I want to start learning history, where do I start? Is there a guide or wiki?
>>937333
Start on some page in wikipedia that interests you. Follow the links to build your understanding.
Eventually, you will have to read books and the like if you really want expand your knowledge and really understand an event or time. Wikipedia is okay to start but definitely has some real limitations.
Above else start with something you actually like, so you will stick with it.
>>937333
thehistoryofrome.typepad.com
>>937354
Thanks anon!
Guide's? Wiki's? Probably, but I'm just going to tell you begin with the Mesopotamians in order to lead into Egypt and semitic peoples of the near easty areas.
This is for an understanding of the development of the west, but I suggest you try to keep oriental development in mind so that you can easily associate a time period with otherwise separate histories.
>Ancient Near East
-Mesopotamia (cultures of the Tigris and Euphrates)
-Egypt (Nile River Valley)
-other semitic peoples
>Ancient Greece and Hellenistic Civilization
-Archaic Period
-Rise of Greek city states
-Periclean Athens
-Philip II and Alexander waxing that ass
>Ancient Rome
-Rome's founding and conquering of Italy + their interactions cultural diffusion with opposed/conquered peoples (don't forget the Etruscans)
-the roman republic
-the roman empire
-early christianity
-The Hun's displacement of germanic peoples
-germanic invasions
-decline of rome
-adoption of christianity and it's taking on of administration where rome was too weak to
-fall of the western empire
-germanic "administration" of roman lands and the movement and settling of people after the fall
>Medieval History
-the byzantines
-the growth of islam out of the arabian peninsula and their relationship with the byzantines (pay attention here to become fully equipped for crusading memes)
-the predecessors to charles (carolingians & marovingians) the mange into the charlmange's own life and his effect on europe
-feudalism (politics) and manorialism (economy)
-the medieval church and it's relationship with the nobility of europe
-you should probably read Aquinas at some point. i don't know.
-the development of the medieval town and the power a burgeoning merchant class would grow to have over kings
>Renaissance and Reformation
-the italian rennaisance, it's causes and effects on europe
-other places that experienced rennaisance'
-the reintroduction of Aristotle to the west and how it affected the church and society
...
>>937427
>mfw I'm descended from canaanites
I feel ripped off that yall christian and jew motherfuckers stole yahweh straight from our pantheon.
>>937427
...
>Early "Modern" Europe I guess
-martin luther's 95 shitposts
-protestant reformation and it's subsequent conflicts
-modern looking "states" have formed right about now, so you'll want to go over the histories of France, Perfidious Albion, Switzerland, ect alone to connect them to your more general knowledge
-the discovery of the Americas
I definately missed a lot of shit, so please fill this out fellow /his/fags.
>>937386
Discouraging a budding interest and elitism towards the uninformed isn't cool.
>>937427
>you should probably read Aquinas at some point. i don't know
Aquinas is useful if you want to understand aquinas' philosophy. if you really want OP to understand medieval Christendom from a historical rather than religious point of view, I would advise he research the investiture controversy, the cluniac reforms, the avingnon papacy and the papal schism.
Thomism will tell you about God...those other things will tell you about gods employees.
>>937451
Under Medieval history I'd definitely add the rise and fall of the Carolingian Empire(HUGE in western european history), the rise of the Vikings and all the states they spawned, the abbasid caliphate and the arrival of the turks(aka the fracturing of Islam), the Crusaders, the spats between the Pope and HRE(basically the turning point in papal power), the Reconquista, the Black Death and it's economic effects, and the arrival of the Mongols.
>>937427
>being this Europeancentric
>>937477
it ok. your country didn't matter until Europe colonised and/or exploited it anyway.
>>937427
>the reintroduction of Aristotle
Please never post anything again.
>>937451
Maybe I can take on from here.
>-the discovery of the Americas (you might want to peddle back a bit here and study native american civilizations and ancient migration into the americas)
After this
>Colonialism and the spice/good trade of Asia and Africa
>Colonial America
>The slave and non-human good trade between the new world and Europe
>the enlightenment and it's philosophies effects on Europe and American intellectuals and statesmen
>France under Louis XV (Citizen Capet)
>The American Revolution
>The French Revolution (it was social, economic, and political)
>France's estate's general + National Convention
>Napoleon
>The English revolution (it was the above + religion)
>Cromwell's dictatorship and later England's return to the Monarchy
>Austria and Prussia
>Peter I and the westernization of Russia
>Look at Poland and laugh
>The French Empire and Congress of Vienna
>The Industrial Revolution and the reasons why and where it occurred (connected to colonialism & scientific developments)
That should take you into the 1800s I think.
>>937477
If Africa were the focal point of history from which one might eventually connect to the rest of the world, I'd tell OP to research Mali and the Ashanti, but it's not.
>>937512
What? Some information was recorded by European monks, but did the Arabs not pass along some concepts and even provided their arab translations from greek copies?
What the fuck is learning history anyway
>>937514
>no 30 years war
>no qing empire
>no mughal empire
>what is the middle east?
>louis XV citizen capet for some reason
fuck it, I can't even go on anymore
>>937519
Would you mind providing a more substantive critique? I just want OP to have a more or less in order guide for research topics.
>>937539
>no 30 years war
that post was preceded by the protestant reformation and subsequent conflicts
Hey guys op here I also want to learn how to science can someone summarize it for me?
>>937539
>citizen capet for some reason
I added that because I've seen people confused by the two names before and then after seeing this I remember capet was the XVI not XV, so now I've got a reason to finish the noose I've been working on.
>>937545
It is a religious conflict that came out of the protestant reformation true, but it is also so, so much more substantial than that. I get that it is really complex and confusing but it occupies a crucial piece of history.
>>937524
Aristotle was perfectly well known throughout the Middle Ages, his works were the entire basis of Scholasticism, and Aristotle was considered the supreme intellectual authority from the 11th to the late 13th century.
What happened after that, between the 13th and 14th centuries, is that Western thinkers started to question Aristotle in particular on natural sciences (where he was basically wrong about everything), and invented modern physics and mathematics. What the Renaissance did wasn't "reintroducing Aristotle", but destroying all the progress of the 13th and 14th centuries and returning to the 11th century worship of Aristotle as unquestionable truth.
>>937539
You're not a squint eyed Qink are you?
>>937547
12hrs in MS paint
>>937558
Thank you. I sincerely thank you for correcting me then expanding on the point. That is precisely what I hoped my inexhaustive listing would invite.
Yes, reintroduced was wrong of me to write. I knew that his ideas were tied scholasticism and honestly, I probably should have added scholasticism to the list instead of Aquinas. I just did not think hard enough when I wrote that and despite learned otherwise, the idea of the Aristotle being "reintroduced" lingers from grade school despite learning his were among the many ideas preserved by monks.
>>937553
The conflict alone is worth it's own class, books, and area of specialization. "subsequent conflicts" is too broad for anyone who knows history, but for someone who's asking for where to start? It seemed liked enough.
>>937547
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_seSpW_DSY
>>937386
Wow that's really mature.
>>937578
Sorry for being snippy, it's just one of those things that get repeated all the time (and that I also got told in school), and it's tied in with the incredibly annoying myth of everyone in the Middle Ages being illiterate retards and all civilisation being owed to the Renaissance "rediscovery" of glorious ancient Greece and Rome.
>>937354
Sound advice.
>>937333
Most suggestions in the tread are useful if you want a "factual" approach to history: history as a story. "This and this happened then follow by...". Mostly an approach used by hobbyist by frowned upon by real historians.
History on a higher order of thinking centers around the debate among historians of what actually happened and how to put what happens in perspective.
Try to focus on one very narrow area of interest. Like a historical movement, war or whatever you might find appealing. Start reading actual books about it. Wikipedia can be a good place to start, but focus on the "secondary sources" and "primary sources" usually found in the notes at the end of a wikipedia article. These teach you more.
There's also websites like :
https://studyingthehumanities.wordpress.com/tag/lenin/
which offer a far more in depth look at how to learn the specific way of historical reasoning, rather than studding dry facts from wikipedia. This website is a fair point to start, but there are others that you can easily find trough google.
>>940276
Should one not understand the story and most commonly held consensus before entering the "what really happened" and "how did "q" event affect "z" event" arena?
>>940276
>Try to focus on one very narrow area of interest. Like a historical movement, war or whatever you might find appealing. Start reading actual books about it. Wikipedia can be a good place to start, but focus on the "secondary sources" and "primary sources" usually found in the notes at the end of a wikipedia article. These teach you more.
Try and find some good books on subjects you're interested in on >https://www.goodreads.com/genres/history
There's so much value in good books.
I'm currently on a post-colonialism Africa binge.
>>940313
Why?
You can pick up the consensus from the study of secondary sources anyway.
>>940327
You will, yes, but beginning with chunks of history just doesn't sound right to me.
A timelined understanding of history seems like a better way to lead into focused study. Maybe i'm biased towards my own method.
>want to study history
>get overhwlmed by the amount of events I have to learn in detail
>give up learning history before starting
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast. I cannot recommend this to a beginner enough.
http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/
I'm gonna get some shit for this but hear me out. You want something that makes history really entertaining, something really accessible. A source that isn't a dry as fuck list of dates and names and places where battles happened, but also doesn't patronise you with cartoon drawings of Julius Caesar. You want to get historical facts but you also want to think about the human side and how a historical event or person relates to people like you.
Dan Carlin himself says he's not a historian but a FAN of history, and he might risk giving a misleading impression, or drawing unqualified conclusions once in a while. But he does cite his sources, quotes real historians, and usually leaves things open-ended (as much as a storyteller can), if the facts aren't really known. He draws his material from proper textbooks and historical documents as well as books by top historians, and if he makes assumptions then they're usually pretty good ones, and he's always up front about how much is known.
So listen to one of those podcasts (which are more like audiobooks, at 3+ hours long) to spark your interest, get the juices flowing, THEN dive into the academia of it, the debates on source credibility and the estimated numbers involved. Carlin always lists the books he works from so you might start by reading those after the show.
He's covered a pretty wide range of historical genres and so far they've all been fascinating and exciting, so you could pick and choose what areas interest you at first, and eventually listen to them all before deciding where you want to continue.
>>940376
Focus on one topic. Do you follow a religion, or some sort of ideology?
I'm Muslim, so I have a cursory understanding of Islamic history, and am planning to learn more, God willing.
>>940376
Just wiki walk, retard.
>Want to discuss history on /his/, stuff like celtic warfare (there was a thread just now so that's what I have in mind) or whatever
>Thread gets bumped off
>All I see in the front page are threads about religion, /pol/ tier discussions or some faggot complaining about X epistemology with no actual argument, just whining.
>>940603
>Islamic history
Rape, sodomy, pedophilia, murder, looting. 1400 years. That's all the "Islamic history" anyone needs to know.
>>940627
Take a page from /tg/, /x/enophiles, and occultards on /his/.
Instead of asking for a thread or posing some questions, you'll need to be the one to write up a compelling and historically sound introduction to the thread along with sources and further reading. Personally, I wouldn't go into a celtic discussion thread, because I don't know anything about the Celtics beyond a Yu-Gi-Oh card bearing the name and Boudicca, the meme queen of the celts. I can't participate in a discussion or answer questions an OP might pose, but if I see an introduction to the celts, I could actually get into that and participate.
Yeah, it'll take work to write it up depending on how well read you are, but it could lead to the discussion you want.
>>940603
>Do you follow a religion, or some sort of ideology?
No.
>>940642
Ok.
>>940642
There was a time where I thought this about the muslim world. Glad I moved beyond this line of thinking and grew to be ready to approach a non /pol/ understanding of Arab cultural development.
>>940676
Alright, in that case, then find a topic that interests you and stick to it.
>>940642
I bet you approach history in terms of good and bad.
>>940685
People don't age well, the post.
>>940690
How about the Mideval Ages?
>>940696
>Mideval
---------------
Start with the fall of the western roman empire and the various barbarian groups of Europe.
>>940696
That's fine, but you might want to get more specific. Look at the stuff this kind anon put together >>937427
>Medieval History
-the byzantines
-the growth of islam out of the arabian peninsula and their relationship with the byzantines (pay attention here to become fully equipped for crusading memes)
-the predecessors to charles (carolingians & marovingians) the mange into the charlmange's own life and his effect on europe
-feudalism (politics) and manorialism (economy)
-the medieval church and it's relationship with the nobility of europe
-you should probably read Aquinas at some point. i don't know.
-the development of the medieval town and the power a burgeoning merchant class would grow to have over kings
>>940695
We get it m8. You have autism
Depends what you're interested in.
If you want to get a good basic knowledge of how the modern world came to be, how we (in the West) got where we are, learn about:
- ancient Greece (mostly Athens and the Hellenistic world)
- ancient Rome
- early Christianity
- France (whole history)
- Britain (since 1066)
- Italy (13th to 15th century)
- Germany (since 16th century)
- USA (since independence)
That's the most important stuff. Of course feel free to learn about China, Persia, the Aztecs, or the Byzantines for example. It's not essential, but by learning about the things I listed you'll automatically come into contact with the rest as well so you'll see what you're interested in.
>>942606
>Byzantines
>not essential
Is a full understanding of the crusades not required for a complete understanding of the west?
A library, they usually have these things called books.
>>942615
You'll understand the Crusades through French history (I could also have mentioned the history of the Papacy, but it's mostly linked to France and Italy in the relevant time periods). The Byzantines played a secondary role.
>>942606
To expand on that, here are the main subjects this probably entails:
- classical Athens
- Alexander and Hellenism
- Roman Republic, Punic Wars
- Caesar and Augustus
- Roman Empire
- birth and spread of Christianity in Rome
- Eastward shift of Rome, barbarian invasions
- Merovingian and early Carolingian France
- Charlemagne
- collapse of Charlemagne's empire and the Vikings
- 10th century awakening: development of feudalism, Western art, and the Cluniac Reforms
- expansion of French nobility with Norman Conquest and Crusades
- Scholasticism at the cathedral schools
- Investiture Controversy and rise of the Papacy
- Gothic art and architecture
- 13th century political developments: slow disintegration of the HRE, consolidation of Capetian power in France, Magna Carta and aristocratic rule in England
- 13th-14th century birth of modern science at the universities of France and England
- late medieval Italian city-states, merchants and bankers
- Hundred Years War
- Italian Renaissance art, Humanism
- the Reformation
- rise of the Habsburgs
- Age of Discovery
- religious wars in England and France
- Thirty Years War, Fronde in France and Civil War in England
- French hegemony and royal absolutism
- Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution
- rise of Prussia
- Seven Years War, American colonies
- American War of Independence
- French Revolution
- Napoleon
- post-Napoleonic political changes and revolutions across the world
- Industrial Revolution
- second wave colonialism
- German unification
- the world wars
- fall of European empires, Cold War
- American hegemony and Postmodernism since the 60s
>>942632
Ok, i can dig it.
>>942747
can you?
Genesis, chapter 1.
>>944528
>>944666
>666
Jesus is LORD & SAVIOR.
>>944707
kek, i have to admit
>>937386
>Ha-Ha, someone who currently lacks knowledge is seeking to improves their understanding of the world, what an idiot.
You are the very definition of a pleb
>>944524
Yes
>>937333
If you want to be super orientalist, read up on the Three Kingdoms era of China, and the Sengoku Jidai of Japan. Besides the Meiji restoration those are probably the most defining part of either massive history and should give you a p good jumping off point
Also Kublai Khan and the fall of the Song
>>940522
>Blueprint for Armageddon
My fucking nigga
This podcast opened me up to just how horrific that war was too. Dan loves to get into the gritty bits and details of soldier life along with the stories of campaigns and leaders.
And shame on you if you give it shit for being "history lite" or whatever. He quotes his sources and if you want there's nothing stopping you from picking up the books he mentions and reading them yourself. Every one of those podcasts is a great introduction to the topics they cover that will get you interested in the subject and encourage you to do further study.
>>946861
also, Edward Saids "orientalism"
>>947221
On part 4 right now. Sounds like he might get into Verdun soon.
>learning history
bitch thats not how it works
install all age of empires, total war and paradox games.
>>947279
:)
>>937333
It's best to develop your own approach though many of the other anon's suggestions work out pretty well too.
Personally, I started out with those big glossy illustrated world history books to give me a general idea of the macro events in history. Wikipedia also helped at that stage. Then I listened to some podcasts and watched some videos on the Internet to fill in any gaps I may have had with those macro events. I only started getting specialized in my knowledge through books later on.
>>947256
Verdun is the best part. The way he tells the whole event is just phenomenal.
