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Bibliography

Tips About Reading History

This section is for those readers who have become interested in my theory of history, and would like to have more information. A theory is not a fact. It is a set of unified ideas that work together to explain the data and help us to understand what is happening in the world. It is very difficult, or even impossible, to prove that a large and complex theory is true. If all of the relevant data supports the theory and no important data contradicts the theory, then it may be true. Beyond that a good theory must also be useful. It must be able to guide our actions in ways that allow us to accomplish things that we want to do.

This second requirement is extremely complicated, so for now let’s stick with the first requirement of any good theory. Does all the relevant historical data support the theory that is outlined in the document, An Explanation of History, and is there any important data that contradicts the theory? A definitive answer to these questions will require the combined efforts of hundreds of specialist historians. But it is not necessary for individuals who are interested in this theory to find the ultimate definitive answer. Anyone can get a good history book, read it, and decide for themselves whether the data supports or contradicts this explanation of history. This can be done with one history book or with many depending on how much time you have available and how interested you are.

There are many thousands of excellent history books that are available in this world. Of course, there are also many thousands that are not so good, but many history books that contain flaws also have a lot of good data. Quite often newer books are better, but that is not always the case. History scholarship was in vogue at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century and a lot of good material was produced. If you start a history book and realize that it is completely one sided or it exhibits juvenile scholarship, toss it. There is so much good history available that it is not worth wasting time on the poor or mediocre.

One serious problem is that most people learn the wrong way to read history books in school. Please do not concentrate on looking for specific facts to memorize because they may be on the test. Every good history book contains thousands of facts, thousands of individual pieces of data. Don’t try to remember the most important bits and ignore the rest. We are visual animals, and the human brain is much better designed to remember pictures than individual facts. As you read the text, you should be accumulating the data into a series of pictures about how the society functions. These pictures are relatively easy for the brain to store and remember at a later date. Different scenes can be combined sort of like a mural, or they can be attached to each other in sequence like a movie film. This is especially valuable for remembering history where the most fascinating part is watching the picture change with time. When your mind contains a series of pictures for each decade of a society, you can run those pictures just like a movie and watch the society change and develop.

Between the ages of 10 and 18, I had a self-imposed rule that I should read at least one history book each week. I am now 51, but the pictures that were formed inside my brain while reading those books are still there. They are sort of like a French impressionist painting. The details are fuzzy, but the general scenes about everyday life and how the political and economic institutions functioned are still embedded in my memory.

Large libraries are the best place to find history books. The selection is awesome, and the price is right. If you prefer the bookstore, don’t go to the popular histories that are prominently displayed. They tend to emphasize entertainment value over scholarship. They often try to be best sellers by telling the audience what they want to hear. Instead, go to the discount table. Histories that are slow sellers and have been marked down in price often have the best data. Avoid biographies that concentrate exclusively on some popular hero. However, biographies that explain the historical context within which the main character lived are often very good.

The best history books are usually written by specialists who have spent a lifetime researching the material, but there are many exceptions. Good contemporary history is often written by journalists. Many excellent histories have been written by archeologists, linguists, and amateur historians. The best historical fiction can also provide a good picture about everyday life in a given time and place.

If you are reading a history book and it is continuously telling you that your own countrymen are magnificent, heroic, and brilliant and that foreigners who oppose them are vile, evil, and stupid, watch out. There are a lot of books like this, and they are often entertaining, but they are not good history. The data they contain is biased. There is always another side to the story.

The following is a short list of history books that I think are both good and easy to read. If you want an impartial test of my theory, don’t read just the books that I recommend. Find some good history books on your own.

Faith At War, Yaroslav Trofimov 2005 ISBN 0-8050-7754-4
This guy is an experienced foreign correspondent. He visits most of the Arab world between 2000 and 2004 and tells us what he found.

Angry Wind, Jeffrey Tayler 2005 ISBN 0-618-33467-X
A Travel writer takes a trip through the southern Sahara Desert. Extremely interesting.

Bloodfeud, Richard Fletcher, ISBN 0-19-516136-X
This is an excelent description of the relationships among aristocrats and between aristocrats and the king in 10th and 11th century England.

Kashmir, Sumantra Bose, 2003, ISBN 0-674-01173-2
This book gives a very good description of Kashmir and how it is caught in a tug-of-war between India and Pakistan.

The Great Lakes of Africa, Jean-Pierre Chretien, ISBN 1-890951-34-X
This book tells the complete story of the Hutus and Tutsi.

The Last Samurai, Mark Ravina, 2004, ISBN 0-471-08970-2
A very good description of the end of the feudal era in Japan.

Tibet, Tibet, Patrick French, 2003, ISBN 1-4000-4100-7
This book does a very good job of telling the story of Tibet.

Nine Hills to Nambonkaha, Sarah Erdman, 2003, ISBN 0-8050-7381-7
This book gives a very good description of African village life in the Ivory Coast just before it recent civil war.

At The Abyss - An Insider's History Of The Cold War, Thomas Reed, 2004, ISBN 0-89141-821-0
This book was written by a gung-ho cold warrior, yet the data it contains about the Soviet economy tells you exactly why the Cold War was totally unnecessary.

A Complicated War, William Finnegan, ISBN 0-520-08266-4
This book describes the civil war in Mozambique in the 1970s and 80s. It gives a good picture of the problems that tribal societies face when developing into modern nation-states.

Only Man Is Vile, William McGowan
This is about the civil war in Sri Lanka between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority that started in the early 1980s and lasted until very recently. It gives an account of the problems faced by a developing nation with dissatisfied ethnic minority.

Fire in the Lake, Frances Fitzgerald, ISBN 0-679-72394-3
It gives a very good description of the roots of the war in Vietnam.

People’s China, Craig Dietrich, ISBN 0-19-508186-2
Gives a good account of the communist revolution in China.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Dee Brown
Gives a good account of the genocide of the Plains Indians in the United States.

The Year of Decision 1846, Bernard Devoto
Gives a good account of the Mexican-American War and the opening of the American West.

A History of the Balkans, Ferdinand Schevill, ISBN 0-88029-697-6
Gives an excellent history of the Bulkan Peninsula from ancient times to the end of World War I. This book contains a good description of the Byzantine Empire, aristocrat peasant society, and the difficulties of life in the medieval world. It demonstrates that some very good history was written 80 years ago. The author died long before the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, but his work goes a long way toward explaining that recent event.

The Village of Cannibals, Alain Corbin, ISBN 0-674-93900-X
This is a short book with an overly dramatic title. It describes the last stage of peasant society in the rural France of 1870.

The Dutch Republic, Jonathan Israel, ISBN 0-198-730721
This is a very large book and the last half gets a bit tedious. But the first few hundred pages contain an excellent account of the origin of the first modern nation-state.

Cromwell, Peter Young
A short history of the English Civil War and the first modern revolutionary dictator, a Christian fundamentalist.

The Portuguese Seaborn Empire 1415-1825, C. R. Boxer, ISBN 0-394-44102-8
A fascinating account of the early modern age of imperialism.

Revolutionary France 1770-1880, Francois Furet, ISBN 0-631-17029-4

A New History of India, Stanley Wolpert, ISBN 0-19-502153-3
The history of Europe, China, and Japan have a great deal in common because they all had strong national monarchs. India was very different.

Brute Force, John Ellis, ISBN 0-670-80773-7
The best history book that I know of about World War II, and I have read at least a hundred.

Sun Yat-sen, Marie-Claire Bergere
China enters the modern world.

A History of Poland, O. Halecki, ISBN 0-880299-858-8
A thousand years of Polish history, an amazing story.

Killing the Wizards, Alan Cowell, ISBN 0-671-69629-7
The struggle for independence in the southern half of Africa.

A History of the Arab Peoples, Albert Hourani, ISBN 1-56731-216-0
Contains an excellent description of Arabic society since the time of the prophet Mohammed.