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Some good interesting History books that could also help towards mypersonal statement

greenwaytph

10

got any ideas.

At the moment I have got-

Biogoraphy of Stalin
Stalingrad
Empire

Reply 1

History Rocks

15

Well you can e-mail the university admissions tutor and ask for advice on reading material.

Or just read a book which is in line with your Historical passion.

Remember not to chose a book just because it looks impressive, read it because you have a strong passion for the topic.

Reply 2

necessarily benevolent

14

What If? - collected essays
What If? 2 - collected essays
Biography of Lenin - Robert Service
Biography of Stalin - Robert Service
What is History? - E.H. Carr
The Practice of History - G.R. Elton
Re-thinking History - Keith Jenkins
Studying History - Jeremy Black and Donald M. MacRaild
Stalingrad - Anthony Beevor
The History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides
The Lives of the Caesars - Suetonius
Empire - Niall Ferguson
A Brief History of 1917: Russia's Year of Revolution - Bainton
Mussolini - Denis Mack Smith
Mein Kampf - Adolf Hitler
The Communist Manifesto - Marx and Engels
Das Kapital - Marx and Engels
What is to be Done? - Lenin
Animal Farm - Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four - Orwell
Age of Revolution - Eric Hobsbawm

(as seen in my profile)

Get a few History encyclopedias as well (i.e. the Times History and Timelines).

Read a few novels related to it such as Sharpe, the Cruel Sea and the Dambusters etc.

By the way, does anyone know a good book on Franco and the Spanish Civil War? I also need help finding books for an essay I'm hoping to write on the perfectly legitimate political term 'national socialism', that has been degraded for obvious reasons.

Reply 3

Josho

4

^ Do you think anyone has ever read that much for a ps? Indeed, 'name-dropping' all of those would leave you little scope to talk about why you actually want to study history and why you would be good at it. In my opinion choose a couple of the classics: What if?, Carr, Thucydides. Maybe look at a book from a discipline surrounding history such as anthropology - for a light read here I would suggest The Innocent Anthropologist by Nigel Barley. And have a look at some social/cultural history - I guess given your modern/Russian inclinations I would go for Natasha's Dance. Just don't mention too much. You don't want to end up mentioning too many books and have to skim read them the night before interviews.

Reply 4

rkd

12

Read what you haven't read - medieval history, Asian history, ancient history, philosophy of history (e.g. Rethinking History). It'll broaden your mind beyond the fairly narrow A-level syllabus.

Reply 5

necessarily benevolent

14

Josho

^ Do you think anyone has ever read that much for a ps? Indeed, 'name-dropping' all of those would leave you little scope to talk about why you actually want to study history and why you would be good at it. In my opinion choose a couple of the classics: What if?, Carr, Thucydides. Maybe look at a book from a discipline surrounding history such as anthropology - for a light read here I would suggest The Innocent Anthropologist by Nigel Barley. And have a look at some social/cultural history - I guess given your modern/Russian inclinations I would go for Natasha's Dance. Just don't mention too much. You don't want to end up mentioning too many books and have to skim read them the night before interviews.

They're just suggestions. It would be incredibly difficult to name them all and put them in some kind of context. And yes, I have read all of them over the last couple of years.

Reply 6

History Rocks

15

Josho

^ Do you think anyone has ever read that much for a ps? Indeed, 'name-dropping' all of those would leave you little scope to talk about why you actually want to study history and why you would be good at it. In my opinion choose a couple of the classics: What if?, Carr, Thucydides. Maybe look at a book from a discipline surrounding history such as anthropology - for a light read here I would suggest The Innocent Anthropologist by Nigel Barley. And have a look at some social/cultural history - I guess given your modern/Russian inclinations I would go for Natasha's Dance. Just don't mention too much. You don't want to end up mentioning too many books and have to skim read them the night before interviews.

I totally agree.

No point in naming no more than about 4 book's.

Any one can say they have read 20 books, it's what you have learnt from them that matters. :smile:

Reply 7

Andy the Anarchist

10

necessarily benevolent

By the way, does anyone know a good book on Franco and the Spanish Civil War? I also need help finding books for an essay I'm hoping to write on the perfectly legitimate political term 'national socialism', that has been degraded for obvious reasons.

The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas is my favourite of those that I have read

Reply 8

oriel historian

2

necessarily benevolent

By the way, does anyone know a good book on Franco and the Spanish Civil War? I also need help finding books for an essay I'm hoping to write on the perfectly legitimate political term 'national socialism', that has been degraded for obvious reasons.

I would read Paul Preston's biography of Franco. Then perhaps follow through with some of his other works. He is as good as Bob Service is on Russia [I have first-hand experience of the latter!]

Hugh Thomas is okay but I find lacks a true sense of human agency.

Reply 9

Paul_r

2

Very callous way of looking at it but would I get more "marks" for reading a distinctive book from a well known author as oppose to a book with less prestige attached?

or is it the case that any wider reading demonstrates sufficient passion for the subject?

Reply 10

necessarily benevolent

14

Paul_r

Very callous way of looking at it but would I get more "marks" for reading a distinctive book from a well known author as oppose to a book with less prestige attached?

or is it the case that any wider reading demonstrates sufficient passion for the subject?

Don't think of it in terms of books 'wowing' an admissions tutor for any of those reasons. It's more likely that they'd only be interested in your ideas and conclusions drawn from the books instead of an impressive list. So, in a way, it wouldn't matter what the standard of the book was or who is was written by. Even if you read an 'Illustrated History of the Stone Age' (made up) and had better ideas for it than Elton's works it'd probably be noted (however, they'd obviously want you to be able to formulate ideas from more substantial works so it's probably a bit of an extreme example :p:

).

Reply 11

JohnStuartMill

8

What you should read really depends on what you're interested in. It always helps to read around your A-level subjects (can't do any harm for your A-levels either), so if you let us know what you're studying I am sure people could recommend some relevant works. Also, think about what you'd like to study and try to get hold of something relating to that. If you don't know any books relating to the topic then I am sure there will be something on either an Oxford or Cambridge reading list to help (I know the Cambridge ones are available to anyone on the website and I would imagine the Oxford ones are as well). Of the books you've mentioned the only one I am familiar with is the Niall Ferguson book on Empire and his reputation within most academic institutions is far from great. Most specialists in colonial and post-colonial history are none too impressed with his imperial apologia (I know of one supervisor at Cambridge who told a student never to mention his name in their office).

To necessarily benevolent: some illustrated histories are actually rather good, in particular the Oxford Illustrated History series. For instance, I own a copy of the Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain which is edited by a senior professor at Cambridge and contains contributions by historians from both Oxford and Cambridge as well as numerous leading figures in the field. Meanwhile, Geoffrey Elton's work on the period has been largely superannuated and is no longer seen as the orthodox; there are very few around who still subscribe to his views of a Cromwellian 'Tudor Revolution in Government'.

Some good interesting History books that could also help towards mypersonal statement

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