Denny,I was wondering if you could recommend some of the best books on history that I should read.
A_______,
You raise an interesting question and it's been kinda' fun for me to think about. A key element would be the type of history you're looking for. For the fellows interested in the history of philosophy or ancient Rome or World War II are, most likely, going to be reading different historians. Thus, my favorite guys will tend to cover the areas of history I'm most interested in.
Another factor is that some of my favorite history books are not written by professional historians at all. A conservative speech writer (Peggy Noonan) wrote my favorite history of the Reagan administration; soldiers wrote a couple of my favorite war histories (Ulysses Grant, pictured at left, and Omar Bradley); and my favorite histories of the U.S. space program were written by two scientists and a novelist (Chris Kraft, Gene Kranz, and Tom Wolfe).Another category similar to the above is the autobiography. Those can certainly be classified as history but few are penned by professional historians.
Novelists and playwrights can also serve as excellent chroniclers of history, usually of their own times, but certain writers dip expertly into other eras and write historical fiction that is of immense value. Especially appreciated in this latter category are Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Leo Tolstoy, Alexandre' Dumas, Victor Hugo, Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh, Rafael Sabatini, Nevil Shute, the Brontes...and a more recent discovery, Jeff Shaara.
So, if you can keep all of these things in mind, I will go ahead and mention a few "professional" historians that have made the top rank for my interests and purposes. I'm quite sure I'll leave a couple out, but here's some names I'm thinking of right now (without classifying them as to time or subject): Shelby Foote, Samuel Eliot Morison, Walter Lord, John Toland, David McCullough, Lady Antonia Fraser (pictured at right about the time of her work on Cromwell), Roland Bainton, Winston Churchill, Paul Johnson, Stephen Ambrose, Bruce Catton, William Prescott, Basil Liddell Hart, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.Among these Solzhenitsyn, Foote, Morison, Lord and Toland are my favorites.
Hope this helps.
Denny
