Whose your Favourite Historian?

Question

Mines David Starkey and i love all his books and documentries esepcially 'the six wives of henry the 8th'.

Answer 1

WHO IS my favourite historian?

Barbara Tuchman is one of my favourite historians.

Answer 2

My favourite historian lived 2500 years ago! Herodotus is the real father of history, as was shown in the first sentence of his famous 'Histories' -
"This is the account of the investigation of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, undertaken so that the achievements of men should not be obliterated by time, and the great and marvellous works of both Greeks and barbarians should not be without fame, and not least the reason why they fought one another".
So he was the first historian to try and explain why things happened, rather than just simply describing them.
He is also great fun because he describes what he has been told. For example:

It is clear that it is the northern parts of Europe which are richest in gold, but how it is procured is a mystery. The story goes that the one-eyed Arimaspians steal it from the griffins who guard it; personally, however, I refuse to believe in one-eyed men who in other respects are like the rest of us.

Further to the north and east lives another Scythian tribe. They are said to be bald from birth, women and men alike, and to have snub noses and long chins; they speak a peculiar language, and live on the fruit of a tree called ponticum, a kind of cherry. The bald men themselves tell the improbable tale that the mountains are inhabited by a goat-footed race, beyond which, still further north, are men who sleep for six months in the year - which to my mind is utterly incredible.

There is found in this desert a kind of ant of great size - bigger than a fox, though not so big as a dog. Some specimens are kept at the palace of the Persian king. These creatures as they burrow underground throw up the sand in heaps. The sand has a rich content of gold, and this it is that the Indians are after when they make their expeditions into the desert. They fill the bags they have brought with them with sand, and start for home again as fast as they can go; for the ants (if we may believe the Persians' story) smell them and at once give chase; nothing in the world can touch these ants for speed, so not one of the Indians would get home alive, if they did not make sure of a good start while the ants were mustering their forces.

Hares are excessively prolific, and you will find in a hare's womb young in all stages of development, some with fur on, others with none, and others, again, barely conceived. A lioness, on the contrary, produces but a single cub, once in her life. The reason for this is that when the unborn cub begins to stir he scratches at the walls of the womb with his claws until, by the time he is about to be born, the womb is almost wholly destroyed.

Very readable, even a few thousand years later.

Answer 3

There's a fella named John Caro who has written three of four books on former President Lyndon Johnson---WAIT---these books are awesome. Johnson was a very hard-charging, persuasive, manipulative jerk who rode people into the ground. He was supported financially by a corportation that was known then as Brown and Root---now they call it Halliburton. He lived in poverty as a child, was known as "Bull" Johnson in college for his willingness to lie all the time. he was SO not a war hero, but got a Silver Star.

but

he was the biggest contributor to Civil Rights since Lincoln. He rammed the Voting Rights Act and many other programs through Congress, he did more for black folk than any President had ever done, tho he, personally, was a racist.

A very complex subject---Caro has received a Pulitzer Prize for his work. Perhaps the best chapter in his books is "The Sad Irons' where he describes the day of a Texas woman when she is doing the laundry---before electricity. If you don't cry, you have no heart.

John Caro's books about LBJ don't just talk about Johnson---they explain the whole political scene in his time, Texas, the Senate, etc. not hard to read, either---if you have a library card, it's in your local library. Check it out---all the best, Brian

Answer 4

Ernst Nolte (born 11 January 1923) is a German historian. Born in Witten, Germany to a Roman Catholic relatives, Nolte grew to become right into a scholar of Martin Heidegger. Nolte’s important pastime is the comparative study of Fascism and Communism. His paintings has been the article of severe controversy.

Answer 5

I liked Steven Ambrose. he was a world war 2 historian and authoer. He wrote the book that HBO made into a movie, Band of Brothers.....

Answer 6

Richard Evans

Answer 7

Barbara Tuchman or Alison Weir for medieval history, & Bruce Catton or Shelby Foote for the American Civil War

Answer 8

Thucydides, wrote the history of the pelloponnesian war. Probably the best historian in the ancient world

Answer 9

I don't have one but I'm going to come out and say that Walter Laqueur is a good historian in the field of European history.

Answer 10

The Venerable Bede.
Saw his tomb recently in Durham Cathedral, pretty cool.

His is seen as the father of British history.

Answer 11

Henry Mayr-Harting

Not so well known, maybe, but he was the most entertaining of all the octogenarian lecturers I experienced at university. "Barking up a gum tree" was his favourite phrase, which itself says a lot about a man who immersed himself in the lives of many of the 12th century's greatest monks, hermits, nuns and priests.