Submitted by AutoModerator t3_yk3arn in history
martynovb t1_iurxq3p wrote
I am a beginner and I want to start to learn the history of the 20th century.
Recommend some book for it, please.
Thanks!
elmonoenano t1_ius6dt5 wrote
There are books that kind of cover this stuff, but they're not very good. It's just not a great way to learn history. There's this kind of idea of history being a series of events that happened in a certain order, but that's not really the interesting or valuable thing about it. You're much more likely to be able to remember about the stuff during a period if you're reading about the context around and understanding why it's important.
I would maybe look at a specific event like the Great Depression to understand how the financial system was changed during the 20th century b/c that will tell you a lot more about the world than knowing the Suez Crisis happened before the War of Attrition, and it will also tell you more about the Suez Crisis than the military implications.
There's a book I love, but it's kind of an undertaking called Postwar by Tony Judt that does a good job of explaining the postwar system in Europe. It's a great book but might be a lot to handle if you don't usually read history.
I would maybe start with something like Galbraith's The Great Crash, 1929 to understand the 20th century.
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