I guess it sells better if you can make your audience believe that your theory explains "everything". Having read the book, it's a better feeling to think that you now understand the gears of history through this new lens, rather than it being just a complex jumble of interconnected stories/phenomena.
This is the thing, there's no harm in reading something like this where the author may be "pushing a narrative", but so long as the reader maintains a modicum of critical thinking I see no harm.
As for my personal experience, I've read parts of "Philosophy before the Greeks. The Pursuit of Truth in Ancient Babylonia" and "A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000 - 323 B.C" by Marc van de Mieroop and have quite enjoyed both. They both seem to have favourable reviews.
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300240214/against-grain/
Consequently, if you're an author seeking to be absolutely fidelious to the known facts about some period of history somewhere, but nevertheless desire to spin a narrative from them, then frequently no matter what that narrative might be, you're crossing a line that many in academia don't think you should cross.
"Event A happened. Event B happened. Event C happened. In that order. Perhaps that means X"
The pop-history tone is closer to:
"Historical character M had plans to N, inspired by O. This is supported by the evidence we have for events A, B and C."
That's both academic and pop-history, where a better representation would be "A gazillion different events happened but let's talk about events A, B, and C." It's impossible to talk about all the events that happened, so everyone needs to select the "important" ones. Of course when selecting what's "important" the bias is employed. It's not uncommon to reach different conclusions when looking at certain events (while disregarding others).
There's no firm line between scholarly and pop history other than the reputation and credibility of the work, which often isn't obvious to lay readers.
I’m reading it now. Probably not as fun as the others you mentioned. But so far it’s very enlightening.
------------------------------------------ The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is a massive tome written by an American reporter who lived through the eponymous era. It has a great deal of detail which I had never heard of before, and shaped my understanding of WW2. It is also quite moralising, maintaining that Nazi Germany was inevitable because of a servile German character, that the depravity of the SS was in part due to their homosexual deviancy, and a little too focused on the personalities of individuals. Admittedly, the last part is quite interesting. Why do I still recommend it? Because I think there is enough depth there, and enough of a distinction in the text between the author's theories and the facts, that you can learn a great deal from it.
For instance, the sheer stupid chance that led to him waging such terrible war. How so many men could have prevented his rise to power. He might have died a soldier in the first world war, or the French or English could have crushed his open violations of the peace treaties, or how his takeover of multiple nations was facilitated by the petty racism of British diplomats. There's also detail concering the poltical, economic and social factors that allowed this chance to exist in the first place. Like the disconnect between the German military and the Weimar Republic who they were sworn to protect, or the war-weariness of Western Europe which was partially responsible for their leaders to continually cede ground to a madman who publically outlined his plans to genocide entire peoples. ------------------------------------------ The 10,000 Year Explosion is not widely accepted by academics, but is not widely panned either. And whilst it does seem to over-play its thesis, the core idea is quite sound: evolution still applies to modern humans, and the rapid growth of the species over the past 10k years has allowed for a great deal more variation and selection to occur, and as such we should see far more changes in human biology now than throughout the average 10k period of history. The exact mutations described and the hypothesis for why they occured are, of course, more conentious. I don't have much of a general opinion, as the authors go through a wide variety of population differences like lactose intolerance, diease immunity, hearing adaptations due to language use and, yes, IQ. The depth and quality of research on these varies, so the reliability of conclusions in the book does too. ------------------------------------------ "The Dawn of Everything" covers some interesting anthropological data, but the reviews I've read paint a poor picture of the author's interpretation of what the data means. Whilst it points to an important idea, that the human transition to agriculture was not nearly as sharp or uniform as is popularly believed, I think you'd be better served by reading this page on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity and reading some of the cited papers and authors' works.
- On the one hand, Mommsen was a professional historian and his work was (and is[1]) highly acclaimed. [2] cites: “Equally great as antiquary, jurist, political and social historian, Mommsen lived to see the time when among students of Roman history he had pupils, followers, critics, but no rivals. He combined the power of minute investigation with a singular faculty for bold generalization and the capacity for tracing out the effects of thought on political and social life.”
- On the other hand, his History of Rome got the nobel prize for literatur, so at least some people found it fun to read, too. Again from [2]: “Its sureness of touch, its many-sided knowledge, its throbbing vitality and the Venetian colouring of its portraits left an ineffaceable impression on every reader.” “It was a work of genius and passion, the creation of a young man, and is as fresh and vital to-day as when it was written.”
Itʼs freely available at Project Gutenberg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome_(Mommsen)#Exte...
[1] “Still read and qualifiedly cited” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome_(Mommsen)#firs...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome_(Mommsen)#1902...
Real history is weird and full of exceptions.
The sorts of books that are popular with both historians and the public focus on sepecific events in lots of detail: “Krakatoa: The Day the World Erupted” for example.
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/timi4/the_as...
That settles the matter then
> was more deeply based in academia.
You surely can't read the above article and believe that?
I don't see any problems with Ian Morris' article here. He is a writer, as well as an academic. The audience for the article seems to be for well-informed, non-specialised intellectuals. As such the article seems well pitched.
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...
> Like all scientific laws, Thatcher’s has exceptions. Britain has not really “always been” in Europe, because there has not always been a Europe to be in. Our planet has existed for 4.6 billion years, but shifting continental plates only began creating what we now call Europe about 200 million years ago.
- a "scientifc law" (nope!) you invented in the previous paragraph predicated on a blatantly incorrect interpretation of a statement someone made about something unrelated to whatever you are talking about
> Britain has not really “always been” in Europe, because there has not always been a Europe to be in. Our planet has existed for 4.6 billion years, but shifting continental plates only began creating what we now call Europe about 200 million years ago.
- North America was also in Pangea. So what? I can't tell if this is failed wit or failed attempts at engineering some kind of moral highground based on geography?
All that before you mention the pompous political shoehorning.
I should have kept the writing up if this meets a publisher's standards