Since this is now a pit thread: Goddam that fucking Lord Kinross to hell! And those cocksucking Ottomans, where do they get off having such a long and complicated history? What the hell? Fuck! Fuck!
Carry on.
Personally, my favourite history book is Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe.
Funny and informative! 
A Short History of the Ottomans
The Ottoman Empire was founded in 1281 by Uthman the First (or Osman as he was known to people who don’t transcribe Arabic very well). The Ottomans weren’t originally from Turkey but by the time they finished settling in there there was nobody else left to say otherwise. At their height, the Ottomans ruled an Empire that stretched across three continents but by the 20th century they were so weak they could be beaten by France, Egypt, Italy, or Lord Byron. By the 1960’s, Ottomans had declined so far it was all they could do to outwit Dick Van Dyke as he walked across his living room each week. The chief cultural legacy of the Ottomans is the song “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” sung by the Four Lads in 1953 and later covered by They Might Be Giants in 1990.
You mean Turks ;)?
- Tamerlane
I’m working slowly through Citizens now and am enjoying it more than I expected. Schama does tend to let subordinate clauses pile up, and sometimes discusses things at length without telling you what they are - like the plot to Beaumarchais’ Marriage of Figaro, which I am utterly unfamiliar with. Sometimes the subject matter itself is too dry to enliven, such as the details of the French national debt. But he’s doing an otherwise great job with tough subject matter. I always thought the French Revolution was boring. Wrong.
And as for Richard III, I knew the hunch and Anne’s execution were creative license, but I thought “Lord Hastings withered my hand, I want him dead NOW!” was a true incident.
The thing of it is, simply on a matter of motive Henry had more reason to want the little princes dead than Richard ever did. I’m not saying that I believe Richard is innocent, or that I believe Henry killed them. I just don’t believe it’s as cut and dried as many profess.
All I can suggest for the OP is that he keep reading more histories. The more data one has, even biased data, the better an overalll picture one can form. It’s not easy - but it’s the best solution I can think to suggest. (Or resuggest, since someone else in the thread has already said it.)
EC: * I tend to be a little dubious about histories that span all of Western civilization over a 500 year period. *
You might find useful the Kimstu Superficiality Index, an algorithm that I use in skimming a historical work to see if it contains more serious information than superficial blather. The algorithm works like this:
Multiply the number of years in the period the book covers by the approximate number of pages devoted to the book’s topic in any standard encyclopedia. (You usually don’t have to go to the encyclopedia itself; you can generally estimate whether a particular topic would be treated in half a page versus five pages versus twenty pages.) Divide by the number of pages in the book itself.
If the KSI reading is greater than about 10, the book is probably largely composed of vague blah-blah. (If it’s less than about 1, on the other hand, it might be a little too specialized. ;))
I find this handy in disposing of extreme examples of big-picture gee-whizzery like “The History of Sex” and that sort of thing. If an author’s really going to try to cover that much historical ground in a couple hundred pages, they’re probably not going to say anything very informative.
Have you read Dawn of Decadence? It’s all very interesting and informative until he gets to the modern day and suddenly he turns into a cranky old man (which he is, so that makes sense, I guess). “CRAP! Everything modern is CRAP! Let me just tie this onion to my belt and I’ll tell you more about why modern culture is CRAP!”
Bah. Yes, please tell us more about how stupid we all are.
Wow, this brings back memories. I remember reading The Ottoman Centuries 23 years ago and being really disappointed by it.
A catchy little tune, but if I had written it I’d have found a way to work “Byzantium” into the lyrics!
Remember that there are two sides to a transliteration, from and to. Without a thorough understanding of how the phonemes are written in the “to” language the writer’s fluency in the “from” language is irrelevant.
If all else fails, the GURPS series of role playing game supplements are exquisitely researched, with commented biblographies. Or at least as well researched as your average history book. They try to take as neutral a view as possible, as the authors know the players may be doing anything from playing visigoths attacking Rome to the shifting politics of the emperor’s guard. Books exist for most interesting periods of human history… I strongly reccomend their Age of Napoleon.
That’ll teach me to post at 6 am. Well, no, it probably won’t. Correct title is From Dawn to Decadence.