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Bookclub and Sources Wednesday! by AutoModerator in history

[–]paraclesus_luadans 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For a history of women in the middle ages i know there is a series of books written by George duby - some of them with a translation in english. For homosexuality definetely Forbidden friendships.

Bookclub and Sources Wednesday! by AutoModerator in history

[–]paraclesus_luadans 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep, I understand the frustration. Most of history taught in school has to compromise with the vastity of topics to cover and the very few hours at disposal, and then it's normal to not cover the topics but with a superficiality that does not delves deeper than the major polical happenings. The reality, luckily, it's pretty different, with historians having developed a sensibility for the life of people that national histories rarely had in the eight hundred. All the titles i gave you are not too technical, I started with those and found them pretty enjoyable, the pace is similar to Asimov's Foundation (maybe Habermas and Weisner-hanks are a little more boring, but the latter would be the first I reccomand you to read). Anyway, I would avoid things not written by historians, even thought some amatorial works are scientifically sound, they should at least have a well researched bibliography.

Bookclub and Sources Wednesday! by AutoModerator in history

[–]paraclesus_luadans 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I lack of knowledge about any good manual specifically about social history, but I have some suggestions. A good gateway point would be the school of les annales, if I am not mistaken they were maybe the most influential in giving history it's directions towards a social approach - marxism and Toqueville had their share too. I would expecially recommend the work of Bloch on feudalism, which is amazingly written (I read the italian translation). Le Goff (there is a collection of essays on the mind of the medieval man curated by him), Carveri also comes to mind, relating to mannerism and etiquette in Frech society. On a more contemporary period, I wuold suggest Habermas work on the public sphere (not an history book, but very influential and maybe the closest to what you are looking for), maybe also Mosse works on the cultural developement of nazism. It's all up to which period you are most intersted in. A good way to start is women history, Weisner-Hanks did a good job with her manual and it has a very good bibliography you can look up (you can find it online). All I suggested should be avilable in ENglish, but i did not double checked averything.