History is so much more interesting in documentaries than textbooks

[Deleted member 52442]

I've gone through most of my life thinking I had no interest in history, but now my YouTube is filled with some good shit





Not a doc but:


Anyone else agree? And/or got some history documentaries to recommend?


EDIT: just to be clear, I am 100% talking about school textbooks from high school and college, not sure if I would have scoffed at these docs in school but I want to say no

 

[mael]

If we're being honest, textbooks are really cliffnotes.
Anything is better than that.

 

[Aldo]

As with any story, it depends on the skill of those who write it. History books are often technical and/or written by people who have no proper grasp of narrative techniques.
History podcasts are my addiction, in English I'd recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History even if, for my tastes, he can be a bit overdramatic at times.
In Italy we have Alessandro Barbero, University professor and award-winning novelist, so he's the best of both worlds. All of his audio/video content is free, too. He's a national hero.

 

[WriterInTheDark]

Primary sources are where it’s at for interesting history.

 

[Perkin_Warbeck]

I don't agree. Maybe I'll check out these videos, but normally TV documentaries are pitched to too general an audience. The best experiences I've had with history come from books and podcasts. I watched a lot of documentaries as a kid, and they were important to sparking my interest, but I haven't seen one I really enjoyed in years.

EDIT: I see you're someone who previously didn't have much of an interest in history. I can definitely see how a well crafted documentary would be great for some people. For me, as someone who has been passionate about history since middle school at least, they usually don't offer a ton.

 

[Huey]

Nothing comes close to a great university-level history course imo. But any way you digest it and get interested in it is worthwhile.

 

[Gunny T Highway]

Textbooks are not meant to be narratively interesting. They are meant to just give out the straight facts. Documentaries are made to pull the viewer in thus they are more entertaining. Depending on the subject in history I could go either way. Sometimes I prefer reading the actual textbook or primary source instead of watching a documentary.

 

[RevolverSaro]

I read some great history books in college. My problem with documentaries are they are often sensationalist. They exaggerate certain things for entertainment value.

 

[citrusred]

You can buy history books like this too OP.

 

[PuppetMinion]

Not an hard rule or anything but in my experience:

Textbooks have an less "creative" interpretation of facts. Since it is media, it is easy to accept details that may or may not be true.

Textbooks have more easy to trace sources and the dryness leaves less freedom for stuff like that. (though it happens, absolutely)

 

[Dead Guy]

There are tons of fantastic historical docs on YouTube now.

If you want to feel better about living through Covid, here's one of my favorites on Plague. Really gives you a sense of how disgusting everything was back then and what these poor people went through.

 

[John Kowalski]

I can't watch historical documentaries with scene recreations

They're too corny....

But i gotta admit i too have my Historia Civilis weekends, i love those little squares

 

[shnurgleton]

if all the history you get is from documentaries you're gonna miss out on a lot

 

[Prophet Steve]

I think history in textbooks can be fine, but I did not enjoy history while studying in school and I do so now.

Partly because school just provided me with facts to learn, without providing an interesting context. The value of history however was not clear to me.

I think it is very valuable for people to know their history now, but the important aspect is in how your history in how it relates to our current world. To fully understand how we have arrived at the current power dynamics in the world and to look at the past and see how people have acted in situations that are often very comparable to current world events.

 

[Wackamole]

Haven't seen these yet but a lot of these "documentaries" are often so overdramatic/ sensationalist and silly.

I'll give this a watch though. So thanks for now.

Edit: Okay.. just in the beginning there is this incredible overdramatic Hans Zimmer style music while this guy is simply telling something.
That sort of stuff is shit imo. But i'll watch anyway since it could still be full of great value.

Anyway, it's entertaining.
I prefer certain podcasts though.

 

[meowdi gras]

School textbooks, sure. But documentaries also frequently suffer from that "drive thru history" syndrome. Not to mention how so many docs these days are marred by exceptionally annoying reality show techniques. I personally don't have the patience for this kind of synthetic "suspense" bullshit.

There's no replacement for digesting a good scholarly text for learning real history, IMO.

 

[hydro94530]

I always prefer pictures to words so I fully agree! I love documentaries and am always looking for new ones.

 

[Deleted member 52442]

As with any story, it depends on the skill of those who write it. History books are often technical and/or written by people who have no proper grasp of narrative techniques.
History podcasts are my addiction, in English I'd recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History even if, for my tastes, he can be a bit overdramatic at times.
In Italy we have Alessandro Barbero, University professor and award-winning novelist, so he's the best of both worlds. All of his audio/video content is free, too. He's a national hero.

Click to shrink...

Im definitely down to try out some history podcasts, I SORT OF dabble in this by listening to The Dollop which is more comedy and American history focused

I don't agree. Maybe I'll check out these videos, but normally TV documentaries are pitched to too general an audience. The best experiences I've had with history come from books and podcasts. I watched a lot of documentaries as a kid, and they were important to sparking my interest, but I haven't seen one I really enjoyed in years.

EDIT: I see you're someone who previously didn't have much of an interest in history. I can definitely see how a well crafted documentary would be great for some people. For me, as someone who has been passionate about history since middle school at least, they usually don't offer a ton.

Click to shrink...

You can buy history books like this too OP.

Click to shrink...

Whatcha got? I've added Dan Jones's books to my list thanks to a comment on one of these videos

 

[Walter White Walker]

Historical nonfiction books is my favorite genre. Videos are ok, but I prefer books. Textbooks are like cliffnotes and are pretty boring.

 

[Tatsu91]

I've gone through most of my life thinking I had no interest in history, but now my YouTube is filled with some good shit





Not a doc but:


Anyone else agree? And/or got some history documentaries to recommend?

Click to shrink...

Definitely I enjoy watching Documentries so much reading books is not so interesting.

 

[citrusred]

Whatcha got? I've added Dan Jones's books to my list thanks to a comment on one of these videos

Click to shrink...

I don't actually read much non-fiction apart from biographies and travel logs so I wouldn't have many examples. I'm sure there is a history equivelent to pop science books.

I think Bill Bryson has a few books that are like this.

One that I have read myself and was very popular in the old GAF what are you reading threads was The Black Count. Which chronicled the life of Alexandre Dumas father who was a black general in the French army.

 

[iksenpets]

If you’re talking the sorts of text books they give you in high school, then yeah, of course. Any attempt to compress all world history into a single volume with pictures is going to pretty quickly turn into just rapid fire rattling off the facts that will be on the test, all written to be digestible by a lowest-common-denominator high school student. But actual history books that you’d buy at a book store that usually focus on a single topic or are multi-volume surveys of a longer span of history are great.

 

[Aldo]

As for books, I recommend Mary Bead's SPQR which is a pretty comprehensive overview of Ancient Rome.

 

[Peru]

Mary Beard is also good for her enthusiastic TV documentaries. Those are the good ones, with presenters who are both good at telling stories and very knowledgable about the field.

And of course your The World at Wars, with insane footage and primary source talking heads

 

[Thatonedice1]

Documentaries are meant to build a narrative and story around history. History classes and textbooks are meant to be comprehensive. They have to be detailed retellings of events. I took a class about the French revolution once that had a full week dedicated to the fashion of the time period. Boring shit. But it's stuff history majors have to know.

 

[somerandomweirdguy]

Read a real history book. Text books are naturally not as good, since they have to dilute focus so much.

Pick a topic or country or era, and go nuts. There's plenty of great history books out there

 

[Perkin_Warbeck]

Whatcha got? I've added Dan Jones's books to my list thanks to a comment on one of these videos

Click to shrink...

Based on the documentaries you posted... I might recommend Alison Weir's books. I've read the ones she wrote on the Wars of the Roses and the Princes in the Tower, which were both great. She's written on the Tudors too, which I haven't read though.

Not based on what you posted, but just things I've read lately or have an interest in currently:

Currently reading The Black Jacobins. This is a seminal work about the Haitian revolution and is utterly fascinating. I got turned on to this by Mike Duncan, a well known podcast guy.

Recently read Paris: 1919. Really fascinating if you have any interest in the conclusion to WW1.

Next (maybe?) The Pope Who Would Be King. Kind of about the end of the papal states and the beginning of the Vatican as we know it.

But for where you're at, I actually think Alison Weir would be great place to start. Print a big Plantagenet family tree if you tackle the Wars of the Roses, lol. If you like A Song of Ice and Fire, you'll see the parallels immediately.

 

[hiredhand]

I would say nonfiction books are still the best way to make history interesting. I love the Very Short Introduction series of books. They are short nonfiction books covering wide variety of topics in history, science, religion, economics, politics and culture. Just to give an idea of the variety of topics covered, the ten most recent ones are about insects, contemporary art, volcanoes, postcolonialism, the American South, enzymes, soft matter, modern Brazil, nuclear weapons and George Bernard Shaw.

Modern tv history docs are often way too dramatic and very populist in their choice of topics. I mean, do we really need more documentaries about the WW2?

 

[Senator Toadstool]

Primary sources are where it’s at for interesting history.

Click to shrink...

Yes. I’d argue against documentaries tbh. They’re often not great presentations of history, they’re representations of an established unchanging view of history which can often be wrong, biased, not able to be corrected and assert things at the viewer who is never challenged to think but to recive passively information uncritically.

Primary Sources are the best but books far and away are better than docs because they have to at least provide sources which the reader can interrogate by themselves.

I recently got a book with the speech’s of Mao and it provides so much context and nuance that add to reading books on him as one can see the wider context of his thought than what a single author chooses to highlight. Also Bought the original pentagon papers and it’s really dense but fascinating.

 

[The Albatross]

Textbooks can be pretty damn boring, but they're supposed to be.

It's kinda like reading a narrative description of Jonas Salk's development of the polio vaccine, versus the medical research and trials around polio vaccination studies. Or, like, watching Apollo 13 (or better yet a space-race documentary) vs. reading a NASA engineering manual on rocketry. There's ultimately value in both.

The history books that I like the most are those that combine rote facts with narrative. Two history books from the last year that I'd recommend are Jill Lepore's "These Truths," A history of the United States, and Steve Inskeep's "Imperfect Union" about John C. and Jesse Fremont, and the 1856 presidential election.

 

[Nairume]

History textbooks *can* be fun if they are written in a good way, but what goes into making them happen behind the scenes (which I can personally vouch from in a limited capacity) often restricts how much fun you can have with them.

That said, while history podcasts are fun (I even do one now), I'd actually say the real thing to do if you are interested in any historical subject is to just find a good monograph that just focuses on things that interest you and expand from there. Podcasts are good and fun, but have their own issues that do make me hesistant on recommending them as a replacement for reading something yourself (and that goes doubly for stuff like Dan Carlin, which should absolutely never be taken as a replacement)

 

[Sectorseven]

Imagine how awesome virtual reality history will be.

 

[jcs]

Regular books > documentaries >> textbooks.

Textbooks are for reference.

 

[PeskyToaster]

Well it's because textbooks aren't really designed to be fun or enjoyable for the most part while a documentary actually wants people to watch it. In my experience, after like the 101 class, most university level history classes are all about primary sources which is fun. You gain much more insight into how these people thought and how alike they are to us as well by reading their actual, translated, words. I think documentaries do something similar by connecting you through the visual aspect and also using primary sources. I was introduced to some of the most impactful docs, books, and sources taking like 3rd or 4th year history courses.

 

[Nil'giccas]

I also don't like documentaries. All kinds of data play an important role in history and documentaries rarely cover that (population, wages, production quantities etc.) I am not an expert, but Hobsbawm's The Age of Revolution/Capital/Empire and, to a lesser extent, Extremes are the best history books I have read so far. Not only fully informative, but also full of picturesque descriptions and stories.

 

[zethren]

I love those Timeline documentaries, OP. They helped me become a lot more interested in medieval history, and I like to think I learned a thing or two from there.

They were wonderful jumping off points to historical texts and history books to learn more from there.

 

[Deleted member 16516]

I prefer history books, followed by historical fiction, then documentaries.

Recently, I've read a thrilling book about Rameses the Great by Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley and in the historical fiction department the wonderful Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris, which has now inpsired me to read a history book specifically about Cato the Younger.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

I actually love this thread and thank you OP for introducing me to something new. I like history but I'm very passive at best. I should read more books but I think my brain can only handle so much being overstimulated at work with reading all day long......So a version that has more audio certainly helps.

 

[Igniz12]

I love that channel. I got on to it after scrolling through a random era thread one day and subscribed to it immediately.

 

[Ottaro]

I find narrative-driven nonfiction books to be the best and most engaging way to absorb history. Not books that simply tell you what happened but books that painstakingly try to recreate the time and place the events happened in as though it were a novel. Tell me what the plants looked like, what the weather was like, how they were dressed, tell me about other things that were happening around the world that might have been in the back of people's minds, etc.

For a prime example of this, look into "In the Heart of the Sea." It's about one single event, but it's so engaging that you can't help but soak up all the context and texture surrounding the event that you really learn a lot about the rest of the world at the time.

 

[Peru]

Re-enactments do rub me the wrong way.

But I find in periods of stress and unease, like the pandemic, historical documentaries can be very soothing - putting events in a larger context, taking you to a different time and place, removing current figures and events from the stage.

I go for the ones that are more grounded over some of the jazzed up, quick-cutting National Geographic channel-style sensationalized docus tho. Those are fairly worthless (though good ones do exist on the channel as well obviously).

 

[Richiek]

I've been watching alot of history channels on YouTube lately:

 

[Perkin_Warbeck]

Just as far as sharing books, I'll share a couple biographies I really liked. I don't normally go for biographies, but they can be interesting.

Around 2016 I became really interested in Fascism for some reason (no idea why). There is a follow up book on the following years that I haven't read, since I'm less interested in the reality of fascism and the war than I am in the rise.

This is essentially a great tick-tock of the unravelling of the Nixon administration.

I might check out that Ramesses book. Egypt is something I honestly know very little about.

 

[Zombine]

Timeline was my March pandemic discovery and for that I am incredibly grateful.

 

[Izzard]

I find audiobooks are good to listen to. I’ve listened to quite a few on Elizabeth I and Henry VIII recently.