Can anyone recommend some good world history books?

Question

I grew up in a private school that excelled in every area but history. For whatever reason, perhaps it was just the curriculum or the history teachers they hired, we just didn't learn a lot about history. For example, I can't tell you anything that happened in the world before Chris Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And I can't tell you anything that happened after the Civil War (and since I grew up in the South, I only really know the Southern side of it). I have no clue about WWI, II or the Korean War or what the hell we were doing in Vietnam.

I struggled through college to keep up with history and figured out quickly I have a real thirst for learning more. With that in mind, I'd really like to check out some great world history books. Can anyone recommend some books that could sort of "catch me up"? I don't want to just know the American, or Southern or Christian side of history. I wanna know it from a unbiased perspective. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Try these two:

"Durant, Will (1885-1981): § Durant's popularity was assured with the publication of his work, The Story of Philosophy. He went on and spent the balance of his life in close corroboration with his wife to write the multi-voluminous work, for which they will forever be known, The Story of Civilization. For those of you who would like to do more in life than just read, -- do, at least, read the last book written by the Durants. In it they give forth with their conclusions, made at the end of their long lifetime study, in 117 pages, The Lessons of History (1968); no one should be without their own copy.
Story of Civilization (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954-75). § This has been become a classic of our century. Durant's History (his wife, Ariel, collaborated in the writing of it) consists, fully of eleven large volumes:
I, "Our Oriental Heritage";
II, "The Life of Greece";
III, "Caesar and Christ";
IV, "The Age of Faith";
V, "The Renaissance";
VI "The Reformation";
VII, "The Age of Reason Begins";
VIII, "The Age of Louis XIV";
IX, "The Age of Napoleon";
X, "Rousseau and Revolution";
XI, "The Age of Voltaire."
The Lessons of History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968); pp. 117. § This is an extremely valuable small volume in which the Durants write up their conclusions after having spent, jointly, a long life of studying and writing history."



2. Toynbee, Arnold J. (1889-1975): § Born at London, Toynbee was a much respected history professor with international credentials (he attended both peace conferences in 1919 and in 1946). Toynbee had a "profound scholarship in the histories of world civilizations combined with the wide sweep of a near metaphysical turn of mind ..." (Chambers.) (Sir Karl Popper was of the view that Toynbee supported "historicism," in that Toynbee, inappropriately, extended the theory of evolution to history. Collections of people, civilizations, cannot be treated, as Toynbee did, as if they were physical or biological bodies, such that scientific methods might be employed to predict future events. This is a fallacy, the same fallacy into which Marx fell.) Toynbee's magnum opus is, A Study of History, printed over a series of years (1945-1961) by the Oxford University Press. Now most people would not have the time or the patience to read Toynbee's work in its entirety. With this in mind, D. C. Somervell wrote (with Toynbee's approval and praise) a 2 volume abridgement of Toynbee's 10 volume work.
A Study of History (D. C. Somervell's 2 Volume abridgement) (Oxford University Press, 1947 & 1957).
The World and the West (Oxford University Press, 1953). § This book arose because of the Reith Lectures of 1952 which Toynbee delivered through a series of radio talks put out by the British Broadcasting Corporation. "...the west has never been all of the world that matters. The west has not been the only actor on the stage of modern history even at the peak of the West's power (and this peak has perhaps now [1952] already been passed) ... It has not been the west that has been hit by the world; it has been the world that has been hit -- and hit hard -- by the west ..." The lectures seem to break down into six: Russia and the West, Islam and the West, India and the West, The Far East and the West, The Psychologies of Encounters, and The World, and the Greeks and Romans.
Civilization on Trial (Oxford University Press, 1948). § This work consists of thirteen essays, including, "My view of History." Toynbee "sees the Universe and all that therein is -- souls bodies, experience and events -- in irreversible movement through time space ... the universe becomes intelligible to the extent of our ability to apprehend it as a whole." To Toynbee, the whole is a "mysterious spectacle"; and thus, history passes over into theology."

And, at the site below, you can get other suggestion for the world's greates history books>

Answer 2

Durant, as answered above, is about the best. He gives a very easily readable and linear view of history through the Napoleonic era. I like him particularly because he is thorougly readable and literally fun to read.

If you study the linear approach to history as he writes, then you can see the causes and effects of things progress and cause and effect is what history is.

Answer 3

http://www.amazon.com/Oriental-Heritage-Story-Civilization-Vol-1/dp/1567310125/ref=pd_sim_b_shvl_title_7/103-9621128-7267814

Will probably take about 10 years to read all 11 volumes but it's worth it. I should know, I read it.