I’m a 21-year-old guy and since they unfortunately didn’t teach us about American history in school I wanna learn it all on my own from the beginning to the present.
I’m really looking forward to a deep dive to not only understand American history better but also to get a better grasp of the culture, people, economics, politics and social aspects that influenced America to become what it is now.
I was wondering what the best ways and resources are to do this. Maybe someone can recommend some good media resources. It doesn’t matter what it is, it could be books, videos, podcasts, documentaries, documents, articles, movies and so on.
I’m open for everything :)
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I highly enjoyed the Crash Course US History series.
Great recommendation, thanks :)
Podcasts:
History That Doesn’t Suck Revolutions (The American Revolution is covered therein) American History Tellers
Are we talking about America as in the people’s history of one or two entire continents, or as in the country of the United States?
If it’s the latter, CrashCourse: US History can get you started with some solid basics of different time periods of significance. It treats the subject seriously, but doesn’t take itself overly serious, so it isn’t too dry as you get started.
Since we’re a “new” country, so much of our history is documented and preserved that you can deep dive almost any moment of it, so we don’t have any real “dark ages” where there’s a lot of questions as to what happened or why.
It’s in a community called askUSA
My mistake there. I have all my “Ask_” communities together in one linked community, and this is a recent add to that.
It still was important to differentiate if OP wanted to include more early non-European history, or just the colonization and governing of the American territory. Like if someone asked for the history of Germany, do they want from the Roman Empire or the unification of states into modern Germany.
Exactly I meant the latter one United States. Thanks for the recommendation
You picked a good one! Greece, China, or Egypt would take a lot longer!
As an Egyptian, well yes and no. Egyptian history tends to suffer from “and then nothing happened for a few hundred years” syndrome so at least until the Islamic conquest a high-level understanding shouldn’t take too much time. After the Islamic conquest you gotta deal with the monstrosity that is Arab Caliphate politics, which is… Uh… Yeah, and then you reach the Ottomans and again nothing happens for a few hundred years.
It’s kind of what happens when for most of your history you’re ruled by foreign empires; there’s less potential for things to really go off the rails compared to the shitstorm that is American politics where you gotta think in 4 year intervals rather than 100 year intervals.
“Cartoon History of the United States” by Larry Gonick, like all the cartoon history series, is an absolutely excellent quick high-level overview.
Other people mentioned “A People’s History of the United States.” Honestly, I would recommend it. It’s not really “anti-American,” per se, but it’s definitely anti-government. Anti-government is extremely American, in terms of our culture. Also, a lot of the history of this country is painful, ugly, or crooked, and while the book does present one specific perspective on it, which honestly just might not be relevant or interesting to someone from outside, it’s a pretty vital perspective. Also “Lies my Teacher Told Me.”
Personally, I very much like deep dives into the living color detail of particular times in history. “Team of Rivals” gives an excellent picture of the flavor of the culture and government at the time of the civil war. “Patriots” is for the Vietnam War. Likewise “Carrying the Fire” for the space program, “Liar’s Poker” for Wall Street and the new financial world, and “Playing with Fire” for the politics of the 1960s. For the early 20th century, WW2, and and the revolution, I honestly can’t think of ones that suit in the same way, but that’s what I would do if I really wanted to get a deeper look and understand it more, and some random samples of particular points.
Hope this is useful.
Edit: Also, the Hardcore History podcast with Dan Carlin. I haven’t listened to all that much, but what I tried was great.
I’ve heard nothing but good things about A People’s History Of The United States and it’s been on my short list of books to read for a while. Haven’t gotten to it yet, but I think it’s worth a read.
Yea that kinda anti American bias I wasn’t really looking for but thanks for the recommendation
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Those are the type of answers I wasn’t looking for…
It’s a shame to see this thread start this way.
Stuff like Zinn is important to know about, but it isn’t a very good starting place for a non-American in my opinion. If one grew up on the older and more sanitized version of American history we were taught, Zinn and those like him are important. For someone with no context, I think it would be very discouraging to start reading the dirt first. Let OP get their toes wet first before throwing them in the deep end.
OP, as I said, things like Zinn’s books or talks, or if you want a little more fun, the Behind the Bastards podcasts can give you gritty deep dives into specific topics, people, or events of interest to you, so don’t discount them totally. I’m glad you’re looking for a factual and less biased history.
Depending where you’re from, America still can have a lot of positive achievements and wild history, good and bad worth learning about. As you can see, our freedom to complain about every aspect ever about our government is a large part of that history, and that’s also brought good and bad changes.
You’ve got to take the rough with the smooth. We have some fun stuff, but also we’re a bloody-handed empire that sees itself as a “city on a hill”. You can’t form a coherent picture of how we got to a second trump term without looking at the ugly bits.
Trump goes back to Nixon (he basically hired all the same people that tried to cover for him, Ailes, Stone, others).
Nixon getting away with things to save the country further embarrassment goes back to the post-Civil War events.
Events leading up to the Civil War, ie. slavery, starts in the Americas between 1492 if you count the Caribbean, the 1500s if we’re talking Ponce DeLeon, and the 1600s if we’re looking at just the people that directly lead to modern America.
I truly hope Trump can be looked at less consequentially in the future, but we’re not at the end of his time in politics yet, so who can say. He’s got a lot of competition for worst president ever, he’s just at the front of everyone’s mind because we’re in the present. I remember when we thought no one could top Bush Jr.
