# Who are your favorite historians? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 18, 2000, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204 "2000-12-18T19:50:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/21 "2000-12-19T15:28:50Z")
> [@](#): > > “Predatory kinship”; it’d be hard to think of a more accurate term for Plantagenet family relations! Maybe I’ll have a chance to read that one someday. Well, the Plantagenets learned from their Norman ancestors. 😉 Searle argues that the early Norman rulers pruned their family trees with some precision, destroying relatives with independent bases of power and ducal claims and raising up bastards, half-brothers, and non-inheriting cousins in order to create a cadre of elite, loyal warriors whose livelihoods were dependent on the benevolence of the duke. Simplified, of course, but this is the gist. William the Conqueror, for whom my admiration is boundless, was a master of this tactic. His machinations created some of the greatest families in medieval Anglo-Norman history. MR ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/22 "2000-12-19T15:55:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Danimal \* > **Duke, did you ever run across Jasper Ridley? When I was writing my thesis on Calvinist economic doctrine, I read what seemed a pretty good biography of John Knox by him.** Met him, no; read his biography of Knox, yes. Since I’ve read about 200 books since then, I’m not in too much of a position to comment on him, but I remember the book being informative. > [@](#): > > \*\* > When did Christopher Haigh write? I remember the Durants considered the Reformation as imposed from the top down in England, and that the English as a whole remained largely Catholic in thought and sympathy at least until the Gunpowder Plot. Were they adopting Haigh’s ideas here? \*\* Haigh’s first major book was in 1965, and he’s still writing today (I think he’s actually on sabbatical now and working on a new book). It’s possible that the Durants adopted Haigh’s ideas, but even Haigh wouldn’t go so far as to say the majority of the English were Catholic as far as the 17th-century. He argues that it may have been that way in the North of England, but by 1605 England had been solidly Protestant for 52 years and most of the Catholics in England had died by then and had not passed their faith on to their children. Oh, one more favorite historian (the list grows)– Beat Kumin–from Switzerland originally, has done some interesting work on parish finances in England. Also a nice guy. (He actually cited a lecture I gave in an article!) ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/23 "2000-12-19T21:25:43Z")
Although I haven’t read particularly deeply in history, I certainly enjoyed the following authors: Barbara Tuchmann (So readable; and the undertone of contempt for the Hun in The Guns of August is delightful) Davis Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed (This answered a lot of questions I had about early American culture) Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (Very perceptive analysis of the effects of WWI) ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2000, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/24 "2000-12-19T22:02:42Z")
Reading: Robert Darnton (_The Great Cat Massacre_, _The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France_) Lecture: Jon Bridgman (University of Washington, as of '96 anyway). Brilliant lecturer. Has a couple of tics that you titter over initially but you will **never** be bored or want to skip his lectures. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/25 "2000-12-20T00:04:27Z")
I get to be the first to mention the late [Henry Mayer](http://www.independent.org/tii/forums/000907mayer.html), author of two the finest historical biographies I’ve ever encountered: _All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery_ and _A Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic_. Check 'em out - Amazon has them, and your local library can probably get them via interlibrary loan. ---
**Author:** ![Jeffrey\_Hartnett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/77aa72/32.png) [@Jeffrey\_Hartnett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeffrey_Hartnett)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2000, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/26 "2000-12-21T23:52:00Z")
I agree with Edward the Head. James Burke is one of my favorite historians. He makes any subject he writes about fascinating. And having the good fortune to have seen him in lecture twice, I can say that he is perhaps even more entertaining live than in print. I also agree with Danimal, the Durants are great. They have introduced me to so many authors that I would never have read had it not been for their citation. ---
**Author:** ![Show\_Biz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@Show\_Biz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Show_Biz)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2000, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/27 "2000-12-22T00:23:33Z")
**Mel Brooks _History of the World: Part I (1981)_** ( 😃 Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.) ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2000, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/28 "2000-12-22T15:30:13Z")
Caroline Walker Bynum, for the same reasons **Maeglin** stated above. Except, well, I didn’t get to study under her. I’ve got _Holy Feast, Holy Fast_ and _Jesus as Mother_ on my shelf, and I’m looking to get _Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages_ soon. Thomas Glick’s work on Al-Andalus. Sir Ronald Syme’s _Roman Revolution_. Henri Pirenne. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton’s _Harold: The Last of the Saxon Kings_ is so laughable that I have to love it. You can easily see my preferred time period. For more contemporary history, Stephen Ambrose is one of my favorites. But then, I’m not exactly well-read when it comes to this century. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2000, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/29 "2000-12-22T15:52:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Henri Pirenne :slaps forehead: How could I possibly forget Pirenne? And I forgot Peter Brown, too! What’s wrong with me? ---
**Author:** ![Sledman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@Sledman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sledman)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2000, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/30 "2000-12-22T15:59:39Z")
David Halberstam – \*The Fifties \* Marc Bloch – _The Historian’s Craft_ which lays out some fundamental rules for Historian’s. Taylor Branch – _Parting the Waters: America in the King Years_ Richard Kluger – _Simple Justice: The History of Brown vs. Board of Education_ To name just a few. But each of these ranks as excellent reading and come with Sledman’s Highest Recommendation. Robert William Fogel, Stanley L. Engerman get my vote as two of the worst for their flawed use of statistical data in the book _Time on the Cross_. Seriously read it for a laugh. The conclusions are hilarious. According to them slavery wasn’t that bad a deal. Who knew??? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![scratch1300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@scratch1300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scratch1300)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2001, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/31 "2001-01-09T16:56:25Z")
John Lukacs is, I find, supremely insightful about Hitler, World War II, Europe, and “the Modern Age”. ---
**Author:** ![Medievalist2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19adc/32.png) [@Medievalist2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Medievalist2)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/32 "2001-01-13T10:36:33Z")
Froissart and Geoffrey of Monmouth ---
**Author:** ![Short](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Short](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Short)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204/33 "2001-01-13T17:20:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cisco \* > \*\*Howard Zinn \*\* Agreed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-your-favorite-historians/46204.md?page=1)