Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about world history? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's the best way to learn about world history?

5 pointshelloanand8 comments

I've recently discovered some interest in knowing more about world history. Didn't pay attention to this subject when I was in school.

What blogs, videos, sites, etc. you'd recommend I read/watch? I can spare 30 minutes everyday.

Thanks in advance.

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As someone who went through this very question a while ago, I'll give you the advice that worked for me.

First off, your best source of solid information is going to be a large dose of good old fashioned book reading. Youtube documentaries and blog posts are fun but badly inadequate as a detailed learning tools.

Pick the main periods of history or general historical fields (economic history, political history, etc) you'd like to know about and do a bit of research to find out which 4 or 5 books get the most frequent mention as expert sources of info for those periods or fields of learning.

Start reading those books and look through their references for more sources that might be interesting.

Repeat for each historical period you'd like to know about. It's a slow process but its very thorough.

Also, do read plenty of economic history and theory books, (especially those from the Austrian school and classical liberal school of econ) they will provide you with good context for why a lot of things in history happen the way they do.

Travel. There is nothing like seeing firsthand how history played out. For example, I was a big fan of Roman and Greek history in junior high school, especially while studying Latin. It all seemed so abstract until later in life when I visited places like Carthage, Sparta, or Rome. Rome in particular, since you can see the progression from ancient Rome with their many Gods, to the times where Christians were persecuted, to the Vatican being the center of the Catholic world, right at the heart of the former Roman Empire. There's something so amazing about that that you can't get from history books or Wikipedia.

Loved the suggestion. Travel is something that's close to my heart too. I still think I'll need to read up a bit just to know which places have a historical significance. Don't want to accidentally miss them out of the itinerary when I travel.

As a fan of the stack exchange network, I can recommend you history.stackexchange.com . It's still beta but has already many interesting questions and answers. For example you can sort them by votes: http://history.stackexchange.com/questions?sort=votes and see the most upvoted questions. And wenn you see an interesting topic and want to know more about it, just google it.

Core samples into specific bits that interest you.

http://paulgraham.com/raq.html

thanks!

"World History" is a term of art within history. Braudel, Wallerstein and Toynbee are good names to start with.

For podcasts see Conversations with History. 1hr interviews with notable historians and academics. http://conversations.berkeley.edu/

What topics/themes interest you?

https://class.coursera.org/wh1300-002/class

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