epic narrative history books

Is there an equivalent history of the Aztecs as there is for the Roman Empire (Gibbon)?

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 1 June 2023 10:01 (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this got me thinking about the broader subject of big, comprehensive books about individual civilizations or nations or cultures or whatever seems related

not too focused on parallels to Gibbon - The Decline and Fall is a product of its time and culture and nobody could call it the last word on its subject - but i'm interested in any recommendations for big sweeping narrative(ish) history books that tell this kind of story. thinking more single author than the great multi-author works like the Cambridge histories but fuck it, rules are boring if they shut out interesting suggestions

so this is mainly my favourite kind of thing to read, would love to find out about stuff i hadn't previously considered

Stolen Continents by Ronald Wright is a really good read

v much not in the spirit of this thread so apologies for the immediate derail: I thought Inga Clencinnen’s Aztecs: An Interpretation was rich and excellent (and has been well reviewed which i realise is not necessarily the same thing).

*Clendinnen, the phone really did not want me to write that name.

i mean, there are no forbidden suggestions :D

Does The Dawn Of Everything fit in here?

Good thread idea! Some obvious-ish suggestions

Peter Frankopan's "The Silk Roads" consciously revisionist and all the better for it
Hobsbawm's "Age of..." trilogy plus "The Age of Extremes". Definitely Eurocentric but definitive on the long 19th century

I picked up a four volume set of JD Bernal's Science in History recently, interested to give that a go soon. I'd be interested in any recommendations about early modern England and the English Civil Wars, is there a definitive book or books on this?

I’m reading Francis Parkman’s series on the History of the French Colonies in North America. Fits here, I think.

Frankopan's book is on my kindle, as is his history of the Crusades (i think?)

i'm thinking about the pleasures of the text as much as the history, i'll admit, so will always rep for Macaulay's History of England for the 17th century wars across the British Isles. also Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down isn't really that but everybody shd read it

Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, The West and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War - Stephen R. Platt

^^^

I really enjoyed this one but feel like there is probably a better one out there on the Taiping Civil War. Which is my fave hugely epic and bloody civil war of the 19th century. Would be interested if anyone knows of better ones to read on this.

The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter
history of the concept of the white/European/whatever race over time by Black American academic. Thought it was pretty good.

400 Souls and
Stamped From The Very Beginning bu Ibram X Kendi or at least the first one was edited by him
Also the 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones
which are about the black experience in America over 400 years

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
a reexamination of the history of the US from a non elitist perspective

I also have The Story of the Jews by Simon Schama but haven't read it yet and i think it covers that history going back to its roots.
also A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani. but again not read it yet. Which is also true of Gibbon.

I know I will see others around teh flat over the next little while so will add more later.

xxp I need to read that Hill book. Similar "history from below" accounts might include:

EP Thompson's "The Making of the English Working Class"
Keith Thomas's "Religion and the Decline of Magic"

One other interesting book that that sprang to mind but is definitely in the "great men" mould is Arthur Koestler's "The Sleepwalkers" about the 17th century scientific revolution in astronomy.

Is there an equivalent history of the Aztecs as there is for the Roman Empire (Gibbon)?
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 1 June 2023 10:01 (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not exactly what your asking & I've never read it, but Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico is by reputation in that big Gibbon narrative history zone.

Sounds really good.

Just reading about it & wow Prescott never visited Spain or Mexico.

My shout for this is Rebellion in the Backlands.

Da Cunha was a journalist but still it looks like a grand historical narrative.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Os_Sert%C3%B5es

Macaulay's History of England is probably a good fit, though narrow in terms of time. Probably has more narrative energy than a lot of the other multi-volume single-author Victorian histories (eg Gardiner on the Civil Wars).

In the Gibbon zone (and covering the conquest/invasion of the Americas) there's also William Robertson. I don't think he's much read (maybe in Scotland?) and it was small doses a long time ago for me, but iirc you can see this is where Gibbon gets some of his style and approach.

How much did Gibbon have to be revisioned in terms of historical accuracy? Like later work having to show a more accurate version of events.
I was thinking it was late 18th century so may be from a time prior to a lot of historical/historiographical research had been done.
I hadn't realised it stretched as late as it did. Just seeing it actually stretches up to 16th century over 6 volumes. I had assumed it mainly went up to about the 5th when the Western Empire was losing impact.

Charles Mann 1491 covers a very long time in pre contact Native history plus later into the contact era.
1493 goes into the Columbian exchange. I have it but not sure how long it looks at. It does cover a lot of influence & is a few hundred pages long.

Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz An Indi8genous People's History of the United States covers a long time in Native history also goes back into a lot of pre contact history.
Her Not A Nation of Immigrants covers the whole contact era looking at settler colonial groups and various etnicities of settlement.

the later volumes of DaFotRE are less read i think and he doesn't afford the Eastern Empire the same depth of coverage but then it's like a thousand years of dudes with about 4 different names doing increasingly inward-looking politics so

inasmuch as Gibbon relies on his sources i think the major revisions are about the extent to which archaeological evidence has contradicted the sources over the last couple of hundred years, also the idea of the Empire "falling" is a lot more contested, also probably a lot of stuff that a non-specialist like me doesn't know

his christian-baiting is timeless tho

I think he's seen as extraordinarily thorough given the constraints of his time - like he seems to have read all available sources minutely - but even 19th century editions have piles of footnotes adding details or correcting points.

I can't say where he stands in relation to contemporary historical narratives of the period(s) - I simply don't know enough but it also feels like such a different practice that I struggle to compare.

xp NV otm - archaeological/material evidence in particular just isn't a thing in Gibbon

what's amazing about Gibbon in a way is how much of that book is still more or less the accepted version of events

I'm now just naming multi-volume things from the 18th & 19th century & it's not exactly a 'big, comprehensive book about individual civilizations or nations or cultures' but Hazlitt's multi-volume Life of Napoleon is also his history of the French Revolution & might make sense here.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/321173.The_Civilization_of_the_Middle_Ages

I just finished this recently and it was pretty good, although tbh most of it was power struggles between church/monarchy/nobility etc.

Not History History but the series "Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature" by Georg Brandes is pretty great.

More 19th century:

Thomas Carlyle's French Revolution series
Hubert Bancroft's The Native Races of the Pacific States
George Bancroft's History of the United States

Camilla Townsend's Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs, published in 2019, is very good.

Neil Price's Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings is also excellent on its subject, using a lot of recent archeological finds to upend traditional narratives, particularly around cultural exchange (Vikings as traders, not raiders).

and the Vikings made their way to Constantinople which brings us back to Gibbon too

Somewhere over the last decade or so the idea of Vikings as mixing with a very intercultural world emerged. Probably does tie in with the idea of them as traders. But also them getting as far afield as Constantinople or is the idea of distance there a misreading of geography.

not real sure how loosely to apply the criteria “sweeping” “epic” and “narrative” but I could come back to this over the weekend maybe.
some intriguing stuff listed already

Graeber who cowrote The Beginning of Everything to correct some lines of scholarship also did a history of Debt that covers 5,000 years but may be covering too wide an area.

I have Orlando Patterson's Slavery & Social Death which covers the history of slavery in all times and areas he could find data on but may cover too many societies for this thread. I picked up a copy last month but it's sitting so far unread. Has been a book I've been intrigued by for a while.

The Book Of English Magic Philip Carr-Gomm and, Richard Heygate
I think covers hundreds of years , I haven't read it so far either. Picked it up cos it was cheap in the bookshop around teh corner from the course i did recently. So not sure if the title is borrowed intentionally from Susanna Clarke.

Black and British David Olusoga
Also covers a long period, not sure how it maintains interconnection between individual cases and groups . It's one I've been meaning to read for the last few years. I've enjoyed his other work.
But I think it goes back to Rome and certainly Tudor period and the presence of African population in London and elsewhere over teh centuries prior to the Windrush. I think that was a main impetus in writing it to show that tehre had been a presence in Britain for way longer than the public mind acknowledged

also
Staying Power : The history of black people in Britain Peter Fryer
Which I think is supposed to be pretty acclaimed and covers things from Roman occupation onwards.

Should have added
The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History by Samuel Moyn
since I'm listening to a podcast on it. & i think it does cover a great deal of ground while explaining why things don't fit the author's definition of what counts as Human Rights. So he sees them emerging in the 1970s.

I took a class in college with Sam Moyn called Historical Origins of Human Rights. He was one of the best teachers I ever had, not at all surprised that would be a great book

My shout for this is Rebellion in the Backlands.

Da Cunha was a journalist but still it looks like a grand historical narrative.

Mario Vargas Llosa's La guerra del fin del mundo is a novel based on the events described in in Da Cunha's book. It's absolutely devastating.

The Warmth Of Other Suns is a great multi-decade history of the Great Migration of blacks out of the Southern US in the 20th century, recommended

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Warmth_of_Other_Suns

Yeah been meaning to read that. I read Isabel Wilkerson's book Caste last year which was good so have been meaning to pick this up.

Some others to add to the pile. Both are well-written narratives with epic scope

- P Heather: Fall of Roman Empire: Rome and the Barbarians
- D Abulafia: The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean

On a much narrower scope but fantastic nonetheless

- R Middlekauff: The Glorious Cause: American Revolution 1763-1789

Still processing that gibbons had their own roman empire. Was there a bonobo Hanseatic league?

Ok, tax for that shit joke, an actual contribution: Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy by Burckhardt. Covers about everything *except* the visual arts

Keith Thomas's "Religion and the Decline of Magic"

I've been reading this in snatches before bed. Excellent but not narrative history, much like some of the other recommendations here, ahem

David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World

probably bites off more than a single book can chew, including slavery from ancient times up to the american civil war. it doesn't have much of a narrative until the "fall" part.

Jeffrey Ostler's Surviving Genocide tells the story of the indiegenous population of what settlers think of as the United States from 1776ish to the middle of the 19th century. NOt sure why I haven't mentioned it before, possibly cos it's been backburnered for too long and i had been desperate to read it when i was given it a couple of years back. Have recently listened to webinars and podcasts with its author so am seriously wanting to read it again. Have been listening to similar with a bunch of authors I've been picking things up by but notably here both Charles Mann and Matthew Restall (who i was turned onto by an interview with Mann)

Did i mention Kate Lister's 2 sex related histories A Curious History of Sex and Harlots, Whores & Hackabouts . Of which I've only read the latter but thought it was very good. Also seriously enjoy her podcast Betwixt the Sheets.

Can probably also bung in the musicologist Eric Charry's book Mande Music which covers hundreds of years of development of music from Northwest Africa

The LRB review of Revolutionary Spring was pretty awestruck, as most reviews of it seem to be. 900 pages about 1 year in European history:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308973/revolutionary-spring-by-clark-christopher/9780241347669

I like Clark. The Sleepwalkers is brilliant and I never finished Iron Kingdom, but his writing on Wilhelm I and the hardcore drinking and bullying culture of the "Tobacco Cabinet" was some memorable shit!

Koestler wrote a few pretty good ones didn't he? I know I read at least one in University.
May have been the section on Copernicus or Galileo in The Sleepwalkers though.l

I was referring to C Clark's The Sleepwalkers, never read Koestler one.

xpost The Rest is History pod has an discussion with C Clark covering his 1848 book: https://shows.acast.com/the-rest-is-history-podcast/episodes/326-1848-the-year-of-revolutions

there isn't really a good thread for this as far as i can tell, but just wanted to post this screenshot of a young EP Thompson from a BBC program, since i'd never seen him without his trademark white hair

https://i.imgur.com/OIPJ7JB.png

I bought Goliath's Curse today at Foyle's and the guy behind the counter said it's "bigger than I thought it would be" and I kind of heft it in my hands and agree with him, it sure is pretty big, and he's like no, I mean people are really buying it. I was recommended it on another board and it seems there was a big Guardian interview with the author recently, so maybe that's why. He's got a great quote in that article, which is that the history of human civilsation is essentially a history of organised crime.

I felt vaguely like a middle aged prepper walking out of there but I'm a sucker for this sort of thing

eh, i'm sure AI will fix most if not all of our problems before anything too bad happens

The thesis of the book is sound enough. It's been clear to me for quite a while that the global trend of society will lead to a future collapse, if only because capitalism will ultimately exhaust the resources that have fueled the explosive growth of material wealth and the human population. What's unpredictable are the details, not the broad outline. But for any one of us as individuals, it's those pesky details that matter most in our own lives, so all we derive from such foreknowledge is free-floating anxiety and a sense of impending doom, which does us no good at all.

they’re more analytic than narrative but i’m a big fan of walter scheidel’s escape from rome and the great leveler

why do you have Goliath’s Curse already but we have to wait until September?

xps to OP it’s not an easy read but you might like Rafe de Crespingy’s Fire Over Luoyang, ticks all the boxes

that looks great, love reading about the Han

de Crespingy is the best writer/scholar on the Late Han, you can’t go wrong with any of his stuff… but for a mega scale epic narrative with way too much shit going on Fire Over Luoyang is the one

I’m looking for a good book on the Khmer empire if anyone has any suggestions

Playing Civ always reminds me how ignorant I am of world history. Need to get onto some of these!

xps...

there is an epub of Goliath's Curse on slsk for those that can't wait (or just dgaf about copyright propriety)

Lol I hit up zlibrary for Fires Over Luoyang last night

a vital lifeline, anna’s archive too

also anyone anywhere can register for a new york public library card online and access some of the big digital collections legally, including Brill

i am a sloooooow reader and it’s awesome not to be tethered to a brick and mortar reference library for once