I consider myself fairly knowledgeable in many areas, but I am clueless about history. Where I live, we only need to take a history class up to tenth grade, and then we're able to take history-adjacent electives. I'm at university studying a major that doesn't require any history classes, either. Those factors combined with honestly finding it all a little depressing (wars, oppression, etc. etc.), I don't have a good foundation and I haven't been motivated to learn more. I couldn't tell you the major countries in WWI, for example, and it's getting embarrassing at this point. I would also like to expand my fiction interests to historical fiction, but it's difficult when I don't really have a context for what's going on.
So I'm looking for some good nonfiction, introductory, overview books. I don't mind density, but I would prefer the author to have a "voice" and/or a little humor. I live in the West but I would like to explore a range of perspectives and areas of the world.
I realize this is a MASSIVE topic that it will take me years to get an adequate grasp on, but I want to start learning and I'm just looking for a starting point. 🙂 Thank you!
by tractoronthemotorway