What history do you find interesting? Inspire me!

[CaulkheadUpNorth]

I have a pretty good general knowledge, and retain "stories" better than "facts". However my historical knowledge is very low. I'm not sure why this is- I did history at gcse but remember studying Arab/Israeli conflict, history of medicine and the American west - all of which I found dull.

As an adult I've read books about Bletchley park and found that really interesting but that's about it. I have no knowledge of anything pre 1914 except the bare bones (ie Henry's wives).

I'd really like to know more, and wondered if you could tell me what area of history you enjoy or books you've read/places you've been that might inspire me.

I'd seriously start with primary history topics and literature - they cover the key facts and interesting points. I love Tudors, Vikings, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians. You can learn more in depth stuff when you find an area that interests you.

Re TV series: Pamela Cox has a new series starting in BBC2 tomorrow night at 9pm called Shopgirls. I really enjoyed her series on servants so I'm looking forward to this new one. I think there is a book tie in too.

I love reading about diplomatic history in the latter half of the 20th century up to today, also anything to do with Africa and the Arab nations in that time period. It's not pre-1914 but I find it endlessly fascinating to find out why things are as they are today.

Some of my favorite books are by reporters:

• A Mad World, My Masters by John Simpson
• Shooting History by Jon Snow
• The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski
• The Lost Kingdoms of Africa by Jeffrey Taylor

Madeleine Albright's autobiography is well worth a read, as is Jack Straw's.

The book that sparked my interest was Roald Dahl's autobiography :)

FairyPenguin Restoration by Rose Tremain is very good. It is set in the court of Charles II. There is a sequel, Merivel, but read Restoration first.

And for historical fluff I read Georgette Heyer's Regency novels. Excellent historical detail.

Thanks WanderingUterus and SconeRhymesWithGone and everyone else. I have made a long list of recommendations. Thanks OP for a great thread.

I agree that biographies and autobiographies are a great way to learn about history. One of my favorites is the two volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook.

I might be a bit odd as i've loved history all my life but never did school qualifications in it as I didn't want to learn about Hitler. War and bloodshed doesn't interest me, except for ways to avoid it. The way ordinary people have lived their lives do. Over the course of 35 years I have been particularly interested in (long list warning): british dark ages; ancient greece and rome; plantagenet and tudor england; phoenicia and the rest of the iron age levant, and occasional biblical links in passing; byzantium empire; social history post-1800ish england; history of science and invention; middle ages germany. I find it frustrating that it is so hard to get hold of histories of europe that are not about the damn wars!

what is interesting (to me anyway) is the different reasons for reading history. When I was a kid I think it was mostly the stories and mystique -I used to say I never grew out of fairy stories. Now it is mostly to learn how other people lived, except for histoyr of science, not sure how that slots in! I'll read virtually any history if it stands still long enough, but usually stick within the old world, except for an occasional dalliance with china. egypt i've tended to avoid except in passing as too much material and too religious.

My favourite history books on my shelf at the moment are peter james & nick thorpe 'ancient inventions' and alex butterworth& ray laurence 'pompeii' - love the little story narratives in the last. Also my 'from egypt to babylon' by paul collins which pulls all that area together nicely.

Just set Shopgirls to record (thanks to napoleonsnose) and Sky+ recommended another programme: Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home. BBC4, Sun 29 Jun, 10:40pm.

The Industrial revolution, and not just the British one. I specialised in Italian industrial revolution, for instance.

ps Malta is a very good place to visit for all sorts of history, in such a small area. The unique stone age remains are fascinating: the huge medieval fortifications, courtesy of the hospitaller knights, valletta has to be seen to be believed: and of course the world wars, which, also of course I passed on.

Oh, what a great thread! I'm going to be annoying and post before I settle in to read.

I'm a medievalist, and I work mostly on women's history and literature, so I love that. There's some great documentaries out there.

Helen Castor, 'Medieval Lives' (this is brilliant).

Helen Castor on England's early queens:

Lucy Worsley on 'Harlots, Housewives and Heroines' (seventeenth century women):

Oh, and you might also like this: katharineedgar.com/2014/06/21/its-all-about-st-john-the-baptist-or-how-the-tudors-celebrated-the-midsummer-solstice/

It's my friend's blog - she is a historical novelist, and knows a huge amount about about Tudor and late-medieval customs, which she's blogging about here.

greyhoundgymnastics - yes I've visited that garden - it is immaculately kept and so big!

I've also PM'd you

Great thread!

My first historical passion was the Tower of London after a childhood visit, and I've been generally interested in the history of London since then.

Also became a mad-keen Victorianist aged 11, thanks to Dickens and Jack the Ripper...

Medieval history up to the Tudors, who I've kind of lost interest in for some reason since my Jean Plaidy-reading teen years.

English Civil War and aftermath - really fascinating.

More recently, I'm fascinated by the Cold War especially as experienced by the Warsaw Pact countries. I think there are still a LOT of stories left to tell there.

I've recently signed up for England in the time of Richard III and Hadrian's Wall: Life on the Roman Frontier from FutureLearn which look interesting. I tried a course from them before about the Higgs Boson but got bogged down in the maths, but hopefully history will be a bit more self-explanatory!

I did a degree in history, which was awesome. My favourites were things like the origins of fundamentalist movements (e.g. Wahhabiism, Al Qaeda and so on), medieval stuff (it wasn't as popular as the more modern courses, but what I learned from it is that people don't change. They really don't), Jewish history, the history of anti-semitism (interesting, but mega depressing), Russian history, the Ottoman empire, economic history (sounds dull, but isn't), comparative histories (e.g. why did the US develop economically, and not Russia?) ... quite a lot actually.

For medieval stuff, I got to do things like the alleged witches (very interesting that it might have been women suffering from PND), the crusades.

For Russian stuff, I do enjoy Simon Sebag-Montefiore (his biographies of Stalin and Catherine the great are fascinating) and then there's the master, Orlando Figes (his most famous work is "A People's Tragedy").

I'm Scottish but find English history of more interest,

I like late Saxon, the rule of Aethelred, and those of Cnut and his sons.

I basically like anything medieval, but for some reason I don't have any interest in the period from 1377 to the 1450's, where you have the beginnings of The Wars of The Roses, which I find endlessly fascinating.

I lose interest again after the death of Richard III, though I might read about Henry VIII and watch documentaries. Not into the Elizabethan period at all.

I am hugely interested in Nazi Germany, and the persecution of the Jews, and will read or watch anything to do

I also like the Neolithic period, and one of my favourite activities is to visit stone circles.

Several PPs have mentioned the US Civil Rights Movement. There is a fascinating book called The Race Beat: the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff that chronicles the role of the news media in bringing many aspects of the movement to the fore in the public consciousness.

Oh, and a lifelong passion for Vikings!

Have recently discovered we are of Danish descent so maybe that's why!

Oh, the US mention reminds me, there's an amazing book called 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,' which is all about the history of Native American conflicts with the settlers. It is very sad in places and has some amazingly poignant early photographs of people in the book.

I've been obsessed with the Tudors since I was 7- I just need to know everything about them.

I'm also interested in the Plantagenets but I'm reading up on Catherine the great at the minute and I really want to learn more about the Persians.

Some authors I really like are Alison Weir, Antonia Fraser, Robert Hutchinson and Leandra de Lisle. I also love a bit of Jean Plaidy for fiction (I much prefer the passage from Pontefract to Anya Seaton's Katherine- I'm a heathen I know)

Just to let you know that we're going to move this to History Club at the OP's request.

This is so interesting. Thank you to everyone who has shared and joined me with being inspired. I raised the library today and have a mixture of books to enjoy and learn from.