Well if you were studying/practising distasteful greek sex acts in history class there was something truly wrong in your school!

As a kid it was Greek. I absolutely loved reading the old stories, mythologies etc.

By the time I was a teenager tho I began branching into Roman history. Not mythologies and stories, but hardcore historical research into the period and a fascination with the evolution and impact of the Empire.

So Greek as a kid ... but not as seriously as Roman history later in life.

Queshank

Especially if you are a film maker.

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Are you a spineless slave to political correctness?

Well started with a lot of interest for Roman history, probably motivated by Asterix and Obelix comics.

Then switched to WWII- history at the age of 11/12, read up the adults library ( damn it have I forgotten much as of lately)

Anyway still interessted in history, but on a broader basis of interesst.

I can't really remember being taught any "true" history in elementary or high school.

Naturally I has Social Studies, but that was so America-centric that I almost shudder at the thought of calling it history in any real sense.

I did enjoy reading about Native Americans (we called them Indians when I was a kid). I guess to some extent that can qualify as something other than "American" history. Granted even that was written from an American-centric perspective and probably bore little resemblance to the true history of America's native people.

Today my favorites are probably WWII and postwar Europe and the ancient Near East.

I can't remember if we were taught any other history but American when I was a kid, but I do remember being an archeology buff, especially after reading Gods, Graves, and Scholars, so I guess my first interests were ancient Egyptian and Greek history. Later, medieval European, and still later Middle Chinese.

These days, my interests are mostly economic history, about the same eras. My new favorite books are The Ancient Mariners, by Lionel Caisson, and just about anything by Ferdinand Braudel, with the exception of Douglas Steven's 'new' book about WW I, "Cataclysm". As I get older I want more detail and depth, it seems.

Which brings up something I noticed: WW I doesn't seem to be a popular topic on message boards for some reason; not many people are interested in it, I guess, which is just strange, given it's importance.

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"The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does, what problems this really solves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"A day without sunshine is, you know, night."- Shannon

My father's quite the Anglophile. Some of my fondest early memories are his reading King Arthur, Ivanhoe, Sherlock and Robin Hood to my brother and I.

Later on, I tucked into that massive Will and Ariel Durant series, Costain's Plantagenet stuff, and it just kind of went from there.

Like most people, I suspect, I went through phases: medieval, WWII, Romans, Vikings, Crusades...

I adore history, and I am always saddened by the generations of kids behind me that don't share that. Heck, just a book on the history of the Kings and Queens of England has more death, conspiracy, mayhem, gore and insanity than 90% of the "thrillers" out there!

I am fascinated by it, but I don't know any really good books on it. Not like the millions of books on WW2 out there.

Suggestions?

Everyone should read All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves.

Le Feu by Henri Barbusse also comes highly recomended but I have yet to read it.

The First World War by Sir Martin Gilbert is a good general overview by an acknowledged authority.

The Great War - Perspectives on the First World War edited by Robery Crowley is a pretty good anthology of historical essays.

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...Old Europe, a once-dominant region now reduced to sucking at the geopolitical teat of America... they spent the better part of the last millennium conquering the world and taking the good stuff home with them... And what do they get for their troubles? Ungrateful colonies demanding their independence. And after you taught them how to play cricket!...

-Jon Stewart

All the ones cited by soot, especially Gilbert's and Crowley's, but I highly recommend David Stevenson's Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy. It came in 2004, and he had access to materials Gilbert didn't. He is also somewhat of a revisionist, a legit one in the real meaning of the word,

It is an excellent book, with a pretty detailed accounting of French materiel production, a truly amazing feat of production and deployment that isn't normally covered by earlier books, a feat easily comparable to the much admired Russian production feats in WW II, as well as a lot of other factors that one rarely considers and most histories gloss over, preferring to cover specific battles or some such.

But, it also goes behind the scenes of politics and command decisions, errors, etc., as well. It is fairly comprehensive, loads of stats and timetables. Of course all of this makes for fairly dense reading, and it won't be a quick read, but certainly good reference material.

I would also add Barbara Tuchman's Guns Of August for aquick read, though not nearly as detailed as Stevenson's account.

I'm sure there many excellent European academic books on WW I that haven't been published in English editions; in fact many better ones, but Stevenson's is the best one available to me, in any case.

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"The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does, what problems this really solves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"A day without sunshine is, you know, night."- Shannon

All the ones cited by soot, especially Gilbert's and Crowley's, but I highly recommend David Stevenson's Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy. It came in 2004, and he had access to materials Gilbert didn't. He is also somewhat of a revisionist, a legit one in the real meaning of the word,

It is an excellent book, with a pretty detailed accounting of French materiel production, a truly amazing feat of production and deployment that isn't normally covered by earlier books, a feat easily comparable to the much admired Russian production feats in WW II, as well as a lot of other factors that one rarely considers and most histories gloss over, preferring to cover specific battles or some such.

But, it also goes behind the scenes of politics and command decisions, errors, etc., as well. It is fairly comprehensive, loads of stats and timetables. Of course all of this makes for fairly dense reading, and it won't be a quick read, but certainly good reference material.

I would also add Barbara Tuchman's Guns Of August for aquick read, though not nearly as detailed as Stevenson's account.

I'm sure there many excellent European academic books on WW I that haven't been published in English editions; in fact many better ones, but Stevenson's is the best one available to me, in any case.

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"The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does, what problems this really solves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"A day without sunshine is, you know, night."- Shannon

Thanks for the recomendation.

I just picked it up on Amazon for $1.96.

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...Old Europe, a once-dominant region now reduced to sucking at the geopolitical teat of America... they spent the better part of the last millennium conquering the world and taking the good stuff home with them... And what do they get for their troubles? Ungrateful colonies demanding their independence. And after you taught them how to play cricket!...

-Jon Stewart

A good short piece on WWI.

Don't let the title fool you. It is a good short piece.

World War One

It's an interesting short piece, but I don't see it as having any real value as a work of history.

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...Old Europe, a once-dominant region now reduced to sucking at the geopolitical teat of America... they spent the better part of the last millennium conquering the world and taking the good stuff home with them... And what do they get for their troubles? Ungrateful colonies demanding their independence. And after you taught them how to play cricket!...

-Jon Stewart

Yes, WW I is not a popular topic, so the books sell pretty cheap. I got mine at Half-Price for about the same price, $2.00. I still haven't run across any bad reviews of it.

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"The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does, what problems this really solves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"A day without sunshine is, you know, night."- Shannon