Developing a Working Knowledge

Read. Read. Read. Read some more. Get some basic history books and read them. 100 books within a lifetime is not an impossibility. Read the World Almanac. Read The Penguin History of The World by J.M. Roberts (published by Penguin Books). Nothing will be better for you than to read the stuff. Browse around the internet and read various pages. A few pages here, a few pages there and it'll start to seep in. Before you know it you will have scads of information. If you have any way of accessing documentary films on various historical events then by all means do that as well. You can go at it fairly slow just a few pages and chapters a day.

Try the Durant series, The Story of Civilization (11 or 12 vol.). The Durants are readable, and within the length limitations, about as good as you are likely to find. The Story of Civilization was published in such large numbers that a full set can probably be had second-hand in most locals for a very reasonable price ($25-$50). That should give you a pretty good overview, and can be read easily in a year, or less.

Once you have a foundation, you will probably want to dig a little deeper into those sub-subjects that appeal to you. That's where the hundreds and hundreds of excellent, but specialized, books will keep you busy for several lifetimes.

Thank you very much for the replies. I was looking for specifics (which books, etc.). I've read a couple books on Thomas Jefferson, but I don't want to do that sort of thing anymore--I want the forest, and not so much the trees.

Part of the problem is that I am a very slow reader, for reasons I've never understood. My speed never seems to improve, either. Comprehension is good, just the speed... It's frustrating. But I don't want to turn this into a discussion of that!

Thanks again.

So take two years to read The Story of Civilization, it seems to be just the sort of overview of world history that you are looking for.

Two items come to my mind, stupefied.

There are a series of slim books, published by Penguin, by Colin McEvedy. The one on my desk right now is titled The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History. Each concise, but informational, section is accompanied by a map showing political maps at key dates, language groups and population migrations, trade routes and goods, etc. The maps make it very easy to get a grip on what's what in any given period, and scanning all the maps in one of the volumes will give you a good base for understanding the changes.

atlas

Another book that may be helpful to you is Kenneth Clark's Civilisation, an easy and entertaining read. It is eurocentric and based on art but, until the modern era, art was a close reflection of the socio-political happenings of the day.

Other than that, as Sturgis said

Please try The Story of Civilization; as Asherman says, it's very readable and, even if it does take a while to get through, will entertain and engage your mind while you're learning. No reason you can't break once in a while for a smaller, more concise book about a certain subject (or even some other reading entirely); you don't have to read the whole Durant seriies in one unbroken session!

I plan to do just that. I've read a bit about Will Durant, and it seems he was quite a great man.

The cheapest I've found so far (without being in decrepit condition) is $198, online. That's for the whole volume 1-11 set, obviously. I thought about buying each book in turn as needed, but that will cost more in the end, and leave me with a set of mismatched books (which is only aesthetic, but I'm kind of weird that way).