (and everyone else is silent)