I absolutely hated history lessons at school. it just seemed to be an endless exercise in memorizing dates that made no real connection with what was happening right there and then. Being able to quote things about the English Civil War or the Agricultural Revolution, whilst no doubt very significant in themselves, meant nothing to me. I was more interested in what I was going to do when I left school. What kind of job could I get and how much would I earn. However, now I absolutely love history, because I realize that history is not just about the past. It is very relevant to today because we are where we are now due to the things that took place in the past. Moreover, what we experience and do today will have a great bearing on our future. Something that really excites me is that we can influence history. Ordinary people you and I from all sorts of social backgrounds and nations have shaped history through the centuries. No matter who we are – we all leave a chapter in the world’s history when we pass from this life. Whiles we are in it – we can be history shapers.
I now have a fairly extensive library of history books, mainly in Amazon Kindle form – I think Kindle books are wonderful. You can read them anywhere. I have hundreds of books and I can access them on my mobile phone, iPad, laptop, desktop computer – fantastic! I do also have a few hard copy books. One i recommend as a starter is the DK Eyewitness Companion book – World History by Philip Parker.
Books I Recommend
Philip Parker’s “World History” is a great book for those who have an interest in world history and would like an easy to read and well-illustrated summary of world history from ancient through to modern times. It starts by answering the question “What is History” ? Then, having established the purpose, proceeds from the first recorded ancient civilizations like the emergence of city states in Mesopotamia, Egypt and China. Early in the book there is a timeline of world histories